China-US relations what is the way forward?

By Gerald Mbanda

The recent meeting and talks between Chinese vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng and the Deputy U.S. Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in the city of Tianjin did not give any hope that tensions between the two countries are to be solved any time soon. In short,  one can say that the two top diplomats ‘agreed to disagree,’on the way forward towards normalizing relations between US and China. The meeting was expected to set the stage for a possible high level meeting between president Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in October on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Italy.

During the meeting, the US vice Foreign Minister Wendy Sherman is reported to have raised a range of actions by China considered to run counter to the values and interests of the US, its allies and partners, which undermine the international rule-based order. On the side of China, Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng is reported to have stressed that US should stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, perceiving China as an enemy, urging the United States to change its highly misguided mindset and dangerous policy towards China.

China is not alone with concerns of US trying to impose its “values” and interference in internal affairs of other countries. This is the way the US for a long time has related with other countries in the world that do not subscribe to their political and capitalism system of government. In Africa one can pull out one example where in 1960 soon after the independence of Congo, Patrice Lumumba who was the first Prime Minister and an African nationalist and pan-Africanist, was assassinated after the CIA branded him a communist.

 On May 5, 2017, a British newspaper The Guardian published a story describing how the CIA has a long history of killing leaders around the world since 1945, but was forced to cut back after a senate investigation in 1970s. When US accuses China of human rights violations, with such history in its backyard tells the world a different story than being the “global role model of human rights.” When the US talks about undermining international rule based order, personal reflection can be a great lesson.

 The US invasion of Iraq in 2003, was neither in self-defense against armed attack nor sanctioned by UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force by member states and thus constituted the crime of war of aggression, according to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva. In Sept. 2004, the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan declared the Iraq invasion illegal and a breach of the UN charter. Although US had claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, an investigation by UN inspectors and US military personnel found none. The US has for long acted with impunity undermining the international rule-based order. The reason why the US is not held accountable shows the weakness in the UN system and need for reform.

 The US imposing its own ‘values’ on other countries therefore, means that such countries should surrender their own values and accept what the US wants! The US wants the world to forcefully accept that they have the ‘best global model of everything’ and the whole world should follow and if they don’t, then they become America’s enemies.   History shows us that the superiority relationship of US with other countries has not worked in the past; it is not working in the present, and will fail miserably in future. Yes, it may have worked for the US to a limited extent by coercion   as a superpower and richest economy in the world. Sanctions and travel restrictions have less meaning and impact today than in the past when the US wielded the status of the only global power house.

Political analysts observe that, it’s ironical to hear US tabling issues of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang as their legitimate concerns knowing well that these are sovereign territories of China! Can China also table issues relating to US of racial discrimination, gun violence and failure in COVID-19 management as China’s legitimate concerns?  Every country has its own challenges and at liberty to devise means considered appropriate to overcome them. In the August 17, 1982, US- China Communique, US affirmed its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan as consistent with the “one China policy.” Similarly Hong Kong is a territory of China over which US cannot claim concerns of “protecting its allies.”

I had an opportunity to visit China and travelled to different regions. In Xinjiang Province the issue of dealing with terrorism challenges has a human touch. Vocational Education and Training Centers are a counter terrorism strategy which not only increased job opportunities and fought poverty but also turned suspects and potential terrorist into better productive citizens. To the contrary, terrorists or terror suspects in the US are either killed or held in secret prisons under torture in places like   Guantanamo bay, Florence ADX and other secret prisons in foreign countries.

Again the US ban on import of cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang region over claims of forced labour exposed the dishonesty and double standards of US. Assuming that the forced labour claim is true, (although it is not), historians reminded how the US economy was built on slave forced labour and yet nothing was ever rejected in the US supply chain as a product of illicit means of production!

Times have changed. US hegemony and acting as a bully to weak nations, “might is right” is neither rule neither based nor backed by international order.  Even the weak nations have their own values, culture and civilization that must be respected. The prevailing global challenges like COVID-19 and climate change have shown that the superpowers, developing, weak and poor nations are all affected in equal measure. Secondly, there is no country that can be able to overcome these challenges alone without global cooperation.

 China and US as the leading world economies have more to gain by engaging as equal partners and the relationship must be based on the principle of mutual respect and cooperation for common interests and peaceful coexistence.  The world is watching.

Gerald Mbanda is a Researcher and publisher on China and Africa.  

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