New era of competition and conflict: How US brands China as a respectable adversary

In his customary year-end news conference on what could pass for a ‘state of the world’ analysis, the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said that China was the ‘only competitor’ with intent to reshape international order. Flagging similar views earlier in October, Jake Sullivan, the US President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor (NSA), said that the US was in “the early years of a decisive decade” in which “the terms of our competition with the People’s Republic of China will be set”. Biden, for his part, said ahead his November summit with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, on the side-lines of the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, that he was looking for ‘competition , not conflict with China’. At the summit, Biden said that they “share responsibility” to show the world that they can “manage our differences, prevent competition from becoming conflict”. Xi told Biden that the world has “come to a crossroads” and added, “The world expects that China and the US will properly handle the relationship.” Rather than giving hope to the world that it won’t be a dangerous place to live in the 21st century, the statements of the two leaders read elusive. After the summit, Blinken’s reiteration of the American position that theirs was only competition, not a conflict, could only make their allies nervous. Rather allies in Asia, like India, Japan, ASEAN, even Japan and more so Taiwan, seems to have been forewarned of limitations to their American association in the ‘decisive decade’ when the nation was only looking at competition (as in business, and at times political competition, and not strategic competition). It sends out a message that the US is not ready, at least as yet, to take China head-on. And that is saying a lot, going by what has been happening all around. War of wits Even without China, the US’ sanctions war against Russia over the continuing Ukraine War, coupled with the West weaponizing the latter, have only helped to prolong the agony for Ukraine and its people. Now they want restoration of peace in Europe, but on their terms. But their sanctions have caused greater suffering than possibly Russia – euphemistically speaking, that is. In a way, Russia is still on the top of the war, though victory has eluded Moscow. But on the economic front, President Vladimir Putin has been more innovative than the West was prepared to concede. By slashing Russian oil prices overnight, as if he had strategized it as part of his Ukraine War plan, Putin turned the war of wits on the powers behind his immediate adversary. And by targeting India and China as among the major markets for subsidised Russian oil, the Kremlin has neutralised the western sanctions effectively in ways that the US and the rest had not bargained for. In retrospect, it looks as if Russia had also calculated western Europe not having the stomach for the first major war after the devastating Second World War. Looking back, the Cold War détente helped in avoiding war, but the post-Cold War adversity has not ensured victory for the West either, even if by Ukrainian proxy. New era détente If this is so much for Russia, which secretary Blinken claimed was “immediate threat to the free and open international system”, one only needs to imagine what China is and could become when the US has listed it out as the sole competitor capable of re-writing geo-politics. Already, the world has evidenced the helplessness of the US in South China/East China Seas. On Taiwan issue, 2022 witnessed US purportedly flexing its political muscle viz China. Barring the media hype attaching to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, nothing much came of that visit. Nothing other than a non-binding political statement was intended to come off that visit. Biden and his senior aides seem to imply that America does not want conflict with China. Does it also mean that the US can only manage competition, which does not mean much in geo-strategic terms, unlike in geo-politics and geo-economics? The post-Cold War American conduct viz China has proved to be as much. Where it shakes up America’s political hold, Washington hits back. Where its business interests are hit and hurt, especially in terms of patent-violations for the nation’s MNCs, then again, Washington has acted against China in recent years. From an American perspective, it looks as if this is the New Era détente for the nation, without employing the phrase. No costly efforts at expanding the nuclear stock-pile and launch-missiles that were posited directly at the erstwhile Soviet Union along ‘NATO border-states’ during the Cold War. Those weapons were never meant to be fired and were never fired. Their very presence, and the Soviet counter, spread tensions across Europe, and the rest of the world. Now, the containment of China is in non-traditional areas, through non-traditional means. The US seems happy about the