US risks worsening crisis with wrong China containment policy: SCMP

HONG KONG -- The United States appears to be strengthening its long-standing geostrategic endeavours against China, and it risks turning a crisis into another major conflagration, according to an opinion piece recently published by the South China Morning Post.

Officials in Washington have to shake off their outmoded Cold War mindset in which China is perceived as the "systemic rival" of the United States, as America's perceived threat from China to its own systems is fundamentally flawed, wrote Hossain Delwar, a columnist and strategic analyst on international issues, based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The United States is unwise to embark on a policy of strategic containment, based solely on the outdated geopolitical concept that rising powers must be contained, the opinion argued.

With such a containment policy, devoid of any effort to engage Beijing, the risk is that a US-China strategic crisis could move beyond what is acceptable and controllable limits, with immeasurable costs for both parties, and the world as a whole, according to the article.

"China is now the world's second-largest economy, integrated both regionally and globally. Thus, US containment efforts do not bode well for anyone," said the article.

Both China and the United States play an enormous part in maintaining global peace and prosperity, and both urgently need to work towards political accommodation, it noted. "The question is, will the US understand this before it's too late?"