Jie Dalei, "Ideology and Strategic Competition"

Jie Dalei, “Ideology and Sino-American Strategic Competition”[1]

Introduction and Translation by David Ownby
 
Introduction
 
Jie Dalei is an Associate Professor at Beijing University’s School of International Studies.  He completed his doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in 2012, and is one of the younger generation of Chinese scholars that is comfortable in both Chinese and English, and he publishes in both (see his cv here).
 
The text translated here was published online in the Beijing Cultural Review on May 9, 2020, but was originally published as an academic article with additional content and footnotes.  Most if not all of the article was surely written prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus in China in late 2019, and the pandemic is not mentioned in the text.  Nonetheless, Jie’s reflections on the ideological competition between China and the United States sound many of the same themes as Yao Yang’s discussion of the possibility of a New Cold War, so including it with other texts on the post-pandemic world strikes me as pertinent.  
 
The subject of Jie’s text is the current tense relationship between China and the United States and, like many academics writing for a popular audience, his goal is to provide depth and context to a topic that, in everyday journalistic and diplomatic discourse, often generates more heat than light.  Indeed, much of his text simply revisits recent history—it was not that long ago, after all, that China and the US normalized relations—reminding readers that there have been highs and lows in the relationship, but that coexistence has been possible and fruitful.  This background information sets the stage for the meat of the text, which focuses on the Sino-American relationship since Trump came to power (Xi Jinping is not mentioned by name), and argues that as strategic competition between the two great powers has intensified, ideology has begun to influence the relationship in new and different ways.
 
Many Western readers of Jie’s text will likely by struck by his claim that the United States is now beginning to feel ideological pressure from China.  I confess that I don’t know what to make of this; Jie cites few proofs to back up his claim (unless US accusations that China might be interfering in US elections reflect “ideological pressure”) and I see little evidence of this in my own reading of US news.   Such a claim would of course be more readily accepted by Chinese readers, many of whom may well think that pandemic-stricken America under Trump’s feckless leadership should feel threatened by China’s ideology of competence.  Elsewhere in his text, Jie argues that Americans are far more ideological than they realize, which strikes me as true, even if it seems to contradict his claim regarding American ideological sensitivity.
 
My chief take-away from Jie’s text is his sober realism.  Jie did his Ph.D. in the US and publishes with mainstream foreign scholars in mainstream Western journals.  There is little or no hint of any personal “ideology” in the text.  He writes, as he must, as a Chinese scholar, but I see no hint of any national or nationalistic agenda in his writing.  His message is that China and America are by now rough equals, and that both parties need to reflect on what that means.  The US must realize that China’s rise has not fulfilled American expectations of what a wealthy and powerful China would look like, but this has been America’s daydream, and should not be China’s problem.  Both powers should inject some “humility” into their diplomacy, and get to work creating the conditions for a “healthy” competition.    Like many other moderate and thoughtful Chinese intellectuals, Jie seems to be saying, to the United States, “I respect who are, please respect what I have become,” and to China, “be careful, you might get what you wish for.”
 
Jie’s final point concerns what he calls a “security dilemma” in the ideological realm, by which he means “both sides feel that their plans and actions in the ideological realm are defensive in nature, while the uncertainty about the other party ’s intentions, and the resulting insecurity, leads to an escalation in the competition, creating a vicious circle in the behavior of both parties.”  This strikes me as highly plausible, if less for structural reasons than to Trump’s willingness to sacrifice Sino-American relations to his whim of the moment, and Xi’s need to respond to Trump’s whims.
 
Translation
 
Sino-American relations seem to reach a critical point at the end of 2017, entering an era of complete strategic competition.  The ever-increasing competition between the two parties and the ongoing tension in the relationship has worried not only thoughtful observers in the two countries, but other countries as well.  People like Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien-long and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have expressed their concerns in speeches and writings, asking that the Chinese and the American reduce tensions in the relationship and avoid confrontation.  More recently, United Nations General-Secretary António Guterres has publicly expressed his preoccupation that the world is dividing into “two independent, mutually competing” camps.  The most obvious areas of competition are fields such as trade, science and technology, and security, but ideological competition has also begun.
 
