Wednesday, March 8, 2023

Wherefore China Policy?

I am hardly an expert in foreign policy, but I do know mass hysteria and group paranoia when I see it. I have over the years been trying to shed some rationality on the debate about China policy, often quoting one David Goldman, who is hardly a member of the vast leftist conspiracy.

Goldman has suggested that our belligerent aggressiveness toward China is causing us to sleepwalk into a war. His view seems hardly an exaggeration. 


We are up in arms about the evils that China is visiting on the world, but we are less aware and certainly less concerned with American efforts to cripple Chinese business with tariffs and sanctions. If you imagine that these unilateral tough guy actions were not going to provoke a response, you have been smoking the wrong cigarettes.


And let us mention, because no one else seems to care about it, that we have been engaged in a long running assault on China’s reputation. We denounce China for being genocidal, for having cheated on everything, for never having accomplished anything on its own.


Last week’s revelations of the Chinese advantage in tech research should have silenced some of that opposition, but it has not.


As for the Fentanyl crisis, we ought to sit down with the Chinese and make a deal. We made a deal with Mexico, so we ought to make one with China. But that would require us to stop calling China genocidal, and one suspects that most American politicians are not up to that challenge. One recalls that back in the day, during the time of Chairman Mao-- obviously a much more murderous tyrant than Xi-- Richard Nixon committed diplomacy with China.


As for the war against China’s reputation, against “face,” as it were, people over there take it very, very seriously. Do not for an instant imagine that they are going to shrug it off.


Today, what with the general hysteria about China, with sane and sober Republican senators sounding like shrieky schoolgirls recoiling in horror over the CCP, we are heading toward a conflict.


Fareed Zakaria makes an effort to indulge in some rational thought about China in the Washington Post:


But on the most important foreign policy issue confronting policymakers, the problem is closer to the opposite. Washington has embraced a wide-ranging consensus on China that has turned into a classic example of groupthink.


He continues, sensibly:


China is a serious strategic competitor, the most significant great-power challenger the United States has faced in many decades. That is all the more reason for Washington to shape a rational and considered foreign policy toward it — rather than one forged out of paranoia, hysteria and, above all, fears of being branded as soft. 


Of course, like it or not, and despite all of our efforts to disparage its work, China has grown its economy rapidly and significantly over the past decades:


China has grown in power mightily since 2000. Back then, it accounted for almost 4 percent of global gross domestic product; today, that figure is about 18 percent. Its military expenditures have grown even faster. Xi Jinping is a far more aggressive leader than his predecessors.


Xi Jinping is more aggressive. Similarly, American administrations have been far more aggressive toward China. On the chessboard of foreign policy, the one cannot be detached from the other.


Zakaria continues:


But it is also true that U.S. policy has changed. Today, we have a strong bipartisan view of the allegedly existential danger posed by the Chinese Communist Party, which implies that regime change would be the only solution to this problem. But has this comfortable consensus created a more secure world for Americans (and others)? Or are we moving down a path that takes us toward decades of arms races, crises, perhaps even war?


As noted above, David Goldman has been offering the same warnings and the same call for a rational policy. For now, all of it seems to be falling on deaf ears.


3 comments:

Steve Goodman said...

According to reports from what appear to me to be knowledgeable analysts on all things Chinese and the CCP, bad things are in the offing in China. The real estate bubble is bursting and the CCP does not seem able to reinflate it. People are finding their investments are worthless. Fraud in the banking system has left many Chinese worried about the safety of their deposits. The population is growing older at the most rapid rate in history and the birth rate may actually be below 1.0. Younger Chinese, if you can find them, are casually announcing that they do not intend to work (if they are lucky enough to find work) but will do as little as is required to keep their jobs. The Belt and Road initiative is not financially sound. The Zero Covid policy was so draconian that the Chinese people in many cities demonstrated against the CCP and even called for XI to resign. Hundreds of thousands of businesses closed during the pandemic and large foreign corporations pulled out of China, taking the many, many jobs they offer elsewhere. XI has been following a policy of inducing foreigners to leave China and is reputed to be more of a pure communist that his immediate predecessors. He may be more of a Mao ( as opposed to a "Marlboro") man. Moreover, Xi is notorious for shooting the messenger so there is no one able or willing to give him the advice he needs rather than the answers he expects. So, no one can say with assurance what XI knows or doesn't know. One thing is certain, however, the CCP is about control of the population and XI will ensure that the CCP will do anything and everything to retain that control.

Suppose the not very well thought out policies of the CCP (such as the bursting real estate bubble, the recent runs on banks, the disastrous one child policy, the failing Belt and Road initiative, the pushing of foreigners and foreign corporations out of China, and the like) are bringing China to an economic collapse, a collapse of such enormous proportions that the CCP is itself endangered. No matter what we in the west do or don't do (sleepwalk, per David Goldman, or meander, in Kissinger's words, towards a nuclear war), or how rational or irrational our policies are towards China, the CCP might conclude that fomenting a foreign war is the only way it can survive. The target of that war is anyone's guess, but common sense (otherwise lacking in the CCP) would lead one to believe that it would be a smaller country near China that might be able to defend itself but never powerful enough to possibly defeat China. So, while I agree with David Goldman that we should at least have a rational policy in place towards China, the fact is that war might be ineviitable no matter what we say or do.

IamDevo said...

I post here in agreement with Steve Goodman. As with everything in life, China is neither all one thing nor another. That is, a combination of factors is in play. Yes, China has become dominant in manufacturing and in certain tech sectors, and it is increasing its military expenditures as well as looking farther abroad for economic opportunities. However, its infrastructure is abysmal, its financial sector is overly reliant on unstable real estate developments (ghost cities, anyone?) and its demographics are a timebomb of disaster. Although a small proportion of Chinese have become very wealthy, the vast majority of Chinese live on third world incomes and in third world conditions. Young people are awakening to the sad reality that they have little chance of attaining success outside of party activities and the party isn't ready to welcome a "youth movement" anytime soon. If only we had a leadership in Washington, DC that held rational goals for the country based on a rational perspective on our place in the world, we would have no trouble competing with the Asian paper tiger. Regrettably, we neither have such a leadership nor is there a reasonable prospect for getting one in the future. The USA is a country in decline, but so is China; while both portray themselves as strong and vital, the truth is that neither of them is likely to be extant in their present incarnations in two decades.

Anonymous said...

"American efforts to cripple Chinese business with tariffs and sanctions."

That makes no sense! It is almost as if you believe they own us and we should not try to escape their clutches. Every country has the right to decide to put up tariffs or sanctions as it suits their pleasure. There may be a downside to their actions but that is always true. IMHO it makes perfect sense to put tariffs in places that will encourage American companies to produce essential products in America. It makes perfect sense to put sanctions in place if another country does thing on the international that harms us or disagrees with our beliefs. We are under no obligation to make China richer by buying from them. In fact it is clear we have made a huge mistake by depending on their cheap products and we should wean ourselves off that in any way possible. China is not our friend and we need to wake up to that reality.