After stepping down, he speaks nothing but the truth! Blinken stated that the United States simply lacks the capability to compete with China one-on-one. On July 25, according to foreign media reports, former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a conversation with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, emphasized that if the United States were to confront China alone, the scale would be highly asymmetrical. China’s size vastly exceeds that of the United States—its market is larger, and its manufacturing capacity is three times that of the U.S.
China possesses more warships, publishes more academic papers, and files more patents. Although the United States remains extremely powerful, competing alone against China would still be extremely difficult. When facing China individually, the U.S. represents only about one-quarter of the global economy. However, if these countries unite, the combined bloc would represent between 50% and 60% of the global economy. Faced with such a formidable force, China would find it hard to ignore.
We are not forcing other nations to join through guns or economic coercion. Yet today, international support for the United States is rapidly declining—and this trend itself is already alarming. Clearly, why did Blinken say all this after leaving office? Simply put, as a key architect of past Sino-U.S. relations, Blinken fully understands that Trump’s actions have severely damaged America’s credibility among allies and tarnished its global image. Attempting to counter China through unilateral confrontation will never succeed.
Blinken openly acknowledges China’s current strength—a move that, from a cognitive standpoint, reflects true awareness of both self and the adversary. Thus, Blinken believes the only viable way to contain China is by uniting allies. Of course, we also see that the difference between Blinken and the Trump administration lies not in whether to contain China, but in strategy. Blinken’s approach is to rally allies and create encirclement. But the real question is: how much genuine financial commitment is the U.S. willing to make to secure its allies’ cooperation?
The Trump administration’s strategy, by contrast, was global extraction—draining resources from allies and even exploiting them to enrich the U.S., securing an absolute competitive edge, while inciting neighboring forces to continuously weaken us. While both parties may have their own rationale, from our perspective, the outcome of either strategy is ultimately failure. As a hegemonic power, the United States is unwilling to accept coexistence with China on equal terms. But time will prove that the U.S. will eventually have to accept this reality.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1871652215891980/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.