The aim of this article is to engage in a systematic examination of the way in which ideology is influencing the China-US relationship, and to attempt to find a theoretical framework through which to understand the nature of ideological competition in the relationship.  My basic viewpoint is that:
 
Since the normalization of Sino-American relations, the role played by ideology in the relationship has been decided by two important factors:  the strategic relationship between the two countries and the American understanding of China’s development path.  In the last two years, there has been a fundamental change in the basic nature of the relationship, and America has become increasingly concerned about the direction of China’s development, which has led both sides to stumble into what we might call an ideological “security dilemma.” 

For this reason, China and the United States must both arrive at a clearer picture of the other’s strategic plans, maintain a certain ideological humility, and strive to create a minimum of healthy competition.
 
Strategic Relations, China’s Developmental Path, and the Influence of Ideology—From Nixon through Obama 
 
Normalizing relations between China and the United States required overcoming the obstacles posed by different political systems and ideologies.  In President Nixon’s 1972 talks with Chairman Mao Zedong, Nixon took the initiative to declare that “the important thing is not a country’s internal political philosophy, but rather its policies toward other parts of the world and toward the United States.”  The Shanghai Communiqué, jointly issued by both countries in 1972, clearly indicated five principles of peaceful coexistence:  “There are essential differences between China and the United States in their social systems and foreign policies. However, the two sides agreed that countries, regardless of their social systems, should conduct their relations on the principles of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, non-aggression against other states, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence.” 

The 1978 Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the United States “reaffirm[ed] the principles agreed on by the two sides in the Shanghai Communiqué,” while the China-U.S. August 17 Joint Communiqué once again stated that “Respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and non-intervention in each other’s internal affairs constitute the fundamental principles guiding United States-China relations.”
 
Despite the policy announcements of these basic principles, differences in political systems and ideologies nonetheless had a negative impact on the normalization of Sino-American relations.  The greater or lesser degree of influence was decided by two important factors: 

The strategic relationship between China and the United States, and American understanding of China’s development path

In simple terms, the greater the need for strategic cooperation in the Sino-US relationship, the lesser the negative impact caused by differences in political systems and ideologies; and the more China’s development path accorded with American expectations, the less differences in political systems and ideologies impacted the relationship negatively.
 
By contrast, when the needs for strategic cooperation between China and the United States diminished, the negative impact of differences in political systems and ideologies grew; and when China’s development path did not accord with US expectations, the negative impact on the relation of differences in political systems and ideologies was magnified.

If we compare the two elements, the Sino-US strategic relationship is more important than the American understanding of China’s development path.
 
From the normalization of Sino-US relations through the middle of the 1980s, the impact of political systems and ideologies on the relationship was very slight.  One reason was that, in the 1970s, a temporary setback in the US-Soviet process of detente and the Soviet Union's expansion in the Horn of Africa worsened US-Soviet relations.  In addition, the Soviet Union increased its military power on the Sino-Soviet border and made use of Vietnam to expand its influence in Indochina, all of which China took as a serious threat.  A need to strengthen strategic relations between China and the United States pushed the long-delayed process of normalization forward, and the two countries finally concluded negotiations to formally establish diplomatic relations at the end of 1978. 

At the end of 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, which strengthened the Sino-US strategic relationship yet again.  Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, which led to fierce confrontations between China and the United States on the issue of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, causing short-term disturbances in Sino-US relations.  In light of developments on the international scene, China’s leaders contemplated establishing a certain distance from the United States and diminishing tensions with the Soviet Union, and emphasized an independent foreign policy of sovereignty and peace.  Thereafter, as a result of efforts aiming at mutual accommodation, the Sino-US relationship slowly revived, and even reached a peak represented by visits by leaders of both countries to the other in the first half of 1984.  In Reagan’s return visit to China, he gave a speech at Fudan University in Shanghai in which he emphasized that, despite basic differences between China and the United States in terms of language, values, culture, history, and political systems, such differences should not interfere with cooperation between the two countries.
 
At the same time, the United States had great expectations for the policy of reform and opening that China had just launched.  In fact, Americans viewed positively all the economic, political, and social reforms carried out by China in the 1970s and 1980s.  In October 1985, Time magazine sent a team of reporters to China, some of whom were received by Deng Xiaoping.  Time felt that China’s transition had greatly exceeded their expectations, and that the openness and pragmatism of Chinese officials were superior even to those of the most open-minded officials in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  On this basis, Deng Xiaoping was chosen as Time’s “Man of the Year” for the second time since 1978.  On returning from his visit to China in 1984, Reagan also greatly praised the reforms of China’s villages and cities, arguing that the emergence and flourishing of the "free market spirit" would contribute to the improvement of the Chinese people's sense of happiness and the establishment of a "more just society.”  At the same time, Americans’ positive view of China increased greatly.  In the middle of the 1980s, Gallup surveys indicated that the percentage of Americans having a positive opinion of China had risen to 70%, from a mere 21% at the moment of the normalization of relations.    
 
