[Editor's note] This article is authorized by the author Huang Renwei and is reprinted from the public account "International Relations Research". There is a lot of exciting content, welcome to pay attention.
[Summary of content] "The strategic stalemate stage between China and the United States" is the alternation of the battle intensification stage and the battle buffering stage. The overall judgment of this article is that China and the United States will be in a strategic stalemate for about 30 years. Under this general judgment, the change of U.S. president may lead to fine-tuning of China policy, resulting in an alternation between a war intensification period and a war buffering period. We should seize the "battle buffer period" to postpone the strategic showdown between China and the United States and strive for greater strategic initiative.
[Keywords] The strategic stalemate stage of Sino-US relations and the buffering period of the campaign
[About the author] Huang Renwei, Executive Vice President of the Institute of One Belt, One Road and Global Governance, Fudan University
1. The historical origin and development of the "strategic stalemate stage" between China and the United States The concept of staged
"strategic stalemate stage" was created by Mao Zedong in "On Protracted War" published during the period of the Anti-Japanese War. He proposed that the Anti-Japanese War included three stages: Japan's strategic offensive, China's strategic stalemate with Japan, and China's strategic counter-offensive. This article uses this concept to express the development trend of Sino-US relations.
and Compared with the period of the Anti-Japanese War, there are three main differences in today's strategic stalemate between China and the United States. First, the most fundamental difference is that the strategic competition between China and the United States is not a state of war, while the strategic stalemate in the Anti-Japanese War is entirely a state of war. Second, the next stage of the strategic stalemate between China and the United States is not a strategic counteroffensive stage, and there is no strategic counteroffensive stage. China does not have a strategic goal of completely defeating the United States. Third, after a long period of strategic stalemate, Sino-US relations will enter a state of coexistence and co-governance. The so-called new type of major power relations can only be formed after a long-term competitive state of strategic stalemate.
From a theoretical perspective, "strategic stalemate" should contain three characteristics: First, the forces of both parties in the strategic stalemate are relatively balanced. Only when neither party has an overwhelming advantage can the state of "strategic stalemate" be maintained. Second, in a relatively long period of time, it will be difficult for either side to defeat the other side, and there is no distinction between victory and defeat. Third, only when both sides have strong institutional confidence can they maintain the resilience of strategic stalemate. The United States is convinced that it will maintain world hegemony for more than 50 years, and China is convinced that it will achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation by 2050, which is the second centenary goal. How long will the
strategic stalemate phase last? It is about 30 years from 2021 to 2050. This not only depends on the conditions for China to achieve its goal of becoming a modern powerful nation, but also on changes in the balance of power between the United States and China. Since China has proposed the "two hundred years" goal, American think tank 's long-term strategic plan for China has also set the time coordinate in 2050. The 2020 strategy report released by the US strategic think tank "Center for International Strategic Studies" (CSIS) sets the time period for Sino-US strategic competition as 2020~2050. Another important think tank, the 2049 Center, also sets the time period for China-US strategic competition as 2020~2050. The name of the think tank "2049 Center" is based on China's second centenary goal as its imaginary target. It can be seen that 2050 is the strategic expected goal of both parties, and this goal positioning determines the time dimension of the stalemate stage. In these 30 years, as long as the balance of power between the two sides does not reverse, strategic competition will always exist as the new normal in Sino-US relations.
2. Three characteristics of the strategic stalemate stage between China and the United States
One of the characteristics of the strategic stalemate stage between China and the United States is the duality of the power structures of China and the United States. The dual structures of China and the United States are the basic characteristics of the strategic stalemate stage. The United States has maintained a relatively strong power during its long decline, while China has always had weaknesses in its rise. This duality between the two sides is the main axis running through the great changes unseen in a century, and will change over time.
The duality of the United States is reflected in the ever-widening gap between its hegemonic power and goals. In the 1970s and 1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union were two superpowers, and the United States' world hegemony was incomplete.After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States became the only superpower in the world, and its hegemony constituted a "unipolar world" of "one superpower and many powers". The U.S. hegemony has shown a trajectory of decline after the 2008 international financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 epidemic. The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the crisis in Ukraine have further shown the existence of this trajectory.
