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The British Broadcasting Corporation interview with former White House Director of China He Ryan: China and the United States relationship out of competition into a state of confrontation

Source: bbc.com
[China News]     01 Jun 2020
According to Wang Jisi, an international relationship scholar at Peking University, China's distrust and antipathy towards the United States has reached a level never seen in 41 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. Washington, this view is also a consensus among Chinese observers. U.S.-China relationship is in a "free fall ", a senior White Hou...
The British Broadcasting Corporation interview with former White House Director of China He Ryan: China and the United States relationship out of competition into a state of confrontation

During the past few months, the world has faced a new coronavirus crisis, and the relationship of China and the United States have fallen into an unprecedented crisis, in urgent need of intensive care.


According to Wang Jisi, an international relationship scholar at Peking University, China's distrust and antipathy towards the United States has reached a level never seen in 41 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. Washington, this view is also a consensus among Chinese observers. U.S.-China relationship is in a "free fall ", a senior White House official quoted by former New York guest journalist in China.

Many experienced people who had been deeply involved in the ups and downs of the relationship of the two countries were concerned, as was Ryan Hass, a former White House official in charge of Chinese policy during the Obama period.

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As a former U. S. policy maker for China, Mr. He believes Washington's recent foreign policy strategy is debatable. In the face of China's increasingly vocal "Wolf Warriors diplomacy ," America's" tit-for-tat "strategy undermines its stated objectives.

The Chinese government, in his view, had mishandled the epidemic, but the Trump government's conclusion that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Viruses had cut Beijing's chances of cooperating with international of cooperating with international research. America's government not only can not solve the problem, but may be seen by other countries as a party involved in creating the problem, reducing the scope for international cooperation against the epidemic.

"Future American leaders will learn from this period that when China begins to dig holes for itself, Washington shouldn't rob Beijing of the shovel ," he wrote recently.

How did the relationship of China and the United States get here? What mistakes may the two countries make in foreign policy? How will the recoil of the new-crown epidemic US election in 2020 bring relationship variables to China and the US? The British Broadcasting Corporation interviewed him on the question.

Many observers of the relationship The British Broadcasting Corporation : the United States and China believe that this is the most difficult time since the establishment relationship diplomatic relations between the two countries. Do you agree with this statement? what are the signs of the status of the u.s.-china relationship?

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I don't think the U.S.-China relationship is at all right. America and china are in a struggle, leading to fewer areas of cooperation, more confrontation and less control over relationship tensions. And we have a clear common threat, but we can not stand together.

The two countries have already set up a crisis-era model, and have faced difficulties side by side. This pattern has been repeated at the time of the global financial crisis, the 2014 Ebola epidemic and other events.

At a time when cooperation is clearly in the interests of both countries, it is clear that the relationship between the two countries has become rather frayed. Combined with the other increasingly widespread and deep pressure points in both countries, the overall situation is not optimistic.

The US and China relationship, I think, are no longer rivalrous( competitive, hostile) relationship, but adversarial( confrontational, adversary). difference between the two is that you try to be more competitive than the other in a competitive relationship; and in a confrontational relationship, you try to hurt the other, because the frustration the opponent encounters can strengthen your strength.

The British Broadcasting Corporation : in Chinese, the difference between competition, confrontation and hostility does not seem to be large, the other side is both opponents, enemies. And the new crown epidemic seems to have intensified some of the long backlog of emotions, resulting in the current tense situation.

He Ryan: This is really the result of the long-term accumulation of pressures, not because covid-19, I think the two countries agree. The United States and China are in a "one mountain can not tolerate two tigers" struggle. Both sides are trying to be winners. In the midst of the epidemic, the two countries are fighting a public debate. Why is there a public debate? Why do the two countries think it is in their interest? Because both sides believe they must win.


The British Broadcasting Corporation : over the past three months, what key time ,Washington do you think Beijing and Beijing should have handled better to avoid the crisis we today?

He Ryan: I think Zhao Lijian has done great harm to the relationship of the two countries. What he did was extremely unwise. I understand the audience to which his remarks were directed, but his remarks have aroused great antipathy in the United States.

Similarly, many in the us parliament and government,, convinced of the need to wage a war of public opinion against china, have taken a very radical approach, linking the global epidemic to china's irregular behaviour and even its ill intentions.

The matter has come to an end, and both sides are responsible. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the two countries can relationship break through or expand cooperation in the short term. I think we need to wait.

The British Broadcasting Corporation : you said there should have been channels of communication between Beijing and Washington to cool things down.

Ryan ho: yes, i think if it's different us government, in a different scenario, in the beginning of the epidemic, there will be a bilateral call, the leaders of the two countries will appoint a person in charge as the co-ordinator in the government to help establish the channels to solve the problem, both countries will have some collaboration and discipline to control the problem. But this obviously didn't happen. I think we are witnessing the consequences of the lack of such communication.