Yet in the late 1980s, conflicts in ideology and values gradually emerged in the Sino-US relationship.  Part of this came from increasing exchange between the two countries, which made ideological differences stand out all the more; a more important factor was that adjustments to Soviet foreign policy resulted in improvements in Sino-Soviet and Soviet-American relations, which diminished the strategic need for Sino-American cooperation to fight the USSR.  Against this backdrop, the US began to criticize problems like China’s one-child policy and Tibet; for its part, China was troubled by American “spiritual pollution” and the frequency of US demands concerning China’s policy and economic development.  To a certain extent, the Soviet Union remained China’s greatest external threat at the time, but America’s challenge to China’s internal order was perhaps more serious.
 
The sudden changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in 1989 led differences in ideology and values to come to the forefront for a period in Sino-American relations.  During this time, American criticisms of China expanded to include the one-child policy, manufacturing in labor reform camps 劳改产品, freedom of religious belief, etc.  Americans also began dealing with such differences in a more confrontational manner.  Beginning from 1990, the State Department’s annual Human Rights Report began to single out China as one of its principle targets.  In the UN General Assembly, the United States similarly championed anti-China causes, although none passed.  Confrontations between China and the United States were most pronounced in 1995, when the US and other Western countries brought an anti-China case at the 51st UN Human Rights Conference, the only time such a proposition entered the substantive voting stage, but in the end China won by one vote.

During this period, the landmark event illustrating how ideology and values affected China-US relations was the Clinton administration ’s 1993-1994 decision to link China ’s most-favored-nation treatment to human rights conditions. Even if the Clinton administration realized the following year that the “linking” policy was fundamentally unworkable, the idea itself reflected the weight that questions of human rights and ideology had taken on in Sino-American relations.  It is worth mentioning that in the Sino-US summit meeting in 1997-1998, the two sides had a fairly frank and open confrontation on human rights, Tibet, and political disturbances of the late 1980s.  The American leaders argued that questions relating to human rights had indeed been the major point of contention in the two countries’ relationship in the recent period, while China’s leaders pointed out that given differences between the two countries in terms of social systems, ideologies, historical traditions, and cultural backgrounds, it was natural that they would have different opinions regarding human rights and freedom.
 
From another perspective, during the second Clinton administration, the US decided to increase its policy of strategic engagement with China, and supported China’s entry into the WTO.  The United States returned to its positive expectations of China's economic and political development that had cooled after 1989.  In his final lobbying efforts to convince the US Congress to support China ’s entry into the WTO, Clinton argued that if China joined the WTO, it would mean that China had chosen the path of reform. The United States expected that this would most likely have a profound impact on human rights and "political freedom."
 
At the beginning of George W. Bush’s first administration, the Sino-American relationship experienced brief moments of turbulence, but the terrorist attacks of 9-11 changed the order of priorities in America’s security considerations, and also changed Sino-American relations.  Combatting and eliminating terrorism around the world, as well as protecting American territory and that of its allies, became America’s number one security priority.  In the State of the Union address delivered in early 2002, Bush noted that “a common danger is erasing old [great power] rivalries.”  The 2002 US National Security Strategy Report of 2002 also pointed out that the events of September 11, 2001 had fundamentally changed the context for relations between the United States and other main centers of global power, and opened vast, new opportunities among great powers. 

After the terrorist attacks of 9-11, China provided the United States with aid on a number of fronts:  diplomatic, intelligence, financial.  With the rise of China’s influence, the US in 2005 proposed the concept of “responsible stakeholders,” in the hopes that China would join in the preservation of the existing international order.  China and the US instituted a high-level strategic economic dialogue, and China began to participate more actively in discussions of questions of global economic and security arrangements.  Although it is could not provide the same strong strategic basis for Sino-US relations as did the response to the Soviet Union ’s threat during the Cold War, the fight against terrorism and participation in global governance at least illustrated that China and the United States had important common strategic interests.
 
At the same time, the Bush administration seemed to continue to expect that China would undertake the economic and political reforms desired by the US.  In his memoirs, George W. Bush wrote:  “I believe that trade is a tool pushing the freedom agenda forward.  I believe that in the fullness of time, market freedom will lead people to seek freedom elsewhere in the public realm.  One of my earliest decisions was to continue President Clinton’s policy of supporting China’s entry into the WTO.” 

