Time to ‘turn the page’ on Sino-US ties

Plenty of areas where the two powers can move forward in cooperation, says Brookings chief

There is ample room for the United States to move its relations with China forward, including working together to ramp up global inoculation against COVID-19 and cope with climate change, the president of the Brookings Institution said on Jan 4.

In what appeared to be his first public comments on US-China relations in the New Year, John Allen, the head of the Washington-based think tank, said he continues to believe the “most consequential” relationship the US has is with China, and that “the future of the 21st century will be our relationship with China”.

Allen said what concerns him is that “we seem to have chosen an overall policy of confrontation with China”.

“I know a little about going to war, and when your policy is confrontational across the board, the distance from confrontation to conflict is pretty short,” said Allen, a retired US Marine Corps four-star general.

There are plenty of places where the US can find a way to move forward with China that can be cooperative or collaborative, Allen said in a podcast. “For example, we have got to vaccinate the entire surface of the planet.”

Both the US and China have approved emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines.

The US is using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and another made by Moderna, and as of Jan 4, nearly 4.6 million shots had been dispensed, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

China approved the emergency use of its own COVID-19 vaccines in June, and by the end of November, more than 1.5 million doses had been distributed among people at high risk of infection.

“Here is an opportunity for the United States and China to exert leadership with our partners to find a way forward to vaccinate the planet and then to create a system of global medical surveillance that will preclude this from happening again,” Allen said.

In October, China joined COVAX, a global initiative by the World Health Organization to ensure equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines. The US has not joined the initiative.

US- China coordination is more likely to occur under the umbrella of multilateral or multinational organizations of which both are a member, according to Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings John L. Thornton China Center.

In addition to distributing COVID-19 vaccines, the US and China have opportunities to cooperate on climate change and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, according to Allen.

In the podcast aired on Jan 4, Allen said the incoming Biden administration needs an “overarching grand strategy” with respect to China, embracing all the dimensions.

“Chinese people and the American people are actually quite close, and there is real opportunity for us to capitalize on that,” he said.

Allen said US President-elect Joe Biden has a “real opportunity to turn the page” on the relationship but cautioned that Biden would have to face a “skeptical” Congress.

“That does not mean they want a confrontational relationship with China, but they want China treated in their mind as the great strategic rival that it is and to hold them accountable,” he said.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has said China hopes that the next US administration will return to a “sensible approach”, restore normalcy to bilateral relations, resume dialogue and restart cooperation.