The decline of U.S. hegemony is a long historical process, during which the United States still maintains its status as the most powerful country. The United States still has the strongest financial control capabilities, technological innovation capabilities, military strike capabilities, and public opinion shaping capabilities in the world. The decline of hegemony does not mean the decline of the United States' comprehensive national strength. The current international system, including the United Nations system, the Western Allies system, and the international monetary and financial system, was established under the leadership of the United States after World War II. The United States still has decisive influence. International rules, especially international economic rules, are largely created by the United States. The so-called "rules-based international order" is essentially a "world order based on American rules."
The decline of hegemony refers to the continuous decline of the status and ability of the United States to lead international affairs, including the right to shape the international system, the right to create international rules, the right to dominate international discourse, the right to guarantee international security, and the right to mint the US dollar as the world currency. are gradually weakening. The United States has increasingly shown serious inadequacies in the maintenance, reform, innovation and supply of public goods of the international system. During the Trump period, the United States continued to break rules and "withdraw from the group." After Biden came to power, the United States began to restore rules and regain its dominance. As the world currency, the hegemony of the US dollar serves the US strategy, controls the economic lifeline of other countries, and imposes economic sanctions on other countries. The "dollar hegemony" based on its world currency function is increasingly serving its own national interests, and its function and credibility as a world currency are being weakened. The decline of dollar hegemony is one of the important manifestations of the decline of US hegemony.
The rise and fall of national power is presented relative to the balance of power between different countries. Compared with China's rapid rise since the 21st century, the power growth of the United States has shown a relative decline. But relative to Europe and Japan, the power of the United States has risen significantly faster than them. The power gap between the United States, Europe and Japan has further widened. The United States still has dominant capabilities among Western allies, and there is even a tendency for the United States to strengthen its control over Western allies. If we look at the comprehensive strength of the United States and its allies as a whole, the power gap between China and the United States is still quite large, and the historical inertia of the United States as a superpower will remain for a long time.
In the stage of strategic stalemate, the balance of power and power transfer between China and the United States create structural contradictions, but this contradiction can develop in two directions: confrontation and cooperation. Several issues need to be considered here:
First, in the process of power transfer among great powers, will there inevitably be confrontation between rising countries and established countries? Will the scale and speed of the power transfer from the established country to the rising power lead to or avoid a comprehensive confrontation between the two? Will this power transfer be reversed and lead to the failure of the rising power; or will it lead to the accelerated decline of the established country?
The second question is whether the narrowing power gap between rising countries and established countries will create limits and lead to strategic showdowns. China and the United States are respectively the world's first and second largest economies with considerable weight and size. The economic gap between China and the United States is rapidly narrowing. In 2001, China's economic aggregate was 10% of that of the United States. By 2022, it will be 77% of that of the United States. Historically, the "iron rule" that the United States' acceptable limit for the economic aggregate of the second largest country is 60% of the United States has been broken. The process of China's share of the US economy rising from 70% to 100% has been greatly shortened. If the United States cannot prevent China from reaching or exceeding the total size of the United States, then what is the limit of China’s rise that the United States can accept, and whether exceeding this limit will lead to a strategic showdown between the two.
Third, the structural contradictions between China and the United States may transform into a confrontational relationship under certain conditions, and may also transform into a cooperative relationship under other conditions.China and the United States have a great degree of interdependence and interest correlation, and neither side can completely give up its complementary relationship with the other and implement so-called "decoupling." Whether they are global, regional or bilateral problems, they require cooperation rather than confrontation between China and the United States to be alleviated or resolved. Sino-US relations will remain in a state of swing between quasi-confrontation and quasi-cooperation for a long time.
The structural contradictions between China and the United States are reflected in the strategic competition in the three major fields of global market, two systems and geopolitics, which are characterized by the coexistence of confrontation, compromise and cooperation. As China maintains its upward momentum and reaches a state of balance with the United States, the degree of antagonism in the structural contradictions between China and the United States will decrease, and antagonism will shift to compromise and cooperation.
