美国无法阻止中国 America Can't Stop China\'s Rise

美国无法阻止中国的崛起

2023 年 9 月 16 日 作者：Kishore Mahbubani

https://mahbubani.net/america-cant-stop-chinas-rise/

毫无疑问，美国政府已决定减缓中国的经济崛起，尤其是在技术发展领域。 可以肯定的是，拜登政府否认这些是其目标。 珍妮特·耶伦2023年4月20日表示，“中国的经济增长不一定与美国的经济领导地位不相容。 美国仍然是世界上最具活力和繁荣的经济体。 我们没有理由担心与任何国家进行健康的经济竞争。” 杰克·沙利文 (Jake Sullivan) 于 2023 年 4 月 27 日表示，“我们的出口管制将继续集中于可能倾斜军事平衡的技术。 我们只是确保美国和盟国的技术不会被用来对付我们。”

然而，拜登政府在其行动中表明，其愿景超出了这些适度的目标。 它并没有扭转特朗普在 2018 年对中国征收的贸易关税——尽管总统候选人拜登在 2019 年 7 月批评了这些关税，并表示：“特朗普总统可能认为他对中国采取了强硬态度。 他所带来的结果是美国农民、制造商和消费者遭受损失并付出更多代价。” 相反，拜登政府试图通过禁止芯片、半导体设备和特定软件的出口来加大对中国的压力。 它还说服荷兰和日本等盟友效仿。 最近，2023 年 8 月 9 日，拜登政府发布行政命令，禁止美国在中国投资涉及“半导体和微电子、量子信息技术和人工智能领域的敏感技术和产品”，这些技术和产品“对国家安全构成特别严重的威胁”。 威胁，因为它们有可能显着提升中国的军事、情报、监视或网络能力”。

所有这些行为都证实了美国政府正在试图阻止中国的增长。 然而，最大的问题是美国能否在这场竞选中取得成功——答案可能不会。 幸运的是，美国现在调整其对华政策以更好地为美国人和世界其他国家服务还为时不晚。

美国减缓中国技术发展的决定类似于那句老话所揭示的愚蠢之举：马跑后关门。 现代中国已经多次表明，中国的科技发展无法停止。

自 1949 年中华人民共和国成立以来，中国采取了多项措施来限制中国获得或阻止其发展各种关键技术，包括核武器、太空、卫星通信、全球定位系统、半导体、超级计算机和人工智能。 美国还试图遏制中国在5G、商用无人机和电动汽车等领域的市场主导地位。 纵观历史，遏制中国技术崛起的单边或域外执法努力都失败了，而且在当前背景下，正在对美国长期的地缘政治伙伴关系造成不可弥补的损害。 1993年，克林顿政府试图限制中国获得卫星技术。 如今，中国在太空中拥有 541 颗卫星，并正在发射星链的竞争对手。

GPS 也遵循同样的原理。 1999年，当美国限制中国访问其地理空间数据系统时，中国简单地建立了自己的并行北斗全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）系统，这是第一波重大技术脱钩的浪潮之一。 在某些方面，北斗如今比 GPS 更好。 它是世界上最大的 GNSS，拥有 45 颗卫星，而 GPS 则有 31 颗，因此能够在全球大多数首都提供更多信号。 它由 120 个地面站支持，精度更高，并具有更先进的信号功能，例如双向消息传递。 其他国家此前也曾尝试阻止中国的技术崛起，但均以失败告终。 在20世纪50年代和1960年代，当苏联向中国扣留核武器技术时，中国在1960年代初启动了自己的“曼哈顿计划”，并于1964年成功试验了第一枚核武器。俄罗斯对中国的核影响力在那一天结束。

拜登政府对中国采取的许多措施也是在没有考虑到中国的报复能力的情况下执行的。 尽管中国并未实际建造美国技术堆栈中许多真正不可替代的组成部分，但他们敏锐地意识到其原材料投入（稀土）和需求（创收）在推动美国创新生态系统方面的重要性，并且现在将其用作 杠杆作用。 在当前针锋相对的动态中，中国将开始挤压价值链的这两个关键端，以应对美国的技术和资本出口限制。

中国7月禁止镓和锗出口只是一个开枪，旨在提醒美国（及其盟友）中国在稀土和关键金属领域的主导地位。 该国在镁、铋、钨、石墨、硅、钒、萤石、碲、铟、锑、重晶石、锌和锡的加工方面几乎处于垄断地位。 中国还在锂、钴、镍和铜等美国当前和未来技术愿望所必需的材料的中游加工方面占据主导地位，这些材料对于全球快速发展的电动汽车行业至关重要。

