1) In recent days, two of the world’s top international conferences, APEC and G20, have been held in Latin America. I have a clear feeling that the influence of the United States is really declining significantly. When filming the “family photo” at the APEC informal leaders’ meeting, Joe Biden seemed to be a bit “unable to find the north” and came late, and finally stood in the second row very far away. He also took the initiative to shake the hand of Thai Prime Minister Petantan on his right, and the “Miss Beauty” born in 1986 smiled shyly. Even the American media has noticed that Chinese leaders are in the most central position to the right of the host country in the first row.
2) On November 5, 2024, the Democratic Party of the United States suffered a disastrous defeat in the general election. But in the entire Democratic Party, it seems that only Joe Biden is “the happiest”, happy all day long. For Joe Biden, this is his last term anyway, and this is his last time as a political figure anyway. The victory or defeat of the American election has little impact on him. Even Harris’ disastrous defeat indirectly proves that the Democratic Party’s decision to replace him with Harris in July 2024 through “secret room politics” and ultimately suffer a disastrous defeat was a wrong one. Joe Biden has tasted a little bit of “revenge”. This is idle talk.
3) Joe Biden is attending an international conference at this time. To be honest, no one will take him seriously. All of us are thinking about what will happen after Donald Trump takes office in the White House more than two months later. Joe Biden’s status as a lame president, coupled with the sharp decline of the United States’ international influence, made the United States feel lonely at the APEC and G20 summits. It has completely lost the momentum of being the only global superpower in the past.
4) In recent years, the decline of the United States’ international influence is mainly due to the decline of its overall national strength. Moreover, due to the globalization wave in the past two to three decades, the United States has experienced issues such as manufacturing outflow and economic detachment, leading to further polarization within the country and the prevalence of populist ideas. This has caused the entire country to tend towards conservatism, with protectionism, unilateralism, and isolationism becoming the three distinct features of US foreign policy.
5) It is precisely because the United States has not responded well to the impact of globalization that, after the outflow of manufacturing, middle and lower class workers are facing the dilemma of unemployment and slowing or even stagnating real income growth, leading to the rise of protectionism in the United States. Many Americans firmly believe that globalization and free trade are the main reasons for their plight. In this context, the United States, which once held high the banner of globalization and free trade after World War II, voluntarily gave up its role in leading the development of globalization and free trade. Under the electoral politics of the United States, American politicians are increasingly viewing globalization and free trade as “election poison”. This is why Donald Trump withdrew from the TPP (later CPTPP) as soon as he took office in 2017, which was originally an important means used by the United States to attract Asia Pacific countries to isolate and encircle China.
6) From 2017 until now, in my impression, the United States has not signed any new free trade agreements with any country, nor has it unilaterally opened its market to any country again. Under the influence of domestic protectionism in the United States, American politicians have actually given up their leading role in globalization and free trade, as well as their efforts to influence relations with other countries by further opening up the vast domestic consumer market. Such an America will inevitably lead to a decline in global influence. That’s also why, in the past seven or eight years, the United States has increasingly relied on its traditional allies such as the West, Japan, and South Korea to contain and suppress China. The United States has almost no leverage or influence in attracting emerging markets and developing countries to join in containing and suppressing China. This is also an important reason why China has been able to stand firm and respond more calmly after withstanding direct attacks from the United States and its core allies. Ultimately, the United States is moving towards closure, its influence is declining, and its friends are decreasing. The United States will inevitably become increasingly powerless in suppressing and containing China.
7) The United States not only no longer actively promotes globalization and free trade, but also no longer uses its huge domestic consumer market to maintain good relations with other countries. The poor financial situation of the US federal government, as well as the strong anti globalization wave in the US, also make it unlikely for the US to spend too much real money to help emerging markets and developing countries build infrastructure and develop their economies. Due to changes in the economic structure, there are no decent large-scale infrastructure construction enterprises in the United States. In this way, even if the United States provides real money to help other countries build roads, bridges, and ports, these large-scale infrastructure projects may still be contracted by Chinese companies in the end. This is a great irony for the United States. So, we see that the United States would rather provide billions of dollars to support Ukraine than use these aid funds to support other emerging markets and developing countries. The root cause may be that most of the US aid to Ukraine is still recovered by the US “military industrial complex”. However, if the United States uses these funds to assist “global southern” countries, it is possible that these funds will eventually be recovered by Chinese enterprises. This may sound a bit funny, but that’s the real situation.
