[ When China and the United States cooperate, the two countries
and the world will benefit; when China and the United States are in
confrontation, the two countries and the world will suffer, Pres. Joe
Biden to Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping, Sept. 10, 2021]
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IMAGINE A WORLD WITH U.S.-CHINA COOPERATION  
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Lawrence S Wittner
October 10, 2021
History News Network [[link removed]]

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_ When China and the United States cooperate, the two countries and
the world will benefit; when China and the United States are in
confrontation, the two countries and the world will suffer, Pres. Joe
Biden to Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping, Sept. 10, 2021 _

Chinese President Xi Jinping (left) and US President Joe Biden
(right) spoke on the phone Sept. 10, for the first time since
February, photo credit: Nicolas Asfouri and Nicholas Kamm/AFP //
Aljazeera

 

On September 10, 2021, during an important diplomatic meeting that
occurred by telephone, U.S. President Joseph Biden and Chinese
President Xi Jinping affirmed the necessity of a better relationship
between their two nations.  According to the official Chinese
summary [[link removed]],
Xi said that “when China and the United States cooperate, the two
countries and the world will benefit; when China and the United States
are in confrontation, the two countries and the world will
suffer.”  He added:  “Getting the relationship right is . . .
something we must do and must do well.”

At the moment, however, the governments of the two nations seem far
from a cooperative relationship.  Indeed, intensely suspicious of one
another, the United States
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increasing their military spending, developing new nuclear weapons
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engaging in heated quarrels over territorial issues
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sharpening their economic competition
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Disputes over the status of Taiwan
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particularly likely flashpoints for war.

But imagine the possibilities if the United States and
China _did_ cooperate.  After all, these countries possess the
world’s two largest military budgets and the two biggest economies,
are the two leading consumers of energy, and have a combined
population of nearly 1.8 billion people.  Working together, they
could exercise enormous influence in world affairs.

Instead of preparing for a deadly military confrontation—one that
appeared perilously close
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late 2020 and early 2021—the United States and China could turn over
their conflicts to the United Nations or other neutral bodies like the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations for mediation and resolution. 
Aside from averting a potentially devastating war, perhaps even a
nuclear war, this policy would facilitate substantial cuts in military
spending, with savings that could be devoted to bolstering UN
operations and funding their domestic social programs.

Instead of the two countries obstructing UN action to protect
international peace and security, they could fully support it—for
example, by ratifying the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons [[link removed]].

Instead of continuing as the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse
gasses [[link removed]], these
two economic giants could work together to fight the escalating
climate catastrophe by reducing their carbon footprint and championing
international agreements with other nations to do the same.

Instead of blaming one another
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the current pandemic, they could work cooperatively on global public
health measures, including massive production and distribution of
Covid-19 vaccines and research on other potentially horrendous
diseases.

Instead of engaging in wasteful economic competition and trade wars,
they could pool their vast economic resources and skills to provide
poorer nations with economic development programs and direct economic
assistance.

Instead of denouncing one another
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human rights violations, they could admit that they both had oppressed
their racial minorities, announce plans for ending this mistreatment,
and provide reparations to its victims.

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, Geneva, November 1985
Although it might seem that such a turnabout is impossible, something
roughly comparable
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in the 1980s, when the U.S.-Soviet Cold War, long a staple of
international affairs, came to a sudden, unexpected end.  In the
context of a massive wave of popular protest against the heightening
Cold War and, particularly, the growing danger of nuclear war, Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev had the wisdom to see that the two nations
had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose by continuing down the
path of rising military confrontation.  And he even succeeded in
convincing U.S. President Ronald Reagan, long an ardent hawk but
beleaguered by popular pressure, of the value of cooperation between
their two nations.  In 1988, with the U.S.-Soviet confrontation fast
collapsing, Reagan
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pleasantly with Gorbachev through Moscow’s Red Square, telling
curious onlookers:  “We decided to talk to each other instead of
about each other.  It’s working just fine.”

Unfortunately, in subsequent decades, new leaders of both nations
squandered the enormous opportunities for peace, economic security,
and political freedom opened up by the end of the Cold War.  But, at
least for a time, the cooperative approach did work just fine. 

And it can again.

Given the current frosty state of relations between the governments of
the United States and China, it seems that, despite the promising
rhetoric at the recent Biden-Xi meeting, they are not yet ready for a
cooperative relationship. 

But what the future will bring is quite another matter—particularly
if, as in the case of the Cold War, the people of the world, daring to
imagine a better way, decide that it is necessary to set the
governments of the two most powerful nations on a new and more
productive course.  

_[Dr. Lawrence Wittner [[link removed]] is
Professor of History Emeritus at SUNY/Albany and the author
of Confronting the Bomb
[[link removed]] (Stanford
University Press).]_

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