In a talk, former World Bank President Robert Zoellick (b. 1953) also argued that with China’s continuing economic growth, the pressure for political reform would become ever greater.  Condoleezza Rice expressed a similar viewpoint, pointing out that the means Americans employ should be practical:  “I definitely believe that China will carry out political reform…America should and must promote a democratic China.  Given China’s massive size and degree of complexity, the tools of the American government to directly influence Chinese internal politics are quite limited.  America can only rely on the strength of open markets and lead the Chinese people to discover the outside world through our universities and companies.  Any more direct measures might well meet with resistance or even be self-defeating.”  While Bush was president, shared strategic interests and American confidence in the development of the Chinese economy meant that the impact of differences in ideology and political systems was relatively small.
 
During the Obama era, the development of the Sino-American strategic relationship took on three basic dimensions:
 
First, the leadership of both countries had a strong political will to establish a mutual relationship that would be “positive, cooperative, and comprehensive.”  This was reflected in the high frequency of meetings between the leaders of the two sides. The United States carried forward the practice of dialogue from the previous administration and elevated it to a "strategic and economic dialogue."  China also proactively suggested that the two sides establish a "new type of great power relationship" with "no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation."

Second, despite the existence of positive political will, competitive elements in the Sino-American mutual relationship clearly increased during this period.  Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State under Obama, once privately compared Sino-US relations to a water polo game, noting that, on the surface, it looks like a game with rules where the goal is to establish a "positive and comprehensive" relationship.  At the same time, he admitted that "below the surface" there’s a lot of pulling, scratching, plotting, and other kinds of cheating, and the actual goal is to beat the opponent.  During this period, Sino-American relations were marked by fierce competition and confrontation on economic and trade issues such as the RMB exchange rate, intellectual property rights, and industrial policy, on security issues such the South China Sea and East China Sea disputes and the THADD missile defense system, and on new issues such as cybersecurity. 

At the same time, strategic mistrust was also growing between China and the US.  China felt that the American “Asia Pacific rebalancing” strategy was basically aimed at China, with the goal of diminishing or even halting China’s rise; in return, America believed that China’s more bellicose diplomacy beginning in 2009 was designed to expel the United States from the Asian Pacific region, or even to challenge the American-led “liberal world order.”  During this period, the positive points of the Sino-American relationship included two aspects that sought to create positive cooperation and limit negative developments:  the first included cooperation on global governance issues such as management of the world economy, nuclear non-proliferation, and climate change, and the second dealt with agreements and understandings in areas such as crisis management and cybersecurity.
 
Third, in the waning period of the Obama administration, there occurred a great debate within the United States concerning China policy.  Although the debate did not produce an absolute consensus, there is no doubt that in overall terms, the tone of American policy toward China hardened considerably.
 
From another perspective, as time went on, Americans began to realize that expecting China to implement the reforms Americans hoped for in terms of economics and politics was becoming less and less realistic.  The Obama government made relatively few public statements about the Chinese economy, but a number of non-government figures, like the journalist James Mann, a long-time observer of Sino-American relations, expressed his disappointment in his book [The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression].  The Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Party [held in November, 2013] outlined a blueprint for comprehensively deepening reform, but some American scholars felt that the Chinese government had not truly attempted to follow the blue-print.  In addition, a series of measures undertaken within China to strengthen and improve Party leadership or to deal with state security, anti-terrorism, foreign NGOs, and cybersecurity, were all seen by Americans as going in the opposite direction from the “liberalization” they had expected to see in Chinese politics.
 
During the Obama administration, both cooperation and competition in the Sino-American relationship increased, which led ideology to affect the relationship in two ways:
 
First, during this period there were few direct and violent confrontations over ideology.  Even if he talked about the “universal values” in which American believed when he visited Shanghai in November, 2009, Obama also noted that “every country must chart its own path,” and that “Americans do not seek to impose their political system on others.”  When American Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited Asia in February, 2009, she mentioned that differences between China and the United States over human rights questions should not preclude their cooperation on important world issues.  In his writings, Jeffrey Bede, a senior official of the US National Security Council, talked about the three pillars of the Obama administration ’s China policy:  a welcoming attitude to China ’s rise, the idea that China ’s rise needs to comply with international law and international norms, and shaping a favorable environment for the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on the regional and international influence of China’s rise—all without mentioning China ’s internal economic and political issues.

