My Take | ‘Live and let live’ between China and US looks dead in the water
- Scholarly correspondent appears to be right as Beijing comes into varying levels of conflict with an America fearful of losing dominance
During his visit to San Francisco for the Apec summit, President Xi Jinping repeated Beijing’s benign intention to “live and let live” with the United States.
I quoted that chunk of his speech in my most recent column. Several readers have taken me to task. One of them, an erudite scholar from down under, has argued that it matters less whether China has a grand plan to challenge American primacy but that the US thinks it does.
You know, if the US thinks China seeks global dominance and China knows that the US thinks that way, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think of that as the dynamic described by the prisoners’ dilemma in game theory.
So I have been researching all day about what America thinks China’s grand plan to supplant its global dominant role is. They range from the absurd and paranoid to the more serious and thoughtful.
I will begin with South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, whose take on China is both funny and scary. The funny part is self-evident. Earlier this year, she warned that “China has a 2,000-year plan to destroy America”!