虽然美国和其他中立国家拥有许多此类材料的矿产储备，但如果认为可以简单地打开生产开关，那就太天真了。 仅建设必要的开采和加工基础设施就至少需要 3 至 5 年的时间。 更不用说招募和培训熟练劳动力，或获得此类活动所需的运营和环境许可。 两者都可能被证明是不可能的。 稀土加工是一种剧毒且破坏环境的活动。 不太可能获得此类批准。 如果亚利桑那州正在努力为其台积电工厂寻找合格的工人，并解决国内工会反对进口外国熟练劳动力的问题，那么美国就不太可能发展类似的材料加工能力。 在此过程中，中国在如何分配其加工材料方面扮演着王者的角色，可能会限制对美国技术和国防巨头的供应。 没有考虑到中国的报复能力，表明美国没有一个经过深思熟虑、全面的应对中国的方法。

可能更具灾难性的是，美国剥夺中国获得最先进芯片的措施可能对美国大型芯片制造公司的损害超过对中国的损害。 中国是全球最大的半导体消费国。 过去十年，中国从美国公司进口大量芯片。 根据美国商会的数据，2019年中国企业从美国企业进口了价值705亿美元的半导体，约占这些企业全球销售额的37%。 Qorvo、德州仪器和博通等一些美国公司约一半的收入来自中国。 高通60%的收入、英特尔四分之一的收入以及英伟达五分之一的销售额都来自中国市场。 难怪这三家公司的首席执行官最近前往华盛顿警告称，出口管制可能会损害美国的行业领导地位。 美国公司也将受到中国报复行动的伤害，例如中国于 2023 年 5 月禁止美国美光科技公司生产芯片。 中国占美光销售额的 25% 以上。

对中国的销售产生的巨额收入盈余被投入研发工作，从而使美国芯片公司保持领先地位。 美国商会估计，如果美国完全禁止对华半导体销售，美国企业将损失830亿美元的年收入，并不得不裁员12.4万人。 他们还必须削减至少120亿美元的年度研发预算，以及130亿美元的资本支出。 从长远来看，这将使他们更难以在全球范围内保持竞争力。 美国半导体公司痛苦地意识到，美国在芯片领域针对中国的行动对他们利益的损害将大于对中国利益的损害。 美国半导体行业协会（SIA）于 2023 年 7 月 17 日发表声明称，华盛顿一再采取的措施“实施过于广泛、模糊且有时是单方面的限制，可能会削弱美国半导体行业的竞争力，扰乱供应链，造成重大的市场不确定性” ，并促使中国继续升级报复”，并呼吁拜登政府在没有与半导体行业代表和专家进行更广泛接触的情况下不要实施进一步的限制。

《芯片法案》无法无限期地补贴美国半导体行业，而且全球不存在其他需求基础可以取代中国。 其他芯片生产国将不可避免地打破常规并向中国出售产品（正如它们历史上所做的那样），而美国的行动将毫无意义。 而且，通过禁止向中国出口芯片和其他核心投入，美国在战争爆发前几年就将战争计划交给了中国。 中国正在被敦促比其他情况更早地实现自给自足。 在中兴和华为零部件禁令之前，中国满足于继续购买美国芯片并专注于前端硬件。 ASML首席执行官Peter Wennick表示，中国在半导体的关键应用和需求方面已经处于领先地位。

温尼克写道：“电信基础设施、电池技术的推出，是中关键和成熟半导体的最佳点，而中国毫无例外地在这方面处于领先地位。”

美国短视的保护主义政策唤醒了沉睡的巨人。 美国现在面临着关键收入损失的短期威胁，而这些收入推动了使其成为创新领导者的研发，而从长远来看，中国将不可避免地建立自己的全面半导体生态系统。 尽管美国对该公司实施严厉制裁，华为仍能推出采用国产5G芯片和操作系统的新型智能手机Mate 60 Pro，这表明美国在试图阻止中国技术增长和发展方面的政策是多么不明智。

由于美国不太可能阻止中国的技术增长和发展（事实上，也不太可能阻止中国成为同等的全球大国），因此有一种更开明的接触方式。 伊索寓言“北风和太阳”最能说明这一点。 故事中，北风刮得很猛，却没能吹走旅人的斗篷。 相反，是温暖的阳光说服旅行者脱掉斗篷。

