The relationship between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, is not in a good place and has not been so for many years. How did things get to this state?
Professor Joseph Liow, Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the Nanyang Technological University, sought to answer this question on Tuesday (Oct 10) in his first of three lectures at the Institute of Policy Studies’ (IPS) 13th IPS-Nathan Lecture Series on “Navigating Uncertainty: Our Region in an Age of Flux”.
In his first lecture, he also explored where the fraught relations between the two world superpowers may be headed towards, and what Singapore can — or should do — in response.
State of play
In 2009, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski proposed that the US and China work together to tackle a laundry list of problems afflicting the world. That proposal quickly morphed into the idea of a G2.
“Fast forward to the present,” said Prof Liow. “We know that the G2 failed to materialise in any substantive way beyond perhaps the Paris Agreement of 2015, or incipient cooperation on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, both of which have been overtaken by events.”
To find out how US and China relations have deteriorated so drastically over the last few years and to anticipate what lies ahead, he proposed five paradigms.
Five paradigms
The first was the power transition theory, which proposes that war is highly likely whenever a rising state of equal power to the dominant state is dissatisfied with the status quo.
That is because the rising power will want to challenge and displace the incumbent, which will not want to cede dominance.
Advocates of this theory suggest that China is approaching the point of equal power with the US, the dominant state, and argue that China has frequently expressed dissatisfaction with the current US-led global order.
But, Prof Liow asked, can China eventually replace the US?
Despite the phenomenal success that China has achieved since the late 1970s, many Chinese public intellectuals think that the country has not yet arrived, he said. He added that assuming China’s economic growth story will continue uninterrupted would be naïve.
China is, in fact, now facing considerable economic duress. The country will recover, Prof Liow said, but that recovery will not be without some tough course corrections.
“While the prospect for hegemonic war between two great powers is high, it is not inevitable,” Prof Liow said. He added that while structural factors are necessary conditions, they are, on their own, insufficient conditions for a great power war.
The second paradigm is the security dilemma, which is the idea that one state’s measures to boost defence tends to cause other states to feel insecure and shore up their own defences, in turn heightening the insecurities of the first state,
In the Asia-Pacific, China’s assertiveness made smaller states in the region feel less secure, leading them to strengthen ties with the US. This has in turn made China feel less secure as Beijing accuses the US of trying to contain it. A similar dynamic is playing out in the Taiwan Strait, Prof Liow added.
Thirdly, nationalism — or issues of identity and ideology — can determine the behaviour of countries beyond military and economic strength.
“One need only look at the ongoing Ukraine War for a reminder,” said Prof Liow.
Today, interactions between US and China have taken on a decidedly ideological flavour as well, with President Joe Biden casting the rivalry as democracy versus autocracy, he added.
Fourth, much of the posturing of the US and China is driven as much by domestic political interests as they are by anything else.
Despite the deep political polarisation in the US, parties on both sides of the aisle are in lockstep on needing to take a hard line on policies surrounding China. In China, the downturn in US-China relations feeds into a nationalistic narrative that casts the US as being dead set on preventing the Chinese Dream from becoming reality, Prof Liow said.
Lastly, at various junctures in history, individuals have been pivotal in setting the tone for US-China relations, from the role of Richard Nixon, Zhou Enlai and Henry Kissinger in the rapprochement of the two countries to Deng Xiaoping’s steering of the country towards economic growth and prosperity.
“Much in the same vein, we have to ask how much of a role did Donald Trump, the iconoclastic former president of the US, or Xi Jinping, the most titled leader in the history of modern China, play in escalating strategic competition?”
China is also going through a period of considerable change, driven by Xi’s sense of mission and purpose, Prof Liow said. “As a princeling, Xi considers himself the legitimate heir of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) “mandate of heaven” established by Mao (Zedong), and as an ideologue he seems very convinced that he knows what is best for his party and his country.”
Singapore’s options
As the US-China power rivalry plays out, Singapore will find itself increasingly squeezed unless the geopolitical climate changes, Prof Liow said.
Given the two countries’ importance to Singapore, the city-state has to maintain good relations with both and avoid casting the US-China competition in binary terms.
“Perhaps what we should also be asking is how do we make them choose us?” he added. As a small country, Singapore will have to prove its value by making itself relevant to their strategic, economic and commercial interests so that neither would want to make Singapore choose sides.
But even as Singapore avoids getting entangled in the US-China rivalry, it must contend with the fact that the US and China pay close attention to where and how smaller states such as Singapore are positioning themselves amid their strategic competition.
Beyond that, it has become harder for Singapore’s leaders and policymakers to convince its own citizens of the country’s foreign policy interests, and they will have to continuously explain and educate the public on this.
Singapore can proclaim that it does not choose sides and will prioritise its national interests, Prof Liow said. “But, as they say, the devil is in the detail.”
The Singapore government, for example, has made its position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine very clear, he said.
“Yet there are still a considerable number of Singaporeans who persist in — in fact, insist on — viewing Singapore’s position on the Ukraine War through US-China lenses even though our opposition to the invasion has nothing to do with our relationship with Washington or Beijing. “
Another example, he said, is “how some citizens understand and process narratives emanating from some external powers that are designed to appeal to diasporic communities.”
Finally, Singapore as a small state will need to exercise agency on the international stage, reinforce ties with regional powers and ASEAN and be proactive to stay ahead of the geopolitical curve, Prof Liow added.
At the heart of the complex US-China dynamics, Prof Liow suggested, were two questions: “For the US, is it prepared to accept that China is a global power, and to accommodate it? And for China, is it prepared to acknowledge the US is and will remain a major player with deep and legitimate interests in the Asia-Pacific region, and to accept it?”
Question and answer
During the Question-and-Answer segment, moderated by Associate Professor Simon Tay, Chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, Prof Liow was asked how the recent conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas will affect US-China relations.
“I think in hindsight, the Americans have realised that they have — for want of a better phrase — dropped the ball a bit on the Middle East,” he replied.
Already, the US has committed to support Ukraine in its war with Russia and continue to be resolute on issues surrounding Taiwan. “Israel, an old ally and old friend, requiring their support — that will complicate things even further.”
“To some extent, the US will have to reconfigure its engagement and deployment of resources,” he said.
Prof Liow was later asked by Assoc Prof Tay what it would take for China to convince the world that it is pursuing a peaceful rise.
“It would be good for the present Chinese leadership to realise where the pain points for others are,” Prof Liow said. “The territorial dispute in the South China Sea, for example, shows that no matter how good relations are, China casts a long shadow over the smaller Southeast Asian nations.”
“That’s what great powers do,” he said. ” Ideally, if they can really invest more effort to think about the impact of what they’re doing, I think it’s, to me, quite an important facet of it.”
Click here to watch the video of lecture I.