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A growing number of people internationally are acknowledging China’s selfishness and its bid for global dominance, leading more countries to side with Washington’s view of the world over Beijing’s, the top diplomat said Tuesday. from the United States.
In recent months, as relations between the two superpowers have collapsed, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, known as the Trump administration’s “attack dog” against China, has stepped up his verbal salutes against the governance of Beijing, the state-run economic system, and espionage activities. and pandemic management.
“The world has woken up and my opinion is that the tide has turned,” Pompeo told the Atlantic Council, a think tank on international affairs in Washington. “I think these are powerful shifts in the world view of the Chinese Communist Party threat.”
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Even as the Trump administration has belatedly competed for global hearts and minds, it has been accused of squandering one of its greatest assets: America’s history of working closely with allies to address shared frustrations with Beijing, including theft. of intellectual property; forced technology transfer; unbalanced trade; and island building in the disputed South China Sea.
According to the Soft Power 30 index, which tracks the use of persuasion in countries rather than coercion to achieve goals, the United States fell to fifth place globally in 2019, the most recent data, down from third place in 2017. when Donald Trump became president.
China’s soft power ranking also fell to 27 in 2019, from 25 in 2017, according to the index, compiled by the Portland consultancy and the University of Southern California. France ranked first in both years.
And a Pew Research poll released Tuesday of 13 advanced countries in Europe, Asia and North America found that only 15 percent of those surveyed thought the United States dealt well with the pandemic. This compared with 37 percent who thought China handled the pandemic well and 64 percent at the World Health Organization, both accused by the Trump administration of stoking the virus.
The United States faces a low approval rating from other countries for its handling of the coronavirus
One of Trump’s first moves to become president was to pull the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a group meant to work together on common challenges related to China. Since then, it has launched trade wars with Japan, South Korea, Canada and the European Union, among others, publicly embarrassed its leaders and too often viewed foreign relations as a zero-sum game, critics say.
“I’ve seen that criticism,” Pompeo said, but added that the administration’s highest priority has been to help Americans understand the threat China poses to their economic and national security.
“Tens of millions of jobs have been stolen through predatory Chinese communist economic activity here in the United States,” which cannot continue, he said.
Turning to the battle for telecommunications supremacy, Pompeo said Huawei’s Western competitors will strengthen and become the global industry standard.
“I am confident that there will be profitable deliveries from trusted Western suppliers who can offer the same or better services,” Pompeo said, even as he admitted that beating Chinese prices would remain difficult, citing Chinese state subsidies.
“We always joke about the battle between Airbus and Boeing with state subsidies,” he continued, referring to European and American aircraft manufacturers. “That is child’s play compared to what the Chinese Communist Party does.”
China’s economic model has been built on the foundation of state-backed companies that “steal American technology, return it to the homeland, and then return it and dump it in the United States of America and around the world,” Pompeo said. .
Yet despite Trump’s “America First” policy, critics say Beijing has often failed to capitalize. Global suspicion of China has risen under President Xi Jinping as Beijing has intensified territorial disputes with India and Japan, drilled for oil in disputed waters in Southeast Asia, and tightened its grip on Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet. and Inner Mongolia.
In recent months, international criticism has risen over China’s early handling of the coronavirus and its subsequent global distribution of sometimes faulty medical equipment, amid reports of Beijing’s demands for praise and veiled economic threats. And a growing number of US allies, including Britain, Germany, Australia, Japan and India, have taken steps to limit Huawei Technologies equipment on their 5G networks, wary of data theft that the company denies.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment, but officials at the Foreign Ministry in Beijing have repeatedly criticized Pompeo’s barrage. “It is Pompeo’s daily job to lie about China,” spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday. “No matter how they continue to brag, the facts will reduce them all to a laughingstock.”
“It is Pompeo’s daily job to lie about China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said last week. Photo: Reuters
As the US and China flex their economic and political muscles, some see a growing risk of a misstep as communication between the giants falters, suspicion grows, and the US prepares for a presidential election. in which the two main political parties criticize China.
“It is the risk of a military confrontation, particularly between the United States and China in the South China Sea, which could start with a conflict or contingency with the Philippines or Vietnam,” said Greta Nabbs-Keller, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia. she said Monday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Even a relatively minor shock could have serious repercussions in the Asian region, he added.
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Increasingly tense relations between the United States and China and more warships and military aircraft leave less room for error at potential trouble spots, said Amanda Hsiao, a Beijing-based project manager for the Beijing-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue. Switzerland.
“There is a greater possibility of an accidental collision or an incident that could accelerate to a point that neither side wants to see,” Hsiao said, an “unintended incident that then turns into something much bigger.”
In this article, the US secretary of state says ‘the tide has turned’ and the world increasingly views China as a threat that first appeared in the South China Morning Post
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