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Jun Mai

The US’ aggressive China policy will prove self-defeating and threatens to weaken both sides, according to a former senior American defence official.
In an article published in the influential East Asia Forum on Sunday, former assistant secretary of defence Chas Freeman said the United States was not thinking strategically.
“Washington would be easy to spot in a game of chess. It’s the player with no plan beyond an aggressive opening. That is no strategy at all. The failure to think several moves ahead matters,” Freeman wrote in the online publication run by the Australian National University.
The former defence official and now visiting scholar at Brown University said the US erred in its decision to respond to China’s economic and technology challenges by increasing defence spending.
Will South Korea’s chip sector have to take sides in the China-US tech war?
He argued that the US’ trade war had high costs not only for US farmers but also for American customers and other workers.
“The principal challenge that China presents is not military but economic and technological. But the United States is geared only to deal with military threats,” he wrote. “China has become the antidote to the US post-Cold War enemy-deprivation syndrome and a gratifying driver of US defence spending.
“Yet, in the long run, the United States cannot outspend China militarily and cannot hope to beat it on its home ground.”
Freeman added that rather than make China an enemy, other countries wanted to accommodate China on terms that maximise their sovereignty.
“If the United States persists in confrontation, it will find itself increasingly isolated,” he wrote.


“Given the state of US democracy, if its China policy is defined as a moral effort, most other nations will be alienated, not attracted.”
Freeman is the latest US foreign policy veteran to call for a major adjustment in Washington’s approach to Beijing.
Former US national security adviser Henry Kissinger called for the US to stop using the issue of human rights to undermine ties, or risk locking the two countries “in a permanent confrontation”, the Financial Times reported earlier this month.
While senior officials with the Joe Biden administration have refused to describe US-China ties as a “new cold war”, Biden has largely retained the tough China policies from the previous administration.
Tariffs imposed on Chinese goods under former US president Donald Trump are still in place, as are restrictions on China’s technology companies.
US-China tensions worsen treatment of foreign firms in China, AmCham says
The new White House has also kept up pressure on Beijing on its policies in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Freeman’s article was well received in Beijing, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying singling it out for attention on Tuesday.
“We’ve taken notice of Freeman’s article, I think he made excellent points,” Hua said.
She added that China was happy to compete with the United States but as was the case in sport, competitors should seek to improve themselves rather than limiting others.
“China never seeks to surpass the United States. Our goal is to improve ourselves, surpass ourselves and become a better China,” she said.


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The US has made the wrong moves in response to China’s challenges, according to former American defence official Chas Freeman. Photo: Handout

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Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen

South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, at the presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, April 22, 2021. (Lee Jin-wook/Yonhap via AP)

People wearing face masks wait to take public buses at a bus stop in Seoul on March 5, 2020. - South Korea's total number of COVID-19 coronavirus cases -- the largest outside China, where the disease first emerged -- passed 6,000 on March 5 as authorities announced a ban on face mask exports and other moves to try to ensure broader supply. (Photo by - / YONHAP / AFP) / - South Korea OUT / REPUBLIC OF KOREA OUT NO ARCHIVES - RESTRICTED TO SUBSCRIPTION USE

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Some observers suggest that Beijing has not been muscular enough in taking on Western narratives. Photo: Shutterstock

=== PHOTO CAPTURED ONLINE=== === PHOTO CAPTURED FROM TWITTER === Earlier this week, Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted an altered image of The Great Wave off Kanagawa made by artist Hokusai in the 19th century, in which the waves are turned into deformed babies and human fingers and Mount Fuji is replaced by a nuclear power plant dumping wastewater into the ocean. TWITTER

China is debating how to shape a international image as its Êstyle - sometimes termed as wolf warrior - has turned controversial and seen as provocative.The discussion came after a social media post from an ChangÕan Jian, an account linked to the Chinese Communist Party, showed on last Saturday an image of a powerful Changzheng-5B rocket launch in China alongside a photo of the bodies of Covid victims being cremated in India under the name ÒFireÓ. Photo: Weibo

A digital illustration done by Chinese political cartoonist Wuheqilin whose satirical image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan child has caused a big row between China and Australia. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted the image in his tweet. Photo: Twitter

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Chas Freeman says the United States made the wrong move in response to China’s economic and technology challenges
In the long run, the US cannot outspend China on the military, he says



In the long run, the US cannot outspend China on the military, Chas Freeman says


US-China decoupling

US-China tech war

US-China trade war

US on self-defeating China trade war tack, former American defence official says

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} Chas Freeman says the United States made the wrong move in response to China’s economic and technology challenges In the long run, the US cannot outspend China on the military, he says

Chas Freeman says the United States made the wrong move in response to China’s economic and technology challenges

In the long run, the US cannot outspend China on the military, he says