The second characteristic of the strategic stalemate between China and the United States is the long-term nature of the transformation of the international system. The transformation faced by the contemporary international system is different from the system transformation in history. Most of the system transformations in the past changed the international system in the form of war. The Cold War pattern was also determined to a large extent by the confrontation between the two military groups. The transformation of the contemporary international system is largely a non-war transformation (war transformation caused by sudden crises is not excluded), and is characterized by its graduality and long-term nature. This feature is basically parallel to the long-term nature of the strategic stalemate between China and the United States.
First of all, the Western-dominated world system is in trouble. For a long time, the West's absolute advantage in the world economy accounted for 80% to 90%, but now it has dropped to a slight advantage of 50% to 60%. The West's dominance in wealth distribution and international affairs is being weakened. The economies of emerging economies and developing countries can, to a certain extent, restrict the ups and downs of the Western economy. China accounts for 1/3 of the world's economic growth and 1/3 of the total economic output of developing countries, and its influence on the Western economy is also increasing.
Secondly, due to the inertia of the Western-dominated world system, even if the Western economy drops below 50% of the global economy, it will still remain at the center of the international system for a long time. The Western-dominated global governance system, that is, the "Western governance" system, cannot reflect the rise of emerging powers, nor can it give emerging powers enough room for growth. It is difficult for the West to accept and coexist with the concepts and power structures of emerging powers, but the globalized economy does not allow the West and non-Western countries to be separated into two market systems. This requires a long mutual adjustment process.
Furthermore, Western countries (including some developing countries) habitually accept the leadership of the United States and find it difficult to accept an international order dominated by emerging powers. It will take a long time for this Pax Americana mentality to change. It is also difficult for emerging powers to start from scratch and create a new international system. Only when the hegemonic power itself is unable to support the old international system can it be possible for a new international system to replace it.
From China's perspective, for more than 40 years from 1980 to the present, China has always been in the process of integrating into the Western-dominated international system. In the next 30 years, China will face the situation where the Western system led by the United States excludes China, and will have to shift from focusing on integration to the process of shaping and changing the existing international pattern and system. This requires strong global governance capabilities and advanced global governance concepts, and such capabilities and concepts require generations of cultivation and promotion to be established. For example, the problem of insufficient capacity encountered in the construction of the “One Belt and One Road” is not a lack of investment and construction capacity, but China’s lack of ability to persuade other countries to accept the “Belt and Road” within the world system. The exchange of positions between China and the world and the relationship between China and the United States requires a long-term and repeated process to achieve qualitative changes.
The third characteristic of the strategic stalemate between China and the United States is the limited nature of the confrontation between China and the United States. Confrontation between China and the United States during the stage of strategic stalemate is limited. China itself has no intention of a comprehensive confrontation with the United States, which does not meet the requirements of China's strategic development goals by 2050. The United States' ability and will to confront China are also limited, because such a confrontation requires the United States to consume several times its own national power and may not achieve its goal. The limited nature of confrontation between China and the United States is the basic condition for the relative stability of the strategic stalemate stage.
During the four years of Trump’s administration, the United States tried to implement a bottom-line confrontation strategy against China.At one time, all resources were gathered to launch a "whole-of-government, all-factor, and all-round" offensive against China, including economic, technical, public opinion, part of the military, and extreme pressure through allies, China's internal channels, etc. Facts have proved that the United States cannot defeat China, but instead costs the United States too much. Take the Sino-US trade war as an example. Trump has imposed high import tariffs on US$500 billion worth of Chinese goods. 92% of the tariff burden has been transferred to domestic consumers and producers in the United States, resulting in a substantial increase in domestic prices in the United States and triggering inflates .
The consequences of the U.S. technological war against China will be the same. The negative consequences of the United States' technological attack on China will gradually become apparent. U.S. high-tech companies will lose the Chinese market as their largest source of profits, thereby reducing their R&D investment and reducing their development potential, but stimulating China's independent innovation capabilities. If the United States launches a comprehensive financial war against China, the U.S. dollar system will be shaken or even collapsed in an unprecedented way, and the world economy will be completely shut down. The consequences will be far greater than a trade war and a technological war.