Yet, from another angle, ideology began to impact Sino-American competition in a new way.  Compared to more direct and visible conflicts on traditional ideological questions, the new influence was more indirect and hidden, if perhaps broader.  For example, different and competitive proposals for the management of the global Internet offered by China and the US are grounded in different national styles of Internet management.  Because of rising competition between the two, ideological impacts on the Sino-American relationship began to appear in indirect and subtle ways, and were more fully expressed in the Sino-American strategic competition during the Trump era.
 
Ideology and Sino-American Relations during the period of Strategic Competition
 
Once Trump became president, and especially beginning from late 2017, the strategic relationship between China and the United States was completely transformed, entering an era of comprehensive strategic competition.  The Trump administration’s “National Security Strategy Report” and “National Defense Strategy Report” announced the end of the policy of engagement with China and the return to great power competition, and clearly defined China as a “strategic competitor” and a “revisionist country.”  The Chinese government has continued to promote a bilateral relationship based on “coordination, cooperation, and stability,” and has not been influenced by Trump’s extremely competitive and confrontational policies.
 
Nonetheless, most Chinese scholars within China believe that the Sino-American relationship has already experienced a fundamental change, and that it is probably impossible to return to the status quo ante.  As for American expectations of China’s development path, some Americans appear to have become “disillusioned 幻灭.”  Kurt Campbell and Ely Ratner published a representative article in Foreign Affairs [“The China Reckoning:  How China Defied American Expectations,” March/April 2018] in which they argued that China’s internal and external policies and actions remain very far from American expectations, which means that the policy of engagement was a complete failure. 

Although not all scholars view the policy of engagement as a failure, some nonetheless argue that the point of engagement was not to change China’s basic system, while others insist that the more time is required before we can know if engagement can really change China.  In other words, even those who criticize Campbell and Ratner seem to agree that the direction of China’s development in recent years does not accord with American expectations.
 
In a situation where the Sino-American strategic relationship and American expectations concerning the direction of China’s development have both undergone a fundamental change, ideological factors are influencing the Sino-American relationship in different ways and to different degrees than in the past.  When the American government discusses the Sino-American relationship in domestic or international settings, it increasingly mentions ideological factors, or even uses ideology to define the relationship.
 
The Trump administration’s “National Security Strategy Report” bluntly points out that a geopolitical competition between a “free” order and an “oppressive” order in the Indo-Pacific region is developing.  The US State Department’s first “Indo-Pacific Strategy Report” calls this competition between “free” and “oppressive” orders the primary concern of American security.  American Vice-President Mike Pence, in a China-policy talk in October, 2018 that garnered a great deal of attention, blithely criticized China for “attempting to influence” and “interfere with” American politics. 

After having left the Trump administration, US Ambasssador to the United Nations Nickie Haley also published an article expressing ideas similar to Pence’s.  After engaging in a broad criticism of China’s internal and external policies, Haley pointed out that China had come to represent a challenge to the United States in terms of “knowledge, technology, politics, diplomacy and military affairs,” and that challenge was one of “life or death.”  Extremists like Steve Bannon argue straightforwardly that the Chinese and the Americans represent “two incompatible systems,” and that “one will win and the other will lose.”  Two recent talks by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are full of ideological overtones, and suggest that the United States should not ignore “the basic differences between the two systems and the impact of this on American national security,” and go so far to point his finger directly at the Chinese Communist Party.
 
In recent years, certain American scholars have begun to argue that ideological competition is part of great power strategic competition. China’s rise and the increase of Chinese influence have become a challenge and a threat to the domestic liberal order in the United States as well as to the world order, and ideological differences mean that China and the United States cannot build a truly lasting, mutually trustworthy reciprocal relationship.  American China policy, they insist, cannot ignore ideology, and economic and social exchanges between the countries should be managed with caution.  Certain more hardline figures go so far as to say that the US should consider using what they see as China’s internal weak points to engage in ideological attacks on China.  In addition, accentuating ideological factors also helps to mobilize American society and the American people to engage in long-term strategic competition.
 
Under the Trump administration, we note three characteristics of the influence of ideology on Sino-American relations:
 
First, while in the past China felt that it received the most ideological pressure, now it is the United States that feels it is being ideologically challenged by China.
 
Second, ideology is beginning to impact Sino-American relations in indirect and subtle ways, and in new areas.  As noted above, this had already begun under the Obama administration.
 
