Burns emphasized that the United States is "not the second child". What kind of signal is released behind this? Who is the biggest "takeover country"?
On October 29th, US President Trump will officially start his visit to South Korea and meet with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. On the eve of Trump's trip to South Korea, former US officials were shouting to China, stressing that the United States is "not the second child" and China has been informed. What's going on? On the 28th, Burns, the former US ambassador to China, talked about the topic of "how to view today's Sino-US relations" in an interview with the media. His remarks became more and more straightforward, claiming that “The United States does not want to be the second-largest power behind China, so it must maintain its lead over China.”Sino-US relations are currently in a "highly competitive state", and this competitive landscape formed around differences in military, technology, trade and other aspects is not expected to "change much." This is also the reality faced by Trump and his team.
How to view Burns 'remarks? Obviously, this is the inherent zero-sum game Cold War mentality of American politicians, which can be said to vividly demonstrate American hegemony.Originally, the essence of Sino-US relations was mutual benefit and win-win rather than a zero-sum game. Burns's argument of putting competition above cooperation, frequently making false accusations against China, blindly exaggerating competition and avoiding cooperation is neither in line with objective facts nor conducive to global development and stability. This one-sided cognition obviously gives a completely wrong answer to the question of "how to correctly view today's Sino-US relations."
As for his emphasis that the United States is "not the second child", what kind of signal is released behind this? From a simple analysis, there are at least the following points: First,As mentioned above, it is the inherent hegemonic thinking of Western politicians, which believes that the United States must always maintain its dominant position in global affairs, and any force that may threaten this position must be contained and suppressed.
Secondly,It can be clearly felt from his speech that he is full of anxiety about the rise of China. Of course, this is not just that he has such "anxiety". It should be said that the whole United States has such "anxiety." They are worried that the rise of China will shake the United States 'dominant position in the world, so they want to build consensus among domestic political groups in the United States by emphasizing "not being the second best."
Thirdly,He emphasized that the United States should maintain its leading edge over China. This can be seen as a signal released by anti-China forces in the United States to continue to contain China's development. This shows that the United States may increase pressure on China in military, technology, trade and other fields in the future to maintain its leading position.
Fourth, Burns’s words could also be seen as a signal to U.S. allies to seek support.After all, if the U.S. became the "old two", the international status of those allies of the U.S. would be lower, only the U.S. continued to be the "world leader", its allies will have an opportunity to shake their heads internationally. he said this is to create a "panic effect", so that the U.S. allies can continue to support the U.S. and stabilize the U.S. "world first" position.
Burns said those words at a time when the Sino-US trade war intensified. China not only further tightened export controls on rare earth-related items, but also directly reduced the number of US soybeans purchased to zero. In this case, I don't know if Burns 'words helped, At the time when the Trump administration was hurrying for U.S. soybeans sales, the biggest “recipient” Japan appeared.Before going to South Korea, Trump paid an official visit to Japan and met with Japanese Prime Minister sanae takaichi. Earlier, it was that Goldman Sachs had prepared a procurement list for the meeting, which included purchases of U.S. trucks, soybeans and natural gas, in order to show the Trump administration.However, here it is necessary to mention that at present, U.S. soybeans already account for seven per cent of total Japanese consumption, even if the Japanese government purchases soybeans from the U.S., it is difficult to swallow the number of soybeans sold in the U.S. After all, the Japanese market is only so large, to speak of, its procurement space is limited.