"The biggest strategic mistake the United States has made is to launch a competition with China in the absence of strategy." In the past two days, a speech by Ma Kaishuo, a well-known Singaporean scholar and veteran diplomat, on China-US relations has sparked heated discussions on Chinese social media, with many netizens saying that it is "very wonderful and in-depth".
According to the Observer, this is a speech delivered by Ma Kaishuo at the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies (ECSSR) on June 10, and the related video was released on June 21. The United States believes that there is still about a decade left to prevent China from becoming a world leader, so it will undoubtedly use this time to increase pressure on China, but the United States is still unable to contain China.
He stressed that China has learned from the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and unlike the United States, which cannot accept competitors of the same level, China has no ambitions to confront the United States and other world powers, and that China attaches importance to strengthening domestic economic and social construction and improving relations with neighboring countries.
He called on the United States to abandon its containment strategy and work with China to create a world large enough to accommodate two great powers.
In his remarks that day, he explored the complex factors driving U.S.-China competition and the impact of that competition on the rest of the world, and he also offered his views on how the U.S.-China and China should manage it.
Kaishuo Ma attended the event of the UAE Center for Strategic Studies and delivered a speech
"Americans are afraid: if China's economy becomes number one, everything will change"
As for the potential impact that this year's U.S. election may have on U.S.-China relations, Ma Kaishuo said that no matter who occupies the White House, the pace of competition between China and the United States is expected to accelerate in the next decade. The outcome of the election may not change anything, it may change everything.
On the one hand, he explained, although the United States today is a deeply divided society and Americans cannot agree on anything, the only thing they can agree on is that it is time to contain China, so no matter who is elected as the next president, the policy of containing China will not change. On the other hand, if Trump wins, of course he will continue to fight China, but he may go to extremes and make everything worse, so you need to be prepared for all possibilities.
Small countries like the UAE and Singapore must realize that the world today is witnessing the greatest geopolitical rivalry in human history, Ma said. "I have never seen a country of the magnitude and strength of China and the United States go head-to-head today. It will shake the world and affect all of us. ”
The moderator then mentioned that the fact that there is a consensus among Americans on the matter of containing China, whether it means that the United States has a "grand strategy" to contain China, or whether it has more to do with the personal approach of each president.
In response to this question, Marquet recalled a past lunch exchange he had with Henry Kissinger. Kissinger conveyed to him such a profound message: The biggest strategic mistake the United States has made is to launch a competition with China in the absence of a strategy. Later evidence also corroborated Kissinger's claims.
"While we are sure that the United States will counter China by some means, the goal is not clear. Is it to stop China's economic development? It's impossible to do. Is it to successfully isolate and contain China, as it did with the USSR? It is impossible to do it. "So if you don't even have a clear end goal, people will ask: You started this race, but what is the end goal?" What does it mean to win? As it is known, this has never been spelled out. ”
He said that the U.S. government has taken actions such as imposing tariffs and banning the sale of chips to China are all aimed at slowing down China's economic growth in some way. Because in the eyes of the Americans, if China's economy becomes the number one, everything will change, and the privileged position of the United States as the world's largest power for more than a hundred years will also change.
"The Americans want China to be the 'second in the Soviet Union', but China is fighting back"
"The U.S. has a smarter strategy, and instead of trying to contain China, it should try to work with China to create a world big enough to accommodate two great powers." Such a strategy, he said, would benefit both China and the United States and avoid the rather damaging zero-sum game that is now underway.
In the eyes of the United States, it has about a decade to prevent China from becoming the world's number one, and there is no doubt that the United States will use this period to increase pressure on China, Ma said.
In response to the question of "whether China wants to become the world's first", Ma Kaishuo believes that China and the United States are facing a multi-dimensional and complex competition, and at the same time at the economic, military, political, and soft power levels, China wants to become the world's largest economy, but the Chinese do not have the ambition of Americans to dominate the world, and will not try to intervene in various global problems like the United States.
Ma Kaishuo said that Chinese know that the dream of the United States is to make China a "second disintegrated Soviet Union", so China realizes that in order to survive, the first task is to have a very strong and dynamic economy and society, which is why China is vigorously developing education and economy. Second, China has taken the initiative to counter the U.S. policy of using its neighbors to contain China, strengthened economic relations with its neighbors, and proposed the Belt and Road Initiative to build infrastructure around the world.
"Every country in the world says: this infrastructure is great, I need China's high-speed rail, I need China's roads. So will you still join the containment policy? No. He said.
Ma Kaishuo also mentioned that China has a long-term manufacturing development strategy. Even five or ten years ago, it was thought that China would not be able to enter the auto race, but now China has created an electric vehicle industry from scratch, shocking all automakers around the world. As the world becomes more dependent on China, America's options are limited, which is why there is a very strong sense of urgency in Washington.
He is a well-known scholar-diplomat in Singapore, having served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and as the founding dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. As a scholar who has long been interested in the development of society in the Asia-Pacific region and China, Ma was deeply impressed by China's achievements in poverty alleviation, pandemic response, and climate change, and praised China for setting a "positive example" for the world in addressing global challenges.
At the 2023 "Answers" year-end show of the Observer.com, Ma Kaishuo said that with the decline of relative strength in all aspects, the West should release more power to countries in the Global South, and all countries should participate in global governance. He called on the West to learn from the example of more cooperation with China, which has created many global organizations that benefit global well-being, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB), which was co-founded by the BRICS countries. Another sensible option for the West would be to encourage the IMF and the World Bank to work with these emerging institutions so that the world would become a better place.
(Text: Liu Chenghui, Observer.com; Source: "Observer Network" WeChat public account, revised and released; The picture comes from the Internet, invaded and deleted)