WHILE it comes to China-US rivalry, two opposite themes emerge. China says that this world is big enough for all of us to share its bounties and immense resources without undercutting each other. While the US leadership says that it may be true, the US will determine the rules of sharing, distribution and use of world resources, and anyone found deviating from this path will be punished. Resultantly, the US and its junior partner Europe and countries of Asia-Pacific and Indo- Pacific regions are following multifaceted policies to push back China.
At the forefront of these policies is the de-risking strategy aimed at reducing excessive reliance on China, particularly in supply chains and markets. This involves diversifying supply chains by sourcing from multiple countries, localizing or reshoring manufacturing operations to reduce dependency on Chinese factories, developing alternative markets, investing in technology and innovation to reduce reliance on Chinese technology and fostering collaboration and partnerships with other countries or industry players. On the military front, the US is bullying its partners and allies in the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions to push back against Beijing by forging bilateral and multilateral initiatives and partnerships reflecting the US’ efforts to address challenges posed by China’s assertiveness as part of US policy to encircle China in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond as an overarching China containment policy.
In addition to the existing groups like QUAD and AUSKUS, USA has developed a new alliance with Japan and the Philippines in an attempt to isolate China from its immediate neighbors. The trilateral summit is being held in Washington in the second week of April 2024 has announced joint maritime patrols with the Philippines in the South China Sea, where sovereignty is disputed, and to restructure the US military command in Japan — the biggest upgrade to defence cooperation since the 1960s — to make them more responsive against threats from China. Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) which assumed belligerent posture against China in 2016 was formed by the US with Japan, Australia and India focused on maritime security, infrastructure development, supply chain resilience and to share concerns over China’s increasing assertiveness and influence in the Indo-Pacific region driven by the need to counterbalance China’s rise.
Established in 2021, AUKUS is a significant alliance between the US, Australia, and the UK, primarily aimed at bolstering defense and security cooperation. It focuses on enhancing Australia’s maritime capabilities, notably through the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines. The alliance is currently expanding, with Japan being offered membership. Geopolitically, AUKUS represents a strategic effort to counterbalance China’s influence amidst evolving security challenges in the region. It aims to empower Australia to manufacture nuclear submarines for deployment in the strait between China and Taiwan, serving as a deterrent against potential Chinese actions targeting Taiwan.
Another significant alliance is “Five Eyes,” comprising the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand, focused on intelligence-sharing and border security cooperation, particularly in countering cyber threats and foreign interference. Last Oct, intelligence chiefs from these countries accused China of intellectual property theft and using artificial intelligence for hacking and spying. The US has also established bilateral alliances, including with Japan, where it plans to assist in creating a new Japanese Self Defence Forces (SDF) by March 2025, overseeing all military operations to counter China. Similarly, strategic partnerships with India aim to deepen defense and security cooperation, enhance economic ties, and address regional and global challenges, particularly those posed by China.
During her visit to China in April 2024, the US Treasury Secretary made demands that lacked economic or financial sense. She urged China to slow down its industrial growth to match the sluggishness of US industries, seeking balanced economic growth. However, this balance, as per the US, meant reducing production capacity for clean energy technologies like electric vehicles (EVs), lithium batteries, and solar panels, which threaten US and other firms. Additionally, she warned against China providing military aid or dual-purpose civilian technology. These demands align with President Biden’s warnings to China to cease aiding Russia’s military industry and Secretary Blinken’s recent accusations of China’s substantial support to Russia, including rocket propellant exports. Recently, the US started using credit rating agencies such as Fitch and Moody’s to discredit China’s credit ratings to negative citing risks to public finances. The ratings based upon self-serving data were rebutted by China arguing that there was no change in financial and economic outlook of China compared to last year, therefore reducing credit ratings had no justification whatsoever.
This multifaceted encircling of China is meant to suffocate China militarily by building aggressive alliances in the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions, using existing agreements to empower the US to intervene against military threats, especially in South China Sea, Strait of Taiwan, Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions. On foreign policy front, the USA wants to control China’s bilateral relations with other countries of the world, especially with those countries which do not enjoy friendly disposition with the USA. While on the economic front it wants to control China’s industrial strategy by forcing it to reduce the speed of industrial growth to match the sluggish US industrial production. On the financial front it is using sovereign credit rating agencies to discredit China’s financial outlook.
These confrontations are akin to the Cold War era involving intense geopolitical competition between major powers for influence and dominance in strategic regions, and like the cold war era US is building and strengthening alliances and partnerships with like-minded countries to counterbalance the influence and actions of China. But this time around, the US is not confronted with Ideological warfare, less territorial but more of industrial warfare, knowing very well that unlike the USSR, it’s fighting a war which it is losing very fast. Soon the US will realize the best option for the US in not to impose tariffs on Chinese products, but to improve the efficiency and productivity of its sluggish industrial sectors, otherwise, it will lose its innovative and creative edge on the world market paving the way for Chinese dominance in these fields which were earlier only US-specific.
—The writer is a Press Secretary to the President (Retd), Former Press Minister at Embassy of Pakistan to France Former MD, SRBC.
