Caixin: As Global Power Shifts, US Must Win Beijing’s Cooperation

Global institutions and alliances supported by the United States since 1945 have added to economic growth, lifting emerging economies and deterring conflicts, explains David M. Lampton for Caixin of Johns Hopkins University. He urges three priorities: addressing the North Korea nuclear program, trade reciprocity and economic balance of power in Asia. The United States should not ignore the One Belt, One Road Program: “Unless Washington wants Asia to become a unipolar sphere of Chinese influence, it should become more involved in the construction of regional infrastructure to foster linkages that are not just north–south but also east–west from India to Vietnam through Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia and on to Japan and the wider Pacific,” Lampton writes. US service and technology firms are open to Chinese investors while foreigners cannot invest in Chinese firms. North Korea is close to holding nuclear weapons that could land anywhere in the world. Lampton concludes, “It is time for Washington (in close consultation with its South Korean and Japanese allies) to acknowledge that North Korea has a modest nuclear deterrent, and that as a result the United States should shift its aim from denuclearization to deterring the use and further proliferation of these capabilities.” The two nations must negotiate and work together. – YaleGlobal