President Trump further promoted the decoupling of the U.S. and China economies when he delivered the Labor Day speech on Sep. 7. He said that even if the U.S. really does stop doing business with China, America will not suffer. He further added that “we’ll end our reliance on China, once and for all.” At the same time, he made a judgment on the source of the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to spread in the U.S. and the world. He said that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has “had the China plague sent to us and other viruses, nothing near this serious … We’ll hold China accountable for allowing the virus to spread around the world.”

Several hours later, Xi Jinping held the National Commendation Conference for Fighting the New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Xi gave speeches and awarded medals to four experts, including Zhong Nanshan and Chen Wei. There was nothing new about his speech, just a continuation of regurgitating the advantages of the system under his “position as the highest authority” and the “community with a shared destiny for mankind.” In Beijing, Xi declared that his “personally commanded and personally deployed” battle against the epidemic was “completely victorious.” Compared with more than 27.5 million infected cases and nearly 900,000 deaths worldwide, it is undoubtedly a serious provocation against the U.S. and the world.

In January this year, the CCP re-published “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” in response to the domestic and foreign predicaments caused by the Sino-U.S. trade war and the suppression of the Hong Kong protests. The book about U.S.-China relations is written by Harvard Professor Graham T Allison Jr. and first published in 2017. Professor Allison had studied under Henry Kissinger, the originator of panda hugger. Allison used the term “Thucydides Trap,” exemplified by the ancient Greece rivalry between Athens and Sparta, to describe the conflict between the U.S. and China. This was very well received by Xi Jinping. Allison based his book on the following data: first, China’s share of the global economy will rise to 30% by 2040 while the U.S. may only account for 14% by then. Second, China currently represents 38% of the total patent applications worldwide, which is equivalent to the total of the three countries that followed, namely the U.S., Japan and South Korea. Third, China’s total value added of high-tech manufacturing increased from 7% in 2003 to 27% in 2014. The National Science Foundation of the U.S. reported that within the same 10-year time span, the U.S. market share dropped from 36% to 29%. Fourth, once China becomes a magnified Hong Kong, its potential can reach four times that of the U.S. and will thereafter become a much stronger superpower than the U.S. Allison predicted that America and China can escape the “destiny for war” and the U.S. would never dare to open fire at China.

However, the reality of 2020 is that as the Chinese epidemic spreads to the rest of the world and the enactment of the national security law in Hong Kong, the contradictions between China and the West as well as neighboring countries have greatly escalated. The data Allison relied on have burst into bubbles as the U.S. increased the containment and sanctions against Made in China 2025, Belt and Road Initiative, the Thousand Talents Plan, Huawei and other high-tech companies. A China-led by Xi Jinping not only cannot become a magnified Hong Kong but it also destroyed the only Hong Kong that laid the golden egg by demolishing the system of separation of powers.

On Sep. 7, shots were fired along the disputed borders of China and India for the first time in 45 years. India successfully tested its Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle, making it the fourth country in the world to have tested the technology required for a hypersonic cruise missile. Indian warships crossed the Strait of Malacca into the South China Sea, making the announcement made by CCTV that the U.S. and allies are maintaining a blockade around the first, second and third island chains to seal off China a reality. At present, India is backed by the military support of America, Russia and Israel as well as the financial support of Japan. Meanwhile, China, just as described by netizens, does not even have a frame for support. When the dispute at the Sino-Indian border, one of the current hot wars in the world, is getting closer and closer, it is the South China Sea situation that echoes back.

China is facing a terrible military situation. The U.S. think tank the Hudson Institute chief researcher Yoshiki Hidaka’s new book published last year “The end of ‘Xi Jinping’ in 2020 - the U.S. is determined to defeat China,” has once again entered people’s line of vision. Yoshiki Hidaka believes that although China is constantly labeled as the world’s second-largest economy, it is only second-tier economically and militarily speaking. At present, China’s economic activities are at a standstill but not so much because of Trump’s tariff increase measures adopted at the end of last year. According to actual figures, it is more appropriate to say it is because of the authoritarian or autocratic system in the Mainland. He wrote that using the Cold War to describe the current state of China and the U.S. is inaccurate; in comparison, back then, the U.S. and the Soviet Union had comparable military standards and strengths, but there is a huge gap in military strength between China and the U.S., in which the latter is capable of defeating the former militarily. In addition, the U.S. is also beginning to exert various pressures on China with its huge military advantages. The more appropriate wording is that the two countries have entered a “state of war.”

Yoshiki Hidaka and Graham Allison also have completely contradictory viewpoints that the U.S. “will never hand over Taiwan.”

Recently, there is news of Trump’s sanctions against SMIC and Hu Xijin immediately freaked out as though a nuclear button has been pressed. It certainly was not a shocking statement made just to attract attention. TSMC has halted chip supplies to Huawei as of September which is tantamount to announcing the death sentence for Huawei. However, the U.S. fully supports TSMC to set up factories in America. TSMC is now mass-producing a 7-nanometer (7nm) and there will be 3nm and 2nm technologies, indicating that chips for Taiwan’s fighter jets, navigation equipment and missiles will all be upgraded with a range of more than 1,200 km. The successful testing of the Yun Feng missile, a supersonic land-attack cruise missile is proof. The sanction of SMIC is also the death sentence of China as the leader of global practical technology. It will only be able to maintain the technology of low-end chips below 20 nm which is reflected by the repeated failure of the satellite launches with the Dongfeng missiles failing two out of four shots.

In 2020, let alone Xi Jinping’s two 100-year “China Dream,” even the recent “Five Never Promises” has stumbled on a huge hurdle. Xi Jinping’s system will face the test of a life or death ordeal.

(Lui Yue, veteran Chinese journalist)

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