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Let’s face it: Xi has killed the notion of convergence.
China is enormously important to the United States—for reasons both
positive and negative. American companies highly prize its huge
market, which is a crucial engine of growth for the world economy.
But we cannot allow our strong interest in good economic relations
with China to blind us to Beijing’s hostile political intentions.
The Chinese government defines itself as a foe of Western liberal
democracy and the upholder of its own brand of communist
nationalism. Its strategic ambitions are unfriendly, far-reaching,
and deeply rooted in an authoritarian worldview.
Americans look with deep regret on the choices Chinese leaders have
made. For decades, the United States strove to cultivate friendship.
Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both worked to forge
cooperative ties through the transfer of high technology to support
modernization and economic growth. The United States helped China
enter the World Trade Organization on lenient terms. We gave it
access to our markets even though China did not reciprocate. China’s
increasingly hostile policies cannot be explained as a reaction to
unfriendliness from our side.
A PRINCIPLED FOREIGN POLICY
Since the end of World War II, the United States has been the
world’s greatest power by almost any measure: economic output,
scientific discovery, military strength, and cultural influence.
Since the start of the Cold War, and especially since the Soviet
Union’s disintegration in 1991, the United States has commanded a
degree of power and influence unmatched even by the Roman or British
Empire. But the United States is not an empire. Ours is a democratic
country that takes pride in respecting the rights of other countries
and peoples. In foreign policy, we don’t always live up to our
principles, nor do we always make the wisest decisions. But we don’t
just do whatever we can get away with, either.
One principle that guides U.S. foreign policy is that countries
should respect what belongs to other countries. After World War II,
the United States provided aid to rebuild Germany and Japan. We
didn’t steal the resources of either country. More recently, when we
led the coalition that overthrew Saddam Hussein, we spent great sums
to help rebuild Iraq. We didn’t steal a drop of its oil.
China wishes to usurp our country’s leadership role, certainly in
Asia and evidently in the rest of the world as well.
At home, Americans live under the rule of law. Our laws are not just
tools of the powerful but constraints on power. This understanding
of the law shapes the way Americans think and act and the way we
operate in world affairs. We respect private contracts—and we expect
others to do the same. We respect property rights, including for
intellectual property. We believe in moving forward technologically
by inventing and innovating, not by stealing other people’s ideas
and reverse engineering them.
The United States has helped to build and protect an international
system in harmony with such principles. By helping to maintain
international peace and stability, enabling free navigation by sea
and air around the world, and creating global communications and
computer networks, the United States has led the world economy to
spectacular growth since World War II. If the United States did not
play this leadership role, life would be far worse for Americans and
for countless others. Our lives would be more constricted and less
safe. Our liberties would be under pressure. China wishes to usurp
our country’s leadership role, certainly in Asia and evidently in
the rest of the world as well.
WHAT’S BEST FOR THE PARTY IS BEST FOR CHINA
Only a few decades ago, China was a poor, undeveloped country. Then,
in the late 1970s, it began to reform its economy. Beijing observed
the success of market economies and applied their lessons, with
stunning results: in 1980, China’s gross domestic product was $200
billion. Last year it was 70 times that—more than $14 trillion. As a
result of this amazing boom, other developing countries began to see
China as a model. Admirers lauded its combination of selective
free-market practices and centralized guidance from a government
that was decisive and farsighted. Often, these admirers overlooked
the intensity of China’s authoritarianism. Of course, it’s easier
for dictators than for leaders of democratic countries to act
decisively and to take a long view.
As impressive as its growth has been, however, China now faces
serious difficulties. It has spawned environmental disasters and
created immense social dislocations that could eventually fuel
political unrest. Huge numbers of people have moved from the
countryside into dangerously polluted cities, but the government
hasn’t permitted them to get housing or education. China’s economy
has also slowed. In 2018, the official growth rate was the lowest in
nearly 30 years, and the official rate very likely overstates the
actual growth rate.
