Sino-US relations crucial to global stability, security

China and the United States have recently had frequent high-level diplomatic exchanges. Last week, Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Washington, where he met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and was later received by President Joe Biden.

The two sides have no doubt been working together to bring about another face-to-face meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Biden following their last meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in November last year. This positive move is encouraging not only for the peoples of both sides, but also for those who expect China and the US to cooperate in the face of security challenges to the international community.

Needless to say, the post-pandemic world is not safe. The developments in the Middle East, where we are witnessing a terrible humanitarian disaster unfolding, are disturbing, not to mention that the Ukraine crisis is entering another cold, bloody winter.

As the brutal conflicts continue, the death toll will grow, adding hundreds more to the thousands counted before. For those who luckily survived, hunger, fear and hate come alone or together to hit them.

People everywhere can feel their pain and suffering. People everywhere are calling on the international community to restore peace or at least to prevent more tragedies from unfolding. For this to happen, it is urgently necessary to mobilize collective actions through the United Nations-related authorities.

The UN has endeavored to fulfill this mission for more than seven decades. Today, it remains the sole intergovernmental organization that enjoys universal representativeness.

Yet we must admit that the UN has its own shortcomings. Although it seeks shared solutions for common problems, its efficacy depends on the unity of its individual member states. It is crystal clear that peace can hold only when UN solidarity is manifested. If the UN itself is divided, for whatever reason, peace will fail.

Aware of this, the UN vested a special weighed power to the Security Council, which includes five permanent members and 10 nonpermanent ones. The institutional design of the UN expected the great powers to work together to facilitate peace. According to the agreed-upon procedures, unless there is consensus within the Security Council, there will not be an authorized security action. For this reason, any major political split in the Security Council can prove detrimental to world peace.

Unfortunately, this is what has been happening recently. Allergic to the overestimated Chinese challenge, the US has lately pursued a comprehensive strategy to outcompete China. The US has sought to mobilize its like-minded allies and partners to form a strategic coalition to insulate or even isolate China politically, economically and technologically. US efforts to form a new Cold War bloc targeting China has not only damaged bilateral relations, but also undermined the foundations of the global governance structure.

To win its fictitious grand competition with China, the US took almost all feasible measures to contain China. It asked third parties to follow suit to make the world "safe" for the US and like-minded allies and partners. US efforts to persuade others to stand with it and to dissuade others from interacting with China seriously erode the solidarity of the international community.

The US was so determined that it insisted on allocating its most capable resources to press China. When the US was busy competing with China, some risk-takers began to take advantage of the circumstances. This is partly the reason why regional crises keep on emerging.

Had the US not competed with China so fervently, the international situation could have been less chaotic than it is today.

Now is the time for the US to acknowledge and accept the simple truth that China is a partner rather than a threat. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China supports international efforts to stabilize regional turmoil. The US competing relentlessly with China can only disable both sides' capacity to keep peace, let alone to build peace. On the other hand, improving bilateral relations will enable both sides to contribute more to world peace.

Hopefully, the upcoming meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in San Francisco will give both sides a chance to spare themselves the flawed competition game. As we can see, the Biden administration has stepped a little away from the previous tracks, creating a condition for the US to slightly adjust its China policy. The bilateral relations, though still fragile, have managed to reset step by step.

The whole world is watching and waiting for a more cooperative and less conflict-ridden China-US relationship. Indeed, at a time of shrinking trade, weak growth, widespread inflation and regional chaos, there are too many urgent and emerging problems to be addressed collectively. The destabilized world calls on the US and China, as the largest economies and the most capable actors, to play their own stabilizing roles.

The author is a research fellow at the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.