UPSC CSE Mains Syllabus: GS-2- Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian
Diaspora.

A slew of recent announcements on China by U.S. President Donald Trump is a clear indication that the competition between the U.S. and China is likely to sharpen in the post-COVID world.

Announcement made:

  1. On May 29, the Trump administration said it would revoke Hong Kong’s special trade status under U.S. law.
  2. The administration also passed an order limiting the entry of certain Chinese graduate students and researcherswho may have ties to the People’s Liberation Army.
  3. The U.S. President has also ordered financial regulators to closely examine Chinese firms listed in U.S. stock markets, and warned those that do not comply with U.S. laws could be delisted.
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US miscalculations – China’s rise:

Chinese preferred to hide its intention through anti-Soviet rhetoric during the Cold War and market principles thereafter — to disguise their real purpose of thwarting U.S. hegemony.

Every Chinese leader from Chairman Mao to President Xi Jinping has been clear that the U.S. represents an existential threat to the continued supremacy of the communist regime.

Leader Mao put it best, when he told high-ranking leaders in November 1959, that the “U.S. is attempting to carry out its aggression and expansion with a much more deceptive tactic… In other words, it wants to keep its order and change our system.” (Memoirs, Chinese leader Bo Yibo).

The collapse of the Soviet Union only reinforced this view and strengthened China’s resolve to resist by creating its own parallel universe.

Chinese Parallel Universe:

  1. Alternate trading system (the Belt and Road Initiative)
  2. A multilateral banking system under its control (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, New Development Bank)
  3. Its own global positioning system (BeiDou); digital payment platforms (WeChat Pay and Alipay); a world-class digital network (Huawei 5G).
  4. Cutting-edge technological processes in sunrise industries; and a modern military force.

 It is doing this under the noses of the Americans and some of it with the financial and technological resources of the West.

Voices of caution have been few and far between:

Political scientist John Mearsheimer, wrote in 2005 that the rise of China would not be peaceful at all. General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Hu Jintao’s had earlier assured the world  about “peaceful rise” of China. 

Clash in the ideological domain:

China viewed through the Trump administration:

The interdependence:

Road ahead:

Source:” The Hindu “.

Possible UPSC CSE Mains Question:

For the past few years the conflict between US and China is rising and it became apparent with COVID-19. Do you think there will a new cold war?  What will its implications on India?