美国决策者现在普遍认为，美国长达五年的对华接触政策已经失败。 正如库尔特·坎贝尔和伊利·拉特纳在《外交事务》文章中坦率指出的那样，“自尼克松迈出第一步走向和解以来近半个世纪，记录越来越清楚地表明，华盛顿再次过于相信自己塑造中国发展轨迹的力量。 [……]中国反而走自己的路，在这个过程中辜负了美国的一系列期望。”

当然，如果接触政策的目的是改变中国的内部治理体系，那么它已经失败了。 然而，如果这是目标，那么对于一个拥有 250 年历史的共和国（占中国人口的四分之一）来说，相信自己可以按照自己的喜好改变一个 4000 年历史的文明，那就是一种非常傲慢的行为。 然而，如果美国政策的目标是鼓励中国成为“负责任的利益相关者”（用鲍勃·佐利克的话说），那么这项政策很可能会成功。 美国外交政策全国委员会、美国公谊服务委员会和四位独立研究人员进行的一项综合研究表明，中国的行为因各种接触政策而改变，特别是在减少气候变化、改善公共卫生和 全球金融稳定。 前国务院官员苏珊·桑顿（Susan Thornton）作为NCAFP亚太安全论坛主任负责监督这项研究，她表示：“对美中外交的这次审查表明，我们可以通过谈判取得进展，而中国也履行了自己的承诺 。 认为与中国接触对美国没有好处的观点是不准确的。” 确实，历史记录表明，《北风与太阳》的寓意中蕴藏着智慧：“温和善劝胜，武力威吓失败。”

一个根本问题是，美国的国内政治迫使美国决策者对中国采取强硬立场，而不是采取务实立场。 例如，阻止中国国防部长李尚福访问美国的制裁阻碍了中美防务对话，以防止军事事故的发生。 然而，美国政府却束手无策。 它无法解除制裁，即使事实证明这些制裁对于实现美国的政策目标无效。

这就是为什么美国现在应该对其用于实现外交政策目标的方法进行重大重新评估。 它实施制裁的首选策略既未能阻止中国的技术发展，也未能以任何重大方式影响中国的行为 — — 而且大多数国家发现，与其配合并不符合自己的利益。 除了制裁之外还有更有效的替代方案吗？

安东尼·布林肯 (Anthony Blinken) 2022 年 5 月在一份解释拜登政府对华政策的声明中表示：“我们将满怀信心地竞争； 我们将尽我们所能进行合作； 我们将在必须的地方进行竞争。” 我们同意这种做法。 美国不应该损害自身利益并强化地缘政治和经济竞争对手，而应该实行更加开明的技术政策。 重点必须放在可持续支持和扩大美国创新领导地位的举措上，同时通过手术消除特定的国家安全威胁。

可持续的合作结构取代中美技术竞争的零和框架，对两国和人类都有利。 如果没有中国的参与，大多数西方减排目标就无法实现，中国拥有太阳能、风能和电池动力的许多专利和核心投入。

联合研究项目、临床试验和数据集对于解决癌症等慢性全球健康问题至关重要。 脱钩的技术生态系统不仅阻碍进步，而且还会因并行发展和单边监管而产生其他普遍风险。 人们立即想到的是人工智能或核能等潜在世界末日技术的不受限制的增长。 继续欢迎中国科技人才到美国学习、工作和定居，也有利于两国科技进步。 这些科学家可以充当中美科学合作的桥梁。

美国政府还应该考虑全面重启由布什政府发起、由奥巴马政府继续、由特朗普政府结束的所有高层对话。 恢复高层对话，并建立汇聚两国顶尖科学家的高级别科技对话，很可能为美国的长期国家利益带来更积极的成果。

最初，这种大国合作可以集中在双方具有共同长期利益的领域（如气候变化、流行病防范、全球经济稳定、教育）。 当基本信任建立起来后，对话与合作就可以逐步扩大。 这些举措都不会导致美国实力和世界地位的削弱。 事实上，当世界其他国家看到美国奉行符合美国和全球利益的合理政策时，美国的威望和地位很可能会上升。 如果美国在与中国的关系中采取更明智的做法，它仍将是世界上最受尊敬的国家。