It is extremely risky for the United States to engage in a full-scale military war with China. It is difficult for the United States to financially support a local war with China, let alone a nuclear war. The current federal debt has reached more than 150% of the U.S. gross domestic product. If the United States launches a military war with China, it will need to at least more than double its current military spending to approximately US$1.5 trillion. If the war lasts for several years, even without a nuclear war, the U.S. dollar credit, U.S. finances, and the U.S. stock market will completely collapse, and it will be difficult to win militarily. To defeat China, the United States needs at least twice China's national, financial and military power. Obviously, it is impossible for the United States to mobilize such huge resources to defeat China.
Based on the above basic estimates, U.S. President Biden declared to Chinese President Xi Jinping, "The United States does not seek to change China's system, does not seek to fight a new cold war with China, does not seek to strengthen alliances against China, and does not support Taiwan's independence." . Although there is a problem here where the United States says one thing and does another, it is, after all, the official recognition and statement by the highest level of the United States of the limited nature of the strategic confrontation between China and the United States. A comprehensive confrontation with China is not in the interests of the United States. Only two possibilities can change the limited nature of the Sino-US confrontation: first, China will make a subversive strategic mistake and interrupt its peaceful rise. This possibility is very low; second, the anti-China forces of the United States will absolutely dominate its decision-making. The probability of launching a full-scale cold war or even a hot war against China regardless of the consequences is relatively low. As time goes by, China's power will comprehensively catch up with the United States. When the United States is unable to confront China and can only face reality and compromise with China, the strategic confrontation between China and the United States will transform from limited to non-confrontational.
3. The three decades of the strategic stalemate stage: the balance of power continues to change
The length of the strategic stalemate stage depends on how quickly the balance of power between the two sides changes. This power refers to the comprehensive competitiveness that includes all factors such as economy, military, diplomacy, politics and public opinion. At present, the biggest gap between China and the United States is in the field of science and technology. The field of science and technology determines the advanced nature of manufacturing and is also related to cultural and institutional competitiveness. Scientific and technological competitiveness is the decisive factor in contemporary comprehensive national strength. The speed of China's technological development determines the length of the strategic stalemate stage. In the four fields of technology, military, finance and soft power, the United States still has an advantage. The gap between China and the United States is narrowing, but it is still obvious. China has made breakthroughs in individual areas, such as Huawei 's leading 5G technology. The advanced level that Huawei has achieved in the field of communication technology will be something that Chinese companies can also achieve in other fields in the next 10 years or so. In the past two years, China's high-tech industry has been pressed hard by the United States, which has in turn prompted China to accelerate its independent technological innovation. By 2035, it is possible for China to approach the level of the United States in basic technological fields; by 2050, there will be a basis for China to keep pace with the United States in the field of science.
In April 2021, The International Monetary Fund predicted that China's total GDP will reach about 90% of that of the United States by 2026, and will be equal to that of the United States in 2027~2028. The London Institute for International Strategic Studies predicts that China’s total GDP will catch up with the United States in 2028.The assessments of these international institutions are more optimistic than China's own assessment. Judging from the exchange rate calculation, it is a relatively moderate prediction that China's GDP in 2030 will be tied with the United States. In the next 10 years, if the United States maintains an average annual growth rate of 2% and China maintains a growth rate of 5%, by 2030, China's economic aggregate will catch up with the United States, with per capita GDP reaching 20,000 US dollars, and a total of 25 trillion to 25 trillion. Between US$28 trillion, this is a relatively moderate expected target. Although China is crossing the United States' warning line to attack the second largest power, the 10 years from 2021 to 2030 are still the most intense and dangerous period of Sino-US strategic competition, and all contradictory conflict points are most likely to explode during this period.
