Abstract
Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States, has an opportunity to be a great American President by making good his promise to make America Great Again (MAGA). But he needs a new China policy and a new US-China relationship as well as a broader ‘make All World Great Altogether’ drive to make MAGA successful with the participation of China and others.
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The excuses for the island-chain strategy were never fully justified; the first island-chain is no longer effective with China’s new defensive carriers, advanced battleships (quantity and fighting power), and fighter jets (including the six-generation invisible planes). Furthermore, China’s recent ICBM development is fulfilling the U.S. Pentagon’s national security hypothesis. The more the U.S. is pressuring China with national security arguments, the more China is responding with its defense to go beyond the island chains. In a way, the U.S. is asking for the China threat rather than reducing it. The U.S. should recall the Cuban missile crisis and how it was stopped. It was stopped by mutual agreement not to increase and place offensive missiles at military bases aiming at each other. The U.S. should apply the same strategy with China, removing the threatening island-chain military bases for curtaining China’s missile development targeting the U.S. military bases and the American continent. It makes logical sense, and it will save a lot of unproductive military expenses for MAGA purposes. Military superiority should not be the highest priority or objective in MAGA since military advances can only stimulate escalation and conflict, resulting in mutual destruction. With nuclear weapons already proliferated, their deterrence effect is diminished, and no one (nuclear weaponized or not) dares to start a nuclear war. The Ukraine-Russia war is an example. Both sides are constrained not only not to use nuclear weapons but also refrained from attacking nuclear energy facilities. That is why there is no meaning for prolonging the Ukraine-Russia war. Hopefully, President Trump will be able to help stop the war shortly.
MAGA is a timely movement with different forces behind it, taking advantage of the MAGA movement cannot accept its narrowest or abstract definition, MAGA means to restore US infrastructure to modern standards, invigorate the US economy with productive manufacturing, and elevate the US standing on the world stage not as threatening military force but a superpower welcoming collaboration to produce win-win results. For instance, it makes sense for the U.S. to be interested in Greenland from economic development point of view. The U.S. can certainly offer help in developing Greenland from climate control, mineral discovery, and arctic transportation considerations, but not from a military base objective. The MAGA momentum requires the U.S. to focus on MAGA goals and to invite collaborative partners to make MAGA successful. In all considerations (construction technologies in high-speed rail, tunnels, bridges, dams, and ports, as well as electric networks and electricity transmission), China is an important partner for MAGA. The U.S. should engage China as a beneficial collaborative partner rather than treating her as an adversary.
China has a huge population rising from a very poor state with a sharply focused goal to lift its people above poverty and move them to middle-income level if possible. How can this be interpreted as a threat to the U.S. national security? China is indeed rising in economic development and one day will surpass the U.S. GDP, but China’s rise in the economy is achieved with hard work and in small steps (and lots of sacrifices, for example, making a billion pairs of jeans to get one Boeing Jet.), but eventually it will level off like all developed nations. Chinese have an old saying that family wealth is difficult to maintain beyond three generations simply because humans will not work hard when they reach a comfortable life. (An understandable human nature, barring exceptional people like Donald Trump, Elon Musk,…) China will one day face the same challenges as the U.S. is facing, that is, how to stay competitive. Hence, trying to suppress China’s development is a false approach (China works harder with more sanctions and suppression), it is more rewarding to partner with China to enhance t U.S. competitiveness and vice versa. China is like a fully loaded locomotive with passengers that cannot stop on its track easily. The country must keep its citizens fully employed and being productive to elevate the people’s standard of living. Stopping its forward momentum will cause unemployment and unrest, impacting the world economy. Hence, China must explore collaborative economic development with the rest of the world. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a clear example. China views it as a win-win collaborative program; the U.S. should also view it as a win-win collaborative program rather than as a competition and threat to the U.S. The U.S. can leverage its capital and technology to add to programs like BRI to get win-win benefits.
Biden’s four years of anti-China practice essentially has failed, showing no brownie points. China’s trade continues to grow; China seems to be able to cope with decoupling. The tariffs do reduce goods imported from China but hurt US manufacturing output, employment, and exports and cause higher prices. The trade data on goods do not reveal how parts in the goods are counted. The apparent shift of goods imported from China to the rest of the world says little about the parts and materials contained in the goods. Hence, a trade war with tariffs cannot be continued without further studies on those different lists of tariffed and non-tariff goods and breaking down their components and materials to track where their sources of supply are. This study and fact-finding require years of effort. There is no simple way of fixing U.S. manufacturing problems, and there is no simple way of destroying China’s manufacturing base either. Finding a new US-China relationship makes a whole lot of sense for MAGA.
The principle of democracy is simple to understand (Citizens are the masters of their country) and thus can be easily accepted as ‘our value.’ However, the Democratic system (Government system) exists in many forms, and none has been perfected. In addition, the method for citizens to exercise their ‘rights’ (voting right to form government and/or to select officials to serve in the government or to establish laws or to make collective decisions) can take different forms and complex procedures, such as direct vote with name revealed or not revealed to different indirect voting systems and procedures anonymous or not (for example, voting a delegate to exercise citizens’ right on electing officials at different levels of government branch and/or to establish laws and/or to make decisions on issues-resolutions). All the above actions can be executed with a secret ballot or open ballot with or without identification. Whatever democratic system and/or method is employed, it requires all citizens to be educated and knowledgeable to make the process work. Unfortunately, this condition has never been met in any country. Hence, the conclusion is that it is immature to export any democratic system rather, every nation should accept each other’s system to collaborate with and its improvements. Whether we meant it or just used it as a strategy, exporting the political system is not productive, with today’s Internet communication, fake news and false theory will not last long, banning TicToc or controlling it is counter the world trend. Fake news has misled Americans to become foolish sometimes.