New Great Power Relationships and Frustrations with the US from China’s Perspective

Mutual recognition and timing of the two major United States and Chinese Powers that do not mesh; a historical review of United States-China relations from China's perspective

Series Overview

The era of geoeconomics, in which nations use the economy as a means to geopolitical ends, has dawned with the United States - China trade war.

Experts from the Asia Pacific Initiative, an independent global think tank, are among the first to spot signs of a new trend in international politics and the world economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, and examine their geopolitical and geoeconomic importance, delivering in turn, what they believe are the implications for Japan's national interests and strategy.

The New Type of Great Power Relationship Sought by China from the United States

From the time the United States-China Shanghai Communique was signed 50 years ago on February 1972, the United States has continued its policy of engagement with the expectation that China would become part of the existing world order while developing its economy and becoming a democratic nation. The route that Henry Kissinger took has now undergone major changes. On the other hand, this year marks 50 years since the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and Japan in September 1972, an event that occurred against the backdrop of reconciliation between China and America in the early 1970s. Will the current transformation of United States-China relations lead to the creation of a new Japan-China relationship?

During the administration of Xi Jinping, China has called for a new type of great power relationship with the United States. The Xi administration is saying that the two countries should cooperate on global issues while mutually respecting each other's core interests. This pronouncement was aimed at not only the United States, but also Russia, the European Union and Japan. China may have felt that the Obama administration embraced this new type of great power relationship, then expected the Trump administration would abandon it and had hoped to revive it under the Biden administration; but it would be disappointed. The phrase “new power relations” did not exist in documents that Xi issued in 2021, including the Chinese Communist Party's new resolution on history.

How, then, did China's new power relationship arise, and how do the Chinese perceive the United States-China relationship?

The Emergence of the New Power Relationship with the United States and Its Background: What Is the New Power Relationship?

China now recognizes the unipolarity of the United States in a world that is becoming multipolar, and acknowledges that China is gradually moving toward a bipolar United States-China relationship that exists in a once-in-a-century period of change. At the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017, Xi stated that China would catch up with the United States by 2049. As he himself estimated, that will take more than 30 years to achieve and won’t be easy. That is why, Xi said, China needs a new type of great power relationship to avoid pointless conflict with the United States and other major powers and to make its own leap into the world.

The expression “new power relations” was used from the end of the Hu Jintao administration and was a policy for the United States and other great powers that was officially adopted in the first half of the Xi administration. In the Hu era, the policy of achieving goals by concealing strength and biding time, something which emphasized economic cooperation, was adjusted to emphasize sovereignty and security. In response, the Obama administration proposed the United States-China G-2 doctrine aiming to make China a responsible stakeholder while maintaining a conventional policy of engagement. However, when President Barack Obama visited China in November 2009, Premier Wen Jiabao pointed out the importance of United States-China relations but took issue with the G-2 doctrine.

Subsequently, United States-China relations grew tense in the wake of the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties about life on earth, the Obama-Dalai Lama talks and the South China Sea maritime expansion issue, but relations improved to some extent with President Hu’s visit to the United States in January 2011. However, the G-2 doctrine was already hindered and America never raised the idea. Afterward, what China raised was the issue of new power relations In August 2011, when Vice President Joe Biden visited China. When then-Vice President Xi visited the United States in February 2012, he raised the issue of new power relations directly with Biden.

Raising a New Type of Great Power Relationship and United States Acceptance

The Xi administration, established in the fall of 2012, basically inherited the foreign policy that existed at the end of the Hu administration. In June 2013, President Xi visited the United States and reiterated the idea of new power relations between the United States and China as President of the People's Republic of China. President Obama did not explicitly agree or disagree, and United States National Security Advisor Susan Rice, whose remarks suggested that Obama had agreed to the policy at Georgetown University, said in November that the United States now rejected the idea.

The following December, when Vice President Biden visited China again, Xi explained anew the idea of a new type of great power relationship. It is interesting to note that Xi made it sound as if there was agreement between the United States and China on this arrangement. Whether or not China adopted more hard-line policies in the South China Sea, cyberspace and other areas based on this understanding is still unclear and needs additional consideration.

