China and the United States have been sitting together and talking for decades, but today's problems have changed. In the past, it was about “how to cooperate”, now it is about “how to control confrontation”.Both sides are still talking about “dialogue,” but the words have changed the script.
China speaks of “equality and mutual benefit, mutual non-interference”, and the US emphasizes “rules, order, and alliance of values”. The channel was wrong.。
The fundamental problem behind this is no longer verbal expression, but There are four dead knots-who dominates the economy, who has the final say in Taiwan, who suppresses whom with military power, and who gives priority to the system.
On the surface there is a trade war, and underneath there is the “control of industrial power.”
China and the United States cannot talk about money, but this account is not a dispute between "you make more and I make less", but a dispute between "who controls the global industrial speech".
In the early years, China exported low-end goods, and the United States was happy to pay for a single person. When China's Manufacturing 2025 proposed to master the core technology and control the supply chain initiative, U.S. strategic anxiety broke out.
In 2018, the United States launched a “301 investigation” against China on the grounds that China “stole intellectual property rights, unfair subsidies, and forced technology transfers.” This year, the Trump administration announced a 25% tariff on the total value of approximately $34 billion in Chinese goods.
But the problem is-these charges have never been Multilateral mechanisms within the WTO。
In an interview with China Economic Weekly in 2019, Cui Tiankai pointed out: The United States always says that it "suffers losses," but in fact, in the past few decades, the profits earned by the United States through investing in China are much higher than the benefits brought by China's exports to the United States.
And what really worries the U.S. is not that China sells a few more TVs, but that it does. Can China independently manufacture chips, engines, and 5G systems。 What does that mean? It means the replacement of supply chain dominance.
In 2023, China became the world's largest exporter of electric vehicles, and the world's largest share of NINGD era batteries.BIAD's total sales exceeded Tesla for the first time.This change behind the "industrial core components are no longer controlled by the Western supply chain."
For the United States, this is not a game of interests at the economic and trade level, but a structural collapse of "technological dominance". This is the real crux of the trade war.
The United States requires China to relinquish the initiative in the "new industrial revolution," and China can only continue to work as contract workers. But China has long determined: Innovation is the fundamental support for national security., this space is not allowed.
The Taiwan Strait issue has changed from a "red line" to a "cross-border line", not a word, but sovereignty.
If the economy is a struggle of power, then Taiwan is a struggle of life and death.
China and the United States established political mutual trust within the framework of "One China" in 1979, and from 2017 onwards, the United States will consider the Taiwan issue as a leverage operation.
In March 2018, the United States passed the "Taiwan Travel Act" to encourage senior officials to exchange visits. Later, arms sales, military exercises, and visits continued one after another, turning the original "vague policy" into explicit support.
In August 2022, Pelosi flew to Taiwan, and China launched the "Six-District Live-Fire Military Exercise around Taiwan". Dongfeng missiles passed through the sky above Taiwan Island, locking the island for the first time in actual combat.
Many people ask: Can't we discuss this issue? After decades of talks, can we talk again?
China has repeatedly expressed its position of "peaceful reunification" and has never changed. But what the United States is doing is not so much "communication", More like a "commitment to phase out the one-China policy".
In April 2023, Cui Tiankai said at the Blue Hall Forum: The Taiwan issue is not a regional security issue, but an issue of China's national sovereignty, and it is the touchstone for external forces to "step in".
What is the strategic thinking of the United States? -- Once the Taiwan Strait is "completely controlled" by Beijing, the Western Pacific pattern will be rewritten and the first island chain strategy will be ineffective. Under such circumstances, the United States would rather be tense across the Taiwan Strait than lose this "check and balance point."
China's judgment is clearer: if the Taiwan Strait is unstable, it will be difficult for the country to stabilize. China is not afraid of friction escalation and will not open a price on sovereignty issues.
The dispute over the Taiwan Strait is not a regional management issue, but The fundamental collision between China and the United States '"views of national integrity"This is the second hard nail.
An unspeakable arms race is quietly going on at the border
Many people think that China and the United States "start the war" is a heavy word.In fact, China and the United States today the biggest problem is: Military forces are too close and trust is too far away.
