中文
By Azhar Azam
From August 27 to 30, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is travelling to Beijing and Shanghai to hold meetings with senior Chinese officials and U.S. business leaders there. She looks forward to having "constructive discussions" on issues relating to the China-U.S. commercial relationship and areas of potential cooperation, said her department in a press release.
Evidently, the U.S. seems to realize that neither China or the U.S. should seek to change the other, and that a stable Chinese economy is a "good thing" for the world, with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan stressing this high-level engagement provides an opportunity to ensure there is a "basic, stable foundation" in the relationship.
Both sides have taken measures that will set the trajectory of their relationship in the future. Earlier this month, China lifted pandemic-era restrictions on group tours to more countries including the U.S. This "significant win" – as Raimondo described it, stating the Chinese travelers contributed $30 billion to the U.S. economy before COVID-19 – could be a "boon" for the country's travel and tourism industry, according to Reuters.
Prior to the pandemic, Chinese tourists had spent more than any other nation, $277 billion in 2018 and another $255 billion in 2019 overseas to be exact, according to the United Nations' World Tourism Organization. As they are expected to infuse more than $200 billion into international tourism, the China-U.S. agreement to double weekly flights could boost America's tourism industry in addition to promoting people-to-people exchanges and bilateral trade.
These positive signals are coming on the heels of the recent drop in the U.S. credit rating by Fitch, one of the top rating agencies, from AAA to AA+. This has been the culmination of 20 years of "steady deterioration in standards of governance," rising debt and growing polarization, said the rating agency. This drop is just the second in U.S. history, after the Standard and Poor stripped the world's largest economy of its highest rating in 2011. This explains why the U.S. government in the last few years has been proactively shifting the attention of the Americans from simmering domestic crises by hyping up the "China threat" to hide their inability to fulfill their promises to the people.
Yet the shortsighted approach won't work anymore as this rating downgrade coupled with high debt burden and "erosion of governance" could result in the fiscal deterioration over the next three years. A 22-year high interest rate, the fastest and a more aggressive hiking cycle since the early 1980s, and surveys after surveys also paint a tepid picture of the U.S. economy. This elevates fears that the recession may have been delayed but not cancelled.
In a recent political fundraiser, President Joe Biden said he didn't intend to hurt China and wanted a rational relationship with the world's second-largest economy, insisting the Chinese economy was in "trouble." The U.S. media too is recklessly echoing his statement, not knowing that China has substantial fiscal space to strengthen the economic recovery albeit facing some headwinds.
Biden's recent executive order, aimed at regulating the U.S. investments in China, does not bode well to the revival of the relationship. Amid efforts of engagement, the hawkish position deviates seriously from market economy and fair competition and could dramatically reduce new U.S. businesses in China, which might put them at a disadvantage to others. Although the new proposed regime may have a "moderate" impact, as Foreign Policy reported, and the Treasury Department contends the program will not entail a "case-by-case" review of the U.S. outbound investments; still such measures unvaryingly tend to escalate tensions.
Nevertheless, ahead of Raimondo's visit, the removal of 27 Chinese firms from the "Unverified List" by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security is a step in the right direction to ease the relationship. Going forward, this conciliatory approach should more frequently be deployed to address China's concerns around the U.S. economic, trade and technology policies and export and investment controls, the key sticking points in the bilateral relationship.
Despite the frictions, China and America are each other's third-largest export markets, together account for 40 percent of the global output and remain deeply integrated in creating apps and movies, supporting jobs, financing businesses and providing homes to millions. They also collaborate on trade and investment and in science and technology in vital areas including climate change, public health and research on telecommunications and computer sciences.
American companies, operating huge manufacturing networks in China, rely on Chinese consumers to derive their revenues; Beijing is the second-largest foreign creditor to Washington. China's personal care products market, which is projected to be worth almost $80 billion by 2025, offers great opportunities for the U.S. companies to export their products to an increasingly sophisticated, large Chinese middle class.
Raimondo's visit hence comes at a crucial time when Sino-America relations have been squeezed by the U.S. administrations' trade, technology and investment restrictions. By holding meaningful discussions on resolving these core issues, the U.S. commerce secretary could turn the tide, contribute to the restoration of a normal trade and economic relationship between the two global powers and help both countries jointly steer their respective economies and the world economy at large toward a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable future.
Azhar Azam, a special commentator for CGTN, works in a private organization as a market and business analyst, and writes on geopolitical issues and regional conflicts.
