President Biden of the United States delivered a State of the Union address to the Congress a few days ago. In addition to highlighting the highlights of his work in office and building momentum for the upcoming general election, the president who promised that "China will not surpass the United States" once again mentioned China without accident, saying that the United States hopes to compete with China rather than conflict, At the same time, he said: "In the competition of the 21st century, we are more capable of defeating China or anyone else."

Although there is not much space about China, the background of "confronting China" between the lines is still obvious. This shows that, despite the signs of easing in the current Sino US relations, the United States' positioning of China as the "main competitor" and the "most serious geopolitical challenge" will not change, and the mutual trust foundation for the return of bilateral relations to a healthy and stable track remains fragile.

The heads of state of China and the United States reached an important consensus in San Francisco last year, injecting positive expectations into bilateral relations to stop falling and stabilize. However, the United States has not really fulfilled its promises after saying and doing one thing at a time. From cutting off the connection of the Ningde Era energy storage battery used by a military camp in North Carolina, to planning to invest a huge amount of money to replace Chinese cranes in American ports in the name of "port security", to listing more than 1000 Chinese enterprises in various sanctions lists, and controlling high-end technologies such as biotechnology and artificial intelligence, Hunting a variety of Chinese applications, including TikTok... The United States has renovated its means to suppress China, and the list of unilateral sanctions has been growing, and the desire to add crimes has reached an unimaginable level.

China US relations are facing difficulties. The biggest problem is that the wrong perception of China by the US side is still continuing. Whether it is the recent statement by US Secretary of Commerce Raymond that "Beijing can stop 3 million Chinese cars running on American roads at the same time", or the statement by US Ambassador to China Burns that "the US side does not want to live in a world dominated by China", some US politicians still hold the zero sum game winning and losing narrative and frequently transmit political signals that contradict logic and reality, Eroding the soil of mutual trust accumulated through contacts between the two sides.

The United States should recognize that the challenges facing the United States lie in itself, not in China. China is not the root of any of the growing problems in the United States - party disputes, polarization, populism, labor conflicts, racial conflicts, debt scale, gun violence. Playing the "China card" cannot cure the "American disease". Obsession with China as a "hypothetical enemy" will not help the United States regain its sense of national purpose, but will only push Sino US relations into conflict and confrontation. As pointed out by Melvin Leffler, the former president of the American Institute of Diplomatic History, when thinking about the future of the US China relationship, more attention should be paid to the domestic, because the real challenge is to make the "own system" work well at home.

The fundamental reason why the US containment and suppression will not work is that it has no target. China's strategic intention is open and aboveboard. It has repeatedly reiterated that China's goal is never to surpass or replace the United States, but to constantly improve and surpass itself, so that the Chinese people can live a better life, while providing more public goods conducive to peace and development for the world, and becoming a better China. Just when the President of the United States announced that he would "defeat China", the two sessions of the National People's Congress of China discussed how to improve new quality productivity, speed up the promotion of industrial digitalization and digital industrialization, and comprehensively enhance China's national competitiveness. He Ruien, senior researcher of the Brookings Institution's foreign policy program, believes that any attempt to hype China's threat to bridge domestic differences will do more harm than good. What the United States really needs to do is not consider how to slow China down, but focus on strengthening itself.

China is not afraid of competition, let alone suppression. The strength of China's national development and revitalization lies in itself. The future and destiny of the Chinese people are in their own hands. All suppression and containment will only stimulate the will and enthusiasm of the Chinese people. Hong Kong's Asia Weekly recently published a review article entitled "Apocalypse of the Sino US Political Model Debate", which said that China has combined the collectivist national system with the market economy to build the world's largest infrastructure system - high-speed rail, subway, expressway, bridge, tunnel, aerospace system, and has also cultivated the world's largest professional system and the largest team of engineers The largest team of teachers and lawyers has formed the autonomy of professional teams and accelerated the pace of Chinese modernization. The miracle of Chinese private enterprises going to sea has created the "Transformers" supply chain, and China is not afraid of the US crackdown

In the face of anxiety about the decline of hegemony, the United States has shown its aggressive nature. The solution is to curb the rise of other countries. In the process of development, China has chosen to build a community with a shared future for mankind. In fact, it represents two completely different thinking modes: "binary opposition" and "the world is public". One is to make a political distinction between the world and ourselves, between inside and outside, between similarities and differences, and the other is to regard the world as an "all embracing" whole. The former gains integrity and security by conquering others or so-called "universalization", while the latter respects the diversity of world civilizations to maintain overall harmony. Today, with the deepening development of globalization and the common destiny of mankind, which kind of thinking is more inspiring? Fu Limin, a senior American diplomat, pointed out in the article "Washington is playing a game against China that is doomed to lose" that if the United States continues to choose to fight against China, it will only be helpless in the international arena, because the way to build a more equal, open, innovative, healthy and free society with better governance and education is not confrontation, but cooperation.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Edited by Xie Yutong

Second instance Chen Chaohui

Third review Yang Yi