Winton Dong dht0620@126.com U.S. President-elect Joe Biden recently said the United States needed to negotiate with its allies to set global trading rules to counter the growing influence of China. Biden declined to further elaborate on the issue, but said he had a detailed plan which would be discussed on Jan. 21, 2021, the day after he is due to be sworn into the Oval Office. Curbing or even economically decoupling with China seems to be the one-sided wishful thinking of the U.S. Government. In 2020, the U.S. administration, on numerous occasions, abused the concept of national security to suppress China in trade, finance, technology, people-to-people exchange and in many other aspects. China withstood all the tests and such abusive measures have proved to be futile. According to the prediction of the International Monetary Fund, China will be the only major economy to record a positive growth, about 1.9 percent, in 2020, while the economic outputs of the United States and the eurozone would be decreased by 4.3 percent and 8.3 percent respectively at the same time. In spite of various obstacles, even the United States itself witnessed more trade volume with China last year under the strict surveillance of its government. Traditional allies of the United States seem to unite in appearance but in fact split with the superpower from the bottom of their hearts. Chinese and EU leaders on Dec. 30 announced that the two sides had completed investment agreement negotiations as scheduled, and according to media reports, a deal is expected to be signed soon. The negotiations, which were kicked off in 2013, have aimed at reaching a higher-level agreement covering investment protection and market access. Finalizing the agreement also shows that China wants to see a united, integrated, prosperous and strategically independent EU and stands ready to advance mutually beneficial and win-win economic cooperation and diplomatic relations with the important bloc. China’s regional cooperation in Asia also has been strengthened. The 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting held in Bangkok in November declared that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) had concluded. The RCEP is a 16-member economic group, consisting of 10 member states of the ASEAN nations and six free trade agreement partners – China, Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea. India has decided to sway away from the RCEP. However, even without India, the RCEP is still the largest free trade agreement in the world. The Belt and Road Initiative, the global infrastructure and trade project proposed by the Chinese Government in 2013, has won more and more international recognition and already involved more than 100 countries and regions all over the world. Within Asia, China is also trying its best to create a stable and harmonious environment with neighboring countries. China kept restraint when frictions with India broke out because of land disputes. It also takes pains to overcome difficulties and move bilateral relations with Japan in beneficial and constructive directions. More importantly, after the pandemic, it is obvious that China is now much stronger and the Chinese people more united, resilient, confident and determined under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). China’s economy is bouncing back briskly from the contagion thanks to effective virus controls and targeted stimuli while the pandemic is still ravaging the rest of the world. Under the leadership of the CPC, China’s pandemic prevention and control strategy is truly people-oriented and puts human lives as the top priority. Last week, the Health Commission of the Central Government declared that vaccines for the pandemic will be free for all the Chinese people. It is in sharp contrast with those developed countries where debates focused on using monetary and fiscal policies as countermeasures, rather than taking decisive public health measures to contain the virus in the first place and striking a good balance between virus containment and economic development at the same time. (The author is the editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.) | 