In 2017, the U.S. military conducted 11 "freedom of navigation operations" in the South China Sea, entering China's declared waters. In 2018, the U.S. ship "Dickett" and China's "Langzhou" were "facing face to face" at only 41 meters of Nansha Rhin'i Reef.
In 2023, U.S. troops returned to the Gulf of Subic in the Philippines, Australian-British-American AUKUS was officially launched, and the U.S. deployed long-range missile systems in Japan.
At the World Peace Forum in 2023, Trudeau said that the United States was “pressing” the Cold War military pattern around China, creating strategic panic.
And how does China respond? Dongfeng-17 hypersonic missile commissioned, Shandong ship commissioned, J-20 mass production, Beidou global coverageThese actions are preventive.
Because every time the U.S. claims to be “safe and trustworthy,” the next step is “deployment of force in front of the door.”You put up artillery at my doorstep and asked me to “not be nervous,” which is ironic in itself.
The underlying logic of China's military building is clear: defense is not for provocation, but for making people dare not provoke.
This is the third level structure: The United States treats its opponent’s security enhancement as a threat expansion, while China treats pressures around it as a strategic survival.
Once China and the United States get close at zero range, the risk is not reasoning, but a stopwatch.
It is not that words are illogical, but that "civilized values" cannot be translated into each other
On the surface, the different systems between China and the United States are explicit contradictions. But what has really become serious in recent years is The untransformable understanding of each other's systems。
The United States has been talking about "freedom, * and human rights". These words seem universal, but when they fall on policy, they become "if you don't do this, you have a problem".
China has always emphasized that "development is given priority, stability is given priority, and people's satisfaction is given priority." This institutional logic is the result of historical precipitation and cannot be obtained by copying the American framework.
In December 2023, at the "read China" conference, Trudeau criticized the Western narrative for "distorting" China as a systematic bias.The United States defined China's peaceful development as "the rise of revisionism", and misinterpreted China's development assistance and infrastructure cooperation as "expansion intent".
The key to the problem is not conceptual opposition, but cognitive closure. The United States relies on "institutional alliances" in diplomacy to promote value export; China proposes "multipolar world, cultural coexistence." One wants to unify order, and the other requires diverse orders, which are simply incompatible.
The U.S. view of the Chinese system is based on the Cold War model; the Chinese view of the U.S. system is evaluated by the real results. This dislocation will turn communication into unilateral pressure and "dialogue" into political trial.
For the United States, the fact that "China is strong" itself "does not conform to the * narrative"; For China, "whether * can bring stability and development" is the core issue.
So, Not because of different opinions, but becauseThere are fundamental differences between them on “how human society should be organized.” This is not a problem that can be discussed, it is an unified cognitive structure.
conclusion
Today, when we say "whether China and the United States will fight", we are not asking whether there will be tanks crossing the strait, but whether there has been an exchange of fire in the industrial chain, whether the Taiwan Strait issue has become a fuse, and whether the strategic deployment is crossing the line. On the edge of the line, has value output changed from words to actions.
In the real "war", there will be no official declaration of war, nor will it be tanks crossing the border. It is likely to be the rupture of the supply chain, the collapse of political mutual trust, the loss of control of the surrounding situation, and the spillover of institutional games.
I can't talk about it because I'm not talking about the same thing at all.Tri Tian Kai's several speeches are clearer: China has always been open to communication, but the prerequisite is equality, mutual respect and credibility.
This is the real problem to see clearly.
References:
The Four Great Mistakes of the West on China's Foreign Policy, China's National Innovation and Development Research Council, 2023-12-08
Trump: U.S. is engaging in “two things” against China, which is problematic. direct news.2023-04-22
China Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai talks about the direction of Sino-US relations. China Economic Weekly. 2021 -02-01
Cui Tiankai expressed his position on Sino-US relations and the situation across the Taiwan Strait 40 years after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States. Overseas website.2018-11-26
Ambassador to the United States, Traian Kai: It is a mistake to think that China has taken advantage of the United States cheaply.
Trai Tianjin: Make every effort to prevent any risk that could lead to China-US relations "out of track." - People's Network, 2017-07-26
Cui Tiankai: China does not want to compete with anyone for hegemony and opposes anyone seeking hegemony.China News Network.2025-07-03