The US Comprehensive Strategic Competition with China: Nature, Characteristics, and Internal Tensions

The Biden administration has continued and expanded the United States’ comprehensive strategic competition with China since assuming office. It is giving priority to competition in institutions and values, which has become more intertwined with the competition in power. As a result, the China-US competition is becoming structural,prolonged, and comprehensive in nature. However, in the face of the increasingly in-depth development of globalization and profound changes in the international landscape, there are many contradictions and conflicts in the US comprehensive strategic competition with China. A careful analysis and study of these internal tensions will help us fully understand the connotations of China-US relations and accurately judge its future trend.

Nature and Characteristics

After taking office, US President Joe Biden in his first foreign policy speech described China as America’s “most serious competitor.”1“Remarks by President Biden on America’s Place in the World,” The White House, February 4, 2021,https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-onamericas-place-in-the-world/.Shortly after that, the Biden administration released its Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, which identified China as “the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military,and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system.”2The White House, Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, March 2021, p.8, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf.Based on such a strategic positioning, Biden continued and expanded his predecessor’s China policy of comprehensive strategic competition in a so-called “whole-of-government, wholeof-society and whole-of-world manner.” At the same time, the Biden administration believes that the comprehensive competition with China is not only a rivalry between state powers, but also a competition between institutions. In the latter stage of Trump’s presidency, many ultra-conservatives in his government had frequently made anti-China remarks and lashed out at the Chinese system. The growing political polarization in the American society and the institutional flaws exposed by the government’s ineffective response to COVID-19 have forced Biden to face the reality of a sharp decline in the attractiveness of American democracy after he took office, and “institutional anxiety” has become increasingly apparent. To that end, Biden made it clear by saying, “I believe we are in the midst of an historic and fundamental debate about the future direction of our world […] democracy is essential to meeting all the challenges of our changing world.”3Ibid., p.3.Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that Trump might have shifted Washington towards “great-power competition,” but Biden has placed the issue within a larger strategic framework, from which the “Biden Doctrine” is emerging. In his view, Biden has identified the US-China rivalry as the defining strategic challenge of the 21st century, as he has repeatedly argued that “the world has reached an ‘inflection point’ that will determine whether this century marks another era of democratic dominance or an age of autocratic ascendancy.”4Hal Brands, “The Emerging Biden Doctrine, Democracy, Autocracy, and the Defining Clash of Our Time,” Foreign Affairs, June 29, 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-06-29/emerging-biden-doctrine.Therefore, the Biden administration characterizes comprehensive strategic competition with China as power rivalry intertwined with the competition of institutions and values, in an attempt to provide moral justification for the US to contain the rise of China.

This essential characteristic determines that the containment of and suppression against China are structural, long-term and comprehensive.According to Kenneth Waltz’s theory of structural realism, shifts in the balance of power among countries, especially among great powers, will often lead to changes both in the status of relevant countries in the power structure of the international system and in their strategic interests, thus creating structural contradictions. The China-US structural contradictions are mainly reflected in the profound conflict between China’s demand to properly safeguard and expand its national interests with the rise in its power and the United States’ efforts to preserve its hegemonic position,namely the contradictions between the so-called rising power and the established power. In particular, with profound differences between the political and value systems of China and the US, the Biden administration has inserted more competition in institutions and values into its comprehensive strategic competition with China, which has made China-US structural contradictions even more complicated and rigid.

Since China and the US are both nuclear powers, it is hard to imagine a shift in power and status by means of war. As early as January 2020, the Center for a New American Security, a US think tank, argued that there was no easy way out of the China challenge.5“Rising to the China Challenge: Renewing American Competitiveness in the Indo-Pacific,” Center for a New American Security, January 28, 2020, p.5, https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/rising-to-thechina-challenge.Shortly after Biden took office,the Brookings Institution, an important Democratic-leaning think tank in the US, published an article saying, “President Biden and his team do not harbor illusions of changing China overnight. They intend to play a long game.”6Ryan Hass, “Biden Builds Bridges to Contend with Beijing,” March 15, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/15/biden-builds-bridges-to-contend-with-beijing/.In October 2021,The Hillpublished an article entitled “Tone down the Rhetoric and Play the Long Game with China,” stressing the need to get better at strategic patience.7J. Brian Atwood, “Tone Down the Rhetoric and Play the Long Game with China,” October 29, 2021,https://thehill.com/opinion/international/579091-tone-down-the-rhetoric-and-play-the-long-game-withchina?amp.The Biden administration has also repeatedly claimed to establish some form of “guardrails” in US-China relations in order to prevent competition from sliding into war. Instead, more economic, scientific and technological means are used by the US to delay China’s development, which means that the former cannot win in a short period of time and that rivalry between the two sides will be long-term.

The Interim National Security Strategic Guidance identifies China as being capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power. Therefore, on the basis of inheriting Trump’s “wholeof-government and whole-of-society” model of domestic mobilization,the Biden administration revived the alliance and partnership system internationally under the rubric of so-called “democratic values”, expanded the strategic competition with China to the whole world, and used comprehensive tools to suppress China in an all-round way in the name of institutional competition and democratic values.

