The United States and China have entered into a fierce competition phase whether we want it or not. Two great nations, two largest economies, both striving for excellence, are bound to have competition even when some people are wise enough trying to prevent it. Unfortunately, the politicians, especially top leaders, on either side have a built-in motivation to appear strong, patriotic and peer-pressured to take a tough stand to be competitive even combative to deal with the US-China Relations. However, the people in two countries, especially the ones having some personal relation with the people on the other side or having visited each country and/or having made inter-national business interaction do see a different picture and prefer the two nations collaborating rather than competing. On the other hand, there are still vast amount of people in both nations have zero contact with the other side except being influenced by the mass media they are exposed to, which unfortunately tend to be polarized and biased to echo their political leaders and government’s bidding. This is why we Americans see the rapid change happening in the media, left, right or central, all moving to a unified front to be anti-China. This is not just on specific issues such as trade and investment but more on a broader scope now on science, technology, medicine, military, and space, even extending to other areas such as education (admitting foreign students, learning each other’s language), entertaining media and culture. The media’s dialogue on ideology and/or each other’s political system seems to be ignoring other’s on-going change and transformation rather focusing on interpreting and nick-picking their differences and attributing them to the ‘competition’, even the ‘threat’ being highlighted and touted daily.
In the above scenario, the U.S. as the strongest nation still leading in many domains is more the initiator and China is more reactionary to the ‘competition’ relation but the end result seems to be leading to a hostile confrontation which not all Americans and Chinese people do believe that it is inevitable. This writer is one of them believing that ‘competitive enemy’ is not the destiny for the two great nations. We should speak out frankly and fairly about the ‘US-China’ competition and sought a sound psychological solution to face the competition. The rhetoric that we see in the U.S. media is generally pinning every progress China achieved and any effort China launched to the goal of “defeating the U.S.”. I don’t believe so because I have traced many competitive situations through a causality analysis which allow me to make a credible conclusion. Let’s first look at the space exploration and space technology area. The U.S. had deliberately shut the door of Space Club at the face of China for seven decades, initially on the basis that China is a communist country (Russia is more a communist country but she was admitted to the club). So China after her embracing partially capitalism went alone to develop her own space technology and space exploration program. China has now succeeded in landing a lunar robot (rabbit) on the backside of the moon (which the earth, human, can never see directly) and with an aid of a satellite being able to beam directly back the landing event in real-time to earth. Instead of complimenting China for her achievement and welcoming her into the Space Club for collaborative research, the U.S. suppresses reporting of China’s space progress and secretly develops stealth space fighter planes which can shoot down any satellite in the space. What this has prompted is Russia and China’s reactive development of space military technology in response.
On the trade issue and manufacturing competition, the U.S. voluntarily chose to migrate out of low tech manufacturing and develop heavily in financial and IT industries. History tells us many countries including the U.S., Japan, Korea, UK and European nations have followed the same industrialization process of moving up from low tech to high tech or information industries. (Import, copy, upgrade and innovate) In this process, the leading country must maintain technology leadership or face competition. China is taking the same path and is at the juncture of innovation making herself as an advanced technology nation. The communication 5G is an example, but the U.S. instead of collaboration and facing the competition, she elects to sanction against China’s Huawei Corporation. The U.S. complains about China’s State Owned Corporations, but Huawei is a private company. Furthermore, the U.S. conveniently ignore the fact that many U.S. international corporations are monopolizing many markets of other countries. Simple examples are Coco Cola, Pepsi and many others. China is yet to have any company monopolizing the U.S. market. So on technology and product competition, the market is the fair judge. The U.S. should encourage her giant communication corporations to invest in the future not just make easy profits and dividends. I, live in a populated Westchester County in New York, have urged Verizon to bring fiber optics lines to our area for more than a decade but it ignored me and the future. So whose fault is it to let Huawei to plow back profit to investing for the future?
The proper psychologic solution for us Americans to face competition from China is to dig into the facts rather than blindly accepting the rhetoric especially the excuses used to cover the mistakes of our own industry policies. Perhaps, 5G technology and products are not like Coke and Pepsi, too important to let a Chinese company to monopolize our market, but shutting out Huawei is not the answer, just thinking about how we shut out China’s desire to get into Space Exploration. China turned that desire to be a member in the international space club into a goal of becoming a leader in the space technology (including, missile booster, satellite, communication and AI robotics).
We Americans must speak out. We will embrace new technologies. We want government and industry to set innovative and futuristic industry policies not to find excuses to blame others for our own mistakes. Our attitude should be welcoming collaboration and facing competition not hiding behind protectionism. Our communication companies should partner with Huawei to enter into the global market, otherwise, we will be left out of the world market. Huawei has more US patents than US companies do in key technology areas. Please don’t accuse others stealing our technology, we don’t have 5G for anyone to steal. We Americans represent the market, we must demand market competition to keep our corporations competitive and innovative or by isolation we will become a second tier nation for sure.