Opening Pandora’s Box
For the international community, the AUKUS submarine deal sets a very dangerous precedent. Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will seriously impact regional and global peace and security.
For the international community, the AUKUS submarine deal sets a very dangerous precedent. Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will seriously impact regional and global peace and security.
The U.S. and China would never be allies. But that didn’t mean they had to be enemies. If managed well, they’d be strong competitors, but it would not move from adversarial to hostilities.
At a time when geopolitical friction and deglobalization are making a lot of noise, China, guided by its open development concept, stands by a multilateral trade regime—i.e., the true definition of an opening-up policy.
The U.S. has devoted a lot of resources to foreign wars over the past 20 years. Just think about its invasion of Afghanistan or the proxy wars it launched in Libya and Syria, or its deep involvement in the ongoing Ukraine crisis.
China’s fundamental goals revolve around protecting its own development and its critical national interests in the form of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. To do this, it will seek to avoid cycles of conflict and escalation wherever possible.
Americans continue to pay more for items produced in China, and they do so for accepting the false narrative that China seeks to undermine the trade and technology advantages the U.S. has had for decades.
Unless Washington changes direction no amount of guardrails will prevent the China-U.S. relationship from spiraling into conflict.
The gulf between the interests of ordinary people and the American elite continues to grow regardless of the political party occupying the halls of Washington. An equally wide gap exists between the American commitment to unipolar hegemony and the interests of humanity.
With each tragedy, the supporters of unfettered access to killing weapons voice excuses and platitudes to deny the need for taking action.
Pundits and politicians in Washington tend to read Beijing’s actions as a test of will. From this perspective, anything China does probes the boundaries of the U.S. willingness to react; any reaction but the most extreme will convince U.S. opponents that it’s weak.
What the U.S. really needs is to avoid being trapped in a game of out-competing China. The gist of China-U.S. relations is not about being the winner, but about being the one who can really lead global progress.
This erosion of trust is another example of the decline in America’s self-touted and often-boasted claim to exceptionalism.