US, China actually need each other

SINCE a child I was so impressed by Thomas Edison’s inventions and that had led me to admire the United States as an innovative and progressive nation. The launch of the Windows system by Microsoft in the eighties was another great innovation.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump as US President not only foolishly downplayed the risks posed by Covid-19 repeatedly but also took no remedial steps to change his behaviour when the situation went out of control months later. He could easily have saved thousands of lives if he would to listen to science in managing the pandemic.

Although, the virus was reported months earlier in Western countries, no steps were taken to identify this deadly virus until the outbreak started in Wuhan in December 2019. A few months into the pandemic, Trump was still claiming that Covid-19 was nothing but a common flu.

The blunder has led to more than half a million Americans losing their lives to this deadly virus, whereas the latest coronavirus death toll in China is less than 5,000.

As opined by Prof Kishore Mahbubani, the author of the book “Has China Won?”, the yellow peril element has been fuelling Western fears of China’s rise. His in-depth research into Chinese history and behaviour indicates that China has no ambition to replace the US as a world leader, nor it has any desire to become an expansionist.

The US shouldn’t fear the rise of China as it embraces capitalism instead of communism in improving the lives of the Chinese people numbering 1.4 billion in total. I hope the Biden administration could learn something from Kishore’s book.

As a renowned Singaporean political scientist, he was once the President of the United Nations Security Council between January 2001 and May 2002. Kishore’s untiring endeavour to convince the US to accept China as a genuine partner is commendable.

These two powerful nations need each other to build a better future for themselves and the world as a whole.