Third, against the backdrop of the abandonment of the policy of engagement, the American ideological goal is no longer the gradual reform of China, but instead targets competition, or even attacks, which will weaken China.
 
Concretely, the impact of ideology on Sino-American relations is expressed as an impact on three types of order:
 
First are concerns about how the relationship may affect the domestic order in both countries.  The Chinese government has always accorded high importance to ideological work, and is acutely sensitive to the plots of Western countries, led by the United States, such as “peaceful evolution” and the “color revolutions.”  Since the 18th Party Congress in November 2012, China’s leaders have pointed out in different contexts that “economic construction is the Party’s central work, and ideological work is an extremely important Party task.”  “Ideological wars without the smell of gun smoke are everywhere, and political competition without the sound of gunfire never stops.”  In January 2019, at the opening ceremony of the special seminar for leading provincial and ministerial leaders to adhere to bottom-line thinking and focus on preventing and mitigating major risks 省部级主要领导干部坚持底线思维着力防范化解重大风险专题研讨班, China’s leaders offered a deep analysis of political security and of important risks in the realm of ideology.
 
From another perspective, in recent years the United States has started to accuse China of using its so-called "sharp power" to gain influence within democratic countries.  Contrary to “soft power,” which basically relies on “attraction,” what the United States means by sharp power refers to efforts to “manipulate, confuse, divide, and oppress.”  Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, together with the Asia Society, in 2018 published a very influential report [“China's Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance”], claiming that China was attempting to spread its influence in America through Congress, state and local governments, the Overseas Chinese community, universities, think tanks, the media, private companies, and the hi-tech world, etc., and further argued that such behavior “challenged” and even “weakened” core American values, norms, and laws. 

This report argued that China was exploiting differences in degrees of openness of Chinese and American politics and society, and hence demanded that the two parties act as “equals,” meaning that America should be vigilant in the face of open or hidden Chinese attempts to develop Chinese influence in the United States, to the point of shutting down such efforts when necessary.  For a time, discussions and criticism of the “impact of China's sharp power and interference,” of “political wars” and “United Front work” took on considerable weight.  The American Congress and intelligence agencies actively joined in.  Trump and Pence even groundlessly accused China of interfering in mid-term elections in the US.  In such circumstances, humanitarian and educational exchanges between China and the United States suffered serious negative consequences.
 
Next is the concern that both countries are pushing ideological agendas in other countries, with an eye toward changing those countries’ internal order.  On the one hand, China has for a long time maintained an attitude of caution and opposition to American intervention in the internal politics of other countries, directly or indirectly pushing “regime change” and “color revolutions.”  While the Trump administration has clearly been less eager to engage in foreign intervention, air raids in Syria and political interference within Venezuela illustrate that American interventionist tendencies will not disappear over night. 

On the other hand, in addition to criticizing China for using its “sharp power” to increase its influence in other countries, the United States has also started talking about “digital hegemony.”  Due to the sophistication of certain Chinese technologies, certain price advantages, and the public safety needs of other countries, China's artificial intelligence-based monitoring equipment and technology have been welcomed by these countries.  According to one report, China ’s technology has been sold to at least 18 countries, and representatives from 36 countries were invited to participate in training in public opinion management.  Such mutually beneficial commerce and interchanges have been baselessly characterized as ideological by the United States.
 
Finally, ideology is influencing the way both countries look at the international order.  In the past few years, the United States and the West have constantly worried that China’s rise will constitute a challenge to what they call the “liberal world order,” while China has never accepted this viewpoint.  Just as Fu Ying 傅莹, chairman of the 12th NPC Foreign Affairs Committee, put it:  “The current world order recognized by China is the international framework with the United Nations at its core, and composed of relevant international agencies such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, etc.”  The “current world order” mentioned by China has a certain degree of overlap with the “liberal order that is the constant preoccupation of the Americans,” but there are important differences as well.  In addition to differences of opinions on America’s system of alliances, the internal urge of the "liberal international order" to transform the "non-liberal" countries, including China, is also a source of mistrust.  
 
In fact, even if “international” is the key aspect of the “democratic international order,” in discussing this international order, American scholars often consciously or unconsciously discuss issues of domestic order.  At the same time, global governance is expanding its scope, and the promotion of global governance is more and more likely to touch the basic economic, political and social organization of individual countries, and the fact that there exist different domestic orders and ideologies means that there are different notions of some aspects of global governance.  This is because progress in traditional areas of global governance, such as economic management, eventually probes more problematic issues; moreover, newly emerging issues of global governance, such as Internet management, are in fact inseparable from methods of domestic governance.
 
