US obsession with ‘clear winner’ pointless in its China strategy: Singaporean paper

SINGAPORE – The United States doesn”t understand that there is no need to be a “clear winner” across the board when crafting US-China strategy, Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao commented recently.

Without changing its mind of maintaining hegemony through “Making America Great Again,” the United States is containing China diplomatically and economically, Goh Sin Hwee, NewsHub Associate Editor of Singapore Press Holdings’ Chinese Media Group, said in her commentary in the Singaporean daily.

Domestically, it takes China as an enemy to unite the US people, the article added.

Citing the opinion of William Trey Braun, a retired Army colonel and research professor at the US Army War College’s Strategic Institute, the commentary compared the present foreign policies of China and the United States respectively to the ancient Chinese game “Go,” or “Weiqi”, and the Western board game Chess.

The article said that the strategy of playing “Go” is to win without fighting or an apparent immediate attack, and there doesn’t need a “clear winner” across the board, which is the prism through which China views the world and the way it thinks and operates.

The US strategy policymakers don’t understand the Chinese mindset, and has been caught up in its own domestic politics and populism very often, which influences its strategic landscape and vision, pushing it to choose confrontation over cooperation, said the commentary.