The British Broadcasting Corporation : according to recent reports in the U.S. media, White House "China Tong ", deputy national security adviser Bo Ming (Matthew Pottinger, also translated into Bo Tingge) that the virus is likely to originate from the Wuhan Institute of Viruses. Many people said that he represented the youth generation of U. S. policy makers, China observers, China's position is more hawkish. You're as old as Boming. What do you think of these observations?

Horrain: That's the point of the media. I think if I were in that conversation, the question I would ask is whether the immediate priority should be to stop the spread of the virus, save people's lives, and try to convince the world that the virus originated in that laboratory to help us achieve our goals?

Different people may come to different conclusions, but what I hope to see is that the United States and China reach a consensus tomorrow to support the survey team led by the common country to investigate the causes and consequences of covid-19 after the outbreak crisis. The two countries could agree to investigate the origins, then put the issue aside first, get through the crisis first, and let scientists and experts clear the truth. But I don't have much hope for that. However, this is a wiser way to deal with a dispute over the origin of the virus and get out of the crisis than to blame each other without facts.

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The British Broadcasting Corporation interview with former White House Director of China He Ryan: China and the United States relationship out of competition into a state of confrontation

The British Broadcasting Corporation : in contrast to these observations, the younger generation of Chinese diplomats have been more assertive towards the United States. The average Chinese seems to be getting less and less comfortable with America. what does this mean for the future of the chinese-american relationship?

Horrain: I'm worried. It's not just the younger generation's hawkishness, it's the rise of nationalism in both countries, partly because of a lack of leadership. There has been no change in the relationship of china and the us over the past few years. There are indeed some events that will sink relationship to the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations, but the relationship between the two countries is complicated when obama and Xi Jinping lead the us and china respectively. However, there were leaders at that time, relationship atmosphere is very different.

Both countries now use US-China relationship to meet their domestic political needs. When Obama was president, the Washington view was that the US-China relationship was too important to turn it into political football. Obama government may have used the Chinese issue for political purposes one or two times, but overall, the goal is to pull the US-China relationship out of the heat of political focus because it is so important for the future of both countries and even the world.

When I first worked at the White House, I was told to focus on policy, not politics. If you do your job well, good policy will produce good politics. That was our mode of thinking. I think the approach is very different now, and now politics has largely manipulated it. Not just the U.S., but in China.

The British Broadcasting Corporation : scientists may have to wait a year or more before they develop vaccine. during which the u.s. election is a big variable for the relationship, Trump has targeted its rival, former vice president biden, for china's past. How does this impact relationship? China and the United States

Horrain: I think similar attacks will go further. Trump president will try to separate his approach to china from his interpretation of biden's views on china, and he has a political incentive to do so. At the hands of Trump, there are also many who want to blame China for the suffering of the world's people in the outbreak, because China was careless in the early days of the outbreak.

During this period, China and the United States will relationship face continued downward pressure. The only question is, how steep is the angle of decline? I think that depends in large part on Beijing's decision to respond to the U.S. stance toward China, and I think the criticism will be harsh. I hope Beijing can put long eyes and open the door of communication. In the short term, though, the situation between the two countries may be very tense. As you know, the outbreak crisis is likely to have its aftermath after the November election, and it would be regrettable if the relationship of both countries fell too much before that.

The British Broadcasting Corporation : if former vice president joe biden were elected, what would relationship happen in the? How would it be compared to the Obama administration?

He Ryan: Probably no one will think that if Vice President Biden is elected, what happened in these four years will be forgotten, and the Chinese and American relationship will return to 2016. Both the world, the US and China relationship have changed, and American policy will change. I believe Biden, if elected, will be tougher on China than he was in 2016, which will appear in various ways. On the economic side, the US will be more results-oriented, improving its jobs and salary. Biden will feel the need to account to his supporters.

A recent article by Professor Wang Jisi of Peking University probably represents observations from Beijing. Both Trump and Biden have both advantages and disadvantages for China. Trump is tough on China, but his policy is not particularly effective, nor can it mobilize other countries, just US unilateral action. Biden may be less hawkish, but his government will be more effective and able to mobilize multiple countries to press China.

The British Broadcasting Corporation : new crown has brought much turbulence to the us-china relationship, but it also reminds them of their interdependence and the need to continue to coexist. And what do you think the epidemic relationship mean to America and China? Is it the beginning of a new chapter?

He Ryan: I think we need to be humble when anticipating the significance of the new crown. The United States and the Chinese parliament were judged by the rest of the world in the post-Crown period on the effectiveness of the two countries' epidemic response, national protection and recovery economic. Meanwhile, we are in the fog of crisis. If you go back to the 2008 financial crisis, or after 9/11, and look back at the expectations of how the world will change, they are less prescient. I don't think this is an exception. From time to time, I read some big ideological articles about how the world will change dramatically, and I always have the question: how do you know?

(To facilitate the reader's understanding, the interview partially abridged and paragraph adjusted. respondents' views do not represent The British Broadcasting Corporation position. )

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