It gets worse every day.
An already inflamed relationship between the US and China is being exacerbated by two fresh controversies – one over the exact origins of Covid-19 and the other stemming from stern US warnings that China must not arm Russia in its war in Ukraine.
The new disagreements are so fraught that the recent unprecedented diplomatic showdown over a suspected Chinese spy balloon that floated across the continental US is not even the most recent or intense cause of strife.
This trio of confrontations – along with rising tensions between US and Chinese forces in Asia and escalating standoffs over Taiwan – are dramatizing a long-building and once theoretical superpower rivalry that is suddenly a daily reality.
This increasingly adversarial relationship touches multiple areas of American life – from the economy to public health. It spans the challenges faced by the US military, which are amid the great geopolitical clashes of the early 21st century, to risks posed by the Chinese-designed apps on the electronic devices everyone carries everywhere. It’s fueling the dangerous possibility that the US and China are locked into a potentially disastrous slide toward conflict. And it poses serious challenges for a polarized US political system that struggles to have a rational debate on these issues without descending into a partisan game of who can be tougher on China. Such one-upmanship only deepens a self-perpetuating cycle of escalation between the two sides.
It is in this politicized atmosphere that the GOP-controlled House is debuting a new bipartisan select committee on competition with China during a primetime hearing on Tuesday night, just as Washington-Beijing tensions have rarely been worse.
The committee’s work will be based on the premise that after years of trying to integrate China peacefully into the global…
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