Preliminary
In 2020, Mahbubani, a senior Singapore diplomat, threw out a key point in his book "China's Choice: Sino-US Game and Strategic Choices": China’s biggest strategic mistake in recent years has been not adequately assessing the risks, leaving the U.S. business world, which could have become the “stabilizer” of Sino-U.S. relations, gradually moving away.
This argument quickly aroused global attention in the context of the continued warming of the Chinese-American game.
Since the 1980s, U.S. enterprises have been deeply involved in China's reform and opening up, and both sides share development dividends, but when the trade friction escalated after 2018, the U.S. business community chose "silence".
Did China really make a mistake?
The former "win-win bond"
In the 1980s, China opened the door to reform and opening up. The American business community was the first to smell opportunities and became one of the first foreign investment forces to enter the China market.
Peter's cooperation not only allowed American companies to earn money, but also played a key "buffer" role in the fluctuation of China-US relations.
Take aviation giant Boeing as an example. In 1993, its sales in China were only more than a billion dollars, but by 2017, this figure had soared to tens of billions of dollars.
The support of the China market not only helped Boeing stabilize its global competitiveness, but also gave it an advantage in the competition with European Airbus.
2000-2017 In 2000, orders from China accounted for 18% of its total global civil passenger aircraft orders, directly avoiding the risk of being squeezed by Airbus.
General Motors in the automotive sector also benefited significantly, and after General Motors and General Motors jointly established General Motors in 1997, the Buck Conway, Chevrolet Coruz and other models introduced exactly matched the demand of Chinese consumers.
By 2019, the Chinese market contributed 50% of General Motors’ global profits, successfully escaping the pressures of the German car companies.
In the field of technology, Apple, Microsoft and other companies have also built efficient supply chains in China. By cooperating with foundries such as Foxconn, Apple has placed 70% of its iPhone production capacity in China, which not only reduces production costs, but also uses China's huge market to achieve sales growth.
Microsoft, by establishing a R&D center in China, absorbed local technical talent, and its Office series software market share in Chinese enterprises has long remained at more than 90%.
More importantly, when the U.S. government considered abolishing China's "most-favored-nation status" in the 1990s, organizations such as the American Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers lobbied Congress many times to explicitly oppose trade restrictions with China.
Peter's American business community is indeed an irreplaceable "stabilizer" in China-US relations.
However, this atmosphere of cooperation, which had given the two sides a win-win, saw a marked turning point in the escalation of trade friction between China and the United States after 2018.
Key factors in the "alienation" of Chinese and American business circles
When the Trump administration imposed tariffs on China and implemented technological sanctions, the U.S. business community rarely publicly opposed it as it did in the 1990s.
According to Machi, this change is not a coincidence, but the result of China's joint role in the three aspects of the problem in the rise process, which is also the core of the "strategic mistake" in his speech.
The first is the cognitive bias caused by policy adjustment.
In order to accelerate the upgrading of domestic industry, China put forward the "technology sharing" requirement in China-foreign joint venture projects, which was a common path for developing countries to enhance competitiveness, but was interpreted by some American enterprises as "compulsory technology transfer".
For example, in the field of new energy vehicles, when Tesla cooperated with the Shanghai Lingang Management Committee in the early days, although it was not explicitly required to transfer core technologies, the clause of "establishing a R & D center in China and cultivating a local supply chain" was still hyped up by the American media as "technical concessions."
On the other hand, in the 1990s, China implemented the tax incentives of "two exemptions and three halves" for foreign investment, and there were fewer restrictions on market access. This policy difference gave some American companies the illusion of "treatment retrogression".
The second is the obstacles to cooperation brought about by local protectionism.
China has a vast territory. In order to support local companies, some provinces are biased in project bidding and policy subsidies. Even if foreign brands offer lower prices, it is difficult to obtain orders.
Although this kind of operation is widespread all over the world, Ma Kaishuo pointed out that some local governments in China lack flexibility in implementing the agreement. For example, the "environmental protection subsidy agreement" signed by a foreign-funded chemical enterprise and a local government was temporarily suspended due to local financial adjustment, resulting in losses in the early investment of enterprises. Such incidents aggravated the wait-and-see mentality of foreign-funded enterprises.
Finally, the changes in China's mentality after the 2008 financial crisis have been misinterpreted.
Mark said in an interview that he had heard such a detail. At an international economic forum in 2010, a Chinese official spoke with British officials and said Britain “needed to recognize that it has gone from a great power to a decline.”The statement disappointed British officials and was interpreted by some Western media as “Chinese arrogance.”
Mr. Makai believes that China's economic recovery in 2008 led the global financial crisis and indeed gave some officials and the public confidence, but this confidence is not well scaled, it is easy for the West to generate a misunderstanding of "China wants to challenge the existing order", and this misunderstanding indirectly affects the attitude of the American business community towards China.
So, is this really the case?
In fact otherwise.
The other side cannot be ignored.
It is obviously not comprehensive enough to completely classify the "silence" of the American business community as China's "strategic mistake".
The changes in the domestic political landscape of the United States, the shift in the business environment in China and the United States, are also key reasons, which also leaves McKee's point of view to arouse a lot of controversy.
The consensus between the two parties on "restricting China's development" is an important factor in crushing the "will to speak out" of the American business community.
