The upcoming meeting with Xi Jinping has attracted great attention from the German media. Germany’s “Economic Week” said that this is a contest between two giants. “Augsburg Allgemeine” stated that the confrontation between the two countries continues to intensify, and it is progress for the two heads of state to hold talks. “Süddeutsche Zeitung” stated that the relationship between the two major countries, the United States and China, has long been hostile rather than tense. The heads of state of the United States and China will meet face-to-face again for the first time in a year. This is to maintain bilateral relations at a freezing point.
Deutsche Welle believes that Xi Jinping seeks to be on an equal footing with Biden. The meeting will be a meeting with great symbolic power. Xi Jinping regards China as an equal partner of the United States. Global challenges such as climate change cannot be solved without cooperation between the two countries. Helena Legarda, chief analyst at the Mercator Center for China Studies in Berlin, said: “Presidents Xi Jinping and President Biden will discuss specific issues. However, it is not clear whether they will reach an agreement. It is conceivable that this summit will not necessarily Great results will be achieved.” Politically, the two systems are in opposition to each other. China is an authoritarian one-party state that has become the world’s second largest economy. Beijing hopes to complete the construction of a world power by 2050 and replace the United States as a global superpower. On the other hand, as a democracy and the world’s largest economy, the United States hopes to defend its position in competition with China. The two countries compete fiercely on multiple levels. Much of the competition is economic-related, especially in high-tech industries surrounding semiconductors, digitalization and artificial intelligence. The ultimate question is whether communist autocracy or capitalist democracy will be the ideological model of the 21st century. China has developed rapidly since it implemented the reform and opening up policy in 1978. Now, China, with its great economic power, has created close economic dependence. For example, German car manufacturers Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes’ sales in China will account for an average of 35% of their respective group sales in 2022. At the same time, China is active in Africa, Central Asia, Latin America and, more recently, the Arab world, prominent examples being the New Silk Road. Markus Taub, a professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen and an expert on China’s economy, said, “China is trying to use economic leverage to achieve political goals with other countries. China wants to have greater influence in the global system and influence This requirement means that the confrontation with the Western world is intensifying.” Germany’s slogan is “change through trade.” But Taub said: “German order theorists believed that complex economies could not function without liberal social models, and that change through trade would initiate a process of equalization. But we see today that this is not entirely true. Because China has proven that capitalism and autocracy can be perfectly combined.”
“Berlin Zeitung” stated that the world is full of conflicts that seriously weaken the strength of Europe and the United States. Will China take advantage of this situation? Will not. China is not interested in escalating the situation. Sino-US relations are the most important bilateral relations in the world today, and to a large extent determine the order of the 21st century and the destiny of mankind. Unfortunately, the strategic competition between the two countries has become a new paradigm of international relations, casting a shadow on world peace and stability. But a closer look at China’s foreign policy reveals that Beijing’s official statement on Sino-US relations has been peaceful coexistence with the United States for many years. China’s actual foreign strategic behavior shows a strong realist tendency. Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao, that is, from 1978 to 2012, China’s national strength was not enough, so it concentrated on developing the domestic economy and pursued the credo of hiding its strength and biding its time externally. After China joined the WTO in 2001, its economy began to grow rapidly. In 2010, China’s GDP surpassed Japan’s and China became the world’s second largest economy. As a result, Beijing has become increasingly assertive and begun to demonstrate its global ambitions more clearly. In view of the protracted war in Ukraine and the intensification of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Europe and Asia, a strategic alliance among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea is forming, forming a dynamic of geostrategic confrontation with the euro zone. Western strategic culture advocates competition and confrontation, while traditional Chinese strategic culture avoids direct conflicts, especially violent conflicts. Therefore, China is not prepared to take any direct action. But the United States is obviously afraid of China as its strategic competitor, and China knows that it cannot change this stubbornness of the United States. In this case, China is using the classic strategy of surrounding Wei and rescuing Zhao to confront the United States. As the Russia-Ukraine war drags on and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict escalates on a large scale, the United States has fallen into troubles in Europe and the Middle East. China supported Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian war and refused to condemn Hamas in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Despite knowing that Russia’s aggression violated international law, Hamas’s brutal attacks on civilians also exceeded the bottom line of human conscience. But by supporting Russia and the Palestinians, China can prolong the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, thereby preventing U.S. activities from shifting from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. China does not have as many strategic responsibilities as the United States, but it can disrupt the United States’ implementation of the Indo-Pacific strategy by encircling Wei and rescuing Zhao. As the United States focuses on various conflicts around the world, China can focus on the Taiwan Strait largely undisturbed. As a regional power, China has always had a strategic advantage over the United States, a world power. By supporting Russia, Iran, and North Korea behind the scenes, China has the opportunity to weaken the United States and avoid becoming its main enemy. On the other hand, Beijing is also trying to achieve political detente with the United States, as its own deteriorating economic situation could lead to political instability. This year, many senior U.S. officials visited China, and China also held many dialogues with the United States. Now, Xi Jinping will also talk to President Biden. All these indicate that the Chinese Communist Party, guided by its deep-rooted Marxist ideology and China’s classical strategy, will continue not to seek direct confrontation with the United States, but will always seek to ease tensions and divert U.S. attention and resources.