results, at least in the interim. Possibly, Washington does not desire an eye-ball-to-eye-ball situation vis a vis China, as the two nations sit on either side of the Pacific Ocean, though distanced by thousands of miles. After Pearl Harbour (1941), the Cuban missile crisis (1962) and 9/11 terror-attacks in 2001, Washington has been wary of the idea of direct threats and hits to the ‘homeland’. China can be expected to bide time. Anyway, as the undependable ally/proxy on the sly, North Korea’s Kim is already doing it for China and Xi. Chinks are showing Here again, chinks are beginning to show in America’s armour. Unacknowledged by the West, Xi’s visit to Riyadh in the fading weeks of the outgoing year has proved to be a strategic victory for China. Not only the Saudis but also the rest of the Gulf-Arab nations and Islamic nations in Africa have made a major strategic shift, many of them, for the first time since the end of the Second World War or thereabouts. Call it ‘strategic neutrality’ or ‘strategic independence’, Saudi Arabia is re-fashioning its long-held American ties. Whether the nation would make a heady cocktail between two unthinkable combos in Islam and communism remains to be seen. But China has begun well for itself. That is the base on which Beijing may want to re-orient its strategic policy towards Asia, its home-turf. In a ‘ new era of ties’, China and Saudi Arabia signing close to 50 cooperation agreements worth $ 30-billion is said to be a beginning. More importantly, Saudi Arabia played host to Xi’s separate meetings with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Arab League, both at Riyadh. This does not happen in the normal course, not certainly overnight. It was not unknown that the US targeting of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq twice in close to a decade did not go down well with street-opinion across the Gulf-Arab region. Even when the US retaliated in Afghanistan, post-9/11, the Gulf nations were nervous as their people felt agitated. If the sheikdoms looked the other way, given their own apprehensions about Saddam’s Iraq and mullahs’ Iran, the subsequent ‘ Arab Spring’ street-protests across the region were unnerving for them. If the US was not behind the so-called ‘democratisation’ process in the region, they were at least convinced that association with the US for long periods was hurting them already nearer home. The Gulf-Arab were ready to shift gears, and move to a centre-space in international relations. India of the nineties was not prepared enough and post-Cold War western Europe did not measure up. Their long wait, and the unpredictability of American global behaviour since President Donald Trump’s four-year term has pushed them into the ready and steady hand of President Xi and China. Maybe, China being as much ‘un-democratic’ as them may have been the common ground, but economics also mattered to both sides. One more feather China now walks the New Year with this one more strategic feather in its cap. Either the US is unsure of the way to handle China and Xi, or it is willing to share geo-strategic space with the other, but only in geo-political and geo-economic fields. Secretary Blinken’s assertion that China was the ‘only competitor to re-shape the existing international order’ explains it. Blinken did not dwell much on it, nor did he say if the US intended to try and contain China through political, economic and strategic means, or wanted that space to maintain ‘global equilibrium’ to be filled by a respectable, if not ‘responsible’ state actor. This space, Washington was not ready to grant the Soviet Union at any time. Or, is it that as in the case of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin-Laden_, et al_, the US is conditioned to create a Frankenstein monster first, before going all out to try and slay it? A historic past-time indulgent of the rich and spoiled? In the unanticipated collapse of the Soviet Union, the US was left without competition in the international sphere. This inevitability led to the Cold War era ally in western Europe thinking of life without Washington. It was not happening for a variety of reasons. The UK standing firm on the American side was one. The US encouraging erstwhile Soviet satellite states to sign up with the European Union (EU) and NATO was another. Soon, nations like France and Germany that were at each other’s throats in a bygone era, and were silently strategizing, independent of each other, for a Europe without extraordinary American influence and pressure, found themselves out-witted, out-numbered. Predictable state actor Now, yet another west European nations’ bid in the direction after the unilateral American withdrawal from Afghanistan has been stalled on the track by the Ukraine War, which western Europe still does not want. Having fed their people with the ‘Russian bogey’ for several decades, barring those under ‘reformist’ Gorbachev, they find it hard to stay away from weaponizing Ukraine without angering their own people. Even without