Fu Ying, the former chair of the National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee and now the head of an institute at Tsinghua University, penned a lengthy and very sobering article (13,000 characters) regarding the situation facing China with the intense anti-China drumbeat coming out of the U.S. While she hopes that reason will prevail in the U.S. and that a complete decoupling will not occur, she — and Chinese leaders — are preparing for more to come. Fu says there is no indication that the outcome of the U.S. elections will make any difference, in particular, as she fears that the elections look like they will be centered around anti-China rhetoric.
She notes that the COVID epidemic, which she compares with 911 and the 2008 financial crisis, has been a major game-changer in the international situation, and has served to exacerbate the tendencies in the U.S. toward greater unilateralism. What is China to do in that kind of situation? she asks. Continue to establish good working relationships with the rest of the world, stand fast in promoting cooperation rather than competition, and promote multilateralism rather than
go-it-alone solutions.
As the U.S. retreats from international cooperation, China should move forward in utilizing those cooperative mechanisms that have already been established in dealing with major issues facing mankind, like climate change or COVID, she writes. China must also do more to explain itself to the world. “In short, China has grown from a weak country to a big country with stronger power and certain international influence,” Fu writes.
“It has entered a period when it needs to operate internal affairs and diplomacy on the basis of new power and a broader platform of interests. The handling of relationships also needs to reflect and adapt to this change,” she writes. Referring to Graham Allison’s search for “a U.S. strategy to meet the challenges of China” short of military conflict, , Fu also indicates the need for China to develop “a grand strategy to meet the challenges of the United States. “http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2020/06-17/9214499.shtml
