CHINAMacroReporter

China & the U.S.: Getting Each Other Wrong

China and the U.S. seem to be in the process of reassessing their views of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Xi Jinping appears to be seeking some balance in his assessment of the U.S. And analysts in the U.S. have reversed a trend of opinion that ‘China is inexorably rising and on the verge of overtaking a faltering United States.' They argue instead ‘the United States has good reason to be confident about its ability to compete with China.’
by

|

CHINADebate

March 4, 2021
China & the U.S.: Getting Each Other Wrong

China and the U.S. seem to be in the process of reassessing their views of each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

  • Xi Jinping appears to be seeking some balance in his assessment of the U.S.
  • And analysts in the U.S. have reversed a trend of opinion that ‘China is inexorably rising and on the verge of overtaking a faltering United States.'
  • They argue instead ‘the United States has good reason to be confident about its ability to compete with China.’

But Mr. Xi’s subordinates reportedly don’t provide him with unbiased facts and analyses about the U.S.

  • And in the U.S. the calm assessment needed for rational China strategy is upended by the competition among politicians to see who can be toughest on China.

Thus, the chance of either side getting a clear picture of the other and making sound policy based on that is slim.

  • And that is dangerous.

1 | Misperceptions, Miscalculations, & War

‘History is replete with cases of misperception about changing power balances.’

  • ‘To prevent a new cold or hot war,the US and China must avoid exaggerated fears and misperceptions about changing power relations.’

‘Today, some Chinese analysts underestimate America’s resilience and predict Chinese dominance, but this, too, could turn out to be a dangerous miscalculation,’ writes Joe Nye of the Harvard Kennedy School.

  • ‘It is equally dangerous for Americans to over- or underestimate Chinese power, and the US contains groups with economic and political incentives to do both.’

2 | Xi Jinping Seeks a Balanced Assessment of the U.S.

Xi Jinping seems to be aware of the danger of miscalculation.

Chris Buckley of The New York Times reports in ‘ “The East Is Rising”: Xi Maps Out China’s Post-Covid Ascent’:

  • ‘Xi Jinping has struck a confident posture as he looks to secure China’s prosperity and power in a post-Covid world, saying that the country is entering a time of opportunity when “the East is rising and the West is declining.” ’

‘But behind closed doors, China’s Communist Party leader has also issued a blunt caveat to officials: Do not count out our competitors, above all the United States.’

  • ‘ “The biggest source of chaos in the present-day world is the United States,” Mr. Xi said, a county official in northwest China recounted in a speech published last week on a government website.’
  • ‘He quoted Mr. Xi as saying: “The United States is the biggest threat to our country’s development and security.” ’

‘That warning, echoed in similar recent public comments by senior officials close to Mr. Xi, reinforces how he is seeking to balance confidence and caution as China strides ahead while other countries continue to grapple with the pandemic.’

  • ‘His double-sided pronouncements reflect an effort to keep China on guard because, despite its success at home, it faces deep distrust in Washington and other Western capitals.’
  • ‘Although China is growing stronger, Xi has said, there are still many ways in which “the West is strong and the East is weak,” officials have recounted in speeches recently issued on local party websites.’

3 | The U.S. Seeks a Balanced Assessment of China

The U.S. seems to be going through its own reevaluation of China.

  • Nye points out:

‘Balances of power are hard to judge.’

  • ‘Those who proclaim Pax Sinica and American decline fail to take account of the full range of power resources.’

‘Even if China surpasses the US to become the world’s largest economy, national income is not the only measure of geopolitical power.’

  • ‘The US will retain some long-term power advantages that contrast with areas of Chinese vulnerability.’

And on the heels of Dr. Nye’s essay comes ‘China Is Not Ten Feet Tall: How Alarmism Undermines American Strategy,’ by Brookings’ Ryan Hass: ‘China, the story goes, is inexorably rising and on the verge of overtaking a faltering United States.’

  • ‘Among the most eager purveyors of this story line are China’s government-affiliated media outlets. Projecting self-assurance, they have also gone out of their way to contrast their own achievements with plentiful examples of American dysfunction.’
  • ‘ “Time and momentum are on our side,” Chinese President Xi Jinping declared in a speech at the Communist Party’s Fifth Plenum last fall. In January, Chen Yixin, a top security official, told a Chinese Communist Party study session, “The rise of the East and decline of the West has become a trend.” ’

‘Authoritarian systems excel at showcasing their strengths and concealing their weaknesses.’