it all, there are enough reasons for internal revolts and protests in each one of these nations, and some of it is already happening, in  the name of the post-Covid economic crisis. Tired of the unpredictability of the Osama era, a non-state actor and philosophy which the prevailing world order could not control or contain after creating the ‘civilisational monster’, the US seems to be wanting a predictable state actor, and early, to play counterpoise for global equilibrium and to fill the prevailing vacuum in the geo-political and geo-strategic space. Though it is geo-economics that is finding a prominent place. It implies that the US may want to change tact and tactics from the Cold War era, and also the tools and weapons of such containment – if possible. Little to choose from? Where does it all leave India? After the US reiterated that China was the only nation intent on offering competition, Washington’s perception that western European nations and Asian friends/allies like India are only in the second rung, even if on its side, has got accentuated. Truth be told, China also wants to place India precisely on the second rung but on its side, if it could help, if it could threaten, if it could weaken India. There is a difference, rather only one difference. With India-China trade relations continuing to boom, Beijing’s political support for historic adversary Pakistan and the unending border dispute over a 3,488-km length stand out. If anything, the situation has only worsened in the past three years, after Doklam and Galwang, and the more recent Tawang episodes. Possibly, China’s scheme is to drain India’s scarce financial resources on logistics and weaponization without fighting a war. From the US, India does not have to fear military adversity of the kind though it almost happened once at the height of the ‘Bangladesh War’ (1971). More recently, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi reiterated one more time that his country was prepared to collaborate with India as long as the relationship continues to develop soundly. “China and India have maintained communication through diplomatic and military-to-military channels,” he told newsmen, while referring to the 9 December Tawang incident. The fact however remains that the ground situation has not restored mutual trust, which is required for building confidence-building measures (CBM) between the two, before they return to the negotiations table, for addressing core and long-standing issues. Trading in rupee There is one area where India may have done to the US without adversity that China could not achieve with adversity. While China had sought to replace US dollar with its renminbi as trading currency at bilateral levels, India has quietly succeeded in commencing bilateral trade in rupee. It began with Iran under western sanctions some years back, as if it was a trial balloon. Today, thanks to the West’s sanctions on Russia, India has commenced rupee trade with Russia, extendable to some Gulf nations, apart from immediate neighbours, starting now with the economically-distressed Sri Lanka. How this pans out remains to be seen, but that is something that the Chinese attempted – too much, too far, too early, and failed. The New Year is India’s year, as it heads both G-20 and SCO. Platitudes, both self-serving and others, notwithstanding, stock-taking has to wait until the end of 2023. While India’s success may diminish China’s importance only momentarily, any unexplained and/or inexplicable failure on New Delhi’s part as the chair, especially of G-20, can be bad. For instance, there is Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who called Prime Minister Narendra Modi the other day, to congratulate India on assuming the G-20 presidency, weeks after it had happened. That he called Modi following his visit to the US, where he conferred with President Biden and also addressed the US Congress, earlier, should not be lost sight of. Anyway, Zelenskyy sought India’s help with his 10-point ‘peace formula’, which however did not address Russia’s single-point demand – that Ukraine would not join NATO and would not be admitted into NATO. According to reports, Modi reiterated India’s call for dialogue, and promised to support ‘peace efforts’ without seemingly defining the same. India’s position is too well known to be mis-read or mis-interpreted. Yet, between now and the G-20 summit next year, New Delhi will come under intense pressure from the West, especially the US, to ‘act’. Though a G-20 member, and also of SCO, China will be watching it all from the side-lines, to see if India’s position and posturing would hurt New Delhi’s relations with Washington or Moscow or both. It may not design its geo-strategic and geo-political policies based on India but the coming year will definitely influence its global outlook, as derived from the India-Russia-US triangle, all the same! The writer is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator. Views are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.