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

US-China relations

Catherine Wong

Published: 10:09pm, 25 Jun 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

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.

China-US competition will heat up but ‘we can work together’

But Beijing and Washington have also sought to open channels for limited cooperation, especially on climate change. Yan said the two powers were yet to agree on the nature of their relations – whether they were enemies or friends.

“The US believes the core of Sino-US relations is competition, but the spokespeople at China’s foreign ministry think this is a mistake to characterise it that way,” said Yan, “Without a common perception on how to define the relationship, there would no basis for cooperation.

“Where the Sino-US conflict will head to depends on both sides’ intention on the ideological front. If both sides want to export their ideology and attempts to change the political system of the other side, we would end up with a situation that is similar to the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union,” he said.

“China has clearly indicated that it does not attempt to export its ideology and values. What it wants is merely to uphold its political system in its own soil,” he said, adding that the US can export its values anywhere it wants as long as it does not reach China.

Conservatives and hardliners in China have seen its conflicts with the West over Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet as a Western plot to destabilise China and contain the world’s second largest economy, while many in the West sees China’s increasingly assertive behaviour on the international stage as a threat to the US-led liberal order.

China-US relationship needs ‘cool heads and new strategy’ from Beijing

Yan did not address whether China should tone down its Wolf Warrior diplomacy but said it should take up more responsibility on the world stage.

“It’s impossible because the material strength of China determines its international status and the responsibility that it needs to take accordingly,” he said.

“But I also want to make it clear that China is not the strongest country in the world. So it should bear less responsibility – less than that of the US but at the same time befitting of China’s current strength and status.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Foreign policy expert rules out US ‘ideological rivalry’