Washington’s current Afghanistan crisis and domestic political instability present an ideal opportunity for China to accelerate its global and regional ‘grand strategy.’ Is the United States prepared to slow its advance?

In the year 2034, the United States and China become embroiled in a series of military conflicts that escalate into a devastating tactical nuclear war. Other countries – including Russia, Iran, and India – get involved. Suddenly, the world is on the verge of World War III.

For a decade, the focus of the United States has shown a high degree of continuity, starting with George W. Bush and followed by Barack Obama, Donald Trump and now Joe Biden. But America is now paying greater attention to detail and adding new features to its geostrategic approach.

Among educated and internationally savvy Chinese, no current topic is more despised than the bickering over Chinese and American medal counts at the Tokyo Olympics. Narrow-minded nationalism holds scant interest for them, just as it does for most educated Americans – and, generally, for me. But, as an economist, I am not so dismissive toward the medal-count discussion.

The Biden administration has not yet revoked a rollover proclamation from the Trump administration which bans students from China to enter the United States.

As the worst trade war since WWII enters its fourth year, it is worth stepping back to survey the overall trajectory of the U.S.-China trade dispute.

China-U.S. relations are the main stress point in the present-day world, and the U.S. has yet to accept China’s bottom lines. While chilly political relations and warm economic ones are the new normal, it is still possible for the two to meet halfway.

Most countries agree that data security touches on national security, and increased wrangling over data sovereignty is the new normal. Given the lack of trust between China and the United States, data security will inevitably become a new playing field in bilateral competition.

China and United States should distinguish between strategic competition and a struggle for supremacy, as doing so would help avoid stepping over a boundary line beyond which competition turns into a drive for hegemony and world domination.

During the four decades of the Cold War, the United States had a grand strategy focused on containing the power of the Soviet Union. Yet by the 1990s, following the Soviet Union’s collapse, America had been deprived of that pole star. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, US President George W. Bush’s administration tried to fill the void with a strategy that it called a “global war on terror.” But that approach provided nebulous guidance and led to long US-led wars in marginal places like Afghanistan and Iraq. Since 2017, the US has returned to “great-power competition,” this time with China.