BY: Yahya Sorbelo
PEJOURNAL – Non-constructive competition between the United States and China has become a model of international relations that will affect the strategic issues and political, military and economic dynamics of the world. The competition for power that can affect future world order, involves different understanding of threats in the form of a political-ideological component based on Chinese and American values.
This rivalry in the war of ideas and values over Chinese authoritarianism and American democracy is very influential in the process of trade and security conflicts between the United States and China in shaping the future world order.
In this competition, the production of wealth and capital in trade and technology not only determines the criteria and values of the future order, but also the exercise of geopolitical power through pressure in the “spheres of political and technological influence” will become more prominent in the future world order. In other words, competition for power in the fields of economics and technology is leading the world more rapidly than ever before to increase military power as a deterrent to competitive power.
Therefore, the development of trade and the use of technologies will be part of a systematic competition between the United States and China.
To understand the vast and complex competition between the United States and China by 2050, the strategic factors of the two countries in the fields of diplomacy, economics, science, technology and military will be decisive. The severity of the threats and tensions between China and the United States as the two great economic and technological powers and the strategies of these two countries to face each other’s threats and how they cooperate with other countries, shape the future world order.
Beijing’s strategy is to generate more wealth with Chinese goods, which by 2050 must ensure social stability and social balance, economic development, technological progress, and military superiority. China has its own goals for regional and global growth and leadership in the development of economic and security architectures; And has defined control over national and transnational territory. China is determined to dominate its backyard in Asia. Economic growth, adequate population control and defense spending indicate that China will overtake the United States by 2030, and in some cases even conflict with the United States is conceivable.
The stability of China’s political and social system and the preservation of the leadership role of the Communist Party and the continuation of the independent socialist path of development have been able to defend well the sovereignty and national cohesion as well as the territorial integrity of China; And manages without flexibility all regional and supra-regional tendencies that can undermine China’s territorial integrity, especially in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang.
While Beijing is a step ahead of the competition with the United States, and in managing foreign relations by gaining a competitive edge and finding a solution to the threats posed by competition with Washington without slowing down its strategic goals, especially in the economic sphere, the government should the state of passivity seeks to map out and prioritize specific drivers and actions to address China’s threats and achieve economic and security goals.
At present, an important part of what the United States and its European allies are competing with China for is more than a technological competition of value competition. Different values that are supposed to shape global laws and norms based on these competitions. The focus of competition is formed on which values will ultimately gain more global support.
The Chinese world order that emphasizes territorial sovereignty and non-interference welcomes a world in which there are different political systems. An order that preserves authoritarianism and does not pose an individual or civil society threat to the central government. The United States, on the other hand, pursues a world order based on the interests of “America First” based on liberal values under capitalist rule, and all individuals have defined rights based on their talents.
In the rivalry between China and the United States, intrinsic values are as attractive as hard and soft power, as well as material success; At such a time, the leaders of democracies and non-democracies will choose the Chinese or American path from the world order offered by China or the United States and the rights and responsibilities it places on managing their system of government.
If the norms of liberal democracy are not superior to the effectiveness of totalitarian Chinese rule, then non-democratic countries, of which there are many, will welcome the Chinese order by rejecting American liberal norms. Perhaps the ideology of nonpartisanship is more appealing to some non-democratic countries than to the US approach, which wants everyone to eventually become the first American democracy.
The Chinese government has shown the world that only a totalitarian government and an authoritarian nation can move as fast as it needs to “win the future” and build and maintain its infrastructure. In China, planning and leadership decide which infrastructure and major industries to inject capital into. Biden, meanwhile, has to persuade Congress to pass the proposals and show with infrastructure bills that American democracy can still make great strides in competing with China and upholding American values.
While China has a surplus of wealth and capital to invest in infrastructure, Joe Biden must pray for worn-out infrastructure and ask God to provide the US Treasury with $ 2.2 trillion in missing money. It is unclear to what extent reconstruction plans, which only increase the debt of the United States government and people by borrowing from the Treasury, and without finding a solution to the economic problems, only delay the US economic collapse for a while. And foreigners eliminate.
Countries around the world are now wondering whether Biden will have the opportunity to correct the stagnation of the US domestic economy to the point where it is successful for a global consensus to compete or confront Beijing. What the Biden government is doing about infrastructure is just drawing a picture of a utopian future in which it removes some of the constraints and problems of existing infrastructure, without creating new possibilities.
The other part of Biden’s economic plan, which includes the global economy, calls only on US allies to work with Washington to counter China’s aggressive behavior, but US allies in Asia and Europe, in economic and trade alliances, guarantee long-term economic ties with China. Have. This situation derails the rivalry between Beijing and Washington, escalates the rivalry to the level of hostility, and forces the Biden government to once again look to China as an enemy and turn to political militarism.
Unlike the United States, China’s foreign policy systematically seeks to reshape international order by creating opportunities for cooperation for a wide range of international institutions. This situation leaves Biden with no choice but to take a series of measures to contain China, endangering Beijing’s economic future, with the help of the United States’ remaining allies.
Given that the Biden administration is still strategically confused after Trump, and American society is suffering from divisions. If Biden does not succeed in this, we can wait with a little patience for the fall of the Biden government and with it the collapse of the American economy and society, and the White House will accept China as a superpower.