*

陈东尼 (Tony Chan) 是阿卜杜拉国王科技大学校长。

本·哈伯格 (Ben Harburg) 是全球投资公司 MSA Capital 的管理合伙人，也是美中关系全国委员会的董事会成员。

Kishore Mahbubani 是新加坡国立大学亚洲研究所的杰出研究员，也是《21 世纪的亚洲》一书的作者，这是一本开放获取书籍，下载量已超过 325 万次。 他也是《中国赢了吗？》一书的作者。

资料来源：美国无法阻止中国的崛起——亚洲研究所

America Can't Stop China's Rise

Sep 16, 2023 By Kishore Mahbubani

https://mahbubani.net/america-cant-stop-chinas-rise/

There's little doubt that the American government has decided to slow China’s economic rise, most notably in the fields of technological development. To be sure, the Biden administration denies that these are its goals. Janet Yellen said on April 20, 2023, “China’s economic growth need not be incompatible with U.S. economic leadership. The United States remains the most dynamic and prosperous economy in the world. We have no reason to fear healthy economic competition with any country.” And Jake Sullivan said on April 27, 2023, “Our export controls will remain narrowly focused on technology that could tilt the military balance. We are simply ensuring that U.S. and allied technology is not used against us.”

Yet, in its deeds, the Biden administration has shown that its vision extend beyond those modest goals. It has not reversed the trade tariffs Trump imposed in 2018 on China – even though Presidential candidate Biden criticised them in July 2019, saying: “President Trump may think he’s being tough on China. All that he’s delivered as a consequence of that is American farmers, manufacturers and consumers losing and paying more.” Instead, the Biden administration has tried to increase the pressure on China by banning the export of chips, semiconductor equipment, and selected software. It has also persuaded its allies, like the Netherlands and Japan, to follow suit. More recently, on August 9, 2023, the Biden administration issued an executive order prohibiting American investments in China involving “sensitive technologies and products in the semiconductors and microelectronics, quantum information technologies, and artificial intelligence sectors” which “pose a particularly acute national security threat because of their potential to significantly advance the military, intelligence, surveillance, or cyber-enabled capabilities” of China.

All these actions confirm that the American government is trying to stop China’s growth. Yet, the big question is whether America can succeed in this campaign—and the answer is probably not. Fortunately, it is not too late for the United States to reorient its China policy toward an approach that would better serve Americans—and the rest of the world.

America’s decision to slow China’s technological development is akin to the folly revealed by the old cliché: closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. Modern China has shown many times that China’s technological development can’t be halted.

Since the creation of the PRC in 1949, several efforts have been made to limit China’s access to or stop its development in various critical technologies, including nuclear weapons, space, satellite communication, GPS, semiconductors, supercomputers, and artificial intelligence. The US has also tried to curb China’s market dominance in 5G, commercial drones, and electric vehicles. Throughout history, unilateral or extraterritorial enforcement efforts to curtail China’s technological rise have failed and, in the current context, are creating irreparable damage to long-standing US geopolitical partnerships. In 1993 the Clinton Administration tried to restrict China’s access to satellite technology. Today, China has 541 satellites in space and is launching a competitor to Starlink.

The same principle played out with GPS. When America restricted China’s access to its geospatial data system in 1999, China simply built its own parallel BeiDou Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) system in one of the first waves of major technological decoupling. In some measures, BeiDou is today better than GPS. It is the largest GNSS in the world, with 45 satellites to GPS’s 31, and is thus able to provide more signals in most global capitals. It is supported by 120 ground stations, resulting in greater accuracy, and has more advanced signal features such as two-way messaging. Other nations have also previously tried and failed to block China’s technical rise. In the 1950s and 1960s, when the USSR withheld nuclear weapons technology from China, China launched its own ‘Manhattan Project’ in the early 1960s and succeeded in testing its first nuclear weapon by 1964. Russian nuclear leverage over China ended that day.

Many of the measures taken by the Biden administration against China were also executed without factoring in China’s capacity to retaliate. While China does not physically construct many truly irreplaceable components of the American tech stack, they are keenly aware of the importance of their raw materials inputs (rare earths) and demand (revenue generation) in fuelling the American innovation ecosystem and are now using them as leverage. In the current tit-for-tat dynamic, China will start squeezing these two critical ends of the value chain in response to American technology and capital export restrictions. China’s July ban of the gallium and germanium exports was merely an opening shot across the bow to remind America (and its aligned allies) of China’s dominance in the rare earths and critical metals space. The country has a near monopoly in the processing of magnesium, bismuth, tungsten, graphite, silicon, vanadium, fluorspar, tellurium, indium, antimony, barite, zinc, and tin. China also dominates in midstream processing for materials essential to most of America’s current and future technology aspirations such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and copper, which are critical for the rapidly developing EV industry globally.

