GOOD MORNING FROM LONDON
Fast forward ten years and consider how the over-arching geopolitical issue of our time – the US/China Tensions – will appear. What will have happened? Where will we be?
In one sense, it will be War or Peace. Military hostilities between the two countries may have occurred + a new world political environment will have come into place. The First World War led to the creation of the USSR. The Second World War led to the creation of the People’s Republic of China. Military confrontation has consequences for the participants and for the World. It is that important.
Aside from War, what will be the economic state of China and the US. Will China have faltered with its efforts to build its “Socialist State with Chinese Characteristics”? Or will it have continued to surge ahead as it meets the expectations of its people? If it is the latter – the Party, judged by its recent action against the Monopoly Entrepreneurs, Excess Private Tuition and Online Videos + Gambling – will have kept its finger on the pulse of the nation. And BRI, after a period of consolidation following the international economic effects of Covid-19, will again be a feature of China’s Win-Win approach to foreign trade and investment.
And what of the US? It attaches importance to the claimed political freedom that the 4 Year Presidential Term brings to its political system but what will have happened to the 74m Trump voters of 2020? Will the strains and tensions of the 6 January 2021 attempted Capitol Coup D’Etat remain a major voter rupture across the US and will America be weaker or stronger?
In the short term, the Biden focus is on a second term with either Biden or Kamla Harris in the White House. Biden’s strong line on China will continue to 2024 so as not to offer any electoral advantage to Trump – thereafter the Democrats may well be compelled to review the way forward with China – with less Confrontation and more Cooperation.
8 August 2021 – China and the Rule of Law
