China-US tension: Beijing will not engage in intense ideological war with Washington, says expert

Tsinghua University academic Yan Xuetong says it’s impossible for China to return to the ‘low-profile’ foreign policy of the Deng Xiaoping era

‘China has clearly indicated that it does not attempt to export its ideology and values,’ Yan tells Beijing seminar

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Yan Xuetong, of Tsinghua University, says the administration of US President Joe Biden, pictured, is more focused on ideological competition with China than the Trump government was before him. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:09pm, 25 Jun 2021Updated: 10:33pm, 25 Jun 2021

The Biden administration has focused more on ideological competition with China than its predecessor, but Beijing has no intention of competing with Washington on that front, according to a leading expert on China’s foreign policy.

Yan Xuetong, dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, also said it was “impossible” for China to return to the late leader Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy dictum in the 1990s of keeping a low profile, as its current capabilities continued to grow.

As China and the US are increasingly locked in an intense rivalry that spreads across multiple fronts, some have argued that their confrontation is driven not just by trade or geopolitical conflicts, but by ideology, just as the contest between the United States and the Soviet Union was during the Cold War.

Yan said whether such rivalry led to a cold war-like confrontation depended on whether the US and China intended to extend their competition to the ideological front.

“Under the Biden administration, formation of a bipolar world has accelerated, as demonstrated in the recent G7 and Nato summit’s joint communiques,” Yan said at a seminar in Beijing on Friday.

“The Biden administration has highlighted ideological confrontation more than Trump,” he said, citing Washington’s efforts to rally “like-minded countries” to counter Beijing and “forming clubs that exclude China’s participation”.

Biden has sought to use the recent G7 and Nato summits to push US allies to take a tougher stance on China.

While European nations such as Germany remain uncomfortable with full-blown efforts to counter China, Washington has secured a transatlantic agreement to set up an alternative to China’s belt and road strategy and called on China to respect human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. It has called for calm in the South and East China seas.