At home, the Biden administration has scaled up investment to maintain its competitive edge against China and its leading position in the world. In order to accelerate consensus formation on the domestic agenda, the administration portrays China as the imaginary foe and adopts institutional competition as a means of mobilizing policy support. In a speech in October 2021, Biden issued the warning, “China now produces more steel in one month than America does in an entire year. You can see it in the sector after sector: Other countries are speeding up and America is falling behind.”8“Remarks by President Biden on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and Build Back Better Agenda,” The White House, October 5, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/10/05/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill-and-build-back-better-agenda/.In an attempt to solve the structural problems that have plagued the US economy for years, he also unveiled the $2.3-trillion“American Jobs Plan” and the $1.8-trillion “American Families Plan,” calling them “the America’s once-in-a-generation investments to win the 21st century.” After that, President Biden hailed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) as a historic investment in America’s infrastructure, and the Build Back Better Act (BBB Act) as a historic investment for the benefits of the American people. With his support,the Congress passed the $1.2-trillion IIJA and put the BBB Act as well as the America Competes Act of 2022 on its priority agenda for that year.Moreover, Biden launched a comprehensive review of America’s supply chains, established the first-ever “Made in America” office, and signed the new “Buy American” executive order to strengthen domestic manufacturing and supply chains.

Abroad the Biden administration is revitalizing its ties with allies and partners, returning to international institutions, reasserting American primacy in the international system, and using geographic, economic and technological tools to suppress China. Given that its allies and partners have very close economic and trade ties with China, the US has to base its alliances on maintaining the so-called “rules-based international order” and promoting value diplomacy, and regard such alliances as a global “power multiplier” for the US.9Antony J. Blinken and Lloyd J. Austin III, “America’s Partnerships Are ‘Force Multipliers’ in the World,” The Washington Post, March 14, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/14/americas-partnerships-are-force-multipliers-world/.Moreover, the US has extended this strategy to international institutions, aiming to control the discourse in international governance. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed, “As China and other countries work hard to bend international organizations to their worldview, we need to do our best to ensure that these organizations instead remain grounded in the values, the principles, the rules of the road that have made our shared progress possible for so many decades.”10“Opening Statement before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations,” June 8, 2021, https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-opening-statement-before-the-senate-committee-on-foreign-relations/.

In promoting the alliance strategy, the United States intends to revive the traditional transatlantic partnership while focusing on building an “anti-China encirclement” in China’s neighborhood. The latter includes such measures as launching the Indo-Pacific strategy, upgrading the Australia-India-Japan-US quadrilateral mechanism (Quad), further strengthening the traditional bilateral alliances, establishing a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS), intensifying cooperation between the “Five Eyes”nations, proposing the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, pressuring European allies to intervene in Indo-Pacific affairs, as well as exerting geopolitical and economic pressures on China on maritime issues and issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. All these measures are an attempt to drain China’s development resources and contain its development space. Particularly, in the field of cutting-edge science and technology, the US is adopting a “small yard, high fence” strategy in an attempt to achieve “targeted decoupling” from China and delay China’s industrial upgrading and economic development. Blinken has made it clear by saying, “when it comes to investment, building a very high fence around a well-defined piece of territory, of land that really is strategic, that really would make a difference, as opposed to trying to erect a very low fence around everything, which we simply can’t do effectively.”11“Secretary Antony J. Blinken at the Fran Eizenstat and Eizenstat Family Memorial Lecture Series,”January 24, 2022, https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-the-fran-eizenstat-and-eizenstatfamily-memorial-lecture-series/.The Biden administration has applied more of the value factors like human rights and democracy in its crackdown on Chinese science and technology. In particular, a large number of Chinese science and technology enterprises were included in the US “entity list” on the grounds of “human rights violations in Xinjiang” and “high-tech surveillance.” The US and its allies have also stepped up efforts to block China’s high-tech development.In March 2021, the Quad leaders’ summit established a new critical and emerging technologies working group to ensure that technological standards are in the hands of countries with so-called “common interests and values,” in an effort to jointly deal with China in the field of newgeneration information technology.12“Fact Sheet: Quad Summit,” The White House, March 12, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefingroom/statements-releases/2021/03/12/fact-sheet-quad-summit/.Later, the US-EU Trade and Technology Council was established in June of the same year to jointly counter China in setting global standards for emerging technologies,promote so-called democratic values on the internet and cooperate in hightech research and development. The two sides have linked regulation of the digital economy with ideology, human rights, and geopolitics, meaning that digital competition centers not only on economy or technology, but more about rules and sovereignty.13Orange Wang, “China Must Brace for ‘Digital Cold War’ with US as Battle for Tech Supremacy Heats Up,” January 23, 2022, https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3164367/china-must-bracedigital-cold-war-us-battle-tech-supremacy.

