The US
China's biggest threat, economic rival, and partner, is the US. In a speech on 6 March, President Xi Jinping accused the US of leading a western policy of "containment" towards China, using a term loaded with significance from when the US tried to stop the spread of communism.
But unlike the cold war rivalry between the Soviet Union and the US, today's clash of superpowers involves the world's two biggest economies that are deeply intertwined with each other. Trade in goods between the US and China was worth $690.6bn in 2022 and attempts on both sides of the Pacific to disentangle the relationship have been hampered by links in trade, research, technology and culture.
Since Xi took power in 2012, China has promoted a nationalistic, Chinafirst ideology that sees the US as a fundamental threat to China's security. This view has been hardened by territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the US's support for Taiwan. Joe Biden has promised to respond militarily if China tries to capture Taiwan by force - a departure from the more cautious rhetoric of previous administrations. China's priority is for the US to do less to support Taiwan, says Yun Sun, the director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, a thinktank.
Xi is also trying to position himself as a global statesman to rival Biden. On 10 March, China announced it had brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic relations, a move hailed in China as a win against US hegemony in the Middle East.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, China has all but given up on engagement with Washington. Modest hopes of a thaw when Xi and Biden met at the G20 summit in Bali in November were soon dashed when a Chinese spy balloon was shot down by US forces in February. (China says the balloon was for weather analysis, not espionage).
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