With President Biden’s first official news conference last Thursday March 25th, the news conference brought the curtain down on the first meeting of top foreign policy officials from the United States and China. The public side of the Summit was a rather fiery uncooperative back and forth between the leading government officials from both China and the United States. We are led to understand, however, that the private meetings that went on into the next day were more productive. And with both encounters past, the shape of the competition between China and the United States began to take some public shape.
For some time now we have been made aware that a more confrontational approach in US-China relations was likely. As David Sanger describes in a recent NYT article, the ‘Washington beltway’ view has crystallized around a far more competitive foreign policy with China. And the Biden foreign policy has reflected, seemingly, this rare political consensus:
For a president barely 10 weeks into office, casting the United States as confronting a global struggle with the Chinese model has some clear political benefits. One of the few issues that unites Democrats and Republicans is the need to compete head-on with Beijing.
William Galston at Brookings reviewing American public opinion toward China underscores how American public opinion has turned against China particularly after the Trump years:
All things considered, the Biden administration will enjoy substantial public support if it places competition with China at the center of its foreign policy, and it will pay little price for the blunter rhetoric its senior officials employed during the recent meetings in Alaska with their Chinese counterparts. On the other hand, most Americans have not focused on the military dimensions of this emerging relationship and are not prepared for a possible conflict over Taiwan.
Advisors to Joe Biden during the election period, and many of these same folk now as officials for President Biden, are describing and clarifying US policy toward China that they had previously written about pre-election. The dominant position as articulated by the senior policy folk such as Jake Sullivan, now National Security Advisor to the President and Kurt Campbell now the ‘Asia Tsar’ is strategic competition, or slightly more poetically, ‘competition without catastrophe’ the title of their consequential 2019 FA article.
Though ‘competition without catastrophe’ is a central focus for understanding the Administration’s early China foreign policy, a hot debate continues among experts and public intellectuals over how to characterize the scope and intensity of the US pushback on China. Frequently in the debate, going back to the late Trump foreign policy approach, there is a back and forth as to whether we have a revised version of a ‘Cold War’, or as some have of declared it, ‘Cold War 2.0’.
Notwithstanding notable efforts by Graham Allison and colleagues at Harvard in the Applied History Project, this debate over whether a new Cold War has emerged in this instance with China and the US, the intellectual effort seems to me to be ultimately unhelpful. Allison rightly points to Ernest May and his insightful volume: “Lessons” of the past: The use and misuse of history in American foreign policy” to ground an historical methodology to determine appropriate historical comparisons. The approach encourages looking at the ‘large’ similarities and also the differences between two events, their structures and their behaviors. And such a structured effort can in fact be illuminating. But there is no closed set of facts; there are always new facts and approaches that can be added to the comparison that may well lead to an altered conclusion. The historians’ insights are revealing though such comparisons ultimately fail to provide a definitive conclusion. And, it seems to me the effort is a drag on understanding the US-China competition and rivalry today.
One of the best recent examinations of the question of a new Cold War has been made by China expert, Tom Christensen in a March 24th FA article titled in part: “There will not be a new cold war”. There he argued:
In the second half of 2020, in various speeches, government documents, articles, and tweets, the Trump administration basically declared a cold war on China. China’s behavior, it argued, was designed to overthrow the existing liberal international order and replace it with Chinese hegemony. Trump administration officials portrayed China as an existential threat to the United States and the basic freedoms that Washington has traditionally defended. As was the case with the Soviet Union, they argued, the only credible long-term solution was for the United States to lead a global alliance of like-minded states to weaken China abroad and to foster fundamental political change within China. … But nothing akin to the U.S.-Soviet and U.S.-Chinese Cold War of the 1950s and 1960s is in the offing, regardless of what strategies the United States itself adopts. The Cold War was a complex set of relationships involving many countries. No single power, no matter how mighty, can create a cold war on its own.
