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Scrive Weiss: U.S.-China competition risks becoming an end unto itself, pressing leaders in Beijing and Washington to embrace maximalist positions meant to thwart each other and crowding out efforts to tackle global challenges like climate change and pandemics.
Punto decisivo, occorre che le classi dirigenti comprendano che il confronto linearmente competitivo e muscolare tra USA e Cina è destinato a danneggiare il mondo intero e a peggiorarne la condizione d’instabilità politico-strategica. La megacrisi de-generativa in atto non aspetta le decisioni dei leader: l’esempio dei cambiamenti climatici e delle pandemie è straordinariamente evidente. Fatale sarebbe l’errore di radicalizzare ulteriormente gli interessi nazionali così rendendoli principio di scontro nelle relazioni internazionali.
Il tema posto dall’Autrice va nella direzione di un ripensamento del multilateralismo. The long-term risk is that uncontrolled competition will fuel overextension abroad, where the impulse to counter every potential threat or challenge by the other makes it difficult to focus resources and attention on achieving positive priorities and outcomes. In the United States, escalated competition could exacerbate domestic divisions and undermine democracy. Already, increased xenophobia and anti-Asian violence in America, along with ramped-up efforts to protect research security, have led more than 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists working in the United States — including naturalized citizens and permanent residents — to consider leaving the country. The United States once judged that the world would be safer with China inside rather than outside the international system. That bet largely paid off and is still better than the alternative. Leaders in the United States and China should utilize bilateral and multilateral forums, like the Group of 20, to discuss steps each side could take to move away from the brink.
E’ chiaro come sia meglio avere la Cina dentro il sistema internazionale, una Cina integrata e parte della soluzione dei problemi. Dubitiamo che possano essere gli attuali fora internazionali, certamente da rafforzare ma troppo fragili, burocratici e in ‘secondo piano’ rispetto ai veti degli interessi nazionali, a definire un orizzonte di sostenibilità per il mondo. Ciò, guardando ai rapporti tra USA e Cina ma allargando lo sguardo, dovrebbe portarci a rifondare il multilateralismo in un più realistico ‘multi-bi-lateralismo’.
If a peaceful — if competitive — coexistence is the ultimate objective, Washington and Beijing do not need to knock each other out to win. Questo ultimo passaggio di Weiss ci dice che la competizione esasperata è una scelta sbagliata e insostenibili. Nel multi-bi-lateralismo, infatti, serve una ‘competizione cooperativa’.
English version
We totally agree with Jessica Chen Weiss’ analysis for The New York Times (America and China Don’t Need to Knock Each Other Out to Win).
Weiss writes: U.S.-China competition risks becoming an end unto itself, pressing leaders in Beijing and Washington to embrace maximalist positions meant to thwart each other and crowding out efforts to tackle global challenges like climate change and pandemics.
Crucially, the ruling classes need to understand that the linearly competitive and muscular confrontation between the US and China is bound to damage the entire world and worsen its condition of political-strategic instability. The ongoing de-generational megacrisis does not wait for leaders’ decisions: the example of climate change and pandemics is strikingly obvious. Fatal would be the mistake of further radicalising national interests thus making them a principle of confrontation in international relations.
The theme posed by the author goes in the direction of rethinking multilateralism. The long-term risk is that uncontrolled competition will fuel overextension abroad, where the impulse to counter every potential threat or challenge by the other makes it difficult to focus resources and attention on achieving positive priorities and outcomes. In the United States, escalated competition could exacerbate domestic divisions and undermine democracy. Already, increased xenophobia and anti-Asian violence in America, along with ramped-up efforts to protect research security, have led more than 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists working in the United States – including naturalised citizens and permanent residents – to consider leaving the country. The United States once judged that the world would be safer with China inside rather than outside the international system. That bet largely paid off and is still better than the alternative. Leaders in the United States and China should utilise bilateral and multilateral forums, like the Group of 20, to discuss steps each side could take to move away from the brink.
It is clear that it is better to have China inside the international system, an integrated China, part of the solutions. We doubt that it can be the current international fora, certainly to be strengthened but too fragile, bureaucratic and in the ‘background’ to the vetoes of national interests, that can define a horizon of sustainability for the world. This, looking at the relationship between the US and China but widening our approach, should lead us to refound multilateralism into a more realistic ‘multi-bi-lateralism’.
If a peaceful – if competitive – coexistence is the ultimate objective, Washington and Beijing do not need to knock each other out to win. This last passage by Weiss tells us that exaggerated competition is a wrong and unsustainable choice. In multi-bi-lateralism, in fact, ‘cooperative competition’ is needed.
