It’s not yet a turning point, but we’re getting closer. The opening of the United States to China, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing, is the first sign of a thaw between the two superpowers since Donald Trump shifted from threats to economic sanctions in 2020. The paradox is that those sanctions against China ended up costing the United States more money: Chinese retaliations targeted critical sectors for the US, such as agriculture, and years later, it can be said that China’s economic and political capacity has not been significantly affected. On the contrary, during this phase, China has strengthened itself by gaining control over strategic raw materials such as rare earths, demonstrating its indispensability in the global industrial supply chain. China’s post-Covid economy has rebounded at a good pace, while the United States has indeed resumed growth but with moderation.
Above all, the political role of China has changed in recent years, as it has become the leader of a diverse group of countries that, for various reasons, consider it a reliable ally. Beijing not only buys raw materials and invests in infrastructure but also never interferes in internal political matters: it does not like to talk about human rights or democracy, it does not claim to uphold superior values to others, and it advocates for multilateralism and peaceful conflict resolution in international forums. This is the opposite of Washington’s foreign policy, which remains a sore point in relations between the North American power and much of the rest of the world. While the United States views its relations with Latin America as a problem due to migration, for China, it represents an opportunity. In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, where the United States plays a vital role in Ukraine’s military support, China has never transferred a single weapon to Moscow and has put forward its own peace proposal, currently the only one, albeit with its limitations, on the international stage.
The awareness that is emerging in the Biden administration, which has not actually changed Trump’s stance much, is that without China, it is not possible to restore any kind of world order. And the facts indicate that finding order is more necessary than ever, not only due to hotspots of war but also due to the impending effects of climate change. The optimistic phase of the 1990s, which relied on globalization to bridge differences and shape the world of the future, has been definitively consigned to history: today, that phenomenon, which was supposed to level out differences and shape the world of the future, has become a nightmare for many. Especially for the myriad of countries excluded from significant trade flows, states that have become even more marginal than before, doubly discriminated against because they are both politically and economically insignificant. In this context, operations of exchange conducted in local currencies multiply, eroding the dominance of the dollar; the list of countries that would like to join the BRICS club is growing longer; African leaders, in addition to Latin American ones, are also making efforts to initiate a dialogue that leads to the end of the conflict in Ukraine.
Behind all these moves, there is always Beijing, which in the past two years has confirmed its role as a different superpower compared to those of the past. China focuses more on business than on arms, and that is precisely why it is making inroads among countries in the global South, who have always sought this approach without ever being taken into consideration. However, China is not a knight in shining armor, a champion of the poor. It is a country that was poor until a few decades ago and is now leveraging a unique conjuncture to reach the global summit in its favor. The United States, which alone failed to impose its own order, must now fallback and seek convergence with Beijing, also in their own future interest
alfredosomoza 