A year ago, the coronavirus began spreading rapidly in China. Today, China’s economy is bouncing back hard and expanding even faster than it did before the pandemic. Economic data published Monday showed that China logged 2.3 percent growth for 2020, becoming the only major economy that grew during a year when the virus exacted a devastating global toll. As other major nations and geopolitical competitors, from the United States to Europe to India to Japan, struggle to beat back a winter wave, China’s containment success has buoyed its economy and the ruling Communist Party’s claims to global leadership in the post-pandemic world. In a sign of how quickly China has managed a turnaround, the National Statistics Bureau said that its gross domestic product rose 6.5 percent during the fourth quarter of 2020, exceeding the 6 percent pace at the end of 2019 before the coronavirus took hold. China’s GDP surpassed a milestone in 2020, topping 100 trillion yuan, or about $15 trillion. As President-elect Joe Biden enters office this week, he’ll be confronted with a China that does not seem diminished in economic health or international stature. Chinese President Xi Jinping recently struck a bullish tone during his New Year’s Eve address, when he declared he was “proud of his great motherland” and the sacrifice and unity his countrymen displayed to quickly beat back the coronavirus through strict lockdown measures and an all-hands mobilization of medical and manufacturing workers.
America and the EU must put aside their attempts to interfere with Chinese economic growth and find better ways to compete competitively but without rancor. Trump and his trade advisors have made a mess of trade with China by using tariffs, something which made no sense because China did not pay these tariffs. They were paid by U.S consumers. The trade deficit continues and will be like this for a long time. America still is far behind in basic manufacturing while China supplies the goods which U.S companies do not want to make and households in America need and want. The reason China was only mildly affected by the recession of 2008 should have been a clear sign that the Trump posture toward China was self-defeating.
The Biden administration would be well advised to restart the trade playbook with China, beginning with the end of tariffs and setting a different tone. Americans must learn to give up the pejorative use of “communist party” language because it is a badge of ignorance now and serves no useful purpose. Anti-communism has poisoned American education and thinking since the end of World War II. It is time to realize that this is the way of China – a country which has not invaded any other country while America has invaded several countries at great cost, loss of life, and loss of prestige. The Vietnam example should have been enough to cure American efforts to defeat countries with a communist system, but it did not.