Washington’ coercive behavior is increasingly resisted by allies
Some traditional allies of US like Australia and UK have recently complained that the US’ reckless “decoupling” from China has led to losses to their economies – a phenomenon that experts said indicates the harm caused by Washington’s bashing-China policies.
According to a report of the West Australian state on Monday, a recent analysis by Lowy Institute senior fellow John Edwards noted that Australia’s ability to make scientific and medical breakthroughs would take a hit as the competition between US and China extends into the tech space.
According to Edwards, if the US places wider export denials on technology to China, the US would expect its allies to follow suit, which could mean an end to “thousands of partnerships” with Chinese academics in medicine and high-tech field researches.
“It is economically an issue of great significance to Australia,” Edwards was quoted as saying.
Separately, a leaked internal government analysis showed that UK would need to adopt a more interventionist approach to its own economy after US President Joe Biden announced a $369 billion package of green subsidies last year in order to keep pace with China.
The huge US green subsidies are set to cause serious damage to UK economy.
The Biden administration has been going to lengths to rope in allies from Europe to Asia-Pacific to join its assault on Chinese economy. For example, the US pulled in Japan and South Korea to set up an alliance in order to exclude China’s semiconductor industry.
Experts said that it’s evident that Washington won’t take the interests of its allies into consideration when it forces them to join its anti-China grouping, and some that rashly followed Washington’s steps have paid a price.
Australia is one such example. Chen Hong, director of the Australian Studies Center at East China Normal University, said Australia is heavily reliant on markets like China to dock its energy and minerals resources, and it also needs international scientific and research cooperation, as its own manufacturing research ability is not very strong.
“Impacted by the US government and the previous Australian government’s anti-China sentiment, a lot of this cooperation has halted, which is inhibiting Australia from trade to employment,” he told the Global Times.
According to Chen, the current government in Canberra felt the negative impact and took a more prudent, mature approach. “It’s not possible that Australia will completely stray from the US, but at least it will not blindly or even voluntarily help the US achieve its anti-China strategy.”
China-Australia economic relations showed signs of warming up recently with trade starting to pick up. In the first four months of this year, China-Australia trade rose by 21.4 percent in yuan terms, Chinese customs said.
Chen noted that China and Australia have broad space for cooperation, such as in the field of clean energy.
Likewise, although the UK might not have such industrial complementarities and economic and trade exchanges with China, the country is reliant on China for support services such as finance, education, culture and tourism, said Tian Yun, a veteran macroeconomic analyst.
Experts said that although China’s relations with some countries seemed to be a little tense in recent years under the US government coercion, in the long run they will have to prioritize their own national interests just like what Australian has done.
In particular, Tian said that China is a “low-inflation country”, which means that Western countries that cooperate with China would benefit greatly, whether in terms of curbing inflation or fueling economic growth.
(Global Times)