Internal Tensions

Consensus has been reached in the US, especially among the US strategists,on carrying out comprehensive strategic competition with China.Judging by the voting results on some China-related bills, taking a tough stance on China has been one of the few areas of bipartisan agreement in the US. AsThe Wall Street Journalnoted, there is now an important bipartisan consensus that China’s strategic intentions pose a greater threat to the interests of the United States and its allies, as China becomes more ambitious and aggressive.14Alex Leary, “Republicans Push Biden to Take Aggressive Stance toward China,” The Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/republicans-push-biden-to-take-aggressive-stancetoward-china-1615800601.From the social perspective, the American citizens’ attitude towards China has also changed greatly under malicious exaggeration and instigation of the US government. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, in March 2021, 67 percent of American respondents held negative views of China, up from 46 percent in 2018,while 89 percent of the Americans surveyed regarded China as a competitor or enemy.15Shannon Schumacher and Laura Silver, “In Their Own Words: What Americans Think about China,”March 4, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/03/04/in-their-own-words-what-americansthink-about-china/.Gallup’s March 2021 poll showed that in the past year, the share of Americans who perceived China as their greatest enemy has doubled from 22 percent to 45 percent.16Mohamed Younis, “New High in Perceptions of China as US’s Greatest Enemy,” March 16, 2021,https://news.gallup.com/poll/337457/new-high-perceptions-china-greatest-enemy.aspx.A Brookings study pointed out that the shift in US public attitudes towards China is “momentous” enough to support the administration’s confrontational stance towards Beijing.17William A. Galston, “A Momentous Shift in US Public Attitudes toward China,” March 22, 2021,https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/03/22/a-momentous-shift-in-us-public-attitudestoward-china/.

Many strategists and scholars regard the US comprehensive strategic competition with China as a “new Cold War,”18Niall Ferguson, “The New Cold War? It’s with China, and It Has Already Begun,” The New York Times, December 2, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/china-cold-war.html.but the current environment of strategic competition is completely different from the Cold War period. After more than 40 years of reform and opening-up,China has deeply integrated into the current international system as a participant and contributor. It has taken a more active part in international affairs, promoting measures in an incremental manner that would make the international system more equitable and reasonable. Besides,economic globalization has also made countries and regions in the world interdependent and interconnected. There are no two parallel and opposite world markets like the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.Despite attempts by some US politicians to cut off China-US economic and trade ties, bilateral trade increased by 28.7 percent to US$755.64 billion in 2021, hitting a new record high, which further highlighted the growing trade interdependence of the world’s two largest economies.19“General Administration of Customs of China: In 2021, China-US Trade Volume Reaches US$755.64 Billion,” Daily Economic, January 14, 2022, http://cn.dailyeconomic.com/finance/2022/01/14/45137.html.At the same time, with the development of globalization since the 1980s, countries around the world are more closely connected than ever. The complexity of emerging global problems also makes it difficult for a major country or an alliance of few countries to deal with them alone, and calls for stronger international cooperation. Amid the trend of globalization, there are many internal tensions in the US comprehensive strategic competition with China, which will eventually affect the speed and intensity of realizing its strategic goals.

Contradiction between unipolarity and multipolarity

The end of the Cold War marked the conclusion of a bipolar structure featured by global competition between the US and the Soviet Union, and the US became the only superpower in the international system by virtue of its superior economic, scientific and military strength. However, the overall rise of emerging economies represented by China has fundamentally changed the landscape of the international system, with the trend of multipolarization becoming more and more obvious.

However, the United States is neither able to detect, nor willing to accept, the trend of multi-polarization, and is still trying hard to maintain its unique position as the global hegemon. Some scholars have pointed out that the divergence between China and the US in their views of the international power structure is that the former expects a multipolar world while the latter tries to maintain its leadership over the international order despite its own declining relative power.20Minxin Pei, “How China and America See Each Other, and Why They Are on a Collision Course,”Foreign Affairs, March/April 2014, p.143, https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483592.President Obama came to power with a mission to renew America’s global leadership, while President Trump emphasized unilateralism and “America First.” Immediately after his election victory, Biden declared that “America is back and ready to lead the world,”and that the world looks to America for global leadership. Out of the need to “superimpose its strength” in the comprehensive strategic competition with China, the Biden administration has actively formed anti-China alliances and partnerships, and inherited many of Trump’s “America First”policies.21Richard Haass, “The Age of America First, Washington’s Flawed New Foreign Policy Consensus,”Foreign Affairs, November/December 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/unitedstates/2021-09-29/biden-trump-age-america-first.However, the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and a row over the AUKUS submarine deal have sapped European allies’confidence in American leadership. Although the Russia-Ukraine conflict will enhance the security cooperation between the US and Europe to some extent, in the long run, the EU as an independent pole is bound to further unify its internal positions, build a “geopolitical entity,” and accelerate its strategic autonomy. At the same time, as two major powers in the trend towards multipolarity, China and Russia have strengthened strategic coordination in recent years, actively promoted the development of multipolarization in the world, and stressed that the establishment of a peaceful,stable, equitable and reasonable international political and economic order has become an urgent requirement of the times and an inevitable trend of historical development.

Tension between territorial logic and capital logic

The essence of globalization is the global expansion of capital.22David Harvey, The New Imperialism, Oxford University Press, 2003.In this process, there exists inherent tension between territorial logic and capital logic. Capital accumulation is a process of eternal expansion,especially when deepening globalization makes it necessary for the capital of multinational companies to integrate global resources and maximize profits.In doing so, companies will sometimes resist the constraints from state powers. According to Susan Strange’s ideas on the “defective state,” state power to control social and economic transactions within given territories has been severely weakened. When companies enter foreign markets,they break the symbiotic relationship between domestic government and business. Once a company has multiple “political masters” instead of one,and once it feels that it must behave as a “good citizen” of the host country in addition to its country of origin, it begins to play the political game,bargaining with government departments, labor organizers, suppliers, and distributors in several countries at the same time. Competition between countries is also a bargaining process between countries and companies.23Yu Keping et al., Globalization and Sovereignty States, Social Sciences Academic Press, 2004, pp.280-281.The need for economies of scale in global production remains a driving force of globalization, which is nonetheless being questioned.

