How has Sino-US relations been so bad and what happens next? An expert explains.

Chinese and Americans eagerly watched the lowered US flag at the US consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu after dawn Monday morning, just hours before US diplomatic staff were released from the premises and the consulate was released. be declared officially closed – an event broadcast on Chinese state media organization CCTV.

Many saw this as Secretary-General Xi Jinping’s direct response to President Trump’s shutdown of the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas last week – a move US officials deemed in the interest of national security. alleging that this particular place was a crossroads of Chinese economic and intellectual property. espionage as well as visa fraud.

“You can count on whatever this administration does, the Chinese are going to at least match it to a rough degree,” David M. Lampton of the Johns Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute told Inside Edition Digital. “They have chosen a suitable tit-for-tat, but they try not to make it worse.”

Lampton, an expert on Chinese politics and US-China relations, said the Chinese appeared to have adapted their response to that of the United States. “When we gave them the 72 hours to leave the Houston consulate, they gave us the same time to leave Chengdu,” he explained. “The Chinese could have chosen consulates to demand that we leave which would have been more damaging to the relationship. Certainly, if they had said, “Get out of Hong Kong,” that would have been a big escalation. “

It comes as Chinese scientist Juan Tang has been charged with visa fraud for allegedly hiding his military ties. She made headlines earlier this month for taking refuge at a Chinese consulate in San Francisco, and is now one of four scientists living in the United States accused of lying about their membership. of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

But Juan’s arrest and the latest tit-for-tat consulate closures are just a few points of tension in a series of conflicts that seemed to point to a deterioration in US-China relations – including the Trump administration’s plan to ‘kick out international students, Trump’s vocal blame on China for the coronavirus pandemic has impacted the United States and the lingering tensions over land claims in the South China Sea.

Lampton, however, said superpower relations may have been falling apart for a long time. “It would be easy to pile it all up on the Trump administration, and I think they mismanaged this in a colossal way, but in all honesty I think it really started in the Obama administration,” he said. he declares.

He has been monitoring China’s rise as a global superpower since Deng Xiaoping inherited power after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976.

“The United States, frankly, was caught off guard,” he explained. “We all thought China was going to grow for a long time. We all knew that at some point, the numbers would work in favor of China, as it represents 20% of the world’s population. But that day has come faster than most Americans have appreciated.

Deng was seen as a leader who cooperated with foreign powers – a strategic move, Lampton said, in order to change China’s status as a poor country. “Deng Xiaoping’s basic philosophy was: ‘to minimize external problems in foreign affairs so that we get maximum cooperation from the western world in rebuilding our country,” he explained. “The United States was prepared to provide it, partly for our own security interests and partly for our economic gain in the future.”

Xi, however, came to power after decades of rapid economic, military, and intellectual growth – this, coupled with his leadership style as a strongman leader, is one of the reasons the world is seeing this escalation. , Lampton explained.

“This is Xi Jinping’s brand name: to be tough, China assertive, China standing up against the West, proud of its strength, and seeing itself as a world model, in a way, both for governance and industrial development for what you might call developing countries, ”he explained.

Another major reason for the recent escalation, Lampton said, may have been Trump’s strongman character and his muddled foreign policy agenda. “The political process is chaotic,” Lampton said. “Even if the Chinese wanted to make concessions, they will never know whether today’s demands will be tomorrow’s, and whether making a concession today will bring them relief tomorrow.”

Inevitably, the coronavirus – including its original peak in China and the subsequent devastation of American lives – is a major point of tension between the two superpowers. Conspiracy theories, including that China released COVID-19 as a biological weapon, continue to plague the United States, and Trump continues to fuel this misinformation – whether by constantly calling the disease a “China virus” despite being known around the world by her medical name, supporting fake data on social media or focusing the blame on China. That, combined with the ever-increasing U.S. coronavirus infection and death rates seen in no other developed country in the world, has certainly led Americans to change their perceptions of China, and leaders continue to escalate this. tension, Lampton said.

More interestingly, Lampton said, the coronavirus also allows Trump to continue a narrative that has unfolded in other areas as well: that the United States has a security problem and could have protected itself better if it had. closed the borders, no allowed Chinese nationals to enter, and therefore would have prevented this “Chinese virus” from killing Americans and ruining the US economy. “[Trump] made it a strategic and economic issue, ”said Mr. Lampton.

With the additional factors of the upcoming election and Trump perhaps seeing himself as the underdog, Lampton explained that the Trump administration’s tough stance could be one meant to garner more support for his re-election.

“So they’re motivated to find something else to focus on beyond our own domestic struggles,” he explained.

Therefore, China’s strategy, at least in the short term, may be to survive this presidency. “They’re just hoping to get to the next administration, not so much because they think Biden would be easier to manage. … But there would be, I believe, a more rational political process, ”Lampton said.

But a more positive relationship between the United States and China in the future could be based on America’s focus on internal issues. “Rather than trying to slow down China, which I think is going to be quite difficult, we need to speed up. In other words, I think we need to be less defensive and get our own house in order, increase our national savings rate, increase our R&D spending, etc. Mr. Lampton explained.

“In other words, we have to start acting like Americans: confident in our own abilities, rather than trying to knock the other guy down,” he said.

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