DM Monitoring
BEIJING: Certain politicians in the United States have recently escalated their rhetoric advocating an anti-China alliance. They have seemingly ignored how a similar strategic mistake was made 70 years ago: overestimating their ability to counter China and underestimating China’s determination to safeguard its core interests.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been traveling around the world, selling his anti-China ideas and denigrating China’s normal cooperation with other countries. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Tuesday revealed a new initiative to strengthen and expand U.S. alliances with “like-minded democracies” to encircle China. White House national security official Robert O’Brien on Wednesday slandered China by casting it as a rival seeking to “monopolize every industry” of the 21st century.
These politicians try to build an alliance that covers every front, from economic and technological spheres to ideology and diplomacy. But if Washington really believes it can mobilize everything and force China to surrender to power politics and the threat of hegemony, it is entirely incorrect.
The U.S. attempt to isolate China will not succeed. China is a peaceful country that believes in common development. It has established partnerships with 112 nations and international organizations. Its development has brought opportunities to many other countries, including the U.S. itself. No sober-minded government would sacrifice its development interests by taking these U.S. politicians’ anti-China sentiment on board.
The U.S. attempt to build China into an adversary is a fundamental, strategic miscalculation. Instead of focusing on internal problems, recovering its economy from the fallout of COVID-19 and further releasing its development vitality, the U.S. administration is funneling its strategic resources in the wrong direction. Its China policy is fraught with emotion, whims and McCarthyist bigotry.
China is not the enemy of the United States. It does not intend to challenge, replace or confront the United States. What China cares about is improving its people’s livelihoods, realizing national rejuvenation and maintaining global peace and stability. To those ends, China has maintained a stable and consistent policy to develop China-U.S. relations featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.
