Obama’s Chinese Knockout

A historic meeting took place recently between the leader of the “democratic” world, President Barack Obama, and the leader of the People’s Republic of China, General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping.

We cannot underestimate the importance of the two-day summit, held in a “no-tie” format, during which the leaders regularly came together to talk without their advisers. The U.S. is unbelievably worried about the prospect of losing its status as the sole superpower, the biggest economy and the most powerful empire in the world. China understands that it will inevitably acquire these positions, but it also has a multitude of problems. Not all leaders in China are in a hurry to be responsible for events across the entire world, and they consider it much more convenient to let the Americans become frustrated, increase their debts and acquire more enemies by becoming involved in every single problem. A particularly good illustration of this is the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, on which the Americans wasted $4 trillion and which earned them many enemies in the Muslim world. In the meantime, taking advantage of the Americans being distracted by the problems in the Arab world that they themselves created, the Chinese have been calmly increasing their gross domestic product, increasing exports and raising the capacity of their economy.

The second important problem is the genuine unwillingness of the U.S. to give up their unique status in favor of their Chinese competitor. Many American leaders are truly convinced that God has chosen the American nation, and they will cause some serious damage to prevent competitors from taking over their position. Barack Obama embodies a rare but pleasant type of American president, able to reason and debate problems, but more often than not, U.S. presidents prefer war as the only certain way of resolving issues. China has no desire to go to war, considering that both the U.S. and China are empires with access to nuclear weapons. China would much prefer that the U.S. remain oblivious while it becomes the biggest economy in the world and, on that basis, creates the most powerful army in the world, but it is practically impossible at this point not to notice its steady rise and all the negative consequences for the leaders of the U.S.

How to resolve the issue of an inevitable conflict between the U.S. and China and their fight for world domination? In 2008, Barack Obama had already offered to China that they rule the world together, but Hu Jintao rejected this. Of course, Obama brought up this subject with the new Chinese leader. In this case the reply was also negative. Why share power over the world with anyone when you can soon exercise it on your own? Especially since a partnership with the U.S. could confuse China ideologically.

The Beijing consensus model is steadily gaining popularity, and in terms of ideology, China can comfortably turn away from its competitor, whose Washington consensus model has failed with nothing new established in its place. This is why China is ready to compromise on some aspects where there are mutual interests, but it will not bind itself with allied responsibilities to the — for now — world leader.

In this context, at the summit the U.S. and China were able to come to an agreement to work together to control the use of hydrofluorocarbons, which are a big source of greenhouse gases. The two countries managed to reconcile their positions on North Korea as well. Theoretically, the U.S. wants to have more troops closer to China’s territory so that it can restrain it, but at the same time the Americans have no desire to start a war with North Korea. Especially because if North Korea were to lose and South and North Korea ended up uniting, then the justification for keeping a large American garrison in South Korea will disappear. China is openly against military operations near its borders. For all of the Chinese government’s lack of respect toward North Korea’s inability to follow the successful Chinese path of economic reform, North Korea remains an ally to China. And if China does not offer assistance to North Korea in case of a war with the Americans, then China’s prestige will fall violently. But by offering assistance, they risk being on the brink of a nuclear war with the U.S. So from now on, North Korea will need to behave more peacefully.

What is significant is the ability of China’s new leader to demonstrate confident control of the situation, even while being the guest of a competitor. The meeting between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping was initially planned for September, but the leaders agreed to meet sooner. Despite this, China was still able to find the time to think of poignant answers for the criticisms of China that inevitably came from the U.S. In particular, there was a definite expectation of accusations of cyberespionage by the Chinese government on U.S. territory. Two days before the summit, however, Western media was ablaze with the scandal that revealed information about how American intelligence services are using a secret program to spy on users of the largest social networking sites. It was not until after the summit of the presidents that it became known that Edward Snowden, responsible for the leak, has found asylum in Hong Kong. A coincidence? Rather, a masterful blow. A well-known Chinese saying comes to mind: “Kill with a borrowed knife.”

In this spirit, the accusations were shifted from China onto the U.S. And instead of an aggressive onslaught against China during the meeting with Xi Jinping and demands to cease all cyberespionage on American organizations and citizens, Barack Obama had to stand in front of journalists and make excuses for the fact that the American intelligence services are spying on citizens of the entire world. This allowed China to let it be clearly known that it will not suffer accusations during the development of relations and to give a decisive rebuff to any unfriendly declarations against it. And before America throws accusations at China with a righteous ardor, it should think twice about its own little sins. Incidentally, at the same time, China demonstrated a stunning knowledge of the secret actions of American intelligence services, which will also have positive consequences for it: Now, the CIA will waste more efforts on assuring secrecy rather than focusing on the fight with its powerful Chinese competitor.