Author: Hu Yong
The just -concluded APEC summit is rarely passed through the leadership declaration. The reason is nothing more than the difference between the two strongs and the strong between China and the United States.Although Chinese leaders and Pence did not hold a formal meeting, and the two tried to avoid direct names in their respective speeches, the slowdown audience could notice the smell of gunpowder in the air.In particular, Pence continued to play the role of hardliners against China, almost everywhere in Beijing during the Asia -Pacific trip.
According to the logic of the American eagle, China is now the second largest economy in the world after the United States. For the time of fake, China's economic aggregate will definitely surpass the United States.At the same time, in the fields of science and technology, military and other fields, China is also catching up. In order to keep the United States global hegemony, Washington must fully block Beijing and remind other countries to prevent China's ambitions.
Professor Becley, a professor at the University of Tofz, wrote in the magazine of foreign affairs in September this year, explaining in detail why Beijing threatened the US hegemony.In his opinion, the United States and China, which made some Americans suffer all day long in economic volume (GDP), can actually not truly reflect wealth and strength.Therefore, Barkley emphasized that the true source of power of a country should be the net resources after deducting costs.These costs include production costs, welfare costs, safety costs, etc.To this end, the World Bank and the United Nations have estimated the net resources of various countries, involving production capital (infrastructure and other artificial arts), human capital (education, technology, etc.), natural capital (water, energy, available land, etc.)EssenceAlthough the calculation standards and data sources of different institutions are different, the results are amazingly similar: the net resources owned by the United States are several times more than China, and its leading advantage is still expanding year by year.
As early as 2016, Brooks and Wolfs, the Dartmouth College in the United States, explained a similar point of view.They pointed out that compared to Nazi Germany, militarism Japan, and the Soviet Union, the United States' past rivals, now China's threat to the United States is mainly economical, but the large economic amount alone is not enough to make China the second after the United States after the United States.Super powers, let alone China's technology and military achievements, are far from the United States' uniqueness.
In addition to the gap between hard power, the soft power of China and the United States cannot be equivalent.Harvard professor of Harvard University, who is known as the father of soft power, has analyzed this long ago.The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman not long ago warned the United States to lag behind China in the fields of artificial intelligence, and did not forget to encourage Americans not to lose confidence, because the United States has obvious advantages in China in the following three aspects.First, the United States is still the first choice for talents in the world; second, the values of the United States are still strongly attractive globally; third, there are still many allies in the United States.
The above -mentioned American scholars have suggested that the United States should be more confident and calm when facing China's competition, and do not respond too much.Brooks also played an interesting analogy. As a major country with a mature and city government, the United States may wish to treat China like a teenager's restlessness, and don't make things more arguing with it.After all, a powerful and confident United States is conducive to stabilizing Sino -US relations.
(The author is a visiting scholar at Georgetown University in the United States)
