Chen Wenling: Understanding the past and future of the United States

A Speech delivered by CCIEE Chief Economist Chen Wenlin at the forum on “China-U.S. Relations”

Chen Wenling: Minister Yu Hongjun made a great talk and I would like to make three points on the China-U.S. relations.

We must understand the United States. China and the United States are not enemies but respectable competitors.

We have tried to understand the United States from the prospects of the economy, trade war, technological war and financial wars, but that is not enough. We may also need to study the past and future of the United States.

Firstly, U.S. history is a history of war and aggression.

The United States had only 13 states and 800,000 square kilometers of land when it was founded. 200 years later, it became the world’s fourth-largest country with a population of 320 million people and 51 states. Almost every territorial expansion of the United States is accompanied by wars and aggressive actions. Therefore, Geng Shuang, the spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the United Nations, pointed the fact at the United Nations meeting last year: the United States has a history of 246 years but only 16 years did not have war. Among all the wars, only two of them are civil wars.

Secondly, the history of the United States is a history of plundering the territory or wealth of other countries.

In addition to territorial plunder, the United States mainly uses economic weapons to plunder the wealth of other countries, which is also the secret for the United States to remain the world’s number one power. In the past, many people didn’t know much about it and they looked up to the United States as if they were looking up the stars in the sky. However, if we examine the history of the United States, we can easily see that economic weapons such as the US dollar and long-arm jurisdiction are used by the United States to harvest world wealth and maintain its hegemony. I wrote a special article on this matter which was published in the “People’s Daily”.

Thirdly, the rise and development of the United States is also a history of creativity and innovation.

The United States has created great systems to attract global talents, who have created enormous wealth for the United States, including the talent system, modern business system and social governance system. I believe that we must not only see the aggression and expansion of the United States, but also the advantages of its creation and innovation.

The reason why the United States was able to surpass the United Kingdom can be attributed to its institutional advantages and innovation, including the invention of electricity which triggered the electrical revolution, the invention of the Internet, GPS positioning, and the information revolution. By gathering the world’s high-quality endowments through institutional innovation, the United States has formed excellent creativity. Thus, the United States was one of the leaders at two of three industrial revolutions and three of the four scientific and technological revolutions.

Some people always say that the United States is an established power and China is an emerging power. However, I think that China is an established power and the United States is an emerging power, but the United States is a successful emerging power. The United States has a history of only over 200 years while China has a history of 5,000 years, how can China become an emerging power? In the past, China implemented a national policy of self-seclusion, which restricted the development of China’s productive forces.

Last but not least, the history of the United States is a history of contending for the discourse power in the world.

The fight for discourse power in the world is related to the theme of today’s conference. In the past, the United States always try to export its values to the rest of the world, which is also the theme of the presidential campaign speeches. Except for President Trump, almost all U.S. presidents, whether Obama, Clinton, Bush, or Biden, all of them put one hand on the bible when they made their inauguration speeches, claiming that they will export American values to the rest of the world. Therefore, American values, such as democracy, freedom, and fraternity, have gradually become the universal values of the West.

We did not recognize the universal values of the West in the past, but will there be universal values in the future? Is the common community with a shared future for mankind a universal value? We want to restore the natural state of the earth, is this a universal value? I think that these are universal values. How to find common universal values is a test for all countries, especially the leaders.

In the past 100 years, the United States was able to create universal values and global issues. It is still the world’s leader. There are more than 2,000 think tanks in the United States who are powerful makers of global issues. China is a large manufacturer and trader of goods, but we can hardly export our ideology and values.

We need to re-evaluate the past of the United States. It is neither a country of paradise nor a country of evil. It has contributed to the development of human society but also has committed crimes against other countries, causing tens of millions of refugees worldwide.

The second point I would like to make is that we need to understand the status quo of the U.S.-China relations because this is essential for us to maintain strategic determination. This historical moment determines the fate of China, the United States and the rest of the world.

Whether or not China and the U.S. will choose cooperation over confrontation, will determine the future of the U.S.-China relations. The choices of unilateralism, protectionism, populism, or a common community with a shared future for mankind will determine the common future of China, the United States and the rest of the world. Should we all share common prosperity and opportunities, or put the interests of a country above all other countries? Should we create a sound competition mechanism worldwide to maximize productivity, eliminate polarization, alleviate poverty and enable more people to enjoy economic development and social development, or should we abuse economic weapons to harvest the wealth of other countries? The decisions we make today will determine the destiny of mankind.

How to make the right decisions at such a critical moment in history is indeed a test for Chinese leaders and Biden’s administration. Many people say that Trump set a big trap for Biden before leaving the office and they are very worried that Bide will fall into the trap. I think that Bide is smart enough to make the right decisions.

Some people in the United States said that Trump is not a mature politician, let alone a qualified leader. In an article published in “Academic Frontiers” in April 2018, I said that Trump needs to work really hard on himself to become a qualified leader. However, he is still a semi-finished product after 4 years of “polishing”.