In order to carry out comprehensive strategic competition with China,the US government has unveiled a series of policies, requiring industrial and financial multinationals to reduce their investment in China and even repatriate some industries to the US. After Trump advocated the return of the manufacturing industry and launched corporate repatriation plans,Biden has also tightened restrictions on the flow of US capital to China,especially in the high-tech sector. For example, the US government rejected plans of chipmaker Intel to increase production in China. There are also constant requests in the US to cut off financing from the Wall Street to Chinese high-tech companies. Although some US multinationals in China,mainly semiconductor and other high-tech companies, have adjusted their business strategies due to government pressure, most of them have decided to maintain and expand their businesses in China. According to the 2020 American Business in China White Paper released by AmCham China,China is a priority market for more than two-thirds of US multinationals,and nearly 85 percent of them have not considered relocating production or procurement. While investment in some areas like advanced manufacturing and emerging technologies will continue to be restricted,most US companies will not cease their businesses in China. The main reason why American companies are attracted to the Chinese market is its continued economic growth. In 2021, 59.5 percent of US multinationals increased their investment in China, up 30.9 percent from a year earlier,and 72 percent of US multinationals in China had no plan to shift their industrial chains.24“2020 American Business in China White Paper,” AmCham China, April 2020, https://www.amchamchina.org/publication-download/?publication=7194.Kenneth Jarrett, senior adviser to Albright Stonebridge Group, said that “The majority of U.S. companies are successful in China and see that success as an important contributor to their global performance. […] They are not looking to exit the China market.”25Russell Flannery, “End of ‘Engagement’ Won’t Lead to US Business Exit from China,” January 6,2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2021/06/06/end-of-engagement-wont-lead-to-usbusiness-exit-from-china/.According to a member survey on China’s business environment conducted by the US-China Business Council in 2021, 87 percent of the companies surveyed did not move any part of their supply chains out of China in the past year. For those that did, only 20 percent moved one or more parts of their supply chains to the US, while 12 percent moved parts of their supply chains elsewhere.26The US-China Business Council, “Member Survey 2021,” https://www.uschina.org/sites/default/files/uscbc_member_survey_2021_-_cn.pdf.The Wall Street financial giants like BlackRock,Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley are also increasing their investments in China.

The US comprehensive strategic competition with China has also brought economic losses to American multinationals. According to the aforementioned 2021 US-China Business Council member survey, 82 percent of the surveyed US companies said trade tensions between China and the US had affected their business, 74 percent of these companies in China had to take measures in varying degrees to deal with the tensions, and 41 percent of them believed that the costs of tariffs exceeded the benefits brought by the China-US Phase One Economic and Trade Agreement.27Ibid.As a result, these multinational companies have been pushing the US government to change course in its economic and trade policies toward China. More than 20 US business associations under the leadership of the US-China Business Council sent letters to the US Trade Representative Katherine Tai and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, urging the White House to take immediate measures to greatly expand the scope of tariff exemption, so as to restore the US enterprises’ competitiveness.28Jodi Xu Klein, “Remove Trade War Tariffs ahead of Joe Biden-Xi Jinping Meeting, US Business Groups Urge,” November 14, 2021, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3155990/remove-trade-wartariffs-ahead-joe-biden-xi-jinping-meeting-us-business.Hightech companies such as Qualcomm and Intel have been actively applying for export licenses from the US Department of Commerce. Data shows that between November 2020 and April 2021, the US Department of Commerce issued more than $100 billion worth of export licenses to suppliers of Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International

Corporation (SMIC), two blacklisted Chinese companies.29Kate O’Keeffe, “House Republicans Call for Tougher Controls to Keep US Tech from China,” The Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-republicans-call-for-toughercontrols-to-keep-u-s-tech-from-china-11635159601.

There are some advocates in the United States who are calling for tighter control of multinationals’ capital expansion under the pretext of national security. Brandon Weichert, a US geopolitical analyst, has even suggested that the Biden administration should invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to block capital flows to the Chinese market, and that the liberalization of Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) rules should be used to facilitate relocation of low-cost manufacturing from China to Central America.30Gordon G. Chang, “What America Must Do about China in 2022,” Fox News, January 3, 2022, https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-biden-china-2022-gordon-chang.A study released by the US consultancy Rhodium Group said that the National Critical Capabilities Defense Act (NCCDA) proposed by US senators would threaten China-US investment cooperation and that more than 40 percent of all investments made by American companies in China since 2000 ought to be reviewed under the proposed legislation.31“The United States proposes to restrict investment in China,” Sputnik, January 27, 2022, https://sputniknews.cn/20220127/---1038565619.html.

