US President Joe Biden is trying to bring Western countries together to coordinate to curb the growing influence of China, whose weight is growing in the global economy and geopolitics. In recent decades, China has impressed with its growth rates.
The rise of China
This is evidenced by the fact that China is at the forefront of the digital economy, artificial intelligence, new technology, RES, space missions. In 2020, China boosted its comparative advantage because it managed the Covid-19 pandemic more effectively and managed to emerge first and almost financially unscathed from the West.
This fact strengthened and legitimized in the eyes and perception of the Chinese people the ability of the Communist Party to govern the country, which recently celebrated during celebrations the 100th anniversary of its founding, while counting 94 million members.
Photo by the website www.mechelanyadvisors.com
China’s successes
China’s successes over the last twenty years are not just its impressive growth rates. It is the mass exodus of the population from poverty and the creation of a middle class approaching 400 million, surpassing the total population of the United States.
In addition, China left the PA in second place, becoming the EU’s largest trading partner. Due to the decline in US and EU foreign direct investment, China came in first in 2020 in foreign direct investment.
Its digital economy contributes 30% to China’s GDP growth.
The difficulty of the West towards China
Joe Biden sees China as a key strategic competitor to the United States. Russia is a geostrategic threat based on the part of the USSR. But China is the real challenge for the United States.
The US, during the presidency of Donald Trump, competed with China by setting aside the EU, with which they started a trade and economic war. Donald Trump has reduced the US economic and diplomatic presence in the Indo-Pacific region by creating huge spheres of influence, which China has immediately filled successfully in most cases.
President Joe Biden approaches the issue differently. It is escalating competition with China, strengthening its cooperation with both the EU and countries in the Indo-Pacific region such as Japan, India, and Australia (Quad).
At the same time, President Joe Biden promotes the democratic political model of governance, based on the rule of law, respect for human rights, trying to limit the authoritarian-capitalist model of governing China and Russia, respectively.
In addition, he advocates the imposition of Chinese rule in Hong Kong, the systematic suppression of the large Muslim Uighur minority, the questioning of Taiwan’s sovereignty, and the militarization of areas in the South and East China Seas by the creation of artificial islands.
Why is the West having a hard time with China?
The West’s reaction to China’s rise is an extremely complex affair.
1) Americans and Europeans do not have the same priorities. Germany (EU) is pursuing a mild rivalry with China, while France is aligned with the US within NATO, but recalling NATO’s geographical boundaries with the US, indicating that the alliance should not be used in the Indian and Pacific Oceans (please read the analysis entitled “………………………………”).
2) The US in the context of geopolitical competition in the Indo-Pacific Ocean wants to use the Quad (India, Japan, Australia) to limit Chinese influence, but the economic interdependence of these countries with China is constantly growing, resulting in US and EU diplomacy should not be enough to change the correlations over time.
3) The difficulty will become even greater for the West if the Chinese economy outperforms the US economy during this decade.
The Proposed Solution
For the West to compete successfully with China, the performance of the US, the EU, Japan and other countries must be improved. This presupposes bold policy decisions for even greater expansionary fiscal policy that will greatly increase public spending as well as government public debt and deficits in their federal budgets.
Both Americans, Europeans, and Japanese
• Concerned about the growth of 5G networks and China’s leadership in this area but do not invest hundreds of billions of dollars to overcome it.
• At every opportunity they point to the large increase in China’s military spending, but do not want to increase their own military spending.
One hundred years after its founding, the Communist Party of China is proving to be powerful.
