Holding back China: Aim or Desire

Abstract: The presidency of Donald J. Trump has strongly changed the U.S. policy on the People’s Republic of China. Tensions and contradictions between the two nations, that had previously been swept under the rug, broke to the surface with a force long not seen before. A war on customs and technologies erupted a few years ago in which not only states but dominant global companies such as Huawei were also severely wounded. This burdened relationship was aggravated by the outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus epidemic, which the former U.S. president consistently named “China Virus” and demanded reparations from the P.R.C. worth around USD 10 trillion for the extermination it has caused. Although America now has a new leader, tensions between the two countries remain. Taiwan does not ease the bilateral relations either, which could become an important arena of conflicts in the near future.

Keywords: China, USA, Taiwan, Donald J. Trump, Joe Biden, economic war, military development, submarines, conflict of interest

 During the last two decades, China has strengthened dramatically in every field of international relations. For a long time, it seemed that in parallel with its enrichment, the country put ideological questions into the background. However, this myth is constantly being overthrown, enough to think of the disturbing news concerning the Uyghur community, the recent events in Hong Kong, or the tensions in Taiwan. The Anglo-Saxon Western world has created a new alliance aiming to hold the P.R.C. back. If the clash of the two worlds continues, its outcome will be unpredictable.

The History Never Ends

After having won the Cold War, a widespread American liberal perspective started to dominate the studies of international relations claiming that the global competition among political ideologies and economic systems ended and the Western democracies’ capitalist approach has triumphed forever. Francis Fukuyama’s famous article, The End of History[i] characterised this standpoint most spectacularly stating that by the collapse of the Soviet Union the philosophical alternatives to liberalism have been eradicated. Today it is clear that Fukuyama’s notion proved to be wrong, for numerous reasons. There are still many countries in the world with a non-democratic political system and not aiming to change that. Not a minute has passed since the bipolar world came to an end without gunfire and the United States, as the world’s number one superpower is once again facing a global challenger, which is stronger and more dangerous than the Soviet Union had ever been....

[i] FUKUYAMA, Francis: The End of History? In. Jstor. Access: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24027184?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (11/02/2021)