  • ‘But policymakers in Washington must be able to distinguish between the image Beijing presents and the realities it confronts.’
  • ‘For all the obstacles facing the United States, those facing China are considerably greater.’

‘During the Cold War, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger cautioned against “ten-foot-tall syndrome”: the tendency among U.S. policymakers to view their Soviet competitors as towering figures of immense strength and overwhelming intellect.’

  • ‘A similar syndrome has taken hold in the United States today, and the harms are not just analytical.’

‘Concentrating on China’s strengths without accounting for its vulnerabilities creates anxiety. Anxiety breeds insecurity.’

  • ‘Insecurity leads to overreaction, and overreaction produces bad decisions that undermine the United States’ own competitiveness. Seeing China clearly is the first step toward getting China policy right.’

‘Washington’s bipartisan move in recent years to a hard-line approach to China has been driven above all by Beijing:’

  • ‘Chinese leaders have grown more impatiently aggressive in the pursuit of their ambitions and have increasingly leaned on nationalism, particularly as ideology and economic performance have become diminishing sources of social cohesion.’

‘But much of the shift in Washington has also been driven by a growing sense of panic about China’s strengths, leading to a bout of American insecurity.’

  • ‘Such panic is unlikely to prove constructive: an alarmed focus on degrading China’s strengths risks causing the United States to focus too little on the more essential task of bolstering its own.’

‘The United States has good reason to be confident about its ability to compete with China.’

  • ‘Self-confidence should foster a steady, patient, and wise response to China’s rise—one that can attract broad support at home and abroad.’

4 | U.S. Politics Nixes Any Balanced Assessment of China

But the need for this kind of calm assessment of U.S.-China balance of power runs headlong in U.S. politics.’

  • As Bill Reinsch of the Center for Strategic & International Studies wrote in ‘Double Feature’:

‘Speaking of China, the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando has produced an “I told you so” moment that is too good to ignore.’

  • ‘Behind the gold statue of Trump, who appears to be wearing American flag boxers, are no less than six panels discussing China on topics like “China Subverts America” and “Corporate America Surrendering to China.” '
  • ‘Featured speakers, most of whom are already running for president in 2024, are trying to outdo each other in their hostility to China and in their accusations that Democrats in general, and President Biden in particular, are soft on China and busy selling out our country.’
  • ‘As I predicted in multiple past columns, the hysteria has begun and is not going to end anytime soon.’

‘Unfortunately, what we heard at CPAC and are likely to hear from Republicans over the next four years is attacks on the fecklessness of U.S. companies that do business with China and on the Biden administration for not sufficiently punishing China.’

‘This is the politics of blame.’

  • ‘Rather than engage in a thoughtful debate about the best strategy, it simply identifies the guilty parties and attacks them along with the Chinese.'

‘Biden’s task is complicated by Congressional Democrats who yield to nobody in their ability to maintain high dudgeon.’

  • ‘The biggest difference between the parties is that the Democrats at least put more of the blame where it belongs—on the Chinese rather than the president—and spend more time talking about how to implement “running faster” solutions.’

‘Since all parties want to take a hard line, it makes sense to stop chest-beating about who is the toughest and instead work together to fashion a bipartisan strategy that will actually accomplish something rather than just produce sound bites for the next election.’

  • ‘This is too important for hysteria.’

As if that matters.

