An excellent ChinaFile Conversation: Is American Policy toward China Due for a ‘Reckoning’?

By Jerome A. Cohen

ChinaFile is usually very good value but this week’s Conversation on American policy toward China is of an especially high quality, and what topic is more important and timely, given the current state?

Perhaps enough ink has already been spilt in response to the brilliantly provocative essay by Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner, and I found myself in agreement with all the commentators in the Conversation. Of course, I enthusiastically endorse what Liz Economy and Andy Nathan have written and also particularly benefited from the wise counsel of Lindsey Ford and Robert Daly, whose views I had not heard before. Yet a few additional remarks may be helpful in adding perspective to our dilemma. Therefore, I have chimed in with a comment (attached below with a number of links that might be useful as background).

Best wishes to my blog readers for the Year of the Dog. Hope Springs Eternal!

--------My comment in the ChinaFile Conversation--------

The problem of exaggerated expectations is not a new one for China policy. We only need to recall Franklin Roosevelt’s insistence that the Republic of China (R.O.C.) be accorded permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council. I wonder how much more complicated People’s Republic of China (P.R.C.) participation in the U.N. might have become if it had not been able to step into the R.O.C.’s Security Council shoes.

I think the hopes that motivated the U.S. effort to initiate a new China policy in the late ’60s and ’70s were more varied and complex than often recognized. There was realpolitik as well as wishful thinking. Have we given enough weight, for example, to the importance of obtaining P.R.C. support to counter the Soviet Union and to ease us out of Vietnam? Many China watchers had broader considerations than those in mind when advocating change, but I don’t recall many of my own colleagues saying that we would create China in our own image. I think, for example, of the memorandum that our Harvard-MIT group submitted to Nixon and Kissinger under the awning of the Kennedy Institute of Politics in November 1968 after many discussions. I also want to excavate my 1971 and 1976 Foreign Affairs articles to see the extent to which convergence was a stated goal. We plainly thought that rapprochement would improve international relations as well as the lives of the Chinese people.

We should not underestimate the extent to which the new policy did effect positive change, certainly in the lives of the Chinese people. Anyone who worked in China in the ’70s and even the ’80s can attest to the enormous progress in social and economic conditions that gradually resulted from the Open Policy. And, after a hiatus of several years following June 4, the renewed and wider engagement proved to be successful in many respects, including education and communication, and many Chinese elites today reflect the enormous progress that has been made, which is why Xi Jinping has to fight so hard against “Western values” and to repress and punish free expression.

We should keep in mind that Xi will eventually pass from the scene, at which time we can expect a reaction against his harsh rule. Many in China today are very unhappy about both the domestic oppression and many aspects of Xi’s foreign policy. The P.R.C.’s response to the Philippine arbitration was extremely controversial within expert circles, just as is the imminent enactment of the new “Supervisory Commission” system of arbitrary detention that will confirm what I call “The Inquisition with Chinese characteristics.”

I favor the measures suggested by so many of the commentators in this discussion to reinvigorate American policy in diplomatic, economic, and military terms and to revive our society. But in doing so we should not foster the misimpression that the P.R.C. will remain frozen in the Xi Jinping mold. I still like Joseph Nye’s admonition to “keep open the possibility of more benign outcomes.” Indeed, we need to do more to stimulate such possibilities by enhancing our competitiveness without, as the phrase goes, being confrontational. Given the situation in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait, this will not be easy.

China’s seizure of underwater US drone and implications

China has returned the U.S. underwater drone (“unmanned underwater vehicle” or UUV) that it seized in the South China Sea last week. Plenty has been said about the illegality of China’s seizure, such as Julian Ku’s analysis here and that of James Kraska and Pete Pedrozo here. The PRC’s feeble and vague attempt to justify its action legally and the immediate move to return the drone certainly reflect its awareness of its poor legal position.

Politically China is using this incident to make the broader point of seeking to halt U.S. surveillance closer to China in what is plainly China’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), whether or not the PRC’s minority legal position prohibiting EEZ surveillance is acknowledged. The UUV incident is undoubtedly an effort to remind us of PRC objections to what is really “close in” surveillance.

