China-US Relations Have Challenges and Uncertainty

Renowned columnist and media person Yoshikazu Kato spoke with American strategists during his two-year study at Harvard University, hoping to analyze how strategists that influence U.S. policy toward China view and plan for China’s rise. Kato believes that the challenges and uncertainties of the future of China-U.S. relations lie in three points:

The first is recognizing differences. This is related to different interpretations of new major-power relations. China still believes that the U.S. is containing us, and the U.S. still believes China will change the world order. The world order we want is not the same, so we have reservations about each other’s intentions. As for the kind of world the countries want, their interpretations of each other’s intentions are different; or maybe they are the same, but subjectively, they are different. This kind of topic would require lots of discussion.

The second is geopolitical risks. For example, the East and South China Seas, the Ukrainian crisis, the Arab and Middle East unrest, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia are full of varying regional and political factors. China and the U.S. are very likely to cause outbreaks on these points of friction in their cooperative-competitive relationship.

The third is domestic governance. The more troubles that China and the U.S. face within themselves, the more likely they will cooperate on U.S. and Chinese policy, which is an important point. Meanwhile, looking back at history, most countries govern themselves inappropriately; for example, under economic inflation, slow development, social instability, public discontent and political instability, a country still seeks expansion. The way China and the U.S. will manage their domestic governance issues in the future is still a very large variable. If they have bad domestic governance or even lose control, then China-U.S. cooperation will very likely become agitated. This is a very subtle factor.

Therefore, understanding differences, geopolitical risks, and domestic governance are very likely to cause challenges and uncertainties in the future of China-U.S. relations. Can China and the United States break the traditional logic of rising powers? After two years of research, my answer is far from flawed, but whether it will last, no one knows. China and the U.S. can reach a consensus by controlling their conflict, but what kind of world do they seek? How do they interpret each other’s intentions? In this respect, they are full of mistrust.