The “Security Dilemma” in the Realm of Ideology
 
The above discussion does not mean that ideology has become the most important factor in Sino-American relations, nor that ideological confrontations and conflict are inevitable.  Instead, my point is that ideology is becoming more apparent in Sino-American strategic competition, and the scope of its influence is expanding.  Given this, the situation is unpredictable.

Looking at the American side, the ideological overtones in American diplomatic strategy have fallen markedly in the transition from the Obama to the Trump administrations.  In Trump’s speech at the most recent United Nations General Assembly he yet again trumpeted what he calls “patriotism,” and criticized “globalism,” arguing that all countries should respect one another’s’ particularities and differences.
 
China’s overall national strength and international influence are surely steadily rising, but China has never had a plan to promote any “China model” to the outside world.  The report of the 19th Party Congress in October 2017 notes that socialism with Chinese characteristics “expands the way for developing countries to modernize, provides new options for countries and nations who want to accelerate development and maintain their independence, and contributes Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to solving human problems.”  What this passage seeks to express is the idea of exploration and sharing, and it is absolutely not the case that China has plans to promote a developmental model or an ideology on the international front. 

At the High-level Dialogue between the Chinese Communist Party and World Political Parties held in December, 2017, China’s leaders clearly stated that China had no intention of “exporting” the China model, nor would they ask any country to “copy” China’s methods.  On the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the White Paper published by the State Council Information Office and entitled “China and the World in the New Era” once again stated that “the choice of a developmental path is the right of all sovereign countries.  No country can impose its own model on others, and even less do they have the right to overturn the political power or the political system of other countries.”
 
In addition, it was somewhat inevitable that the importance of ideological factors become more important to Sino-American relations.  First, the most visible expression of great power strategic competition is competition over influence, and the ways in which great powers seek to spread their influence necessarily will be influenced by their own ideology and the characteristics of their system.  In other words, the ideological overtones that appear indirectly when a great power seeks to increase its influence can be seen by their opponents as intentional efforts to expand their ideology. 

In addition, when there are changes in the relative power position of two great powers with different systems, from an objective perspective, this may have a certain demonstrative significance in terms of the systems and ideologies of the powers in question.  In other words, when great powers with different systems engage in strategic competition, even if neither side wants to provoke ideological confrontations, ideological factors may nonetheless influence the competition, and the conflict may intensify as the competition escalates.  Finally, after both parties enter into the phase of strategic competition, the high-level economic and social links that have characterized the Sino-American relationship can readily make ideological differences seem more real.
 
The role that ideology plays in the present and future Sino-American relationship will to a great degree decide whether a “new Cold War” will occur.  Most Chinese and American scholars and experts feel that a comparison with the historical example of the US-Soviet Cold War is not appropriate.  The reason for this, aside from a high-level mutual reliance between the two powers in economic and social terms, and the fact that other countries do not seem to want to see the world once again divided into two distinct camps, is that China and the United States do not have the kind of violent, zero-sum confrontations that the US and the USSR did at the time.

Yet, from another perspective, judging the impact of ideological factors in terms of the ideological confrontation of the Cold War seems to place the bar very high.  In other words, if we put the US-USSR ideological confrontations at one end of the spectrum, and great power competition with no ideological elements at the other end, between the two poles there is a considerable space in which ideology can function.
 
In fact, it may be most appropriate to use the idea of a “security predicament” in the ideological realm to describe current Sino-American relations.  By this I mean that both sides feel that their plans and actions in the ideological realm are defensive in nature, while the uncertainty about the other party ’s intentions, and the resulting insecurity, leading to an escalation in the competition, creating a vicious circle in the behavior of both parties.
 
Evan Medeiros, a former official in the Obama administration, once said something that may well sum up the logic of this “security dilemma” in the ideological realm.  He asked whether in the final analysis China is actively promoting the “China alternative” in an attempt to supplant the Western model of political and economic management, or instead is merely attempting to increase the legitimacy of China’s own choices.  He also noted that even if what China is doing is the latter, it might still achieve the former.  If we can characterize what went on between the US and the USSR during the Cold War as “offensive ideological confrontations,” then to a certain degree what is happening between the US and China now are instead “defensive ideological confrontations.”  Precisely because the ideological elements in the strategic competition between China and the United States are on the rise, their influence increasing, both China and the United States should be aware of this problem, and do their best to make sure that the trend does not continue.
 
