Geopolitics: US-China

 US-China relation is at an all-time low after the implications of Covid-19 have become clear. This not only means enormous changes for the USA and China but also impacts the whole world. Let’s dive deep into geopolitics and the US and China’s current role in it.

US-China

Geopolitics is the study of how geography and power interact to shape international relations. A country’s geography shapes its resources and how it communicates with its neighbors. Thanks to technology, today the world has become small. So, geopolitics now affects not only neighboring countries, but it constitutes the entire world.

The US became a superpower before the first world war. Since then, the US went on to dominate other countries in the military field. This hands the US immense power in geopolitics. And the US has exercised its power at will. They have toppled governments, made regime changes across the world, put sanctions on other countries, etc. They either allied with oil-rich countries or made an enemy of them. So, as we can see, the US has a long history of impactful participation in geopolitics.

China, on the other hand, is a recent entry into the list of superpowers. China capitalized on global capitalism since the 1980s to become a powerful nation despite calling itself a socialist/communist country. Since then, China has probed and prodded in various sectors to achieve superiority. China has taken the world’s manufacturing needs into its own hands and profited tremendously from it. This allowed China to exercise direct power over various smaller nations by giving them unpayable loans. These loans allow China to enter the market and do things at their own will in these countries.

These two superpowers came head to head in recent years. The US sees the rise of a competing superpower as threatening and is trying to minimize China’s control over the world. But both countries know that a war between them would only bring their demise. So, they are competing on the economic front. But the US is in a bind. Their economy is tied to China’s economy. Many economic sanctions on China will also hurt the US. So, the US’s best bet is to change China from within. If the Chinese people rise up and demand unfiltered capitalism instead of pseudo-communist authoritarianism, then the US might have control over China.

But such a thing is unlikely to happen. China has a firm hold over its citizens and the recent developments mean that Chinese citizens are satisfied with their government.

Covid-19 only managed to bolster the distrust between the US and China. Some consider it a bioweapon made by China. Even if it’s not, the US is clearly rattled by such a global pandemic arising because of China. They are looking for sanctions and other ways to make China pay for the pandemic.

But China doesn’t see it that way. At least they tell us that they don’t. They believe that the starting of the pandemic is no one’s fault, but the US is at fault here for prolonging the pandemic.

Besides the pandemic, China is claiming marine territories from neighboring countries to make up for their need for seafood. Chinese fishing boats have gone as far as the South American continent for fishing. This has the whole globe rattled. But still, as many countries’ economy is tied to China, they are in no position to deal with China.

The future of geopolitics will revolve around US-China. From the current standpoint, we can say the competition between them will be an economic one. But you never know with these things. If the US and China both feel they are not getting what they need, then the situation could devolve into a full-scale war.

But currently, both countries are aware of the ramifications of such a war and will try to undermine each other through espionage, sanctions, and threats.