The Trend Toward China-US Cooperation Is Unstoppable

– Remarks by Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng at the Video Dialogue on Sino-US Relations Co-hosted by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and the Asia Society

8 July 2020

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, President Wang Chao, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends,

I am delighted to join you today for this Dialogue on Sino-US Relations. While the ongoing COVID-19 has made it a luxury to meet in person, it is good to see my friends, both old and new, virtually. I very much look forward to your valuable insights.

Recently, I have attended quite a number of seminars, all of which have China-US relations as a fixture topic. In the face of the once-in-a-century changes, a pandemic never seen before, and constantly emerging new threats and challenges, the world is looking to China and the United States to provide answers to these crises through close cooperation and active interaction. But in reality, the US is getting more and more obsessed with “strategic competition”, “decoupling” and a “new cold war” with China, worsening the whole situation even further.

As a result, the China-US relationship has found itself to stand at a crossroads, with a historic choice about its future hanging in the air. Where will China-US relations be heading? President Abraham Lincoln once said, the best way to predict the future is to create it. The future of China-US relations will be shaped by every assessment and every decision to be made today. It is a responsibility and mission that falls on each and every one of us. In this context, I’d like to share with you some of my observations:

1. While China-US relations cannot return to its past, its achievements in the old days should not be dismissed. China-US relations has come this far because of the wisdom and efforts of the leaders of the two countries as well as the successive US administrations, both Democratic and Republican. The foundation of the relationship is built with generations of hard work, including the dedication and contributions from all of you.

This relationship has delivered enormous, tangible benefits to both peoples. The past 40-plus years have witnessed a more than 250-fold increase in bilateral trade. As a major market for US exports, China has supported around 2.6 million American jobs. A total of 72,500 US companies have investments in China, and the overwhelming majority of them have made a fortune. Needless to mention the critical role of China-US relations in tackling global challenges and promoting peace and development in the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

All things considered, it couldn’t be farther away from facts to negate the merits of China-US relations in the past four decades, and say the “engagement policy” has failed, and that the US has been ripped off.

2. Competition between China and the US shouldn’t be a “zero-sum game”. It is dangerous for the US to leverage so-called “proportional costs” to attack China. In rhetoric, the US is talking about market spirit and fair competition. In action, it just moves in the opposite direction – it does not allow anyone to be better or more competitive than itself.

With its rapid development, China has offered so much to the world: contributing to over 30% of global economic growth for years in running, and over 70% to global poverty reduction. Never ever has China exported refugees or wars.

For such a country that has done nothing but good deeds, the US has chosen to turn a blind eye and go after it by all means, and even threatened to plunge China all the way back to what it was like forty years ago. What malevolent intention! When faced with competition from prominent, private Chinese companies such as Huawei, instead of winning fair and square with better products, the US has stopped at nothing to bring Huawei down, using “national security” as an excuse.

Even in such areas as people-to-people and cultural exchanges, the US is getting more and more hysteric. It has chosen to put scholars under surveillance, expel journalists, arrest students, and shut down Confucius Institutes. Many Chinese scholars and students say that going to the US is a very risky adventure – you could be searched at the customs, interrogated, and even arbitrarily detained by the FBI. It is quite nerve-wracking. Even some US professors lost their jobs and were arrested for nothing but normal academic exchanges with China.

All this makes people wonder: is McCarthyism back in the US?! The China-US relationship is so vital for the future of China, the United States, and the world. It must not be hijacked by McCarthyism fanatics, or be dragged into a cul-de-sac.

3. The real enemy of the US is not China. It is the invisible virus and growing non-traditional security threats. Twenty years into this century, the world has seen multiple global crises, with wide and far-reaching impacts on the US and others. None of them were caused by traditional great power confrontation or geopolitical conflicts, but terrorism, financial risks, viruses, etc.

In the face of an epidemic unseen in a century, what most countries need most at this point is N95 masks, not F-35 fighters. It breaks our heart that over 130,000 Americans lost their lives to COVID-19. In the face of this raging virus, China is also a victim, and is fighting it with enormous sacrifices and at great cost. Scapegoating China by the US is unfair and morally wrong, and it doesn’t solve any problem.

Virus respects no borders, or favors anyone. It is a common enemy for all. The US should not treat a partner as an adversary, nor should it take a beggar-thy-neighbor approach, because doing so will only wear each other out. What the US should do is to work with China and the rest of the world to fight COVID-19 and come through it together.

4. Decoupling is impractical and benefits no one. In today’s world, globalization is the order of life. Countries are inter-connected in every aspect as deeply as possible. Like it or not, the tide cannot be reversed.

Although the flow of people between China and the US has paused due to COVID-19, the flow of goods has bucked the trend and continued to grow. In April, bilateral trade rose to US$41.2 billion, again making China the largest trading partner of the US. And the figure continued to grow in May to US$46.5 billion.

US businesses are still most interested in the huge market of China. A recent survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) suggests that 84% of US companies operating in China don’t want to leave, and 38% of them plan to maintain or increase their investment. Since the beginning of this year, ExxonMobil, Honeywell, Tesla, Walmart and other US companies have been expanding their investment and operation in China.

Going forward, there are many more opportunities for China-US cooperation in ICT, artificial intelligence, online education and telemedicine. Why would anyone want to cut off the cooperation that has been benefiting both sides? And why would they want to promote the so-called decoupling?

Recently, 160 US companies sent a co-signed letter to Congress urging the lifting of tariffs on China. The tariffs, they say, cost Americans US$50 billion more in duties in 2019 and raised average household expenditure by US$1,277. The trade war has wiped out US$1.7 trillion of the market value of listed American firms. This is just one simple example of the consequences of decoupling.

So I’d like to stress again that China will remain firmly committed to opening up wider to the outside world, and the door to cooperation will remain open to all countries, including the US.