US and China in state of 'mutually tolerable friction', but no end in sight for rivalry: Singapore forum
The United States and China seem to have retreated into a state of "mutually tolerable friction" but opposing positions on Taiwan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea could turn the tide, regional observers said at a forum in Singapore on Thursday.
Ryan Hass, senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings think tank, said US-China ties had "stabilised" since US President Joe Biden took office last January. Before that, the relationship was "effectively dysfunctional" with no proper channels of communication.
"There has been a renewal of a certain sense of professionalism in how the relationship is conducted, if not necessarily a dramatic reduction in overall tensions," he said.
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Chiefly, the Biden administration adjusted its approach towards Beijing, cooling its rhetoric on containing China, which led to a virtual summit between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November.
Both countries "appear to be settling into a zone of mutually tolerable friction" following the meeting, Hass said. "Barring an unforeseen event, I think that this is the general zone that both sides will stay in for the coming year."
Hass, who served as director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia at the US National Security Council from 2013 to 2017, was speaking at a virtual discussion as part of an annual forum hosted by the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.
In the coming year, he expected Beijing and Washington to have regular middle-level involvement to avoid a deterioration in ties but noted that domestic political factors in both countries could constrain the relationship.
However, Chen Dongxiao, president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, said the "polarised" atmosphere in Washington meant China-bashing would likely remain, describing it as a tactic for the Biden administration to gain support in Congress, where Republicans have opposed the US president's legislative agenda.
While he conceded that Washington and Beijing had inched closer to a mutual understanding, huge differences over bilateral cooperation remained.
"The single, most volatile issue is Taiwan. Beijing and Washington are increasingly less confident about whether the other side is going to fundamentally change the status quo," he said.
China views Taiwan as a renegade province and recent developments, including US military activities near the island, have angered Beijing. Biden in October said the US was committed to protecting Taiwan if China launched an attack.
Chen, predicting that 2022 would be "fraught with disputes and challenges", called for more senior-level meetings between the two countries.
"The two sides should continue to work at conflict prevention and crisis management on sensitive issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea," he said.
Khong Yuen Foong, professor in political science at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, agreed there was no end in sight for the US-China rivalry. Competition between the two world powers could morph beyond the trade and tech war into a "full spectrum contest" encompassing ideology, military, and space.
He thought that China's ultimate goal was to displace Washington as the predominant power in Asia. "The bottom line seems to mean that we are in for a decades-long geopolitical contest ... likely to be more intense and dangerous than the US-Soviet Cold War."
On the world stage, the US and China have to demonstrate their capacity to improve the lives of their citizens and those around the world to win over countries, said Hass. In the longer term, nations would want more from the two world powers, expecting them to step up and find solutions to global challenges, from climate change to public health issues.
"The more the United States and China are pushed by other powers to focus on global challenges, the more it might become possible for [them] to see beyond themselves and their immediate differences with each other," he said.
Singapore's Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean also made this point in his opening remarks at the forum. Countries hoped to see the US and China manage their bilateral friction, he said.
"We hope that this will allow the two major powers to act in their own enlightened, rather than narrow, self-interest and work together to exercise global leadership to help all of us to collectively address our global challenges," said Teo, who is also the city state's Coordinating Minister for National Security.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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