A member of the Communist Party talks about how his country used to admire the United States.
 | By Yara Bayoumy World and National Security Editor, Opinion |
The fallout over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan last week is still reverberating. China had spent weeks warning the United States against the visit, saying it would damage relations. In Washington, policymakers and experts argued the pros and cons. In the end, Pelosi spent less than 24 hours on the island, but it was a hugely symbolic expression of solidarity with Taiwan. China views such visits as "foreign interference" in Taiwan — a self-governed democracy that Beijing considers Chinese territory — and reacted angrily. It staged live-fire military drills and suspended cooperation with the United States in several areas, and its foreign minister twice walked out of diplomatic gatherings attended by the United States. |
Even before Pelosi's trip, U.S.-China relations were in a tailspin. Long-simmering disputes over China's human rights record and trade policies boiled over under Donald Trump, who instigated a tariff war with China and blamed the country for the coronavirus pandemic. Things have not improved under President Biden. China's support for Russia in its war on Ukraine has irked Washington, adding to strains over Beijing's aggressive efforts to win influence in the Indo-Pacific, the South Pacific, Africa and other regions; Chinese espionage; and maneuvers in the South China Sea, to say nothing of its relentless crushing of dissent in Hong Kong and the humanitarian catastrophe perpetrated in Xinjiang. |
Times Opinion has published several writers with different perspectives who make arguments about how the United States can counter China more effectively. We also thought it would be useful for readers to hear from Wang Wen, a Communist Party member who runs a Chinese think tank and is a former chief opinion editor of The Global Times, an arm of The People's Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper. |
In a guest essay, Wang offers a viewpoint seldom considered in America. He writes that in the late 1990s many in China looked to America with admiration but notes that that changed considerably over the years, as the Chinese saw a more dysfunctional side of the United States. |
"After years of watching America's wars overseas, reckless economic policies and destructive partisanship — culminating in last year's disgraceful assault on the U.S. Capitol — many Chinese, myself included, can barely make out that shining beacon anymore," Wang writes. |
Some will disagree with Wang's argument. But if the world's two greatest powers are to start on the path of reconciliation, mutual understanding is the first step. |
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