S P Seth<\/p>\n
The political spat between US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese authorities would suggest that the relationship between the two countries might be entering an even more difficult period than it has been the case so far. It is, therefore, interesting to look at the state of their relationship before Trump takes over as President starting late January.
\nOver the years, the US leadership\/domination of the world has been on a downward slide, with China seen to be slowly emerging as an alternate centre of power. The most contested arena is the Asia-Pacific region where China has claimed and is asserting control of much of the South China Sea. There are two elements to asserting control and leadership. First is to make it clear to the contesting party\/parties that the cost of such a challenge will be prohibitive. In such situations, the contender(s) tends to impress that, if pushed, a military conflict is not out of the realm of possibility and thus dissuade the other party from going too far.
\nFaced with China\u2019s growing assertiveness to claim the South China Sea and its islands as its sovereign space, President Obama declared US \u2018pivot\u2019 to Asia in 2011, indicating that the US would be positioning much of its naval assets in the Pacific region. It served notice to China, in a sense, that Washington was not going to be edged out of the region. This has been combined with rallying regional countries, some of which contest China\u2019s sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea. But this hasn\u2019t deterred China and indeed ever since Xi Jinping became China\u2019s president, Beijing has boldly pushed its claims by annexing some of these islands, dredging new ones and establishing military structures and facilities on some of them.
\nThe US has countered by exercising its right of freedom of navigation by sending ships through the contested channels, which China has strongly opposed and warned off the US for their risky course. In other words, there is now a dangerous stand off militarily, which can only be resolved, if at all, at great cost. As for rallying regional countries to counter-balance China in the region, the US hasn\u2019t quite succeeded. Indeed, the Philippines under its new President Duterte is threatening to join the China camp by suspending its own sovereignty dispute with China in the South China Sea. Malaysia also seems to be reconsidering its options.
\nWith Donald Trump as presumptive president, a new element of uncertainty has been added. Trump wants the US\u2019 regional allies, like Japan and South Korea, to contribute significantly to US coffers for their security alliance or simply fend for themselves, even if it meant them going nuclear. Though Japan and South Korea are not involved in the South China Sea dispute (Japan and China, though, are contesting the ownership of islands in East China Sea), they are part of the US-led regional security system, with both hosting US troops and weapons. Trump\u2019s call on US allies to pay up for their defence has created enough confusion and uncertainty among its regional friends and allies. In other words, it is tending to further weaken US\u2019 position and give China a comparative advantage, in that its regional neighbours might seek their own peace with China.
\nAnother way to influence neighbours is economic power. China is the world\u2019s second biggest economy. It is said to be the biggest source of growth in the world economy. It is reported that China accounted for two-thirds of all global growth in the past 15 years, and that more than 120 countries, out of the world total of 196, have China as their main trading partner. The economic advantage that the US enjoyed is no longer apparent and it is increasingly shedding that role. President-elect Trump blames America\u2019s economic woes and loss of US jobs to regional and global free trade agreements, and is determined to turn the clock back by putting high tariffs on Chinese goods and dismantling\/blocking multilateral trade deals.
\nThe recent APEC conference in Peru was held against the backdrop of Trump\u2019s commitment to veto the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. This was Obama\u2019s economic arm as part of his \u2018pivot\u2019 to Asia. Obama reportedly cautioned early in the year, \u201cIf we don\u2019t write the rules, China will write the rules\u2026\u201d in Asia-Pacific. And regional countries are increasingly realising this. John Key, New Zealand\u2019s prime minister who is quitting office, is quoted as saying at the APEC meeting in Peru, \u201cThe reason that President Obama pursued the TPP was all about the United States showing leadership in the Asia-Pacific region. We like the US being in the region. But if the US is not there that void needs to be filled, and it will be filled by China.\u201d
\nAnd China is all for taking the baton. President Xi Jinping has reportedly said that, \u201cWe will fully involve ourselves in economic globalisation.\u201d Indeed, China already has got going its Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), and it includes 10 ASEAN countries, plus India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. China believes that the US is over stretched and has been for quite some period. Its over-extended role is increasingly becoming unsustainable, looking at the continuing morass in the Middle East. Besides, to China\u2019s great satisfaction, the US democracy is not working well as demonstrated in the recent presidential election and the follow up confusion.
\nInterestingly, this used to be the refrain of some western experts about China some years ago, believing that China had too many internal problems and challenges to keep it pre-occupied. But now some Chinese analysts are making the same point about the US. During a recent Australia-China High Level Dialogue in Beijing, the Chinese side reportedly let it be known that the US was suffering the consequences of \u201ca long-term overstretch of power in pursuit of global domination.\u201d However, \u201cIt was politically, economically and financially unsustainable.\u201d In other words, the US might have reached the end of its global domination and that, under Trump, it will hopefully \u201cfocus more attention on fixing domestic problems at home\u201d and that will be the right thing to do, in Chinese view.
\nThere is a certain gleeful dimension to this analysis, seeking satisfaction that both politically (with its top down political system) and economically China is appearing to be a better alternative, both for China and, hopefully, for other countries in the region that might like to emulate its example. But this might turn out to be too hasty a conclusion as China has too many challenges to contend with as its debt to GDP ratio is said to be upward of 200 per cent though much of it is internal debt, its future economic direction is still being tested and its top down political structures lack the safety valves of popular political participation, however much satisfaction China might find in the failings of western democracies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
S P Seth The political spat between US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese authorities would suggest that the relationship between the two countries might be entering an even more difficult period than it has been the case so far. It is, therefore, interesting to look at the state of their relationship before Trump takes over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article","7":"category-lead-cpec"},"yoast_head":"\n