Smokeless War: China's Quest for Geopolitical Dominance by Manoj Kewalramani

Author:Manoj Kewalramani [Kewalramani, Manoj]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789354350948
Google: ib_OzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2021-09-15T21:50:53+00:00

8

A New Contest

My country’s development is still in a period of important strategic opportunities, but the domestic and international environment are undergoing profound and complex changes.

—Chinese President Xi Jinping1

On a crisp November evening in Wilmington, Delaware, Joe Biden jogged down the ramp to take the stage before an exhilarated crowd. Spontaneous celebrations had broken out in cities across the US in the hours preceding his speech. Major media outlets had just declared that the 77-year-old had won what was a deeply polarising presidential election. The country, Biden told the gathering, stood at an ‘inflection point’.2 He called for healing and promised to ‘restore the soul of America’. ‘Tonight, the whole world is watching America,’ he said, adding, ‘I believe at our best America is a beacon for the globe. And we lead not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example.’

It had been an unusual contest to say the least. The COVID-19 pandemic continued to rage through the US. As people lined up to cast their ballot, daily case-counts were hitting record highs. In October, Biden’s rival, President Donald Trump, had himself spent three nights in hospital after testing positive. Despite all this, voter turnout had been among the highest in 100 years. The pandemic had also strengthened the trend of voter preference for mail-in ballots,3 with well over 100 million people using the option. This, in turn, meant that counting votes was a long-drawn process, which led to dramatic twists and turns through the week after election day. The polls had closed on 3 November, with early counting in the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia favouring Trump. But the trend turned gradually blue as postal ballots were counted. Bit by bit, the Democrat chipped away at his rival’s lead. Still, it was only on 7 November that media outlets felt comfortable in the shift and the Biden campaign felt confident in its lead to be able to formally declare victory.

In the interim, Trump refused to concede, alleging fraud and initiating a series of litigations. From the White House, he accused his rivals of stealing the election through ‘illegal votes’.4 Social media outlets flagged his posts as ‘potentially misleading’,5 while several major TV networks cut away from the President’s live remarks, terming them baseless and false.6 For all the cacophony, Trump would eventually have to depart from the White House. But his politics and the grievances he tapped into are not likely to disappear. Even in defeat, Trump had garnered nearly 47 percent of the total votes cast, that is, well over 74 million votes. This number meant that he had not only added significantly to his 2016 tally but also surpassed Barack Obama’s record for popular vote set in 2008. As The Atlantic’s Tom McTague argued, the closeness of the race

leaves a nagging fear that the world has not seen the last of Trump. Like an allegorical monster, he remains wounded but out there, lurking, ready to wreak his revenge.

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