Strain between globalism and nationalism

With the development of globalization, there are two approaches and orientations on how to deal with the common challenges of mankind and specific national interests, i.e. globalism and nationalism. Globalism adheres to the ethics and philosophy of anthropo-centrism, viewing the earth, the world and the humanity all from a holistic perspective. Instead, nationalism in a global context insists that the relationship between sovereign states and the human community should be state-centered. Since the emergence of globalization in the 1980s, globalism had once played a dominant role,but after the global financial crisis in 2008 and the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in 2014, nationalism has made a strong comeback, marked by Brexit and Trump’s election as President of the United States.

During his four-year presidency, Trump had fervently supported unilateralism. He withdrew from more than 20 international organizations and treaties, including the Paris Agreement on global climate change, and pursued “America First” policies that served narrowly defined national interests. In September 2019, Trump lashed out even more at globalism at the UN General Assembly, saying that “the future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.” Biden campaigned on a return to multilateralism and globalism, but has made a pragmatic and realist compromise, going a third way between Trumpism and Obamaera globalism.32Julie Norman, “Can Biden Find a Third Way between Trumpism and Obama-Era Globalism?” The Hill,December 4, 2020, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/528725-can-biden-find-a-third-way-betweentrumpism-and-obama-era-globalism?amp.Therefore, while the US rejoined the Paris Agreement,the World Health Organization and other international treaties and organizations, it has still prioritized its own interests in international cooperation that aims to address the common challenges of mankind.Given the difficulties in China-US relations, climate change is a rare area of cooperation between the two countries. But in the field of clean energy, which is very important in dealing with climate change, the Biden administration has still maintained the Trump-era high tariffs on imports of solar panels and repeatedly imposed groundless sanctions against Xinjiang manufacturers of solar panels and components, which were put on the US“entity list” on the grounds of so-called “forced labor.” In December 2021,Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act into law, which made allegations of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, but which in reality is a new form of non-tariff barrier on China’s solar products, its ultimate purpose being to protect America’s domestic market. In fact, 45 percent of raw material supply for the global solar industry comes from China’s Xinjiang, 35 percent from other parts of China, and only 20 percent comes from producers in other countries.33Joe McDonald, “Biden’s Solar Ambitions Collide with China Labor Complaints,” News and Sentinel,May 25, 2021, https://www.newsandsentinel.com/uncategorized/2021/05/bidens-solar-ambitions-collidewith-china-labor-complaints/.The low cost of Chinese products has provided a strong guarantee for the energy transformation and climate change measures of all countries. The US move completely violates the law of market competition, and will have an impact on global industrial and supply chains and raise the costs of the US solar industry, affecting the realization of the US government’s renewable energy goals and eventually leading to the failure of the global collective action on climate change. It also turns out that while tariffs on solar cell and module imports have failed to spur US production of these solar panels, they have instead raised the costs for end-users—the price of US solar panels per watt is nearly twice as high as the world average—in turn leading to lower installation and utilization of solar panels, clearly contrary to the Biden administration’s clean energy goals.34Tom Lee, “Solar Tariffs and President Biden’s Climate Agenda,” January 24, 2022, https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/solar-tariffs-and-president-bidens-climate-agenda/.

There is a heated debate among US globalists and nationalists over the Biden administration’s policies on global issues. For example,Anne-Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning at the US Department of State and CEO of the think tank New America, argued that “the problem is that swinging from one framework and set of goals to another without a set of clear principles and priorities risks falling radically short of the progress that the world needs on existential issues.What difference does it make whether the United States ‘beats China’if our cities are underwater, the Gulf Stream stops warming northern Europe and the United States, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees are on the move? Globalism is a people-centered rather than a state-centered approach to problem-solving on a global scale.”35Anne-Marie Slaughter, “It’s Time to Get Honest about the Biden Doctrine,” The New York Times,November 12, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/opinion/biden-foreign-policy.html.As a response to Slaughter’s argument, Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, commented, “Her point is presumably that climate chaos, among other challenges, threatens Americans’ security, freedom, and prosperity a great deal. But it would be dangerous to make globalism, conceived and articulated as such, into the basis of US foreign policy.”36Stephen Wertheim, “Biden Should Say Yes to Global Cooperation but Not to Globalism,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 17,2021, https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/11/17/bidenshould-say-yes-to-global-cooperation-but-no-to-globalism-pub-85805.

This difference in philosophy is also reflected in the US domestic reaction in the process of formulating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. During deliberation of the bill, the US Department of Labor and the Office of the US Trade Representative exhibited a strong tendency toward nationalism, advocating a ban on Xinjiang imports and detaching the polysilicon-related supply chains from China, even at the risk of disrupting domestic prices of polysilicon and solar products, in order to support US polysilicon manufacturers.37Thomas Kaplan et al., “US Bans Imports of Some Chinese Solar Materials Tied to Forced Labor,” The New York Times, August 2, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/business/economy/china-forcedlabor-solar.html.Meanwhile, some other officials of the Biden administration argued behind closed doors that the scope of the bill would not only overwhelm US regulators but would also cause further volatility in supply chains at a time when inflation has hit nearly 40-year highs. Some officials are also concerned that a ban on Chinese imports could threaten the Biden administration’s targets for curbing climate change, given China’s dominance in solar cells and modules, according to people familiar with the matter.38Ana Swanson et al., “US Effort to Combat Forced Labor Targets Corporate China Ties,” The New York Times, December 24, 2021, https://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20211224/china-uyghurs-forced-labor/.Besides, Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman separately called congressional Democrats to express their concerns. Kerry told Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives, that such moves would disrupt solar energy supply chains. But this has drawn the ire of Republicans, with Senator Marco Rubio calling for Kerry to be fired and accusing him of blocking passage of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.39Deirdre Walsh, “House OKs a Bill Barring Imports of Goods Produced by Forced Labor of Uyghurs in China,” NPR, December 8, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1062479381/house-approves-a-billbarring-imports-of-goods-produced-by-uighurs-in-china.