While America and other neutral countries have mineral reserves of many of these materials, it would be naïve to believe that one can simply flip a switch on production. It will take at least 3 to 5 years just to build the requisite extraction and processing infrastructure. This is to say nothing for recruiting and training skilled labour, or receiving requisite operational and environmental permits for such activities. Both could prove impossible. The processing of rare earths is a highly toxic and environmentally destructive endeavour. It’s unlikely such approvals will be granted. If Arizona is struggling to find qualified workers for its TSMC Fab, and to address domestic union opposition to importing foreign skilled labour, it’s unlikely that America can develop similar capabilities for material processing. Along the way, China gets to play kingmaker in how it doles out access to its processed materials, likely restricting supply to American technology and defence giants. The failure to factor in China’s retaliatory capacities indicates that the US doesn’t have a well-thought-out and comprehensive approach to dealing with China.

Potentially even more disastrously, American measures to deprive China access to the most advanced chips could damage America’s large chip-making companies more than it hurts China. China is the largest consumer of semiconductors in the world. Over the past ten years, China has been importing massive amounts of chips from American companies. According to the US Chamber of Commerce, China-based firms imported US$70.5 billion worth of semiconductors from American firms in 2019, representing approximately 37% of these companies’ global sales. Some American companies, like Qorvo, Texas Instruments, and Broadcom, derive about half of their revenues from China. 60% of Qualcomm’s revenues, a quarter of Intel’s revenues, and a fifth of Nvidia’s sales are from the Chinese market. It’s no wonder that the CEOs of these three companies recently went to Washington to warn that US industry leadership could be harmed by the export controls. American firms will also be hurt by retaliatory actions from China, such as China’s May 2023 ban on chips from US-based Micron Technology. China accounts for over 25% of Micron’s sales.

The massive revenue surpluses generated by these sales to China were ploughed into R&D efforts which, in turn, kept American chip companies ahead of the game. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that if the US were to ban semiconductor sales to China completely, US companies would lose US$83 billion in annual revenues and would have to cut 124,000 jobs. They would also have to cut their annual R&D budgets by at least US$12 billion, and their capital spending by US$13 billion. This would make it even more difficult for them to remain competitive on the global scale in the long run. American semiconductor firms are painfully aware that US actions against China in the chips arena will harm their interests more than Chinese interests. The US Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) released a statement on July 17, 2023 saying that Washington’s repeated steps “to impose overly broad, ambiguous, and at times unilateral restrictions risk diminishing the U.S. semiconductor industry’s competitiveness, disrupting supply chains, causing significant market uncertainty, and prompting continued escalatory retaliation by China”, and called on the Biden administration not to implement further restrictions without more extensive engagement with semiconductor industry representatives and experts.

The Chips Act cannot subsidise the American semiconductor industry indefinitely, and there is no other global demand base to replace China. Other chip producing nations will inevitably break ranks and sell to China (as they have historically) and the American actions will be for naught. And, in banning the export of chips and other core inputs to China, America handed China its war plan years ahead of the battle. China is being goaded into building self-sufficiency far earlier than they would have otherwise. Prior to the ZTE and Huawei components bans, China was content to continue purchasing American chips and focusing on the front-end hardware. Peter Wennick, CEO of ASML, states that China is already leading in key applications and demand for semiconductors. Wennick writes, “The roll-out of the telecommunication infrastructure, battery technology, that’s the sweet spot of mid-critical and mature semiconductors, and that’s where China without any exception is leading.”

A sleeping giant was awoken by short-sighted American protectionist policies. America now faces the short-term threat of loss of critical revenue that fuelled the R&D that made it an innovation leader and the long-term inevitability that China will build its own full scale semiconductor ecosystem. The ability of Huawei to launch the Mate 60 Pro, a new smartphone powered by a domestically produced 5G chip and operating system, despite severe American sanctions on the firm illustrates how unwise American policies have been in trying to stop China’s technological growth and development.

Since America is unlikely to stop China’s technological growth and development (and, indeed, is unlikely to stop China’s emergence as a peer global power), there is a more enlightened approach to engagement. It is best illustrated by Aesop’s fable, “The North Wind and the Sun”. In the story, the North Wind blows hard and fails to remove the traveller’s cloak. It is, rather, the warm rays of the sun persuade the traveller to remove his cloak.

