Hong Kong Forum 2022 on U.S.-China Relations

2022 is rife with both opportunities and challenges for the U.S.-China relationship.

The year 2022 will mark 50 years since US President Richard Nixon traveled to China to meet with Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai – a major step toward restoring relations after decades of estrangement and hostility. A half-century later, the progress they launched has been all but lost, and US President Joe Biden is partly to blame.

Americans like to think the United States won the Cold War and they nostalgically believe the same approach will work with China. It won’t. In fact, healthy China-U.S. relations depend on Washington’s moving away from the myth.

High-level dialogues in 2021 between China and the United State clarified their positions. Now it’s imperative that the two rivals avoid a new cold war by engaging in substantive working-level talks.

Containment of China is a long-term U.S. strategy — one that continues to expand. Now guided by the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, which was released in March 2021, a wide range of government departments are formulating anti-China policies. They are not going to stop.

China and Russia may be forced to seek a new systemic equilibrium, with the result being two international camps. This could lead to a new cold war and subject other nations to unpredictable security costs.

During their recent virtual summit, the presidents of China and Russia China had plenty of reason to discuss what to do about their respective external threats. China’s Foreign Ministry said it would rev up coordination between the two in search of a strategic counterbalance.

Strategic competition between China and the United States should be characterized not as a new cold war but as an uneasy peace. Shooting is not likely to break out, but the two countries will remain in dread of each other in the coming decade.

China’s supporters have touted its refusal to engage in “world policing” as a benefit to its ascent to global superpower status - but now the U.S. could weaponize that very policy against them in the battle for influence and power.