The multi-dimensional impact of the pandemic on Sino-American relations : a neo-realist perspective

Abstract EN

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic escalated the simmering tension and mistrust between the United States and China.

The legacies of Barak Obama's 'pivot to the Pacific' and Donald Trump's trade war held Sino American relations into a confrontational imperative that continue to cast its long shadow on Joseph Biden's first term.

The present paper attempts to analyze the multi-dimensional impact of the pandemic on Sino American relations.

Politically, the pandemic emboldened China's revisionist behavior following the U.

S.

calls to hold it accountable over the global pandemic.

Economically, the United States moved towards economic decoupling with China and launched, with its allies, the B3W initiative to counter the Chinese BRI project.

Diplomatically, the two powers have engaged in vaccine diplomacy to capitalize on the global demand for vaccines and score more points on the scale of international leadership.

Strategically, however, the United States is caught in between two chairs: continue its strategy of liberal hegemony or adopt a more nuanced and restrained strategy to balance China in the post-pandemic era.

Through their alternative strategies of offshore balancing and restraint, neo-realists call the United States to curtail its security blanket across the globe, especially near the Chinese homeland, refrain from imposing its liberal values on other societies and narrow the spectrum of its national interests.

For neo-realists, the framing of the rivalry with China into an ideological contest between 'democracies' and 'autocracies' will usher in a post-pandemic era marked by a zero-sum existential rivalry and a return to the decades of costly interventions.