Obviously, the attitude of the Trump administration will be crucial in determining whether the U.S. and China are headed toward military conflict. The U.S. government should devise plans for a more vigorous effort to negotiate detailed understandings about UUV and other surveillance activities. The PRC is likely to continue its resistance to such efforts unless it decides to follow Russia’s example by belatedly acceding to the majority rule permitting EEZ surveillance. Such a change in principle is unlikely in the foreseeable future because of the immediate importance to the PRC of insulating from American scrutiny the movements of its submarines in the South China Sea and because the tides there seem to be moving in China’s favor at the moment.

There is also the broader and even more dangerous problem America faces of continuing to protect Taiwan’s security as tensions mount in the Taiwan Strait. The Taiwan and South China Sea issues are related since they both involve the major question of the extent of the U.S. government’s continuing involvement in East Asia. Will there be any possibility of serious negotiations with Beijing on these matters in the near term? First, the U.S. government will have to prepare a strategy, one that will have the backing of a divided American people long tired of foreign wars but aware of East Asia’s importance to our security, of our accomplishments in the post-WW II era and of our values.

Donald Trump's telephone call with Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen

China plainly cannot be happy with this direct telephone contact between Taiwan’s President Tsai and President-elect Trump. Of course, Trump is not yet president, so the contact can be regarded as unofficial. Yet it suggests the possibility that the Trump administration may to some extent alter the long-standing policy of the U.S. Government of not maintaining official contact with the Taiwan government.

Photo credit: Reuters, ABC News

Pressures have been building during the Obama era to abandon the strict US policy of not permitting the president and vice president of Taiwan to do more than transit the U.S. Indeed, I have advocated allowing them free access to every place in America except Washington, D.C., especially since the current rule restricts my freedoms of speech, information and association unnecessarily and undesirably. A similar rule has prevented the highest American officials from visiting Taiwan, again an inappropriate restriction, especially when the security of Taiwan will soon become a major issue in Sino-American relations once again.

Of course, administrations often change course in light of events. In April 2001 I recall watching George W. Bush, as part of what appeared to be a pugnacious stance toward China, declare on TV at the outset of his administration that he would do ”whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan. Once 9/11 occurred, his administration moved much closer to the People’s Republic and began to avoid provocative statements.

North Korea policy: how about some imaginative variant thinking?

Here’s a piece by Gordon Chang last week on North Korea, To Disarm North Korea, Wage Trade War On China, advocating waging a trade war with China to make it stop from supporting North Korea.

What about trying a different policy toward North Korea, going to the other extreme from Gordon Chang’s proposal? I refer to a systematic effort to bring the North Korean regime fully into the world community and meet its security needs.  US policies toward Vietnam, China, Burma, Cuba and even Iran have changed remarkably and favorably, with varying degrees of success. North Korea would be the ultimate challenge, and implementation would require enormous patience, imagination, flexibility, public education and expenditure of considerable political capital at home and abroad, especially in Northeast Asia. But no other course seems promising. On and off, I have had a number of contacts with the North since 1971, enough to make me think that such an unlikely suggestion may well be worth considering. 

Eric Li’s flawed arguments in a recent NYT Op Ed, “How Trump Is Good for China”

Eric Li, who made his name in the US with a TED talk in which he praised China’s political system, published an Op Ed in the New York Times on Monday, “How Trump Is Good for China.”

I do not object, as some have, to the Times publishing his one-sided piece because its Op Ed Page has favored strong “attack” columns since its inception under Harrison Salisbury in the early 1970s, and it’s good to know what a significant body of people in China are said to be thinking.

I liked Li’s idea of trying to find a “silver lining” by turning the vice of Trump’s election into the virtue of improved Sino-American relations, but his arguments are deeply flawed, as many have pointed out. Two aspects especially struck me.

One is his forceful summary of the ailments of American society and politics while totally ignoring the very serious challenges confronting a China that is gradually weakening, not only economically but also politically and socially.

The second aspect is related to the first. He completely ignores Xi Jinping’s increasingly severe suppression of internationally–recognized civil and political rights. Instead, Li seeks to convey the impression that those inside and outside China who protest Xi’s oppression are tools of aggressive American cultural imperialism rather than reflecting widely-shared universal, civilized values. Even the Times op ed editors, despite their preference for controversy, might have questioned these glaring defects.

