China is the “only competitor” to the US “with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel has indicated.
“The strategy I set out to meet the challenge posed by the PRC rests on investing in the foundations of our strength at home, aligning our efforts with partners, and competing with China, so that we can defend our interests and our vision for the future,” Blinken wrote Thursday, in response to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s Christmas Day statement about the economic superpowers’ need to adjust their relationship.
“We will follow through with the common understandings reached between the Chinese and US presidents, strive to recalibrate the China-US relationship, and bring it back on the right course,” Wang told a forum on December 25.
“We have firmly rejected the United States’ erroneous China policy and have been exploring the right way for the two countries to get along with each other. As the United States has stubbornly continued to see China as its primary competitor and engage in blatant blockade, suppression and provocation against China, China-US relations were plunged into serious difficulties. In response, China has taken resolute actions to counter such power politics and bullying while pointing the right way forward through open and candid communication,” the foreign minister added.
Wang urged the US and all major powers to reject the policy of “bloc confrontation and zero-sum competition,” and to “lead by example” in improving the world and taking responsibility for global strategic stability and development.
Tensions between China and the US continue to escalate in 2022, with tensions owing largely to President Joe Biden’s continued provocative Taiwan policy, including pledges to “defend” the island in the event of an invasion by Beijing. Increased US deployments of military assets to the Asia-Pacific region, including so-called “freedom of navigation” missions through the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, have exacerbated tensions further. Washington has also ramped up arms sales to the island, notwithstanding commitments under a 1982 agreement with China to stop.
Washington has further turned up the heat on the technology and trade war with Beijing that was kicked off by Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, in 2018, imposing sweeping restrictions on the People’s Republic’s use of microchips made using US-owned tools in October, and banning the import of telecommunications equipment made by Huawei, ZTE, and other Chinese tech giants last month.
The increasingly frantic US effort to “contain” China and rein in its development comes amid concerns about China’s growing economic, military, and diplomatic potential, with the Asian nation already outstripping US purchasing power GDP in 2014, overtaking it in scientific research output earlier this year, and making dramatic advancements in military and space technology.