Trump brought various problems to American society and the entire United States is in the darkest time of history. Taking the COVID-19 control as an example, more than 16 million Americans were infected and more than 300,000 of them have died. Yet, people are still debating whether or not to wear masks. Biden said that if he is in power, he will make wearing masking a compulsory task for 100 days. In China, when President Xi Jinping said that we should wear masks, everyone put on masks!

In the past, many people looked up to the United States and admired the West, many parents sent their children to the United States for education, hoping that they will have a better international perspective, but the result is not as good as expected.

The third point I would like to make is that we need to make our choices on our own. How can China turn crises into opportunities at this moment?

We must look for more common ground in the U.S.-China relations, reduce differences and bring the relations back on track, especially after Biden took office. This is a test for our think tanks and society. Of course, the central government of China has always been very calm when dealing with the United States. During the trade war, technology war and financial war between China and the U.S., China made plans for the future, such as the 14th Five-Year Plan, the overall goal of 2035, and the second centenary goal by 2050. I think that the Chinese government has done a great job because it led the Chinese people to gain victory one after another despite the severe internal and external challenges. The current moment is an important window opportunity for us and we should make the best use of it, otherwise it will disappear quickly.

We should seize the four-year window opportunity of Biden administration. Currently, the Biden administration faces various problems, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the sluggish economy and the tearing of American society. We will have a buffer period of six months or even one year, during which we can make strategic preparations and take actions to promote U.S.-China cooperation in the following.

First, we should welcome the return of the United States to international organizations and multilateralism. We must use this opportunity to compete with other major powers on the international stage. Competing with each other according to international rules and standards is much better than the current unilateralism and unpredictability.

Second, we should come up with a clear path for promoting U.S.-China cooperation. Many scholars believe that Biden will contain China and I agree with that, but such kind of containment will not be so unpredictable under the multilateral mechanism.

We need to carry out deep cooperation in the following areas.

1. Cooperation on Climate. The global climate problem has become the biggest problem of the world. In his speech at the Columbia University in the United States, United Nations Secretary-General Guterres pointed out that our planet is out of order and urgent actions are needed. Biodiversity collapsed, 10 million hectares of forests are lost every year, the ocean is suffocated, and our planet is getting warmer. 9 million people die every year due to water and air pollution, which is 6 times more than the number of deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, Biden promised that the U.S. will return to the “Paris Agreement” within 39 days. China should take the initiative to propose cooperation with the United States in terms of dealing with global warming and protecting the ecological environment. 110 countries around the world have proposed to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, and China aims to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. This is 10 years earlier than our original plan but 10 years later than the 110 countries. Of course, China will make a tremendous effort to speed up the process, which is not an easy task because China has the largest carbon emission and it is still in the late stage of industrialization. China and the United States can conduct deep cooperation in the fields of climate and energy resources.

2. Cooperation in trade and investment. Despite the trade war between China and the US, China’s exports to the United States and imports from the United States both increased by more than 5% from January to November in 2020, showing that the connection between the two countries cannot be cut off by a trade war.

Chinas’ investment in the US has been reduced significantly due to the restrictions imposed by the US. In 2017, Chinese companies invested 45.6 billion dollars in the US, but this figure dropped to 28 billion in 2018, 4.8 billion in 2019, and only 200 million this year.

China and the US should re-start the strategic high-level dialogue, resume the US-China BIT negotiations, establish a US-China investment and trade protection agreement to protect the investments made by Chinese and American companies. Nowadays, infrastructure is the largest investment area in the United States and China has great advantages in this area. In other words, China can help the United States to improve its infrastructure greatly, which is also a common requirement of every state in the United States.

3. Cooperation in the fight against the pandemic. The two nations can play an important role in the WHO and in terms of vaccine allocation, apart from joint development of vaccine.

4. Cooperation in the global industrial supply chain. The United States has imposed sanctions against Chinese companies buying high-tech products, especially chips, which is a disaster for companies like Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Intel because the Chinese market accounts for more than 60% of their total exports. China imported US$265 billion of chips in 2017, 314 billion in 2018, and 340 billion in 2019. Leaving the Chinese market will cause significant damage to these companies. In the future, the global industrial chain will definitely go from decoupling to re-connecting. The economic ties between China and the United States also cannot be cut off. Otherwise, the world economy will suffer. Last month, 3400 US companies filed a petition to the White House for abolishing high tariffs because it has harmed the interests of the United States. The revenues of Qualcomm, Broadcom and Intel are declining and many people are being laid off. The US companies are victims of the trade war. After Chinese companies find a substitution for American products, American companies will lose China, the world’s largest market completely.

Therefore, we must seize the current window opportunity to actively promote deep cooperation with the Biden administration. A healthy and stable US-China relationship will make the world better. Thank you!