The assessment report released by the Biden administration in 2021 clearly listed China as a "competitor in key areas" and proposed to "reduce dependence on China's supply chain."
The "Chip and Science Act" passed by the U.S. Congress in 2023 not only prohibits subsidized U.S. chip companies from expanding production capacity in China, but also requires allies to simultaneously restrict chip exports to China.
In this political atmosphere, if U.S. enterprises openly oppose sanctions against China, they are likely to face public opinion pressure and even lose government orders.
For example, in 2022, Intel was boycotted by Chinese consumers for marking "Taiwan, China" on product packaging. When Intel tried to explain, it was criticized by U.S. lawmakers for "compromising with China." This dilemma on both sides made American companies dare not express their position easily.
At the same time, the rising operating costs and fading policy dividends of American companies in China have also weakened their motivation to "speak out" for China.
It is worth noting that China is not unaware of these problems, but is also actively improving its interactions with the US business community.
During a visit to China by JPMorgan CEO Damon, he had in-depth exchanges with officials of the Central Bank of China and the Bank of China, and the two sides reached a number of consensus on "expanding foreign investment access to the financial market in China".
Apple CEO Cook visited Shanghai and finalized the expansion plan of Apple R&D center with Shanghai Lingang Management Committee, with an additional investment of over US $1 billion; In 2025, Tesla announced that it would increase its production capacity at the Shanghai Super Factory from 750,000 units annually to one million units, and plans to launch low-cost models for the Chinese market in China.
These interactions show that China is still striving to maintain cooperation with the American business community, and the "silence" of the American business community is more forced by the external environment than by China's initiative to "alienate."
From this point of view, the "strategic mistake" theory of Machiavelli appears to be in the wrong direction.
In addition, Mr. Makai mentioned that "Chinese enterprises have strong imitation capabilities but do not strictly control", but in fact, China has long gone from "imitation" to "innovation".
Taking BYD as an example, its global patent applications have reached 32,000. Among them, the blade battery and DM-i hybrid technology, the core of new energy vehicles, are independently developed, and it has repeatedly sued foreign-funded enterprises for infringement in the international market.
In the field of 5G, Huawei in 2024 the number of 5G standard necessary patent declarations accounted for 20.1% of the world.
These examples show that Chinese enterprises have shifted from “tech followers” to “innovation leaders” and that strengthening intellectual property protection is an important measure to address McKee’s concerns.
From this perspective, China is not only aware of the problem, but also effectively solving the problem.
China and China's strategic choice
China-U.S. games are destined to be a long-term competition, Li Guo Yue in "Li Guo Yue on China and the World" had predicted that "Sino-U.S. games will last for two or three decades", while to objectively look at Machi's "strategic mistake" theory, it is also necessary to recognize the gap between China and the United States, and China's strategic position.
From the perspective of hard power, there is still a clear gap between China and the United States.
According to the data of the World Bank, the U.S. per capita GDP reached $ 90,000, China only $ 13,000, less than the U.S. 1 / 7; in terms of military strength, the defense weekly report 2025 pointed out that the U.S. has 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, China has only 3 conventional-powered aircraft carriers, and the U.S. stillins an advantage in nuclear submarines, strategic bombers and other fields.
In the field of people's livelihood, the per capita medical expenditure in the United States reaches US$12,000, compared with US$6800 in China. There are also gaps in the quality of public services such as education and culture.
However, recognizing the gap does not mean giving up on development, and China also has a clear strategic plan when dealing with the game of China and the United States.
On the one hand, China through the "Belt and Road" initiative to deepen cooperation with the global Southern countries, in 2024 China and ASEAN trade amounted to $890 billion, zero-tariff commodities accounted for more than 90%, China's old railway operations opened in 4 years, the cumulative shipment of passengers more than 16 million times, cargo volume more than 20 million tons, effectively reduced the reliance on the US market.
On the other hand, China continues to promote industrial upgrading and transform from a "manufacturing country" to an "innovative power." Today, China's exports of high-tech products account for 38% of total foreign trade exports, an increase of 12 percentage points from 2018, and its competitiveness in new energy, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and other fields continues to increase.
More importantly, while maintaining cooperation with the American business community, China also adheres to the bottom line of development.
In 2025, Nvidia reached an AI chip supply agreement with China and launched the H20 chip specially designed for the Chinese market, which not only meets the computing power needs of Chinese companies, but also circumvents U.S. technology export restrictions.
In the same year, China signed contracts with European Airbus for 160 aircraft worth more than $20 billion, a move that broke Boeing’s monopoly and showed the world’s openness to the Chinese market.
These actions show that China has not blindly compromised because of Ma Kaishuo's "reminder", but has found a balance between "taking into account external feelings" and "safeguarding its own interests", which may be the most direct answer to "whether China has solved the problem".
conclusion
The long-term development of the Chinese-American game is destined to require both sides to find ways to co-exist in competition.
China's development will not be stalled due to external doubts, nor will it be lost due to short-term pressure. As advocated by the concept of "a community with a shared future for mankind," China pursues not "transcending the United States," but "common development with the world."
In the future, as China's appreciation of external feelings grows more mature, the "alienation" concerned by Mr. Machi may gradually ease, and China-US relations may also find a new balance in the framework of "co-operation in competition".
After all, for the two great powers, a confrontation without a winner is the only right option.