New Great Power Relations for the United States; China’s Challenge

During the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs at the end of November 2014, the Xi administration laid out a new foreign policy that would also form the core of his speech at the 19th Party Congress in 2017. In particular, he described the new type of great power relations as great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, clearly stating that China would not accept an order centered on developed countries and would basically respond with its own values while seeking fairness as a developing country. This seemed to be a verbal challenge to the United States.

Fu Ying, chairman of the All People's Congress Foreign Affairs Committee, articulated the new foreign policy of the Xi administration in a July 2016 speech at Chatham House in the U.K. According to Xi, Fu said the components of the order, with the United States at the center, should comprise (1) the United Nations, its subordinate organizations and international law,( 2) a security network with the United States at its core, (and 3) Western values. In the end, China accepted only the first component. It can be said that the Xi administration had made it clear by then that they were issuing a challenge in both word and deed.

In response to this change in China's behavior, the Obama administration tried to take a tough stance and conducted freedom of navigation operations, but there was no significant change in China’s behavior. Perhaps the biggest problem with the United States’ policy of engagement is that it gave insufficient consideration to what China thought.

President Trump and China's ‘Miscalculations’

In his speech at the 19th Party Congress in the fall of 2017, Xi clearly issued a challenge to the United States. In addition, a 2018 constitutional amendment eliminated the presidential term of office in China, throwing China's failure to democratize into sharp relief. Between the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency, the United States shifted its policy of engagement. You can say the United States finally understood China's challenge, which had been clear for years; China must have had trouble understanding, given how long it took the U.S. to respond. The United States' view is that it would have gradually recognized China's challenge as policy.

On the other hand, irrespective of changes in United States foreign policy, China sought to maintain the new great power relationship. Despite President Trump's consideration for China on some aspects of the Taiwan and Hong Kong issues, remarks by Vice President Mike Pence in 2018 and the subsequent confrontation between the U.S. and China led to the widespread view in China that the Trump administration had destroyed the new type of great power relationship that the Obama administration had recognized.

Expectations and Setbacks for President Biden

China saw the Biden administration as an opportunity to restore their new great power relationship. Xi and Biden were old friends, and Xi had explained the new power relationship to him in the past, albeit with disappointing results. As a result, the Xi administration no longer uses the expression "new type great power relationship" in its relations with the United States.

However, China has not hardened its attitude toward the United States. The Biden administration says it will not engage in conflict with China even if his administration pushes to compete with it. This fits with China’s idea of non-conflict in the new type of great power relations. The Biden administration is seeking cooperation with China in areas such as climate change, regional issues and nuclear weapons management. This is a good news from a Chinese perspective, and in 2021, it would have appeared that the United States was approaching China with respect to international relations.

New Great Power Relations: The World and Japan; Failure of the U.S.-China New Power Relationship and the World

The new type of great power relationship with the United States was a precondition for China to achieve its dream of restoring the Chinese nation by 2049. Failure to do so would mean that the U.S. and its allies would continue to stymie China's ability to develop, including its ability to provide goods internationally and to develop a rule-based order.

On the other hand, China, which finds it difficult to cooperate with major world powers, will use the Group of 77 coalition at the United Nations and other organizations to assert a majority voice in the world, and will try to suppress other developed countries. In contrast, can developed countries work to check China with support from emerging and developing countries to form a majority in the world? If they can do that, they may be able to delay China’s development or force it back in some degree to its original order.

G-2 Doctrine, New Great Power Relationship and Japan

A Group of 2-oriented world centered on the two major powers of the United States and China is not desirable for allies such as Japan. It is also undesirable for a new type of great power relationship to be formed in which the United States respects China in terms of its core interests such as Taiwan. The current complex regional order concept, including multilateral military and economic initiatives such as the Free and Open Indo-Pacific and the QUAD, has led to a retreat from G-2 thinking, and the U.S. has rejected this new great power relationship.

However, economic, technical movement along the lines of the G-2, as well as military security development with respect to issues such as parity, will never disappear, and China's own attempt to establish its order will continue. The key for Japan in East Asia is whether it can form a majority in the world by taking a flexible stance and keeping a check on G-2-related and great power-related efforts.