Different priorities between central and local governments

For a long time, sovereign states have been regarded as the main actors of traditional diplomacy. States, or more specifically, their central governments, have the power to carry out diplomatic activities. Professional diplomats monopolize relevant affairs, while local governments and nonstate actors do not have the power to engage in diplomatic activities on their own. However, with the development of globalization, diplomacy has become increasingly diversified. Transnational, sub-national and non-state actors have become important supplements to, and indispensable parts of,central government–centered traditional diplomacy. American scholar Ivo Duchacek puts forward the theory of “parallel diplomacy” and believes that sub-national actors in federal states have complete diplomatic flexibility in international exchanges.40Ivo D. Duchacek, The Territorial Dimension of Politics: Within, Among, and Across Nations,Routledge, 1986.

The United States has a characteristic federal system. According to the US Constitution, the power of conducting foreign affairs belongs to the federal government, but there is still a lot of space for state and local governments. In the post–Cold War era, increased globalization has weakened national integration of the US economy and incorporated it into the global market in a scattered manner. As a result, the federal government has strengthened its top-down guidance of, and cooperation with, local governments in foreign affairs through legislation and policy adjustments,while local governments have continuously enhanced their autonomy and enthusiasm to carry out foreign cooperation. As the US National Governors’Association said in a task force report, “Our borders are no longer just our borders, but in every corner of the world.”41National Governors’ Association, America in Transition: The International Frontier, Report of the Task Force on International Education, 1989.

The main motivation for the US state and municipal governments to carry out local diplomacy is to promote the development of local economy,society, culture and education, especially with regard to increasing exports,attracting investment and expanding employment. In addition, local diplomacy also includes international cooperation to deal with global issues like climate change and global infectious diseases. The rapid development of China’s economy has provided a huge market for the US, and the investment of Chinese enterprises has also contributed to US economic growth and job creation. Therefore, local governments have placed their exchanges with China in an increasingly important position. There are now 50 pairs of sister provinces and states and more than 200 pairs of sister cities between the two countries. State governments have established 27 offices in China. According to the Research Report on China-US Economic and Trade Relations released by the Ministry of Commerce of China, in terms of trade, California’s goods exports to China grew by 136 percent in 2016 compared with a decade ago. The growth rate was 176 percent, 131 percent,242 percent, 221 percent, 111 percent and 263 percent respectively for the states of Iowa, Texas, Michigan, Washington, New York, and Illinois (where Chicago is located). In 2016, Chinese provinces and cities organized 22 economic and trade delegations to US states and cities and the United States organized 14 delegations to Chinese provinces and cities.42“Research Report on China-US Economic and Trade Relations,” Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, May 25, 2017, http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2017-05/25/5196803/files/8183d06f0cad4b319ab230859bec1226.pdf.

During his presidency, Trump gradually adopted a “whole-ofgovernment, whole-of-society” competitive strategy against China, and restricted sub-national exchanges between China and the US on national security grounds. In February 2020, then Secretary of State Pompeo warned governors at a National Governors’ Association meeting that they should adopt a “cautious mindset” when doing business with China, and issued the warning that “the Chinese Government has been methodical in the way it’s analyzed our system, our very open system, one that we’re deeply proud of. It’s assessed our vulnerabilities, and it’s decided to exploit our freedoms to gain advantage over us at the federal level, the state level, and the local level.”43Michael R. Pompeo, “US States and the China Competition,” USC US-China Institute, February 8,2020, https://china.usc.edu/mike-pompeo-us-states-and-china-competition-feb-8-2020.In October of the same year, Pompeo said that the United States would discontinue its participation in the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding concerning the Establishment of the US-China Governors Forum to Promote Sub-national Cooperation. After Biden took office,exchanges between local governments from the two countries gradually resumed. In February 2021, China’s Anhui Province and the US State of Maryland held a virtual event to launch the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of their sister relationship. In March of the same year, the fifth China-US Sub-national Legislatures Cooperation Forum was held virtually. Co-hosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation(SLLF) of the United States, the forum was the first institutional activity of exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States to have resumed after the new US administration took office. Meanwhile, some US state and municipal governments regard China as an important trading partner. With unabated enthusiasm for cooperation with China, they are calling for the resumption and enhancement of local exchanges between China and the US. Former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman argued,“Direct partnerships between American states and Chinese provinces offer one possible path toward reviving engagement in several key areas:higher education and trade are two that are crucial to Utah’s economy and would benefit from enhanced, smart engagement. Especially in times of disagreement, sub-national partnerships can serve as a ballast and offer channels of productive dialogue and understanding.”44Jon Huntsman Jr., “Biden’s China Relationship: The View from Utah,” Deserat News, February 4,2021, https://www.deseret.com/platform/amp/opinion/2021/2/4/22261109/joe-biden-xi-jinping-chinatourism-foreign-policy-diplomacy-utah.In October of the same year, at the China General Chamber of Commerce – U.S.A. Chicago(CGCC-Chicago) 2021 annual gala and manufacturing summit, Governor of Wisconsin Tony Evers, Governor of Colorado Jared Polis, Governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson, Governor of Ohio Mike DeWine, Lieutenant Governor of Kansas David Toland, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot all expressed the desire to enhance cooperation with China in their respective remarks. Governor Asa Hutchinson, Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill and Utah Senate President Stuart Adams also pointed out on various occasions that they attached great importance to relations with China and looked forward to deepening exchanges and cooperation with China in a wide range of fields such as economy, trade, and education, so as to bring bilateral relations to a new level.45See the website of Chinese embassy in the United States, http://www.china-embassy.org/chn/sgzc/.