More

CHINAMacroReporter

February 7, 2021
' "Longer Telegram" | To Counter China’s Rise, the U.S. Should Focus on Xi'
A strategy that focuses more narrowly on Xi, rather than the CCP as a whole, presents a more achievable objective.'
keep reading
February 7, 2021
'The Sources of Soviet Conduct'
'The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.’
keep reading
February 7, 2021
'Remarks by President Biden on America's Place in the World'
“We’ll confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.”“But we are ready to work with Beijing when it’s in America’s interest to do so. We will compete from a position of strength by building back better at home, working with our allies and partners, renewing our role in international institutions, and reclaiming our credibility and moral authority, much of which has been lost.”“That’s why we’ve moved quickly to begin restoring American engagement internationally and earn back our leadership position, to catalyze global action on shared challenges.”
keep reading
February 18, 2021
'Like It Or Not, America Is Still A Superpower'
‘The twentieth century was littered with the carcasses of foreign leaders and governments that misjudged the United States, from Germany (twice) and Japan to the Soviet Union to Serbia to Iraq. Perhaps the Chinese, careful students of history that they are, will not make the mistake that others have made in misjudging the United States.’
keep reading
February 16, 2021
'Is China experiencing an advance of the state sector?'
‘The value-added produced by state-owned enterprises has usually been in the range of 25-30% of China’s GDP. And what’s really striking about those numbers is that they just haven’t changed very much over the past 25 years. The share of China’s economic output being produced by SOEs today, under Xi Jinping, is not significantly different than it was under Hu Jintao, or even in the later years of Jiang Zemin.’
keep reading
February 16, 2021
‘China Blocked Jack Ma’s Ant IPO After Investigation Revealed Likely Beneficiaries’
‘Behind layers of opaque investment vehicles that own stakes in Ant Financial are a coterie of well-connected Chinese power players, including some with links to political families that represent a potential challenge to President Xi and his inner circle. Those individuals, along with Mr. Ma and the company’s top managers, stood to pocket billions of dollars from a listing that would have valued the company at more than $300 billion.’
keep reading
February 14, 2021
How to Keep U.S.-Chinese Confrontation From Ending in Calamity
'The two countries need to consider something akin to the procedures and mechanisms that the United States and the Soviet Union put in place to govern their relations after the Cuban missile crisis—but in this case, without first going through the near-death experience of a barely avoided war.'
keep reading
February 14, 2021
The United States, China, and Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War
‘We believe that a crisis is building over Taiwan and that it is becoming the most dangerous flashpoint in the world for a possible war that involved the United States of America, China, and probably other major powers.'
keep reading
February 13, 2021
Why China Will Go Green - Really
‘To Communist Party leaders, greenery increasingly aligns with their economic and political interests. China, a populous country that is cruelly lacking in clean water and arable farmland, and which hates having to rely so heavily on imported energy, has a selfish interest in embracing what President Xi Jinping calls “ecological civilisation”.’
keep reading
February 11, 2021
'The Biden Team Wants to Transform the Economy. Really.'
‘Biden and his more activist advisers hope to modernize key industries and counter an economic threat from China, swiftly emerging as the world’s other superpower. “The package that they put together is the closest thing we’ve had to a broad industrial policy for generations, really,” says Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.’
keep reading
February 10, 2021
‘What the ‘Hong Kong Narrative’ gets wrong'
‘For a significant cohort of the [“pro-democracy”] protesters, the more accurate label would be “anti-China activists.” The one thing that seems to unite them is not a love of democracy, but a hatred of China.'
keep reading
February 8, 2021
Why the Anglosphere sees eye to eye on China
‘Some of America’s European allies are very wary of what they fear will be a new cold war with China. By contrast, the US is getting more support from the UK, Australia and Canada.’
keep reading
February 7, 2021
' "Longer Telegram" | To Counter China’s Rise, the U.S. Should Focus on Xi'
A strategy that focuses more narrowly on Xi, rather than the CCP as a whole, presents a more achievable objective.'
keep reading
February 7, 2021
'The Sources of Soviet Conduct'
'The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.’
keep reading
February 7, 2021
'Remarks by President Biden on America's Place in the World'
“We’ll confront China’s economic abuses; counter its aggressive, coercive action; to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.”“But we are ready to work with Beijing when it’s in America’s interest to do so. We will compete from a position of strength by building back better at home, working with our allies and partners, renewing our role in international institutions, and reclaiming our credibility and moral authority, much of which has been lost.”“That’s why we’ve moved quickly to begin restoring American engagement internationally and earn back our leadership position, to catalyze global action on shared challenges.”
keep reading
February 7, 2021
'In Search of Today’s George Kennan'
‘Kennan provided a framework to break through the bitter divide between those who believed America should return to its prewar isolationism, and those who believed the USSR was itching for a dramatic showdown with the capitalist west.’
keep reading
February 7, 2021
' "Longer Telegram" Sets Off Fierce Global Debate'
'The fierce global debate set off this week by a thought-provoking paper - “TheLonger Telegram: Toward a New American China Strategy” – has underscored the urgency and difficulty of framing a durable and actionable U.S. approach to China as the country grows more authoritarian, more self-confident and more globally assertive.'
