Hosia Mviringi
In yet another confirmation of a long simmering warfare between the world`s biggest economies, the United States has openly declared China as their biggest foreign policy obstacle.
At a November 20, 2021, Halifax International Security Forum moderated discussion, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations focused on China as the biggest competitive threat to US economic interests worldwide.
“China is and has to be our major foreign policy issue. It’s something we are all focused on. This is a 21st-century problem that will go on long after we are all gone,” said Senator Risch in a statement.
It is still a puzzle why the US seeks to rope in other nations and world regions in its own defined bilateral economic rivalry with China.
It is also telling how the US continues to sweat at a rising Chinese economic model, which has since defied and refused to be governed and influenced by the much-hyped Western model of democracy.
“As the United States continues to compete with China, we have to broaden our tools, we have to broaden our reach and we have to do it together with our allies and partners in Europe, the Indo-Pacific, and the rest of the world,” said Senator Chris Coons.
People need to roll up their sleeves and commit to doing this for the long term. The only way it gets done is if we all stick together on this,” Senator Risch added.
The very same rhetoric was used by the then US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Chester Crocker, when he presented the case for sanctions against Zimbabwe before the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2000.
He was mobilising international support for sanctions.
“To separate the people of Zimbabwean people from ZANU PF, we are going to have to make their economy scream, and I hope you, Senators, have the stomach for what you have to do,” he said then.
Senator Chris Coons was part of the team that lobbied for and sponsored the ZIDERA sanctions Bill against Zimbabwe in the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2000.
The United States has trailed China in a number of key economic sectors such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Wireless communication technologies (5G), industrial productivity and market competitiveness due to factors such as mass production and lower labour costs.
The US has waged a war to reverse the Chinese push to promote the Huawei 5G technology while China has successfully used its Belt and Road Initiative to push it’s a technology using the Digital Silk Road.
As the reality sunk in on the Americans of the extent of the technological gap between them and China, the US has adopted a cold war attitude towards China which could be noticed lately in the vaccine war between the world’s two superpowers.
The US fixation on China is not without substance, as the Chinese threat for world dominance is becoming real by each passing day.
The Asian giant has taken the title of the world factory as the bulk of manufactured goods being sold worldwide are made in China.
The trade balance is strongly tilted in favour of China and the US feels the heat as it remains barely perched on the verge of being dethroned from the position of biggest economy on the planet.
This imminent threat for losing the super power status has given the US Foreign planners sleepless nights as China forges ahead in both directions of economic and military might.
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