Promoting Sound Development of China-US Relations

Although the United States has launched comprehensive strategic competition with China in an attempt to maintain its hegemonic position and contain China’s development, it runs counter to the general trend of globalization and the general direction of human society.Its inherent contradictions, tensions and conflicts have condemned the United States’ strategy to be not only wrong but also doomed to fail. In the era of globalization, countries are increasingly connected,and traditional and non-traditional security issues are intertwined.Never before have the destinies of different countries been so closely connected. As the two largest economies in the world and permanent members of the UN Security Council, China and the US shoulder special responsibilities for global peace and development. In particular, after decades of development, the two countries have become a community of shared interests. Both China and the US stand to gain from cooperation and to lose from confrontation. The economic relationship between them is akin to what one think-tank describes as “mutually assured economic destruction.”46James Dobbins et al., “Conflict with China: Prospects, Consequences, and Strategies of Deterrence,”Rand, https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2011/RAND_OP344.pdf.Although the US first initiated a trade war with China and then imposed a high-tech blockade, which have brought some difficulties to China’s economic development, the fact is that the US itself has suffered even more losses. According to a study by the international rating agency Moody’s, American businesses are bearing most of the cost burden from the elevated tariffs imposed at the height of the USChina trade war. 90 percent of the tariff burden has been transferred to US importers. If the tariffs remain in place, pressure on US retailers is likely to rise, leading to a greater cost transfer to consumer prices.47Yen Nee Lee, “US Companies Are Bearing the Brunt of Trump’s China Tariffs, Says Moody’s,” CNBC,May 18, 2021, https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/18/us-companies-bearing-the-brunt-of-trumps-chinatariffs-says-moodys.html.At its peak, the trade war cost the US economy an estimated 245,000 jobs, and the cost of the trade war is around 0.5 percent of US GDP over 2018–2019, equivalent to $108 billion (in 2020 prices).48The US-China Business Council, “The US-China Economic Relationship: A Crucial Partnership at a Critical Juncture,” January 2021, https://www.uschina.org/sites/default/files/the_us-china_economic_relationship_-_a_crucial_partnership_at_a_critical_juncture.pdf.In fact,after years of setbacks, the US also began to realize the incompetence of these policies. Since 2021, the United States has come to realize that the attempt to force China to make concessions by means of “maximum pressure” is neither realistic nor beneficial to itself. Therefore, President Biden and some government officials have said, one after another, that the US was not seeking a new Cold War or “fundamental transformation”of the Chinese system, but rather a US-China “re-coupling” and “durable coexistence.”

During his virtual meeting with Biden in November 2021,Chinese President Xi Jinping called upon the two nations to follow the three principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation. These principles reflect the experience and lessons learned in growing China-US relations for more than half a century. They are the only way to restore sound and stable growth of China-US relations. We need to follow these three principles, grasp the trend and direction of globalization, and take active and effective measures to promote sound development of China-US relations.

Advancing economic exchanges with better business environment

At present, trade and economic cooperation remains an important ballast for China-US relations. China’s market development potential and stable environment are still important factors attracting international capital. According to statistics of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, the foreign direct investment in actual use in the Chinese mainland expanded by 14.9 percent year on year to a record high of 1.15 trillion yuan in 2021. In US dollar terms, the inflow went up 20.2 percent year on year to 173.48 billion dollars.49“Regular Press Conference of the Ministry of Commerce,” China’s Ministry of Commerce, January 13,2022, http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/xwfbh/20220113.shtml.Over the next 15 years, China is expected to import about $2.5 trillion in goods and services annually; by 2035, China’s middle-income population will rise to 800 million; China’s airlines will be in need of 8,700 new aircraft by 2040; to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, China needs to invest about 100 trillion yuan in green projects over the next 40 years.50Xie Feng, “Seize the opportunity to maintain and promote China-US trade cooperation and local exchanges,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 30, 2021, https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/ziliao_674904/zyjh_674906/202112/t20211201_10460659.shtml.Tensions between China and the United States have an impact on American investors. According to the 2021 member survey by the US-China Business Council, 45 percent of the companies surveyed said they had felt pressure to make statements about political issues, and that the pressure came from both US and Chinese governments as well as consumers. However, 94 percent of the respondents noted that their objective for current and future investments in China was still to access or serve the Chinese market, and 43 percent of them planned to increase investment in China in the coming year.51The US-China Business Council, “Member Survey 2021.”For some time to come, China shall continue to improve the environment for foreign investment in light of post-epidemic changes in domestic and international markets, especially those in the US, and make particular efforts to meet the needs of foreign investors. For example, China should actively implement the upgraded“fast track” arrangements, enhance business facilitation, and provide sound support for financial and other service sectors after their opening-up.

