Apr 08, 2021, 18:54
Washington's approach toward Beijing under President Donald Trump was a "recipe for American failure" and the Biden administration needs to "seriously rethink" that approach, former Singapore diplomat Kishore Mahbubani said recently.
The Trump administration's China policy hardened a consensus among both Republicans and Democrats that "China is at root an adversary that must be thwarted," Mahbubani wrote in an essay published in March on Global Asia, a quarterly publication of the Seoul-based East Asia Foundation.
Mahbubani, currently a distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, said the United States will head toward a disaster if the Biden administration continues Trump's policy on China.
Relations between China and the U.S. have sharply worsened since the Trump administration launched a trade war in 2018. Tensions have also escalated over the case of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, COVID-19, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Taiwan and the South China Sea.
"The reality is that the Trump administration's policies on China damaged America's standing, did no real harm to China and did not arrest China's growing trade and economic links with the rest of the world," Mahbubani said in his article "Was Trump Right or Wrong on China? Biden's Answer Will Shape the Future."
He suggested for the Biden administration to "first stop and do a cool, dispassionate analysis of U.S.-China relations and then work out a coherent, credible and comprehensive long-term strategy toward Beijing."
Many in the world would agree with the assessment of the Harvard Kennedy School that support for the Communist Party of China (CPC) among the 1.4 billion Chinese grew from 86.1 percent in 2003 to 93.1 percent in 2016, Mahbubani said, calling on Washington to understand and respect that fact.
The Biden administration should acknowledge Trump's failure on China and "chart an alternative path toward Beijing," he said. The administration should press the "pause" button on the geopolitical contest with China, "give a quiet wink to the Canadian government" to release Meng Wanzhou, develop a realistic understanding of China and stop insulting it, he added.
It would be a big mistake for the U.S. to underestimate China and view their ties with arrogance, Mahbubani stressed.
"At the end of the day, what most of humanity would like to see is a rational understanding and a rational discourse between the world's two leading powers, America and China," he wrote.
Face-to-face dialogue in Alaska
Last month, senior Chinese and American officials met face to face for the first time after Biden took office.
CGTN,
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-04-08/Singaporean-scholar-urges-Biden-to-reassess-U-S-policy-on-China-ZhI4C2YshO/index.html
Frankly what US does, China cannot control. Even if the whole world agrees on a peaceful type of engagement there will be bad wolves and snakes which don't want such peace simply becase it will diminish their hegemonic ambitions.
It is quite clear that it is these wolves and snakes which bring wars and sufferings to this world. Clearly, US while boasting its military might is totally powerless to stop its dark side taking over itself - no doubt about that. Therefore the rest of the world has to take care of themselves if not they will fall and be crushed by the devil's destructive machinery. This thesis needs to be widely skillfully promoted and articulated globally - "How to stay away from the gigantic destructive machinery".
US war machinery had never fought for the course of human right. Instead defending their wealth, power and global primacy is their primary objective. Their domestic human rights speak for US itself.
Mahbubani is completely right. The US is acting like a bull seeing only red.
Moreover, it talks about a rules-based international order. That's just hypocrisy.
Didn't it try to overthrow the Assad government of Syria causing total destruction of that nation until thousands of its civilians had to spill into the EC thereby destabilising Europe?
Meanwhile, its forces and proxies still occupy the one-third of Syria that has oilfields and arable land; that oil has been siphoned off.
The rub is Blinken has now come out to say the US will provide humanitarian aid; he just omits to say that aid comes from Syrian oil money.
So in just one case of US foreign policy hypocrisy, the US caused the problem in another country, ransacks its resources, then uses the usury to try and make itself look good despite having blood on its hands.
That's the same Blinken that Biden said he was proud of, the same Blinken who tried to throw his weight around like a thug in Alaska for being the host. Even Eskimo's have more culture and finesse.
The real problem with the US is that its leaders, policy-makers and analysts don't a single w-bone in them.
Does anyone still need to know what 'w' stands for after the litany of US hypocrises?
At the rate things are going, it's all going to end badly.
Which leaves China with the only thing left to do domestically. Just two words - graphenic photonics.
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