The hearing the US Senate Appropriations Committee held on Tuesday, in which it discussed the White House 2024 federal budget in terms of international trade and security goals, exposes how much China weighs in the calculations of Washington. And the extent to which those calculations risk precipitating a misstep of potentially epic proportions.

The testimonies of Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo indicate that the majority of the Joe Biden administration's budget requests for the next fiscal year have been formulated with a zero-sum mindset.

The budget shows that China is in the crosshairs of the US' overall military buildup in the West Pacific, with the island of Taiwan as the focal point. It also indicates that the Biden administration will further intensify its "competition" with China. Competition has become a euphemism for the coercive diplomacy it has customized for China. It will also evidently continue to press ahead with its trade bullying of China and its attempts to decouple with China in the technology and finance fields.

Although Blinken once again claimed that the US does not seek conflict with China or to wage a Cold War against it, the wide spectrum of the topics the hearing has touched upon, ranging from the so-called China's threat in space to that in baby formula, highlights the Biden administration is portraying China with a Cold War brush.

But the problem for the Biden administration is whether doing so can demonstrably help strengthen the US' competitiveness vis-a-vis China.

Or to put it bluntly, whether China will accept the "rules" the US is trying to enforce on it.

These "rules", as the hearing made it clear, include China allowing the US to support the "independence" of Taiwan and to dismember its sovereignty and territorial integrity in East China Sea and South China Sea, as well as accepting the sanctioning of any Chinese entities that Washington chooses, and to baselessly smear China around the world.

If that is what Blinken referred to in the hearing as putting the US "in a position of strength to compete intensely to shape the broader strategic environment around China", what the Biden administration is seeking is to force China to "change its trajectory", something Blinken claims the administration has no intention of doing. What the hearing highlighted was the "broader strategic environment" the Biden administration is trying to shape around China is one that encircles, contains and isolates.

The US calls for China to unconditionally accept its "rules", as if it is doing China a favor by ushering the country into the civilized world. It is hubristic of the US politicians in the hearing to attribute China's development achievements to it taking advantage of the US, as if all US investors and companies are doing charity work engaging with China. And it is discreditous for it to portray the restrained countermeasures Beijing has taken to prevent the US from taking the country by the throat as evidence of China breaking the "rules-based" order of the world.

Being well aware of Washington's propensity to propel national progress by fabricating foreign enemies, China has been exercising strategic restraint and composure in the face of Washington's coercive and aggressive behaviors, always bearing in mind the bigger picture of not only Sino-US relations but also the common good of the world.

That's why it has restrained itself from dishing out what the US orders. But the question is for how long that forbearance can be sustained if the US misinterprets China's self-restraint for weakness and reaches out for a yard after taking an inch.