If China’s economic aggregate catches up with the United States in the first decade from 2020 to 2030, and China’s comprehensive national strength catches up with the United States in the second decade from 2030 to 2040, the balance of power in the strategic stalemate between China and the United States will be decisive. change. In the third decade from 2040 to 2050, China will catch up with the United States in major fields, including major technological fields. By 2020, China's two important indicators, the number of corporate patents and the number of papers published in core natural science journals, have surpassed the United States. For higher-end indicators such as the number of Nobel Prizes and wins, China is still clearly lagging behind. Based on a large number of innovative achievements and basic research results, China is hopeful that it will catch up with the United States in the field of science and technology in the third decade.
The biggest gap between China and the United States lies in the field of soft power, including "broad soft power" and "institutional flexibility" of various cultural carriers and communication capabilities. The ability of American ideology and institutional model to penetrate and subvert other countries is almost everywhere. It is very difficult to encourage countries around the world to widely accept Chinese information and culture. In the strategic stalemate in the next 30 years, the United States will make more use of its soft power advantages, and the cost-benefit ratio will far exceed that of hard power confrontation. Therefore, the intensity of Sino-US soft power competition will exceed that of hard power competition. This is a long-term trend. The faster the United States' hard power declines, the more it will use its soft power advantages to confront China.
The power comparison between China and the United States has both explicit and implicit factors. Explicit factors include “visible” factors such as military power, technological power, and dollar power. Hidden factors mainly refer to factors related to soft power that are “not easy to see” and difficult to use statistics, such as the extent to which China can cultivate the same quantity and quality of scientific and technological talents as the United States. In terms of hidden factors, China's disadvantages are also obvious. There is an obvious cultural and educational gap between China and the United States. Eight of the top 10 universities in the world are American universities, and 50 of the top 100 are American universities. Peking University and Tsinghua are currently ranked in the top 30 in the world. It will take a long time to shorten the gap with the top universities in the United States. The United States' use of public opinion warfare to distort China's image is the key to the invisible power gap between China and the United States.
We must dialectically understand the power gap between China and the United States and realize the transformation of China and the United States' power advantages and disadvantages. Transform quantity growth into quality enhancement, that is, achieve high-quality development of and . Achieving a qualitative transformation of China's economy and domestic governance during the 30 years of strategic stalemate is China's core task in the next 30 years. This domestic development strategic issue is an international strategic issue within the framework of the Sino-US strategic stalemate. It determines whether we can turn our disadvantages into advantages and transform strategic resources into strategic capabilities during the strategic stalemate stage.
Having the largest market capacity in the world is China's greatest strategic advantage, and will have a decisive impact on the balance of power between China and the United States in the strategic stalemate stage. At present, China has a population of 1.4 billion, and its per capita GDP is 10,000 US dollars. If the GDP doubles, it will become 28 trillion, and the per capita GDP is 20,000 US dollars. This is a goal that can be achieved with a high probability by 2030. If the United States rises to US$28 trillion, it will need to achieve US$90,000 per capita in 2030, which is quite difficult. China's market potential is huge. Its ability to absorb foreign goods imports can be transformed into international economic cooperation capabilities, and its commodity export capabilities can be transformed into foreign investment capabilities and infrastructure construction capabilities. “One Belt, One Road” is actually the transformation of China’s domestic market potential into overseas market projection capabilities.To a certain extent, market capacity is also cultural communication capability, which can be transformed into the creative ability of international system rules. Market size will determine the right to create market rules. Countries along the "Belt and Road" will implement a new "four-in-one" international rule of Western rules, United Nations rules, Chinese rules and local national rules, rather than a single US rule. The battle over rules will be a reflection of the combination of market competition and strategic competition between China and the United States.
