Wu Guangqiang

jw368@163.com

WITH U.S. hostility toward China on a rise with increasing intensity, Sino-U.S. relations are at a critical juncture.

The latest National Security Strategy of the United States focuses primarily on China as its top competitor.

The Trump administration claimed that China and Russia “challenge American power, influence and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.”

The strategy has resulted in provocative acts against China, including threats of imposing punitive tariffs on Chinese goods, a seven-year ban on American companies’ sales of components to ZTE, continuous “free navigation” of U.S. naval vessels in the South China Sea, and incitation of pro-independence forces in Taiwan, exemplified by Trump’s signing of the Taiwan Travel Act.

China-phobia has become a bipartisan consensus in Washington and a hysterical witch-hunt is under way in the nation that has conferred itself all shining titles: democratic leader, the kingdom of freedom, justice and fairness. But all these fig leaves blew away when it began its unilateral moves such as the Section 301 investigations, a blatant violation of WTO rules, and when it denied Chinese investment in American businesses on the pretext of “national security.”

Some America-worshipers in China were aghast at America’s escalating pressure. When Trump announced his plans to impose exorbitant tariffs on Chinese goods, I heard weeping and bemoaning on Chinese social media, with some “public intellectuals” and “experts” lamenting that China’s “high-pitched narcissism” in recent years has pissed off the U.S., which will leave China in hot water.

Such bewailing reached a climax when the U.S. imposed sanctions on ZTE for “violating” an Iran-related agreement.

A common view holds that the current trade dispute and the sanction on ZTE have revealed China’s Achilles’ heel: a lack of home-made core technologies and a heavy reliance on foreign technologies and products.

Wailing for China’s vulnerability in core technologies, they even proposed that China show a white flag to the U.S. in the imminent trade war in exchange for U.S. leniency. Yet the worst self-accusation is the criticism that China has forsaken the policy of “tao guang yang hui.” The Chinese phrase generally means “lying low,” or “concealing one’s capabilities.”

The critics claim that China’s increasing assertiveness over the past years have gone against the “tao guang yang hui” policy and caused unnecessary troubles. They blame such measures as China’s “Made in China 2025” program unveiled in 2015 and the Belt and Road Initiative for the Sino-U.S. tension.

In light of such logic, it’s all China’s fault for the current conflict between China and the U.S. Implicit in this assumption is the belief that so long as China keeps a low profile and is willing to cooperate with the U.S. in every way and observe the rules made by the U.S., the U.S. will treat China better.

That’s sheer baby talk. A brief review of history will reveal the cruel truth that the U.S. has never let down its guard against China, and nor will it.

Even in the best time, America’s policy toward China is engagement and containment, but containment has always been the core, with engagement playing a supporting role in the hope of keeping China orbiting around American interests.

A host of facts testify the argument. The U.S. has never concealed its intention to keep China in the state of division. It has been stubbornly denying China the status of a market economy. Even when China was lying very low in past decades, the U.S. never ceased to give China a hard time.

On May 7, 1999, the U.S. fired five laser-guided missiles into the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists. No Chinese buy the American story that the bombing was an accident.

On April 1, 2001, a U.S. Navy intelligence aircraft, while conducting espionage close to the Chinese island province of Hainan, collided in mid-air with a Chinese fighter, causing the death of Chinese pilot Wang Wei.

In 1991, 1994 and 1996, the U.S. launched three Section 301 investigations against China.

Respect can be won only through increased strength, not through delusion. China will always keep modest, but it doesn’t mean submission.

(The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)