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The Year Ahead 2021

China’s Fateful Year

Jan 14, 2021 Minxin Pei

Once again, Chinese political decisions have reset the country’s relations with the West. But whereas Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening in 1979 heralded the start of a cooperative and fruitful relationship, President Xi Jinping's policies in 2020 are far more likely to lead to decades of hostile confrontation.

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – When historians look back at 2020, many may regard it as a pivotal year, like 1949 and 1979, which transformed China’s relations with the West. After Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the country became part of the Soviet bloc and an avowed enemy of the US-led West. But 30 years later, when Deng Xiaoping launched his reforms and made an official visit to the United States to normalize Sino-American relations, a China impoverished by Mao’s calamitous rule received a warm welcome back to the international community.

In 2020, the pendulum swung back again toward mutual distrust and hostility. Two developments in China played a decisive role in this fundamental shift: the COVID-19 pandemic and the national-security law that the Chinese government imposed on Hong Kong.

Viral Tensions

The COVID-19 pandemic most likely began in Wuhan, China in November 2019, before quickly spreading around the world and crippling the global economy in 2020. At the crucial initial stage, the Chinese authorities responded poorly because of bureaucratic fear, a culture of censorship, and unfamiliarity with the new virus. President Xi Jinping was informed of the outbreak in early January but failed to take immediate aggressive action, causing valuable time to be lost.

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j. von Hettlingen Jan 17, 2021

Minxin Pei says 2020 has been China’s “fateful” year. It may also well be a “pivotal” year, like 1949 and 1979, which “transformed China’s relations with the West.” The year 1949 proved crucial following the foundation of the People’s Republic of China - Mao Zedong announced that the New China would support the Soviet Union on the world stage. As the US had been supporting the Chinese Nationalists during their civil war against Mao, and it had refused to cut off relations with the Nationalist government in Taiwan, the Chinese Communist Party saw the US as a serious threat. Hence the Truman administration settled on a policy of non-recognition of the PRC.
After Mao’s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping charted a course for China’s rapid economic development that combined successful reform and openness to the global market economy, while upholding the one-party rule communist rule. In foreign policy, Deng shared Mao’s goal to strive for China’s equality and to restore its lost glory. He was the architect of China’s foreign policy from 1978 until the early 1990s. Deng made a historic visit to the US in Janaury 1979 to normalse Sino-American relations, and to plead for an alliance against the Soviet Union. A China impoverished by Mao’s calamitous rule received a warm welcome back to the international community.
Deng's message was clear, thanking the US for its official welcome, while referring lightly to the "period of unpleasantness” between the two countries for 30 years. The world today, he said, was far from tranquil and the "factors" making for war were "visibly growing". The US and China were "duty bound to work together" in order to maintain peace, security and stability. He would turn in his grave today if he saw how the relationship has soured. He would no doubt disapprove of Xi’s violating his guideline of "keep a low profile and bide our time, while also getting something accomplished." Deng had predicted that China would tread a thorny path if its rise was not peaceful.
The author fears that “Xi’s policies in 2020 are far more likely to lead to decades of hostile confrontation,” ending the “cooperative and fruitful relationship” that Deng initiated in 1979. This has “reset” Beijing’s “ties with the West,” turning the clock back again to “distrust and hostility.” No doubt “two developments in China played a decisive role in this fundamental shift: the COVID-19 pandemic and the national-security law that the Chinese government imposed on Hong Kong.”
Tensions between the US and China “escalated to a full-fledged cold war only in the spring of 2020, when Trump’s calculations changed dramatically as his mishandling of the pandemic darkened his re-election prospects.” While he was preoccupied with problems at home, Beijing sensed an opportunity to expand its power, taking an aggressive stance on multiple fronts, tangling with its neighbours in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, tightening its grip on Hong Kong and engaging in a violent clash with Indian troops along a disputed border in the Himalayas.
This prompted Trump to pivot “cynically and furiously” to blaming China and give “the hawks in his administration carte blanche to punish it accordingly.” According to the author, “Xi’s imposition of the national-security law in Hong Kong not only played into their hands, but also gave them much-needed ammunition to convince wavering US allies that they must join forces to confront an aggressive and untrustworthy neo-totalitarian empire.”
When the curtain finally falls on Trump’s disastrous presidency on January 20, “China’s relations with the US were teetering on the brink of total collapse.” Chinese leaders are under no illusion that bilateral ties will improve under the Biden administration, because there is a bipartisan distrust of Xi’s China. They can only hope that Democrats will be less confrontational in their approach, but they are not expected to “restore the status quo ante in the years ahead.”
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Mike W Jan 15, 2021

Minxin Pei has been predicting China's catastrophic collapse since the early 1990s, he has literally never been correct in the past two decades.
Now he is saying that 2020 is a bad year for China. While China did the following things in 2020:
1 Contained the virus in two months, only a few thousand deaths, life back to normal since March.
2 Export grew 21% in Nov, reaching record high, GDP projected to grow 2.1% in 2020, the only major economy with positive growth rate.
3 Two vaccines approved, helping billions of people in the developing world.
4 Landed on the moon.
5 Signed the RCEP, the largest FTA in history.
6 Signed the EU-China investment deal, preventing the American effort to isolate China from the world.
7 Eradicated extreme poverty.

If Mr. Pei is not such a hypocrite and is willing to bet on his predictions to short China, he would be in deeper debt that the POTUS by now. It is funny that such a clown is regarded as a "China expert" in the US.
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Laban Yu Jan 15, 2021

This won't age well either.
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Leo Arouet Jan 14, 2021

I'm agree...
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