During the strategic stalemate between China and the United States, the United States also has limitations in its power. The limitations of American power essentially reflect America’s potential crises. The most obvious one is the federal fiscal crisis. In the first quarter of 2022, the U.S. federal debt has reached 30 trillion U.S. dollars, which is 140% of the U.S. GDP; the interest on federal debt alone will occupy 1/3 of the federal annual budget. The U.S. federal debt and the huge deficit in the U.S. federal finances have forced the United States to engage in a large number of "debts" and "robbery" in international affairs, causing serious damage to the credibility and image of the United States. The gap between the almost bankrupt U.S. finances and the huge expenditures required for strategic competition between China and the U.S. is the greatest limitation of U.S. power. Kissinger once judged that the greatest threat to U.S. security came from federal debt. The greater the federal debt, the more dangerous the United States was. This warning hits the nail on the head.
The current U.S. economy is in three huge bubbles: one is the U.S. debt bubble, the other is the inflation bubble, and the third is the U.S. stock market bubble. The inflation rate in the United States has reached 8%, the highest in the past 40 years. Inflation will continue to rise after the Ukraine crisis. Stimulated by 10 consecutive years of loose monetary policy since 2011, the U.S. stock market has risen from more than 10,000 points at the beginning of 2020 to more than 30,000 points. With the COVID-19 epidemic severe and facing the risk of economic recession, the stock market has shown a state of false prosperity. The consequence of unlimited issuance of U.S. dollars will inevitably be a decline in the value of the U.S. dollar. The Federal Reserve will issue a large amount of currency to purchase national debt. Debt, the stock market, and inflation, which are so high, are superimposed, and one will suffer, all will suffer. Those in power in the United States have abused the U.S. dollar's role as a world currency, trying to spread and absorb U.S. inflation around the world, and transfer the U.S. crisis to other countries around the world. In the Ukraine crisis, the United States not only used the SWIFT system to attack Russia, but also used energy price increases to attack the euro. After Europe and Russia were weakened, abusing the hegemony of the dollar to attack China was the next choice. However, China has a strong anti-attack capability that neither the EU nor Russia has, which will make the U.S. dollar encounter unprecedented countermeasures, and all countries will be cautious about the consequences of the abuse of U.S. dollar hegemony. Therefore, the dollar hegemony crisis is the biggest strategic limitation of the United States.
The centrifugal tendency in the United States is becoming more and more serious, which will constrain the United States' ability to contain China. In the past two years, various separatist tendencies in the United States have reached their highest point since the 20th century, and their complexity exceeds that of the American Civil War. Severe racial divisions and profound differences between rich and poor are intertwined, highlighting the antagonistic relationship between the 1% and the 99%. The "red states" of the Republican Party and the "blue states" of the Democratic Party have formed regional divisions. The epidemic has triggered a central-regional division between the federal and state governments. These problems are superimposed. The advantage of the United States is stock, and the problems it faces are incremental. The stock is getting smaller and smaller, and the increment is getting bigger and bigger. This is an insurmountable restriction for the United States in the strategic stalemate stage.
4. Seize the buffer period of the battle and postpone the strategic showdown between China and the United States.
The concept of "strategic stalemate stage" is conducive to the overall grasp of the trend of Sino-US relations and is conducive to maintaining strategic focus and will not be affected by policy adjustments due to the replacement of the US president. We follow the swing. Taking advantage of periodic cyclical changes will help us gain strategic initiative. The characteristics of the buffer period are that the strategic goals and directions of the United States have not changed, the intensity of Sino-US confrontation has declined, and dialogue, compromise, and cooperation between the two sides have been partially restored.
assumes that the strategic stalemate stage is divided into three 10-year periods. In each decade, at least two presidents will change. Each time a president comes to power or steps down, US policies will be adjusted or even turned. During this adjustment and transition process, there will be phased intensification and buffering of the campaign, which can be called the "campaign intensification period" and the "campaign buffering period." The strategic stalemate stage is completed in the alternating process of intensification and buffering.
