Some US-China decoupling is inevitable, senior China diplomat warns

Article for Central Party School’s newspaper says technological rivalry will become a key battleground between China and the West
There have been some signs of a thaw recently, but Wang Xiaolong’s comments suggest Beijing has a gloomy view of the future of relations with US

US-China relations

Jun Maiin Beijing

Published: 12:00pm, 30 Oct 2021

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Some form of decoupling between the West and China is “inevitable”, a senior Chinese diplomat has warned.

In an article published on Friday, Wang Xiaolong, director general of the foreign ministry’s department of international economic affairs, said competition and confrontation over technology would become a key area of contention in global governance and rule-making.

“US-China relations will be in a state of instability and uncertainty for quite a long period, and it will become the norm,” he wrote in an article for Study Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Central Party School, where cadres are trained.

“It’s inevitable that Western society led by the United States will push for ‘decoupling’ to a certain extent,” Wang wrote, adding that the West would seek to “choke” off Chinese firms’ access to key technology.

The article was a brief analysis of the history of capitalism in the developed world and what recent economic trends in the West mean for China.

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The article underlines Beijing’s grim assessment of the outlook for China’s relations with the United States and other developed countries, despite limited signs of a detente with Washington.

Senior US officials, including trade representative Katherine Tai, have recently spoken of the need to ease tensions.

During a meeting with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan earlier this month in Switzerland, the Communist Party’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi spoke positively about President Joe Biden’s comments that Washington was not seeking a “new cold war” with Beijing.

But according to Wang’s unusually candid assessment, tensions are here to stay.

He argued that tensions between developing countries and developed countries would intensify and would result in confrontations over issues such as the reform of the World Trade Organization and climate change.

Wang said China should both recognise the challenge from the US and its own growing strength including the “rise of our influence and power to shape the global narrative”.

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Wang also referred to the “rise of the East and decline of the West” – a phrase that Chinese officials have used repeatedly in recent months – and argued that this trend has accelerated since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

He also argued that the wealth gap in the developed world would continue to widen as new technology such as artificial intelligence further weakened the connection between labour and value.

He said that while the gap was largely down to economic growth that benefited elites instead of the working class, he acknowledged that China’s rising economic power was another factor.

“China’s strong manufacturing capabilities have brought down global prices,” he wrote. “It is yet another proof of how global industrial transfer resulted in the transfer of jobs and wealth.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Some decoupling from West ‘inevitable’