It’s now widely held among American policymakers that America’s five-decade-long policy of engagement with China has failed. As Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner candidly state in their Foreign Affairs article, “Nearly half a century since Nixon’s first steps toward rapprochement, the record is increasingly clear that Washington once again put too much faith in its power to shape China’s trajectory. […] China has instead pursued its own course, belying a range of American expectations in the process.”

Certainly, if the policy of engagement was intended to transform China’s internal system of governance, it has failed. Yet, if this was the goal, it was an act of remarkable hubris for a 250-year-old Republic (with one quarter of China’s population) to believe that it could transform a 4,000-year-old civilisation to its liking. However, if the goal of American policy was to encourage the emergence of China as a “responsible stakeholder” (to use the words of Bob Zoellick), the policy may well have succeeded. A comprehensive study done by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, the American Friends Service Committee, and four independent researchers has documented that China’s behaviour was altered by various policies of engagement, particularly as it pertains to reducing climate change, improving public health, and global financial stability. Former State Department official Susan Thornton, who oversaw the study as Director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at NCAFP, said: “This audit of US-China diplomacy shows that we can make progress through negotiations and that China follows through on its commitments. The notion that engagement with China did not benefit the US is just not accurate.” Indeed, the record shows that there is wisdom contained in the moral of “The North Wind and the Sun”: “Gentleness and kind persuasion win where force and bluster fail.”

One fundamental problem is that domestic politics in America are forcing American policymakers to take strident stands against China instead of pragmatic positions. For instance, sanctions preventing the Chinese Defence Minister, Li Shangfu, from travelling to the US are standing in the way of US-China defence dialogues to prevent military accidents. Yet, the hands of the US government are tied. It cannot lift sanctions, even if they have proved to be ineffective at securing American policy goals.

This is why the time has come for America to do a major re-evaluation of the methods it uses to secure foreign policy goals. Its go-to tactic of imposing sanctions has failed to either halt China’s technological development or influence China’s behaviour in any significant way – and most countries do not find that it is in their interests to go along with them. Are there more effective alternatives to sanctions?

In a statement explaining the Biden administration’s approach to China, Anthony Blinken said in May 2022: “we’ll compete with confidence; we’ll cooperate wherever we can; we’ll contest where we must.” We agree with this approach. Rather than undermining its own interests and fortifying a geopolitical and economic competitor, America should practice a more enlightened technology policy. The focus must be placed on initiatives that sustainably support and extend America’s innovation leadership, while surgically removing specific national security threats.

In lieu of a zero-sum framing of the US-China technology competition, a sustainable structure for collaboration is beneficial to both countries and humanity. Most Western emissions reductions targets cannot be met without participation from China, who hold many of the patents and core inputs for solar, wind and electric battery power. Joint research programs, clinical trials and data sets are critical for solving chronic global health issues like cancer. Decoupled technology ecosystems not only retard advancement, but also create other endemic risks resulting from parallel development and unilateral regulation. Unchecked growth in potential doomsday technologies like AI or nuclear immediately comes to mind. Continuing to welcome scientific talent from China to study, work and settle down in the United States is beneficial for the scientific progress of both countries as well. These scientists can act as a bridge towards scientific collaboration between the United States and China.

The American government should also consider rebooting in full all the high-level dialogues that had been initiated by the Bush administration, continued by the Obama administration, and ended by the Trump administration. A resumption of high-level dialogues, together with the establishment of a high-level science and technology dialogue bringing together the top scientists from both countries, could well result in more positive outcomes for American long-term national interests.

Initially, this great power collaboration could be focused on areas where both sides have common long-term interests (like climate change, pandemic preparedness, global economic stability, education). When basic levels of trust are established, dialogue and cooperation can be expanded step by step. None of these moves will result in a diminution of American power and standing in the world. Indeed, America’s prestige and standing could well rise as the rest of the world sees America pursuing reasonable policies that are serving both American and global interests. America will remain the most admired country in the world, if it pursues a wiser course with China.

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Tony Chan is the President of the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology.

Ben Harburg is a Managing Partner at global investment firm MSA Capital and a member of the Board of Directors of the National Committee on United States China Relations.

Kishore Mahbubani, a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, NUS, is the author of The Asian 21st Century, an open access book which has been downloaded over 3.25 million times. He is also the author of Has China Won?

Source: America Can’t Stop China’s Rise – The Asia Research Institute