The world now is in a period of major adjustment because of anti-globalization. As the world's largest emerging market country and the second largest global economy, how should China view this global change? How should China accurately measure itself under the current situation? How should it plan strategies for its future development? All these actually depend on China's strategic judgment on the current situation.
Judging from its official position, China still considers itself to be in the "strategic opportunity period." This strategic judgment was first seen in the official documents in the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in the year 2002. The report stated that "the first two decades of the 21st century are important strategic opportunities that China must seize to make a difference". Since then, the "strategic opportunity period" has become China's basic judgment on the strategic environment. From 2001 to 2018, China has indeed developed in the "strategic opportunity period". During this period, the growth of the global economy had been maintained, economic globalization was developed in depth, and the restructuring and flow of production factors on a global scale had accelerated. After joining the WTO, China gained more development opportunities and its economic scale increased from RMB 10 trillion to RMB 90 trillion. Because of the increase in China's economic scale, the judgment of the strategic opportunity period is still the common view to this day. The last time this judgment was made was the Central Economic Work Conference at the end of 2018. The meeting stressed that "it is necessary to dialectically look at the changes in the international environment and domestic conditions, increase the sense of urgency, continue to seize and use important strategic opportunities for China's development, strengthen confidence and take the initiative to do things well".
However, the opinions of Anbound scholars, as an independent think tank, are somewhat different. The strategic opportunity period is theoretically an environmental expression. In the past decade of development, other than China's own efforts, this strategic opportunity period also depended on the external environment provided by the international community. For most of China's reform and opening-up, the United States has adopted a "strategic engagement" strategy with China. The U.S. hoped to "guide" China into a market economy through the deep globalization brought by the WTO. However, in the 40 years of China's reform and opening-up, the international political and economic structure has undergone great changes. The United States has launched a trade war on the global scale, withdrew from various international co-operations and the multilateralism structure has been shattered. The bilateral era has turned into a challenge for WTO organizations. The economic structure of the world and the future development environment is undergoing great changes. Under such context, the period of strategic opportunity that China enjoyed in the past has all but vanished.
The most important international environmental change that China has to face in the future is that the adjustment of the U.S. national security strategy which seems to be focused towards China. As per the U.S. Department of Defense's 2018 Defense Strategy, one frequently quoted by Anbound: "inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security". For the United States, China is its new long-term strategic competitor. Through "economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it (China) will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future". Obviously, in the eyes of the United States, the powerful China is not the "harmless existence" that it was in the past, but now a "long-term strategic competitor" of the United States. Therefore, the existence of any "strategic opportunity period" does not only look at China's own subjective wishes and unilateral efforts, but more importantly at whether the international environment has undergone significant changes.
In the past two years, the total transformation of the attitudes of both the U.S. government and the American society towards China has constituted the basic external environment for China's future development. This is not a peaceful developmental environment that China was familiar with in the past, but one that has more intense geopolitical and economic competition and more diplomatic pressure. To put it bluntly, China will have to step out of its "comfort zone" of the past and position itself in a new strategic development environment.
It should be pointed out that the change in the strategic environment for China's development does not only happen the United States, but also in Europe, in the entire Western world, South Asia and varying degrees in South America.
A typical change is that after several months of research, the European Commission released a report entitled "EU-China: A Strategic Outlook" before President Xi Jinping visited Europe in March. This report repositions the strategic relationship between China and Europe. In the eyes of Europe, China is "an economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership, and a systemic rival in promoting alternative models of governance". This statement marks a major shift in European perception of China. Although the document also called on the EU to "deepen its engagement with China to promote common interests at global level" in a diplomatic tone, it showed systematic vigilance against China on key infrastructure and European technology. It provided a new perception on China, positioning it as a competitor. It is not difficult to observe that Europe regards China as an "economic competitor" and a "systemic competitor". This is essentially similar with how the United States regards China as a "long-term strategic competitor." It can even be argued that it is the fear of the Western civilization that leads on the rise of Eastern power.
If the positioning of Europe and the United States has changed, and if the period of strategic opportunity for China has ceased to exist, what kind of new environment is China facing? In a high-level strategic study, Anbound has the opinion that the window of China's "strategic opportunity period" has passed. In its place, a new and differentiated strategic period has arrived. China will be in a "strategic competition period" with the developed countries in the West headed by the United States. The lenient environment in which China's past developments thrived on now no longer exists. For a considerable period of time in the future, it may be a period of development that is simultaneously co-operative and competitive, but mostly competitive. China's strategic opportunity period has passed, and the new historical period, namely the strategic competition period, will begin and will remain for a long period of time in the future. In the eyes of the world, China has grown up and is no longer a child who can be regarded as a "harmless existence."
Changes in the strategic environment determines the change in strategic judgment, which in turn determines a country's development strategy and a range of policy adjustments. China needs to readjust its system for the strategically competitive period, where the global environment has both competition and cooperation. In the new world environment, all countries in the world must prevent the advent of a new Cold War and future physical wars. To prevent imbalances from happening, China must work together with all countries in the world to maintain a certain degree of transparency, establish new boundaries and bottom lines, as well as establish a new international order. All these must be done through the tremendous collective strategic efforts of China and other countries of the world. The ultimate goal is to allow strategic competition and cooperation to be constrained within a framework of rationality, civilization, co-construction and cooperation and sharing, rather than being completely out of control and even evolving to the destruction of human civilization.
Final analysis conclusion:
The long-term existence and dependence of the strategic opportunity period in China has passed, and a new strategic and competitive period has arrived. China needs to adapt to it, while changing the world with new orientations, new perspectives, and new strategies.
