What the Battle of Huawei tells us about US-China relations

Copyright of the image
Reuters

The United States insists that their opposition to the use of Huawei technology in key information systems stems entirely from security concerns: the fear of a "back door" in the software or the relationship between the Chinese state and its large high-tech enterprises.

Of course, there can also be a good deal of old-fashioned commercial rivalry. After all, it is these technologies that will shape the world's economic future.

But is there anything else? Are we witnessing the first significant engagement in something that is much more than just a conventional trade war?

For years, commentators have spoken of China's boom: the transfer of economic power to the East and the relative decline of the United States. None of this would happen without friction – but now the United States is fighting back.

The spokespersons speak of preparing for a new era of global competition. In the first case, the discussion is military – reorient the US armed forces so that they do not fight the insurgencies and regional wars in order to prepare for a conflict between States, Russia and China playing the role of competitors.

But in the conflict with China, the economic dimension is fundamental. At a certain level, the Trump administration seems determined to use its economic power not only to coerce a company like Huawei, but also to force Beijing to open its markets and change some aspects of its economic behavior that have long been a concern for Western companies. seeking to do business. The.

Of course, Beijing sees something different, an ongoing campaign to contain the rise of China. And it may be right.

This battle is about much more than business practices and commercial markets, it is a struggle for the most fundamental foundations of national power, which has enormous strategic implications. In other words, the West is slowly re-learning the simple fact that Beijing has too well assimilated that economic power is the foundation of world power and that economic strength is the precursor of military power.

Copyright of the image
Getty Images

It is a truism that the West has taken for granted for more than two centuries, but the development of market capitalism and the 17th century military revolutions have been linked. It was commercial and economic power that enabled military innovation technology, which facilitated the 17th and 18th century maritime empires and the 19th century steam empires.

When the United States completely supplanted Britain as the dominant Western power at the end of the Second World War, the world was briefly dominated by a single world superpower armed with nuclear weapons. Of course, the Soviet Union sought to compete with the United States in terms of its political and economic model, but it could not maintain the pitfalls of a military superpower over time. And with the collapse of Soviet communism, the United States has once again become the only global player with real military significance. It was the "unipolar" moment that, in retrospect, seems just as brief.

The rivalry between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War is instructive. Not because it is a parallel to the current growing tensions between the United States and China, but rather because of the difference. There was simply no equivalent to the current economic rivalry.

The economy of the Soviet Union was largely cut off from the West – its technical development was limited and relatively backward, with the exception of a few key areas. Western trade restrictions have prevented the export of all kinds of technologies to the communist bloc.

China is a totally different issue. Its huge economy and manufacturing base are closely linked to the international economic system. It is probably a bit late to try to close Beijing to key economic activity sectors. The pace of China's rise is almost unique. A decade ago, the US economy was still three times larger than China's. Not anymore.

Multimedia playback is not supported on your device

In modern times, the United States has never faced an economic competitor of equal size, let alone a competitor who will surpass it. This is entirely new. And this, perhaps belatedly, leads to an in-depth rethinking of the conditions of economic competition: a challenge that explicitly restores economic power where it should have always been, as a central foundation of national strategy and power .

This is of course something that the Chinese have understood from the beginning. Nineteenth-century China has been a victim of Western expansionism and withered trade practices. It is a story that is remembered here, while in the West, the opium wars or the French Tonkin countryside – its first forays into Indochina – are largely forgotten.

The Chinese "Belt and Road" initiative – its vast plans for close economic relations with a chain of countries – was not just about markets and access to commodities, but reflected a fundamental strategic effort. This has been reinforced by a long-standing program of purchasing and developing key port facilities around the world.

It was a conscious policy to secure China's economic future as a key determinant of national power.

The "Belts and Roads" initiative was undertaken with the belief that the United States and Japan would not necessarily be China's major trading partners in the long run. China has exploited huge markets in developing countries – literally billions of people. China's economy may be wavering (at least in relative terms), but as a well-informed Chinese observer told me, "they have engineering talent, focused leadership, guidance market and long-term horizons ".

Multimedia playback is not supported on your device

President Trump has apparently decided to draw a line on Chinese competition. In the United States, a series of regulatory changes are aimed at restricting China's access to US know-how and critical sectors of its economy.

But will it work? Will Mr. Trump himself stay on course or adopt one of his usual U-turns? His recent comments on Huawei's concessions seem to highlight his transactional rather than strategic approach to foreign policy. But this is a more complex issue than Mr. Trump's and will challenge many US administrations to come.

• Who loses in the US-China trade war?

This is a short-term concern. The fundamental principles of strategic competition between the United States and China are clear and will not go away. Efforts to separate their two economies will cause short-term (and probably long-term) problems. But what is worrying is that growing economic tensions are reverberating in the realm of security, raising real fears of conflict, either by accident or by intent.

A large number of Mr Trump's national political opponents, while accepting that there is "a problem in China", do not necessarily agree with the way he proposes to solve it. International economic institutions need to be refreshed, they argue. Trade and security legislation must encompass the challenges posed by new technologies such as artificial intelligence. And they fear that Mr Trump will pursue a too narrow and nationalistic approach.

Above all, they say, the allies must stay on their side. If this resolves to separate the economic battles between China and Japan, between China and the EU, or between China and the United States, Beijing will have the advantage.

There was a time when the essential approach of China's rise to the United States was to seek to make it a "responsible actor" of the international system. He basically said that China would be accepted if it respected the economic rules in force.

But now, China has grown and it is a process that will not stop. Unsurprisingly, he has his own ideas. We are now talking a lot about containing China. But this simply raises the question: is China just too big to be contained?