First, to cope with this "security dilemma," both parties should better understand each other's strategic intentions and fully grasp the impact of their own actions on the other's sense of insecurity.  China should understand that, owing to the decline in relative American strength and to domestic political and economic difficulties, the overall position of ideology in US foreign policy is on the decline.  At the same time, American self-confidence is falling, while its feelings of insecurity and sensitivity are on the rise.  In fact, the threshold of the American sense of insecurity is quite low, because the extended period of ideological leadership enjoyed by the US after the Cold War has led it to feel threatened by the emergence of any potential competitor. 

The United States should understand that China has no plan to promote the so-called “China model.”  China has recognized that the clearest lesson of China’s development is that there is not one “model” to be followed throughout the world, that lessons learned from the experiences of other countries must be integrated into domestic realities.  At the same time, the United States should avoid using terms with ideological overtones to describe the Sino-American relationship, and even more should firmly resist those extremists who would use “a strategy of offensive ideological confrontation.”
 
Next, both parties should exercise a certain ideological humility.  This is easier for China, because most of its ideological attitude is internally focused, and China does not have the urge to remold the rest of the world according to a set of so-called “universal values.”  As China’s overall power and influence continue to rise, however, it may prove more and more challenging for ideology to remain purely domestic.  But for the United States, maintaining ideological humility will be more difficult.  American ideology is “simple and unified,” and internalized to the point that most Americans are unaware of it.  The American political scientist Robert Dahl put it well: 
 
“The United States is a highly ideological country.  People usually are unaware of their ideology because their ideology is shared to an alarming degree…You see the ideology of the Americans, not only when they are discussing domestic political affairs, but also when they are discussing international affairs, and especially when they are talking about relations between the US and other countries…In any world meeting involving ordinary people, who doesn’t know what the Americans will say?  They evaluate any change in terms of whether it brings you closer to democracy or pushes you further away from democracy.  They make easy judgements of which system is the best, which system deserves praise, which system should be emulated.  The best is democracy, democracy is the best.”
 
Looking at Sino-American relations, America has maintained a desire to transform China from the early period of relations beginning in the late Qing period.  In fact, the American historian Michael T. Hunt revealed just how widespread the influence of ideology has been on American foreign policy precisely through studying the early history of Sino-American relations.  In any event, the United States must realize that for great powers like China and the United States, “the influence of any outside power on internal politics or development strategy is limited.”  In addition, for most of the history of mankind, coexistence and competition between different ideologies has been a fact of life, and Americans need not be so concerned.
 
Finally, ideological competition may not be a completely bad thing.  During the Cold War, sustained competition between the United States and the Soviet Union put pressure on successive US administrations, forcing it to respond to the demands of the civil rights movement for racial equality.  As Truman put it, “If we want to inspire and enlighten people whose freedom is threatened elsewhere in the world ... we must correct problems in our own practice of democracy.”  Any kind of well-meaning, healthy competition helps one to improve oneself, and does not do harm to one’s opponent.  American won the Cold War through domestic reforms. 

Happily, well-meaning people in both China and the United States continue to proclaim that reform and development of both countries is the most important thing.  China’s goal is to fight to achieve the objectives of the “two centenaries,”[2] accomplishing the revival of the Chinese nation.  In Trump’s most recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly, he said that “The road to peace and progress, freedom and justice, and a better world for mankind begins in one’s own country.”  If China and the United States can engage in a limited, healthy competition, this will be good for the two countries and for the world.
 
Notes

[1] 节大磊, “意识形态与中美战略竞争,” originally published in a longer, academic form in the prestigious Tsinghua University journal 国际政治科学, 5.2 2020 84-108, available online here:   http://qjip.tsinghuajournals.com/article/2020/2096-1545/101393D-2020-02-104.shtml.  The version translated here, somewhat simplified and without footnotes, was published online on the site of the Beijing Cultural Review 北京纵横, under the title “中美意识形态竞争出现三个意外转变,”on May 9, 2020, and is available online here:  https://user.guancha.cn/main/content?id=304215&s=fwzwyzzwzbt.

[2] Translator’s note:  This refers to two goals announced by Xi Jinping in 2012.  The first centenary will be in 2021, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, when China will have become a “relatively well-off society.”  The second will be in 2049, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the PRC, when China will have become a "strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country."