Virus stoush threatens to reshape global power
Fears of new cold war as China, US tensions escalate
China has hit back at US criticism over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic with an outpouring of vitriol as acrid as anything seen in decades.
The bitter recriminations have plunged relations between China and the United States to a nadir, with warnings in both countries that the bad blood threatens to draw them into a new kind of Cold War.
A cycle of statements and actions is solidifying suspicions in Beijing that the US and its allies are bent on stifling China’s rise as an economic, diplomatic and military power.
Hard-liners are calling on Beijing to be more defiant, emboldened by the Trump administration’s efforts to blame China for the mounting death toll in the US. Moderates are warning Beijing’s strident responses could backfire, isolating the country when it most needs export markets and diplomatic partners to revive its economy and regain credibility.
The clash with the US over the pandemic is fanning broader tensions on trade, technology, espionage and other fronts — disputes that could intensify as President Donald Trump makes his contest with Beijing a theme of his re-election campaign.
“We could cut off the whole relationship,” Trump said in an interview on Fox Business last weekend.
While the hostility has so far been mostly confined to words, there are warning signs the relationship could worsen. The trade truce that Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, reached in January could fall apart, despite recent pledges to keep to its terms. Other tensions, including those over Taiwan and the South China Sea, are also flaring.
“After the pandemic, the international political landscape will totally change,” Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said. “The confrontation between China and the United States — in terms of trade, technology, the Taiwan issue, the South China Sea issue — will be a bigger problem.”
The tensions spilled over into the United Nations when China said the urgency of the pandemic demanded the US pay its delinquent UN assessment, which by some calculations exceeds US$2 billion. The American Mission to the UN responded by saying the US customarily pays its assessments at year’s end and China was “eager to distract attention from its cover-up and mismanagement” of the coronavirus crisis.
In its first months, the outbreak delivered a political blow to Xi, after officials held back information and discouraged doctors from reporting cases. Trump appeared confident the US had little to fear, and he praised Xi’s handling of the crisis.
Only weeks ago, Xi and Trump spoke by telephone and proclaimed their unity in the face of the coronavirus. Trump declared his “respect” for Xi, and Xi told him that countries had to “respond in unison” against a global health emergency.
Their brittle unity collapsed as coronavirus deaths exploded in the US. The White House and the Republican Party tried to shift the focus of ire, blaming China for reacting slowly and covering up crucial information.
The backlash, in turn, has reignited the battle over trade, technology, and other issues, with the US issuing rules that would bar the Chinese telecom giant Huawei from using American machinery and software.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials have raised the idea that the coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a theory scientists say lacks evidence.
“In Chinese eyes, the Trump administration is trying to delegitimise Communist Party rule and also stigmatise not just China but also China’s top leaders,” Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University in eastern China, said in a telephone interview.
China’s leaders have struck back through party-run media outlets that said the US and other democracies had ignored warnings and disastrously mismanaged the crisis.
“Such lunacy is a clear byproduct, first and foremost, of the proverbial anxiety that the US has suffered from since China began its global ascension,” Global Times, a nationalist Chinese newspaper, said of Trump’s comments.
Policymakers in Beijing will to some extent discount the loud accusations from the Trump administration as a product of domestic political maneuvering. But the recent bitter exchanges were also a symptom of a worsening in the relationship that existed before the outbreak.
“There is a major reassessment of US-China interdependence underway,” said Julian Gerwirtz, a scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs. “Even
if Xi might like to temporarily de-escalate the trade and technology conflicts to reduce pressure on the Chinese economy, there is now powerful momentum behind what we might call a ‘ security-first’ future.”
The editor of The Global Times, Hu Xijin, has called for China to expand its nuclear arsenal in response to US actions. “We are facing an increasingly irrational US, which only believes in strength,” he wrote.
Other hawks have warned China needs to be prepared to deal with clashes over Taiwan and the South China Sea, where US warships have stepped up patrols. Some hard-liners have gone further, warning of war.
“We have to dig out those traitors who have been bought out by the United States and do its bidding,” Wang Haiyun, a retired major general attached to a pro-party foundation in Beijing, wrote in a policy proposal circulated this month on Chinese nationalist websites.
The bellicose voices in Beijing have been subtly challenged by proponents of a more moderate approach, and the Chinese foreign ministry distanced itself from Hu’s comments on nuclear weapons. Despite the ill will, both governments have pushed ahead with the partial deal to ease trade tensions.
Xi has not spoken to Trump since their call in March.
“The rapport we speak of between the top leaders, so they can use good personal relations, has I think totally gone,” Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor at the School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, said.
How Xi plays his hand against the US could reverberate for years — for his political fortunes and for China’s standing in the world.
While Trump will take into account the presidential election, Xi too must consider his prospects for a third term from 2022. In 2018 he abolished a term limit on the presidency, opening the way to an indefinite time in power as both president and Communist Party leader.