Chinese state media on Thursday mocked President Joe Biden’s trip to Europe, predicting Biden’s quest to rally European support against China would fail and was probably just an empty “bluff” by Biden to begin with.
China’s Global Times teased American media for overhyping Biden’s trip to Europe, during which he is scheduled to attend the G-7 and NATO summits and meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Instead of a “geopolitical feast,” the Chinese paper saw Biden making a futile attempt to rekindle Cold War animosities and rally the Europeans for a battle between “democracies and autocracies” and that democracy already lost, thanks to the Wuhan coronavirus:
However, all this is nothing but a bluff, because the “unity” Washington is fostering cannot address the real problem of the US and the West. That is, major Western countries including the US are seeing constantly declining competitiveness. When the G7 was established, its GDP accounted for 80 percent of the global GDP, but has dropped to 40 percent. This is the real concern for the US and Europe.
The US and Europe seek different solutions. What the US feels most anxious from China’s economic rise is how to maintain its hegemony. It aims to weaken China’s national strength which has constantly improved through strategic containment, and demands European countries to focus on their “common interests” and contain China as well. European big powers, however, are aware that strengthening economic cooperation with China helps them revive their competitiveness. They don’t want political conflicts with China to extend to trade and economy.
China’s production capability, market potential and status of the top trader in the world shows that the US is unable to choke the continuous growth of the Chinese economy. If the US is to compete with China strategically, the fundamental way is to greatly revive its own economy. Although the US Senate passed the Innovation and Competition Act of 2021 with contents that still absurdly target China, it at least focuses on domestic issues.
The Global Times fumed over Biden’s reported plans to discuss Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the oppressed Uyghur Muslims of Xinjiang province at the G7 and NATO summits. It predicted these efforts would come to nothing because America no longer has the power to contain China or keep the Europeans on board with any such effort.
“The US’ grand containment strategy against China must be supported by huge dividends and its renewed high economic growth to build the confidence of its allies. Without these two factors, the grander the strategy, the more flashy it will be, and the more likely it will be carried out with little effort by its allies, leaving things unsettled,” the Global Times predicted.
The Global Times credited globalism with destroying the competitive advantage free capitalist nations once enjoyed over tyranny, sneering that “political elites in Washington” who think they can fight and win another Cold War “refuse to accept some of the fundamental changes of the era of globalization.”
“Far from being in a confrontation with China, they are in a confrontation with the times and with the common interests of the human race, including the American people. They make themselves exhausted and get half the results with double the effort,” the Chinese Communist paper asserted.
Another Global Times editorial predicted Biden and other G7 leaders might reach “symbolic solidarity” by “bashing China and playing the ideology and values card,” but they lack the strategic unity or economic strength to do anything “substantial.”
The Global Times rounded up the usual “Chinese experts” to declare Joe Biden was running a “mission impossible” in his quest to restart the Cold War by demonizing China and Russia. (Chinese experts evidently missed the part of every Mission: Impossible TV episode and movie where the team tasked with a seemingly impossible assignment succeeds against all odds.)
According to those experts, the U.S. is obviously “exaggerating the threat from China to enhance its alliance not only on security but also from a strategic dimension.”
The ploy is not working, because “European leaders have concerns about Biden’s hawkish approach toward China as most of them expect balanced ties with Beijing for their own interests.”
Furthermore, “cracks” have developed in the U.S.-European strategic alliance over issues such as American withdrawal from Afghanistan and U.S. intelligence operations against European politicians. The latter dig referred to a Danish media report this week that said Denmark’s Defense Intelligence Service collaborated with the American National Security Agency (NSA) to gather information about German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders.
“Through the upcoming meetings, Europe and the US, along with its allies, will deliver a message of solidarity, but it’s highly doubtful they will coordinate anti-China moves on specific issues,” Cui Hongjian of the China Institute of International Studies assured the Global Times.
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