Written by by Kawala Xie at scmp.com
Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at China’s premier Tsinghua University, said Beijing wants to avoid a “new cold war” with the US, but “tit-for-tat” measures between the world’s top two powers were unavoidable given the US deglobalisation push.
“From the China-US summit in San Francisco last [November], both sides [have] reached a kind of understanding: we will continue the competition … but we should prevent a war,” he told a Hong Kong forum in response to a question from the South China Morning Post on Monday.
“[But] that does not reduce the competition or the conflicts between China and US in other fields, especially not in the domain of technology … [and] if Trump wins the coming election, I think China and the US will have more conflicts in the economic [field].”
The November 15 summit saw Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden agree to manage differences, after prolonged tensions had sparked widespread concerns over global instability.
A string of high-level exchanges since that summit, including recent visits to China by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, as well as working group meetings to address contentious issues, have been seen as positive signs of the rival powers’ willingness to engage.
But what Beijing calls Washington’s “containment drive” continues on all fronts. The US has taken aim at Chinese manufacturing “overcapacity”, moved to restrict Chinese access to sensitive technologies, and increased strategic coordination with regional allies to counter China’s technological and military ambitions.