Working Towards Peace in the South China Sea

For those who follow South China Sea issues, I gave a talk on Oct. 18 at the National Committee on US-China Relations on " Working Towards Peace in the South China Sea," discussing the ramifications of the present situation in the region and offering some policy recommendations. Here is the video.

Chinese Think Tanks: Confidential Messengers and Idea Sources as Well as Spear Carriers for Their Government

Here is a noteworthy report by Isaac Stone Fish in Foreign Policy, Beijing Establishes a D.C. Think Tank, and No One Notices.

I would only add to this useful analysis the following: In their publications and public speeches, those who work at Chinese think tanks do indeed tend to be spear carriers for their government, with varying degrees of subtlety and effectiveness. Two opposing extremes were on view, for example, at the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington on April 2, where the South China Sea was discussed. Dr. (Ms.) HONG Nong made a gentle, respectable argument designed to elicit the attention, if not agreement, of the mostly American legal specialists present. The other Chinese speaker, injected into the panel as a result of pressure from the PRC government, proved a disaster who infuriated the crowd by his blatantly unfair efforts to attack the legitimacy of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea dispute resolution process. He reminded me of Molotov, the Hammer, in the good old days of Stalin.

What the thoughtful Foreign Policy article does not discuss is the valuable roles that Chinese think tanks play in conveying foreign information and ideas to PRC decision-makers and in quietly suggesting their own ideas for consideration. In the current Chinese political climate, the latter sometimes requires courage!

South China Sea Disputes: Lawfare instead of Warfare!

by Jerome Cohen

Spratly Islands, South China Sea, by Storm Crypt.

The US Navy is preparing to send a ship inside the 12-mile territorial sea China (the PRC) reportedly claims for its controversial man-made island chain in the South China Sea, according to this report. 

To defuse the rising tension in this area, the US and other countries should resort to international legal institutions, rather than warfare.

The US Senate should seize the opportunity presented by the heightened public interest in the Law of the Sea to finally ratify US adherence to The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It would give us greater credibility by subjecting our country to the same dispute resolution constraints that all state-parties to UNCLOS, including the PRC, are legally bound to accept, and it would offer us what we are now denied – the opportunity to challenge PRC maritime claims before an impartial arbitration tribunal, as the Philippines has done.

The value of this opportunity should not be underestimated even if the PRC continues to formally thumb its nose at Manila’s challenge (while seeking to answer it outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction). I do not think most observers appreciate the momentous nature of the Philippine case, which seems to be coming to a head more quickly than previously anticipated. The tribunal’s decisions on jurisdiction and perhaps at least some of the substantive issues have the potential to be a game changer in an increasingly dangerous and uncertain situation. 

All the countries concerned with PRC maritime assertiveness need to respond to the South China Sea crisis with greater collaboration. But, in addition to focusing on political/military gestures, they should be “bombarding the headquarters” in Beijing with international arbitration and International Court of Justice (ICJ) claims that will test the PRC’s actions before respected international legal institutions.

Any hopes Beijing may have for “soft power”, already blocked by its domestic legal misconduct, will be obliterated if the world community condemns it for rejecting itsUNCLOS obligations re maritime issues and the ICJ or ad hoc tribunals for deciding territorial disputes. Only active collaboration by the various countries involved can bring these peaceful ways of settling disputes to the attention of Xi Jinping himself and stimulate reconsideration of the PRC’s current course.

Unfortunately, until now, although there is strong potential support in each of the relevant countries on China’s eastern and southern periphery for lawfare instead of warfare, each finds political reasons for passivity and avoiding Beijing’s wrath in the hope that the Philippines will be successful.  In the meantime, the PRC has been quietly using every means possible to terminate the Philippine effort before the tribunal reaches what may be a damaging decision for Beijing. Time is a factor here since there will be a new Manila administration by mid-2016, and the PRC’s blandishments and pressures might prove more effective with the new Manila power-holders than with the current government, which has already felt and thus far resisted their force.