8) On the contrary, China has become a new engine for global development through platforms such as the “the Belt and Road” and the BRICS countries in recent years. To some extent, China has taken over the banner of continuing to promote globalization and free trade from the United States. This outcome is not the situation that the United States wants to see, nor is it a situation deliberately created by China, but a natural result of the complex development of international relations that later emerged. Compared to the United States’ foreign policy, which is full of protectionism, unilateralism, and isolationism, China has adhered to high-level opening up to the outside world in recent years, pursued a path of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, and upheld true multilateralism. This is a strategic choice made by the governments of China and the United States, as well as a necessary requirement for the different economic structures of the two countries. China has the world’s largest and highly competitive manufacturing industry. By participating in globalization and free trade, China can gain tangible benefits and bring tangible benefits to its trading partners. China has accumulated a large amount of foreign exchange reserves. Through outward investment, China not only brings significant benefits to other countries, but also finds a good investment direction for these foreign exchange reserves that cannot be used domestically. It can further increase China’s strategic reserves of energy and mineral resources overseas, and provide good development opportunities for telecommunications equipment companies such as ZTE and Huawei, as well as infrastructure enterprises.
9) Joe Biden is old and about to step down. What about Donald Trump? Donald Trump himself and his supporters firmly believe that it is the institutional elites such as the Democratic Party who are obsessed with globalization and free trade that finally led to the current dilemma of the outflow of manufacturing and hollowing out of industries in the United States. What they want is to reverse this policy and move the United States towards more stringent protectionism, unilateralism and isolationism. Trump’s threat to impose taxes on all of America’s trading partners and to withdraw from the Paris Climate Change Agreement and other important international agreements and organizations will only further isolate the United States globally.
10) A few years ago, I said that while the United States chose to contain and suppress China, China would instead open its doors and take the main path, building good relations with Western countries outside of the United States, as well as with emerging markets and developing countries. In the end, it would turn the encirclement and isolation of China by the United States into a counter encirclement and isolation of China by the largest number of countries in the world. At present, this situation is gradually taking shape.
Today’s game between China and the United States has basically been decided. It is like that the Chinese people’s war of resistance against Japan has entered the stage of strategic stalemate and strategic counterattack. The United States’ containment and suppression of China will inevitably lead to failure. Fundamentally, this is because the United States is trying to prevent more than 1.4 billion Chinese people from living a better life, which is not only against heaven, but also against the basic operational logic of the world today. In the past six or seven years, China has withstood rounds of containment and suppression from the United States, always standing firm and becoming more confident.
Two months later, the era of Donald Trump 2.0 will come. I have repeatedly seen Donald Trump’s ruling plan and the nominees for the ruling team. After January 20 next year, Donald Trump will launch a “cultural revolution” against the extreme political correctness of the Democratic Party, as well as a “institutional revolution” against the US federal government bureaucracy (the so-called “deep government”). Despite Donald Trump’s victory, with the advancement of these two “revolutions”, the United States will fall into a serious split, confrontation and internal friction. In particular, Donald Trump’s attempt to reform the “deep government” will only lead to the soft grinding and hard shoulder of the US federal government bureaucracy, which will greatly reduce the operational efficiency of the US government, and will inevitably affect the effectiveness of the US foreign policy and the US containment and suppression of China. On the external side, the Donald Trump 2.0 era wants to quickly end the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Middle East conflict, and then go all out to China. However, I read the plans of the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Affairs Assistant to the President nominated by Donald Trump, which are not very reliable. The Russia-Ukraine conflict is not easy to end, and the United States is even more wishful thinking to “unite Russia with China”. As for the Middle East conflict, it has lasted for more than 70 years and cannot end overnight. Donald Trump’s one-sided support for Israel does not care about the fate of the Palestinians; At the same time, Donald Trump is also seeking to further sanction and suppress Iran, which will make the Middle East issue “entangle” the United States again and again, making the United States unable to escape.
In the process of the United States moving towards protectionism, unilateralism, and isolationism, the trend of world development is unstoppable and will not stop waiting for the United States. China can fully unite the vast “global South” countries, as well as Europe, Japan, South Korea and other countries, to find a path of globalization without the United States.
In short, as Trump prepares to smash the world, the world is already prepared to stop playing with the United States.