But where then has the Biden Administration taken US-China relations? Obviously we are early into this Administration but the recent Alaska Summit with the top foreign officials from the United States is intriguing and gives us some signals as to the Biden foreign policy approach. And, needless to say, the Summit also gives us clues to China’s reactions and likely policy approaches. Let’s start with China’s officials. As Tom Friedman characterized the attitudes of China’s diplomats in his New York Times column:
At last week’s Alaska meeting between America’s and China’s top diplomats, Chinese officials made it quite clear that they no longer fear our criticism, because they don’t respect us as they once did, and they don’t think the rest of the world does, either. Or as Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign affairs policymaker, baldly told his U.S. counterparts: “The United States does not have the qualification … to speak to China from a position of strength.”
Now, let’s return to the Biden officials. We know from their writings that they favor an approach that favors competition first and then cooperation. Thus, from their FA article Campbell and Sullivan argue:
Going forward, Washington should avoid becoming an eager suitor on transnational challenges. Eagerness can actually limit the scope for cooperation by making it a bargaining chip. Although it may seem counterintuitive, competition is likely essential to effective cooperation with Beijing. In the zero-sum strategic mindset of many Chinese officials, perceptions of U.S. power and resolve matter enormously, and the Chinese bureaucracy has long focused on shifts in both. Given this sensitivity, it can be as important for Washington to demonstrate an ability to stand firm, and even to impose costs, as it is for it to speak earnestly about finding common cause. The best approach, then, will be to lead with competition, follow with offers of cooperation, and refuse to negotiate any linkages between Chinese assistance on global challenges and concessions on U.S. interests.
This would seem to reflect the Alaska Summit. And if so what then is the goal for US foreign policy. Well, again from Campbell and Sullivan here is the policy aim:
Instead, the goal should be to establish favorable terms of
coexistence with Beijing in four key competitive domains—military, economic, political, and global governance—thereby securing U.S. interests without triggering the kind of threat perceptions that characterized the U.S.-Soviet rivalry.
And this possible ‘strategic competition’ approach at the Alaska Summit seems to be underscored by our colleague from Brookings, Thomas Wright. In an article at TheAtlantic soon after the meeting, and apparently following conversations with unnamed Biden officials, Tom wrote:
But this view misunderstands what is needed in U.S.-China diplomacy right now.The meeting would have been a failure if it had resulted in general declarations to cooperate while minimizing competition, a common U.S. strategy when China’s intentions were not as clear. Organizing the relationship around cooperation is theoretically desirable as an end goal but will be unattainable for the foreseeable future, given the unfolding reality of an assertive, repressive China and a defiant America. … Had the Biden administration embraced China’s offer, any agreement would have collapsed beneath the weight of Beijing’s actual behavior, as well as opposition in Washington. Biden would have been forced to adjust course and take a more competitive approach anyway, under less favorable conditions, including nervous allies and an emboldened China.
Jia Qingguo, a colleague and international relations expert from Beida recognizes in a recent EAF post the significant difference in approaches by the Biden Administration from that of the Trump Administration notwithstanding the far more competitive approach exhibited by Biden officials at the Alaska Summit:
But closer analysis suggests that despite the tough rhetoric, the Biden administration’s understanding of the strategic competition may be quite different from that of the Trump administration. Biden appears to favour a strategic competition to outperform rather than to undermine the other. At home, it promises to focus on issues like restoring unity, freedom and democracy, investing more in education and science, and reversing the trend of economic polarisation that has frustrated and angered many Americans. … The new administration appears to resist the idea that the end justifies the means. It condemns Trump’s spreading of lies and misinformation, claiming that it will instead develop policies based on principle and fact. Top Biden officials indicate that they will reassess some of Trump’s China policies.
