The U. S. relationship with China is important, complex — and unresolved. Crucial trade and investment partner… or Cold War-style adversary? Both statements…
The U. S. relationship with China is important, complex — and unresolved. Crucial trade and investment partner… or Cold War-style adversary? Both statements are true, which provides hope the two sides will find ways to coexist over the long haul.
The countries are closely interconnected. There were, after all, no daily nonstop flights linking O’Hare International Airport and Moscow during the height of the 20th century Cold War. But it’s easy to fly between Chicago and China (when a pandemic isn’t raging).
Trade does not equal trust, however. China’s communist leadership under President Xi Jinping is asserting its unchecked power in ways that require a serious reappraisal: The Chinese government today is acting more hostile, not less. It is more of a foe, and much less friendly. Americans, including those doing business in China, need to recognize what’s changed, react to it and press Beijing to stop its aggressive behavior.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was on such a mission Monday as he was set to fly to London for talks about how to rein in China. Expect that debate to become part of the U. S. presidential race in the fall.
So what’s changed? The breaking point came several weeks ago when China violated Hong Kong’s autonomy by enacting a national security law for the territory so broad that it threatens to treat any critic of Beijing in Hong Kong as an enemy of the Chinese state.
Hong Kong, a former British colony and free-market, democratic enclave, was supposed to govern its own affairs until 2047. With the security law, China’s made clear it will not tolerate dissent in Hong Kong and doesn’t value the territory’s freedoms, or the terms of the “one country, two systems” agreement China signed decades ago. That promise of autonomy has been breached. Questioning China’s authoritarian rule is now a dangerous act in Hong Kong. “Beijing can intervene whenever it so chooses,” Margaret Lewis, a China law expert at Seton Hall University, told The Wall Street Journal.
