Leaving the tiresome but equally joyous adventure of “Turkey's Power and Opportunities” which took up our economy pages for exactly two weeks, as of today, I say hi again to our column and to you, my esteemed readers.
In the last episode of our series, we touched upon the regional Dynamics and discussed the potential collaborations as well as threats. With your permission, I would like to elaborate on this framework and pick up from where I left off because I believe that it is important to constantly recall the dynamics abroad and hence to contemplate on the long term, while we are being kneaded by what is happening domestically.
In our reunion, the topic that I will touch upon by going far away concerns the situation in the U.S.-China struggle with which our column is quite familiar. It is beneficial to look at this power struggle on the grounds that it is one of the most powerful dynamics that will shape the future of the world economy.
At this time last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping uttered the following words: “Asians should solve the problem of Asia and Asians should ensure Asia's safety.”
While Xi is referring to the U.S. in his sentences, Obama was exhausted by his protectorate tour including the Philippines which was angry at China because of the ongoing trouble in the South China Sea.
It is known that the Obama government has been rushing to suppress the Chinese power that has been increasing in Asia and in the world, inasmuch as for a few decades the U.S. has not been able to figure out how it can deal with the fact that the country, which it supported, has developed and become a rival. Yet, China has to break the U.S.'s power in the region in order to control Asia. Therefore, there is no doubt that China is putting up demonstrations through all military and economic means. However, since both sides have to refrain from a serious conflict with one another, the balance is very delicate.
China is known to be the country with the biggest geo-economic control in today's world. The U.S.'s main strategy will mainly focus on this geo-economic power. In this regard, as we have spoken before, the TPP – Trans-Pacific Partnership – is planned to be the most fundamental leg of the game.
A recent report published by the Council on Foreign Relations, considered to be an important actor in the global version of the deep state concept, draws attention to this point. Yet, with an approach that's a little aggressive.
Published with such an ambitious title as “Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China” suggests that the U.S. be quite aggressive in economic terms by governing the Indian-Pacific region in a way to exclude China.
Moreover the report, in addition to the economic control, got very aggressive with the military aspect that emphasizes the importance of establishing security in the region with the tools ranging from Japan's ballistic missile systems to nuclear weapons in India.
Our ambitious report explicitly concludes that it is not possible that there will be solid trust, peaceful collaboration, agreement and strategic partnership between the States and China.
And the last strikes of the authors of the report: The essential question concerning “Asia's future” is whether the U.S. will have geo-economic, military and diplomatic talents, political will and most importantly a correct and great strategy in order to cope with China.
While the said report shares its worry about the U.S.'s displacement from the top of the global hierarchy with the world public opinion in a combative manner which draws an appearance of being a little bit less than a Cold War, China continues its approach of fraternity it has adopted with regard to “the future of Asia.”
Addressing his region with the same tone in recent weeks and while highlighting that the future in the region will be the “common fate,” Xi reminded that this would be achieved by joining hands. To my mind, the most meaningful sentence in Xi's long speech, where he was trying to relieve fears by emphasizing that the element China needs most is a harmonious and peaceful environment and where not even the letter U of the United States came up, was the following sentence:
“A nearby neighbor is better than the distant relative.”
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