So, where is the state of relations between China and the United States following the Alaska Summit? Two colleagues, Colin Bradford from Brookings and a principal of the China-West Dialogue (CWD) and Lim Wonhyuk from the Korea Development Institute (KDI) , and a participant in a number of virtual CWD gatherings have each constructed ‘scorecards’ to try and identify the current state of relations between these two leading powers. These scorecards are identified below. And, in my next post I’ll try and give a an assessment using these scorecards, in part, and statements and opinions from others.
Stay tuned in.
China West -Dialogue
BIDEN Administration SCORECARD Post Alaska US-China Summit
Prepared by Colin Bradford for CWD
CWD Ten “Key Concepts” and 4 Proposals
Mixed /Accept / Reject / Not Yet
1. Global Orders rather than just a Global Order – Mixed
2. Disaggregated Negotiations – Mixed
3. De-Link Issues – Mixed
4. Pluralistic Modernization Narrative – Not Yet
5. Multiple Narratives Global Discourse – Not Yet
6. Mixed Economy Pluralism – Not Yet
7. Embrace Complexity in Decision Making – Not Yet
8. Shifting Coalitions of Consensus vs US Alliances – Reject
9. Deliver on Social Cohesion – Not Yet
10. Global Challenges rather than Divisions by Regime Types in G20 – Not Yet
11. Plurilateral Political Dynamics rather than Bilateral – Mixed
12. Governing/Effective Governance rather than a Democracy label – Reject
13. Avoid Single Overarching Dominant Narrative – Reject
14. Work with China not Against China – Reject
TOTALS: 4 Mixed/Zero Accept/4 Reject/ 6 Not Yet
RESULTS: Bad News: 4 Rejects and Zero Accepts – 4 out of 14
Good News: 6 Not Yet Addressed/and 4 Mixed Outcomes – 10 out of 14 Total
Scorecards on Cold War 2.0 and U.S.-China Guardrails
Wonhyuk Lim
Table 1 – Cold War 2.0 Watch (1-10, with 10 being the most serious threat)
| Criteria | Developments | US-Soviet | Trump US | Biden US | Xi China |
| Ideological Struggle | Biden emphasizes democracy, but no Pompeo-like call for ideological confrontation; No China’s call for communism worldwide, but mostly public diplomacy on “with Chinese characteristics” | 10 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Economic and Social Separation | Tariffs and restrictions largely continue, some delayed; Strong bilateral interaction in finance; supply chain security emphasized in both countries (dual circulation); China more willing to negotiate bilateral/plurilateral trade and investment deals than the U.S. | 9 (7 after Helsinki) | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| Exclusive Alliances | Biden pushes to strengthen U.S. alliances and the Quad; No corresponding alliances for China, but only partnerships for specific cooperation | 9 | 6 | 8 | 2 |
| Third-Party Acquiescence | ASEAN pushes for RCEP and regional cooperation; EU, for open strategic autonomy; India for FOIP, for now, after border skirmishes | 8 (NAM weak) | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Table 2 – U.S.-China Guardrails Watch (1-10, with 10 being the most serious breach)
| Criteria | Developments | Trump
US |
Biden
US |
Xi
China |
| One China Policy (esp. Taiwan issue) | Trump sends HHS Sec. Azar to Taiwan; Biden invites Taiwan Representative to the inaugural; Taiwan working on constitutional amendment; Tension rising in the Taiwan Strait | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Territorial disputes and maritime security | Territorial disputes somewhat subdued since China refused the Hague Tribunal ruling in 2016; China’s military modernization programs and U.S. Freedom of Navigation operations continue | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Human rights and Non-interference | Unlike Trump, Biden coordinates with European allies to criticize abuses in Xinjiang and impose sanctions; China retaliates, citing interference in domestic affairs; China-EU CAI in balance | 3 | 8 | 7 |
| Democracy at home | Biden focuses on democracy at home, starting with the American Rescue Plan (less potential for using U.S.-China competition as a diversionary tactic?); China’s governance increasingly personalized | 6 | 3 | 6 |
Image Credit: ft.com