Arriving in Islamabad from Beijing last night, almost on the eve of the Biden-Xi summit meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco, which is widely expected to be a landmark event in China-US relations with global impact, I cannot resist the urge to remind myself and all those who care to know that the road leading to San Francisco actually started here, in Islamabad, 52 years ago, in 1971.
The unique and extraordinary role Pakistan played in lining up China and the United States together, enabling the secret flight from Islamabad to Beijing, in stealth, in 1971 for the US National Security Adviser Dr. Henry Kissinger to meet with the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, paving the way for the world-changing state visit by President Richard Nixon to China in 1972, not only has been lionized and carved in human history, but should inspire many in China, the United States, and elsewhere to think about the unthinkable and to identify or even to creat new dynamics to ensure the inevitability of peace between China and the United States, in complete refutation of the “Destined For War” fallacy to be applied to China and the United States.
On the eve of the Biden-Xi summit in San Francisco, many in the world may have their own wish-lists for what the two Presidents and the Chinese government and the American government would do or should do, in San Francisco and beyond, to ensure that peace will indeed be inevitable between China and the United States. I have my own wish list, as follows.
1. Re-open the US consulate-general in Chengdu and the Chinese consulate-general in Houston, for the benefit of the American people and the Chinese people.
2. Make it easier for the American journalists in China and their Chinese counterparts in the United States to do their jobs efficiently and professionally;
3. Find the most effective way to deal with the tariffs in China-US trade, mostly initiated by former President Trump, in overcoming all the technical difficulties and achieving reciprocal zero tariff for the US exports to China and an equal amount of Chinese exports to the United States, with the aim to achieve balanced trade, and to steer the bilateral trade between China and the United States to reach US$1 trillion. This will require approximately US$300 billion more trade to be added to the bilateral trade, and will require the US to line up more goods, in good quality and reasonably priced, to sell to the largest market in the world. President Biden may become the US President to open up the US export to China on a zero-tariff basis.
4. Make sure that President Biden will NOT be the first US incumbent President since President Ronald Reagan not to visit China in office. The tradition and the record that every incumbent US President since President Ronald Reagan has made state-visit to China while in office should be protected and maintained. The Biden-Xi summit meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco, important as it will be as an important milestone indeed, should not replace the exchange of full-fledged, full-scaled, all-comprehensive state visits between China and the United States, which will be more befitting to China and the US, the two largest economies and the two most impactful countries in in the world. Of course, President Biden’s state visit to China should be reciprocated by a state visit to the United States by the Chinese President Xi in due course.
5. After all the giant pandas and their puppies in the US have been sent back to China recently, more giant pandas should make their ways to the United States. After all, the giant pandas, being universally adored and loved, have no reasons to be absent from the United States for too long. Let us bring the pandas back to the United States.
6. Student-exchanges between China and the United States should be encouraged. China wants to welcome more American students to study in China, and the American universities will be delighted to have more Chinese students on their campuses. Enhancing more student exchanges will be a sure way of cementing the inevitability of peace between China and the United States.
7. Overcome all the difficulties and restore the friendly naval port visits between China and the United States. It is hoped that the Chinese ports in Sanya, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Qingdao, etc., and the American ports in the Guam, Honolulu, San Diego, Norfolk, etc., will become ports of friendship between the two most impactful countries in the world, cementing the inevitability of peace between the two countries.
8. Start the conceptual and substantive cooperation (in contrast to rivalry and confrontation) in AI research and development, in the belief that, if left unattended, AI may become the most dangerous and irreversible threat to the survivability and development of the Homo Sapiens. China and the United States are uniquely positioned to lead the world to take all the necessary preemptive measures against that contingency, before it will be too late.
9. China and the United States cooperate on all major issues and challenges with global, earth-wide, Homo-Sapiens-wide impact and dimensions, including, inter alia, climate change, pandemic-prevention and mitigation, prevention of nuclear wars, prevention and elimination of starvation and abject poverty, energy transformation, digital revolution, energy revolution, etc.
10. China and the United States cooperate together to ban any use of outer space which will be detrimental to and destructive of the survivability and development of the Homo Sapiens.
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12. While the world is holding its breath for the Biden-Xi summit in San Francisco Summit, here in Islamabad I am already lifting my head to look beyond San Francisco for a world embedded in the inevitability of peace between China and the United States.
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14. Victor Z. GAO, Esq.
