Improve China-US Relations Through More Cultural Exchanges

During the past four years, President Trump has taken China as the biggest threat to American security, strategic interests and values. Under his administration, Sino-U.S. relations have fallen to a new low point, with almost every aspect of the bilateral cooperation and exchanges coming under attack, or being decoupled. They include trade, science and technology, security, military, culture, education and people-to-people exchange.

While it is widely predicted that Sino-U.S. relations “cannot go back”, members of the international community are expecting that during the Biden Administration, China and the United States would ease tensions and mend their relationship. Few like to see the world’s two largest economies slide into confrontation. Safeguarding multilateralism and maintaining global cooperation still is a prevailing choice of the international community. The signing of the RCEP and the joint declaration issued at the end of the APEC leaders’ summit meeting not long ago are manifestations to that choice.

“America’s back”. This is the message U.S. President-elect Joe Biden sent to the world in his first public speech to his supporters after winning the presidential election.

It is a clear indication that the Biden administration will rescind unilateralism of Donald Trump and the United States will join the international community to address global issues of common concern. Such a multilateral approach provides an opening for China and the United States to build consensus through political discussions, and to find common ground for cooperation on multilateral as well as bilateral issues.

Domestic issues certainly will feature high on Biden’s agenda after he takes office on January 20 next year. And setting a Biden China policy will take time. But we cannot afford to sit back and let the sliding in the bilateral ties take its own course.

While competition and rivalry between the two countries cannot be avoided, measures should be taken to prevent them from escalating beyond control. More importantly, cooperation or coordination could start right away on issues which obviously are of mutual interests, such as fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing climate change and seeking economic recovery.

China and the United States are each other’s top research collaborators, according to statistics compiled by Nature Index, a database collated from research articles published in a group of 82 science journals. President Donald Trump had been trying to de-couple Sino-U.S. collaboration in scientific research, which has raised serious concern of the U.S. and Chinese scientific communities. Such efforts should stop. The Biden Administration could take immediate measures to enhance Sino-U.S. cooperation on the research, development, and production of novel coronavirus vaccines and other treatment technology and products. The two countries could join ranks to support the World Health Organization in mobilizing and consolidating resources and in distributing vaccines fairly and efficiently. Furthermore, they could work together to make vaccines a global public good accessible and affordable to people around the world, which will be a huge contribution to winning the worldwide battle against the pandemic. This hopefully will pave the way for improving science and technology collaboration between the two countries in other areas.

Experiences either in China or in the United States have proven that remaining open to people and ideas from outside their borders is vital for the success of the two countries. Reviving educational and academic exchanges, therefore, is in the interests of both countries and provides an important area where improvements might be easier to achieve.

Revival of student exchange will benefit both countries. Young people have always played a special part in developing relations between China and the United States. They are quick to learn, open to new ideas and ready to make friends. To cultivate long-term constructive Sino-U.S. ties, or to manage Sino-U.S. rivalry, we need people in both countries who acquire empathy for the people in the other country and seek to work with them. Chinese who study in the United States and Americans who study in China and make friends across cultural and national lines can be a valuable asset for helping the two countries work together.

Think tanks constitute an essential component of academic exchange. They create platforms for people with different national, cultural and educational background to meet and discuss vital issues of common concern; they promote mutual understanding through exchange of different ideas; they provide the intellectual support for policy-making; and their reports and research findings influence the general public.

At a time when Sino-U.S. rivalry seems to have reached a new high and the mutual trust has deteriorated to a new low, think tanks in both countries should avoid emotional outbreaks and refrain from mutual attacks. We should, instead, try to gain insight into each other and learn to appreciate the other’s perspectives on the world. We should neither ignore problems between our two countries, nor overstate them. We must shoulder the responsibility of continuing rational discussions, making constructive suggestions and offering feasible solutions.

We should stay more sober-minded and cautious when talking about the theory like the “Thucydides’ Trap” or the prediction of a “Cold War II”. We should ask whether they really apply to relations between major countries in the 21st Century. Building mutual trust between China and the United States is presenting a daunting task. While we Chinese scholars could do more to elaborate on China’s peaceful development and its foreign policy, our American counterparts may help Washington make the choice of living peacefully with a modernized, strong and prosperous China, a major country with a different culture and a different political and economic system. We think tanks should do our best to ensure a Sino-U.S. relationship featuring no conflict and confrontation, mutual respect, win-win cooperation peaceful co-existence based on coordination, cooperation and stability.

Wang Gangyi, senior research fellow, Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies