SCMP:China can’t count on US giving any strategic ground soon: top Chinese academic Wang Jisi

[Hamartia Antidote]

China can’t count on US giving any ground soon, top Chinese academic says

Recent improvements are fragile and could easily be scuttled by another balloon saga, Wang says.

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• Recent improvements are fragile and could easily be scuttled by another balloon saga, Wang says
• Differences between Beijing and Washington over Taiwan will persist and intensify, he says

China should drop any illusion that the US will make strategic concessions in their fraught relationship, according to Wang Jisi, a top Chinese academic on relations between the two countries.

Speaking at the World Peace Forum hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing on Monday, Wang said the recent rapprochement between China and the US was fragile and could be derailed by events like the balloon saga early this year.

“Personally, I think China actually sees the US as its biggest external threat, and that threat is not just about national security but politics, too,” he said in a panel discussion.

“The US has often said that it doesn’t want to change China’s [political] system but we are very concerned because of what it is doing and the fact that the US has a very negative opinion about China politically.”

Wang said that despite efforts to improve communication he had seen little sign of change from Beijing and Washington. Instead, the two countries had toughened their economic and foreign policy positions, citing national security grounds.
“This is why I think we should give up any illusion that the US would make strategic concessions to China,” he said.