Sino-US relations during the strategic stalemate period are characterized by a process of alternating between a longer period of intense fighting (3 to 5 years) and a shorter buffering period of fighting (2 to 3 years). Seizing the buffer period of the campaign is a key step to avoid all-out confrontation between China and the United States during the stage of strategic stalemate. If we want to avoid a strategic showdown between China and the United States in 20 to 30 years, we must seize several buffer periods, digest the sequelae left by the previous intensification period, and prepare to deal with possible crises in the next intensification period. During the intensification period, we must attack the invading enemy tit-for-tat. During the buffering period, we must pay attention to rationality, benefit and restraint, maintain and expand the content of cooperation, try to extend the buffering period, and postpone the breaking point of the strategic showdown between China and the United States. This is the dialectical relationship between strategic stalemate and operational buffering. Time was on our side and the forces shifted in my favor. Making good use of the buffer period is an important condition for us to transform the stage of strategic stalemate into a period of strategic opportunity.
Biden's coming to power triggered the first buffer period of the war. The first cycle of alternating battle intensification and battle buffering occurred between the Trump administration and the Biden administration. From 2019 to 2020, the main members of Biden's foreign policy team, Blinken, Sullivan, Campbell and others, published in "Foreign Affairs", "Foreign Policy", "The Washington Post", "The New York Times", etc. Many articles on China policy have been published in the mainstream media, explaining their basic strategies for adjusting China policy after taking office. At the end of 2020, there was a fierce conflict in the U.S. presidential election, with the Republicans and Democrats engaged in a life-and-death power struggle. All these indicate that there will be a buffer period for the campaign after Biden takes office.
There is a difference between the main members of the Biden team and the extreme right such as Pompeo, Bolton and Bannon of the Trump team, which can be regarded as the difference between "rational suppression" and "irrational anti-China" , resulting in the replacement of "buffer period" and "intensification period". If Pompeo and others continue to be in power after 2021, Sino-US relations will fall off a cliff, and there may be a dangerous prospect of a strategic showdown. In comparison, the emergence of one or more "battle buffer periods" can avoid continued intensification and cliff-like decline, which is objectively beneficial to the stability of the strategic stalemate stage.
However, we see that there is no obvious buffering in the first half of the year after Biden took office, or the buffering degree is smaller than expected. There are three reasons for this: First, the obstacles set up by Trump are very large, and it is difficult to eliminate policy inertia in the short term. The political atmosphere in Washington is still "anti-China politically correct." Second, the two parties in the United States have reached a consensus and position China as the number one strategic rival. No matter which party comes to power, this strategic positioning will not change even during the buffer period. Third, the ideological factors of the Biden team's China policy are very strong, and its "small court, high wall" strategy of precise strikes is more confusing and appealing than the Trump team's strong anti-China posture.
There are two main new strategies added by Biden in adjusting his China policy. One is to lock China in with rules (i.e., "regulation lock"), and try to lock in China's international behavior as "non-compliant" or even "inappropriate". within the scope of "legal". The other is to establish a new multilateral mechanism (the so-called "pseudo multilateral"), which is essentially a "united front" led by the United States and aimed at opposing China. Targeting China in multilateral mechanisms is one of the characteristics of the United States’ policy adjustments toward China after Biden came to power. This is just a formal difference from Trump's unilateral approach to attacking China.
The buffer period for this round of battle can be long or short. If the Republican Party obtains a majority in both houses of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections, the Biden administration will enter a "lame duck" state early and the buffer period will be difficult to maintain. Even if the Democratic Party retains both houses of Congress, 2024 will be the year of the presidential election. The campaigns between the two parties will become fierce again, the political atmosphere will be seriously poisoned, and the buffer period of the war will basically be over. Therefore, the buffer period for this round of battle is only 1 to 2 years. When the new government takes office in 2025, China and the United States will enter a new period of intensification of the war. Whether the far-right Republican Party or the Democratic establishment comes to power, they will inevitably launch a fierce attack on China. Because the first decade of 2030 is already very close, the psychological pressure of the United States being surpassed by China in total volume is already unbearable.
The cyclical alternation between the intensification period and the buffering period of the first round of the battle provides us with a typical template of Sino-US relations sometimes intensifying and then buffering. Careful analysis of the internal logic of this cycle will help us reveal the regularity of the strategic stalemate stage, and will also help us promote the transformation of Sino-US relations into a healthy direction, and help China and the United States jointly shoulder the responsibility of maintaining peace and development.