keep reading
February 7, 2021
The 'Longer Telegram' & Its Discontents
Why everyone wants to be George Kennan‘In 1947 X penned his history-changing “Sources of Soviet Conduct” in Foreign Affairs,’ wrote Edward Luce in the Financial Times in 2018.‘The piece, which crystallised America’s cold war containment strategy, was the making of George F Kennan’s life-long reputation as a master of geopolitics.’‘ As the architect of a doctrine that won the cold war.’
keep reading
February 7, 2021
'Brookings experts analyze President Biden’s first foreign policy speech: Focus China'
'To respond effectively, Biden argued, America will need to rebuild leverage, e.g., by pursuing domestic renewal, investing in alliances, reestablishing U.S. leadership on the world stage, and restoring American authority in advocating for universal values.'
keep reading
February 7, 2021
'Why the ‘Longer Telegram’ Won’t Solve the China Challenge'
‘Perhaps the most problematic aspect of the 'Longer Telegram's' emphasis on Xi—“All U.S. political and policy responses to China therefore should be focused through the principal lens of Xi himself”—is the author’s conclusion that Washington should be seeking to escape from, and even try to effect the removal of, Xi’s leadership because that could restore U.S.-China relations to a potentially constructive path: “its pre-2013 path—i.e., the pre-Xi strategic status quo.” ’
keep reading
February 4, 2021
Why Beijing Is Bringing Big Tech to Heel
‘Beijing’s recent antitrust efforts are motivated less by worries about the tyrannical nature of monopoly power than by the belief that China’s tech giants are insufficiently committed to promoting the goal advanced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of transformative technological innovation—and thus may be undermining the effectiveness of Chinese industrial policy.’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'Secretary of State Antony Blinken on U.S. Policy Toward China'
‘There’s no doubt that China poses the most significant challenge to us of any other country, but it’s a complicated one.’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'Burma’s Coup and Biden’s Choice'
‘The top U.S. priority in Asia is limiting Beijing’s ability to control independent states like Burma, which is strategically situated in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. response needs to take into account China’s regional designs.’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'Myanmar, Burma and why the different names matter'
‘Unlike most of the world, the U.S. government still officially uses "Burma." '
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'Coup a further complication for tricky Myanmar-China ties'
‘Even if China played no role at all in ousting Suu Kyi, Beijing is likely to gain still greater sway over the country.’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
‘Beijing Won’t Let America “Compartmentalize” Climate Change'
‘‘You want China to take action on climate change?" asks Xi Jinping. "Let’s talk about what you’re going to give to get it.’’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
Burma: At the Center of the U.S.-China Competition
In today’s issue: 1. China Lays Out Its Position / 2. The U.S. Lays Out Its Position / 3. Burma: At the Center of the U.S.-China Competition / 4. Burma or Myanmar?
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'A Conversation with Politburo Member Yang Jiechi'
‘History and reality have shown time and again that these issues concern China's core interests, national dignity, as well as the sentiments of its 1.4 billion people. They constitute a red line that must not be crossed.’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on U.S. Policy Toward China'
‘Being prepared to act as well to impose costs for what China is doing in Xinjiang, what it’s doing in Hong Kong, for the bellicosity of threats that it is projecting towards Taiwan.’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'Coup Puts Myanmar at the Center of the U.S.-China Clash'
‘Chinese oil and gas pipelines snake across Myanmar from China’s landlocked Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal—a route that Beijing wants to transform into a broader economic corridor with road and rail connections.’
keep reading
February 3, 2021
'Biden's whole-of-National Security Council China strategy'
'National security adviser Jake Sullivan is personally focused on China as a priority, building capacity across departments and agencies and running processes that break down old silos between foreign and domestic policy.'
keep reading
January 31, 2021
'Biden’s Nightmare May Be China'
‘The coming years represent the greatest risks since I began covering U.S.-China relations in the 1980s, partly because Xi is an overconfident, risk-taking bully who believes that the United States is in decline.’
keep reading
January 31, 2021
Opinion | Marco Rubio: 'China is exploiting U.S. capital markets and workers. Here's what Biden should do.'
‘China can finance its industrial ambitions with the deepest, most liquid capital markets in the world — our own.’
keep reading
January 31, 2021
The UK Stands Up, the U.S. Not So Much
“We have honored our profound ties of history and friendship with the people of Hong Kong, and we have stood up for freedom and autonomy—values both the U.K. and Hong Kong hold dear.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
keep reading
January 31, 2021
'U.S.-China Capital Flows Vastly Underestimated'
‘And yet, debates around US-China passive securities investment suffer from shortcomings similar to those inherent in the early debates about US-China bilateral FDI and VC: official data do not provide a clear picture for policymakers to understand the scope and patterns of two-way investment flows and stocks.’
keep reading
January 31, 2021
'Why U.S. Securities Investment in China is Vastly Underestimated'
‘The conduits of US securities investment in China that are obscured or ignored in the US Treasury International Capital (TIC) dataset constitute a majority of all holdings, so these figures vastly underestimate the true scope at the end of 2020.’
keep reading

Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.