Strengthening cooperation on global issues

The world today is faced with a series of global challenges, such as repeated outbreaks of COVID-19, fragile recovery of the world economy,terrorism, and climate change. Countries should foster the idea of building a community with a shared future for mankind, strengthen systematic thinking and information sharing, stick to true multilateralism, and work together to respond effectively. As President Xi Jinping pointed out, “No global problem can be solved by any one country alone. There must be global action, global response and global cooperation.”52“Xi’s Davos Speech Pivotal to Multilateral Cooperation,” State Council of the People’s Republic of China, January 26, 2021, http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2021-01/25/content_5582455.htm.China and the United States shoulder important responsibilities on almost all global issues concerning world peace and development. It has been proven that cooperation between China and the US can benefit both countries and the world at large.

China, as a responsible major country, is still engaged in active cooperation with the US on global issues like climate change with utmost sincerity and efforts, whereas the latter is conducting comprehensive strategic competition against China. In November 2021, at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP 26, in Glasgow,Scotland, China’s Special Climate Envoy Xie Zhenhua and the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry jointly issued the China-US Joint Glasgow Declaration on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s,in which the two sides agreed to establish a working group on enhancing climate action in the 2020s to address climate crisis and advance the multilateral process. China also pledged not to build new coal-fired power projects abroad. Cooperation on climate change and other global issues could have been another ballast stone of China-US relations. However, it is regrettable that the Biden administration has used various excuses like“human rights” in Xinjiang to protect relevant US industries, disregarding the common interests of mankind in addressing climate change. Therefore,on global issues, China must adhere to linkage of these issues, urge the United States to enhance its sense of responsibility for the common interests of mankind and the world, and gradually accumulate mutual trust and expand areas of bilateral cooperation starting with pragmatic and substantial projects.

Enhancing sub-national and people-to-people exchanges

Under the negative impact of US comprehensive strategic competition with China, there have been some obstacles to China-US exchanges at the local level and the goodwill between Chinese and American people has also decreased, but many local governments in the United States still have a positive attitude towards China-US exchanges. A report by the Pew Research Center has also shown that although the overall popularity of China has declined, Americans’ opinions differ across education levels and age groups. For example, those with at least a bachelor’s degree are less likely to feel very cold toward China than those with less education (39 percent vs.51 percent), and older people (ages 50+) are more likely than younger ones(ages 18 to 49) to have very cold feelings toward China (55 percent vs. 40 percent).53J. J. Moncus and Laura Silver, “Americans’ Views of Asia-Pacific Nations Have Not Changed since 2018--with the Exception of China,” Pew Research Center, April 12, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/12/americans-views-of-asia-pacific-nations-have-not-changed-since-2018-with-theexception-of-china.China should accordingly adjust the focus of its US diplomacy with more targeted policies, fully mobilize all positive factors in China-US local government relations and all sectors of society, and enhance the resilience of bilateral relations.

In stressing the importance of sub-national and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States, President Xi Jinping said,“State-to-state relations ultimately rely on the support of the people and serve the people. Provinces and states are closest to the people. Without successful cooperation at the sub-national level, it would be very difficult to achieve practical results for cooperation at the national level.”54“Address by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the China-US Governors’ Forum,” China Daily, September 24, 2015, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2015xivisitus/2015-09/24/content_21966923_2.htm.To this end, China needs to innovate its way of thinking and advance this fundamental task patiently and effectively. It needs to urge the US side to resume the China-US Governors’ Forum as soon as possible, so as to bring sub-national exchanges back on the track of institutionalized development. It also needs to carefully understand and accurately grasp the core interests and major concerns of American states so as to improve the effectiveness of sub-national exchanges. Moreover, China can use the occasions of commemorating historical events in bilateral relations to recall common memories of the two countries and enhance mutual amity.For example, in 2021, people from the two sides jointly held a number of activities in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of “ping-pong diplomacy,” recollecting beautiful memories of friendship between the two countries and expressing their keen desire to restart exchanges and cooperation in various fields. The year 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s visit to China. China and the US, by holding a series of commemorative activities, should learn from history and look to the future. Besides, there is a role for the younger generation to play in maintaining, consolidating and improving China-US relations, and youth exchanges between the two countries should be actively promoted. China may consider further increasing the number of American students studying in China and launching special cultural exchange and study programs to enhance the American younger generation’s knowledge and understanding of China in the new era. All in all, only by further promoting exchanges and cooperation between sub-national governments, businesses, think tanks,media, and non-governmental organizations, and by allowing more people to participate in, benefit from, and support China-US relations, can the bilateral relationship remain resilient and rooted in the people.