US-China Relations Ep. 20. A Decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind

[00:00:06]The American Declaration of Independence of July 4th, 1776 is one of the most beautifully written documents.

[00:00:15]It also contains some key pieces of wisdom.

[00:00:18]One says that America should show a decent respect to the opinions of mankind.

[00:00:25]So, what are the opinions of mankind on this US-China geopolitical contest?

[00:00:31]At the end of the day, the positions taken by the other 191 other countries in the world will also determine the outcome of this contest.

[00:00:41]America won the Cold War handsomely against the Soviet Union because it had many strong allies, including the most successful economies in the world like the European Union and Japan, and key third-world countries like Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia.

[00:00:57]By contrast, in the current contest, neither America nor China have any enthusiastic allies supporting it.

[00:01:07]Both America and China will be tempted to use their sturdy geopolitical muscles to cajole, bribe, pressure, and arm-twist other countries to join its side.

[00:01:18]This is normal superpower behavior.

[00:01:20]However, the capacity of other countries to resist such pressures has also grown.

[00:01:26]Each country or even region will either choose sides or stay neutral on the basis of their own interests.

[00:01:35]Now, in theory, countries make geopolitical decisions rationally.

[00:01:39]In practice, personalities matter, too.

[00:01:43]The sharp contrast between Obama and Trump brings this out.

[00:01:47]When he was president, Obama was also concerned about China's rise. He therefore tried to block American allies from joining China's initiative to set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, AIIB.

[00:02:01]Obama failed to stop the UK from joining.

[00:02:05]Similarly, Trump has tried to block American allies from letting in Huawei.

[00:02:11]Initially, the UK refused to accede to American wishes.

[00:02:16]A senior British personality told me in Davos in January 2020 that the UK would never capitulate to American pressures.

[00:02:26]Yet, by July 2020, the UK had capitulated and announced a ban on Huawei.

[00:02:34]Trump could bully. Obama could not.

[00:02:37]This story of British capitulation to American pressure is important for another reason.

[00:02:45]In the Cold War against the Soviet Union, the British were enthusiastic American allies.

[00:02:52]Today, there's no such enthusiasm in the UK to join America wholeheartedly.

[00:02:58]The British have their own interests to protect.

[00:03:02]London's status as a global financial center will be severely damaged if it cannot trade Chinese RMB.

[00:03:11]Therefore, most countries will make decisions carefully on the basis of shrewd calculations of their own long-term interests, although emotions will play a role, too.

[00:03:24]Let us begin by studying the attitudes of two key allies of America, the European Union, EU, and Japan.

[00:03:33]Their final decisions will be a result of complex long-term calculations.

[00:03:40]Chapter 8 of Has China Won? tries to draw out the complexity.

[00:03:45]In this brief video, we can only provide a relatively simple analysis.

[00:03:51]To put it simply, the EU will be torn between its head and its heart.

[00:03:58]As a fellow member of the Western civilization, European hearts are clearly aligned with America.

[00:04:05]And the Europeans also remember how generous America was to Europe, especially after World War II.

[00:04:12]But there's a second emotional factor.

[00:04:14]Even though many Europeans will deny this, they're also subconsciously affected by the fear of the yellow peril.

[00:04:22]Indeed, the yellow peril fear was generated in Europe, not America, after the Mongols almost conquered Europe in the 13th century.

[00:04:32]Yet, if the Europeans were to do brutal, hard-headed calculations of where the next big threat to Europe is going to come from, they would realize that it would not come from Russian or Chinese military threats.

[00:04:47]Instead, it's going to come from the demographic explosion in Africa.

[00:04:53]In 1950, the EU's combined population was nearly double that of Africa's.

[00:04:59]Today, Africa's population is double that of the EU countries.

[00:05:03]By 2100, Africa's population is projected to be almost 10 times larger, 4.5 billion versus 493 million.

[00:05:14]Now, from 2015 to 2017, there was a surge of migrants from Africa and the Middle East to Europe.

[00:05:22]This had a dramatic effect on European politics, with traditional centrist parties losing ground to populist parties.

[00:05:32]The real fear that most ordinary Europeans feel is that their continent will be overtaken by foreign migrants, especially from Africa.

[00:05:42]Now, what's the best way to prevent such migration from Africa?

[00:05:47]The only way is to promote economic development in Africa.

[00:05:51]Which country is the best partner for this?

[00:05:54]The answer is China.

[00:05:56]China is by far the largest new investor in Africa.

[00:06:01]This therefore captures the European dilemma.

[00:06:04]Their hearts will draw them closer to America.

[00:06:08]Their heads will calculate that they should work with China.

[00:06:12]Japan, as a long-time neighbor of China, faces a different dilemma.

[00:06:19]Japan and China have had a complicated relationship, especially from the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 to the end of World War II in 1945.

[00:06:31]Japan's brutal invasion and occupation of Chinese territory from 1937 to 1945 has not been forgotten by the Chinese people.

[00:06:43]At the same time, as the Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel has documented, for most of the past 1,000 years, China and Japan have lived in peace with each other.

[00:06:54]All this brings out Japan's security dilemma.

[00:06:58]Given its troubled relationship with China, it needs to rely on American protection.

[00:07:04]Yet, even though America and Japan have been allies since 1960, they're not close to each other.

[00:07:10]The Japanese felt betrayed when President Nixon visited Beijing without informing Japan in 1972.

[00:07:18]The Japanese were also brutally arm-twisted by the Reagan administration to revalue their currency after the Plaza Accords of 1985.

[00:07:29]This led to decades of economic stagnation in Japan.

[00:07:33]A former National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, has written that Japan was, quote, "probably the most difficult country," unquote, America had to deal with.

[00:07:44]In short, there isn't much real trust between America and Japan.

[00:07:49]In theory, China would be better off to see an end of the US-Japan defense alliance.

[00:07:56]In practice, China would be worse off.

[00:08:00]A Japan without American military protection would have to acquire nuclear weapons of its own.

[00:08:06]This would be against Chinese interests.

[00:08:09]Hence, paradoxically, as Kissinger told Zhou Enlai in 1971, China should encourage Japan to retain its security alliance with the US as it would prevent Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons.

[00:08:23]In short, as demonstrated by the cases of the EU and Japan, geopolitical calculations are very complex. There are no simple black-and-white answers.

[00:08:35]This complexity will also surface in the next video when we discuss the cases of Australia, India, and ASEAN, three key players in the Sino-American geopolitical contest.