Opinion

As US-China rivalry intensifies, Beijing has no illusions about Washington’s olive branch

For all the diplomatic overtures, and talk of de-risking and not decoupling, the US continues to corral allies and treat China as a threat

It may take years for the US national psyche to accept the legitimacy of a non-Caucasian, ancient civilisation with a different political ideology sharing global power

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Andrew Leung has had decades of experience as a senior Hong Kong government official in a variety of fields including finance, industry, social welfare and overseas representation.

Published: 8:15am, 15 Jun 2023

Last month, US President Joe Biden said US-China relations would “thaw” very soon. Then US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin tried and failed to secure a meeting with his Chinese counterpart at the recent Shangri-La security forum in Singapore. Now US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expects to visit Beijing on June 18, after a trip planned for February was derailed by the Chinese balloon incident.

Does this eagerness to mend fences suggest the United States is willing to compromise when it comes to China’s “core interests”, including Taiwan, for the sake of harmonious coexistence?

Not so fast. There remains robust bipartisan support for an all-out, grand American strategy to triumph over a perceived China threat to the US-led “liberal world order” that was consolidated after World War II. Jonathan Ward’s new book The Decisive Decade explains why this existential battle is now or never, and would include an anti-China “arsenal of democracy” in four arenas: economic, diplomatic, military and ideological.