China’s authoritarian leaders fear that free Chinese people would
oust them from power, as free people have done throughout the world.
China’s authoritarian leaders fear that free Chinese people would
oust them from power, as free people have done throughout the world.
One way Chinese leaders manage the threat to their rule is by
provoking crises abroad and appealing to their people’s nationalism.
The result is a vicious cycle of repression and potential
instability that makes the world a more dangerous place. Another way
China’s leaders manage the threat to their rule is by creating an
Orwellian surveillance state: Xi has concentrated unprecedented
power in his own hands, using facial recognition and big-data
technologies to monitor huge masses of people. For the same reason,
his government now strives for world leadership in 5G networking and
artificial intelligence.
China’s leaders primarily seek not the betterment of their people
but the preservation of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. For
them, politics outweighs all other considerations. Many Americans
have a hard time grasping this reality because it’s not how we think
about our own country. Our Declaration of Independence says that the
government’s highest aim is to secure the rights of individuals to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Politics in the United
States serves, and is subordinate to, freedom, including economic
freedom. In China, it’s the other way around. Economics serves
politics, and the political goal is to strengthen the government’s
power at home and abroad.
NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL
In past decades, CCP strategists debated the merits of various paths
to national greatness. Some championed bide-your-time policies that
encouraged private-sector growth and emphasized integrating China
into the world economy. Their ultimate goal was to increase the
power of the party and the military, but to do so in a manner that
would make China’s rise seem unthreatening to the rest of the world.
Other strategists advocated a more assertive, nationalistic, and
militaristic approach.
Under Xi’s leadership, the latter approach has clearly prevailed.
His government has seized islands in the South China Sea and built
military facilities on them, in violation of promises to former U.S.
President Barack Obama (among others) not to militarize. It has
punished Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia over maritime
disputes, cutting their underwater acoustic cables and attacking
their fishing fleets. It has violated Taiwan’s airspace and
kidnapped dissidents and critics in Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Those kidnapped include citizens of Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Those doing business in China in high-tech fields are advancing
Beijing’s military interests, regardless of their intentions.
Chinese officials say they have no interest in the politics of
foreign countries, but their habit of bribing foreign officials has
ignited corruption scandals in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Sri
Lanka, Angola, and elsewhere. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Xi’s
signature initiative to extend loans and build infrastructure around
the world, relies heavily on corrupt financing arrangements that
burden foreign governments with debt they cannot afford to repay. In
addition, China subverts academic freedom in universities in the
United States and elsewhere through its government-funded Confucius
Institutes. These organizations spread propaganda and sometimes
manage to squelch discussion of topics embarrassing to China, such
as the conquest of Tibet and the camps in Xinjiang Province, where
Beijing claims to be “reeducating” an estimated one million Chinese
Muslims, known as Uighurs.
The Chinese government also systematically directs Chinese companies
to steal intellectual property from U.S. and other foreign
companies, according to the U.S. Justice Department. In addition, it
requires private Chinese companies to share with the military any
technologies they acquire through innovation, purchase, or theft.
The new civil-military fusion policy announced by Xi in 2015
effectively requires all privately owned Chinese companies to work
for the military. That means business with Chinese companies is no
longer just business. Those doing business in China in high-tech
fields are advancing Beijing’s military interests, regardless of
their intentions.
A NEW STRATEGY FOR A NEW STRUGGLE
Since the United States emerged as the world’s leading power, we
have never had to contend with a potential military challenger that
was also our most important trading partner. In the Cold War, we
confronted a Soviet Union whose economy was a fraction of the size
of China’s today. History offers no close analogies, but that
doesn’t mean it offers no lessons.
During the Cold War, our government crafted new policies and
programs to check Soviet military technological progress and weaken
the Soviet economy. These included export control and trade
promotion programs that served national security purposes. We
created the U.S. Information Agency, which countered Soviet
propaganda, and the Strategic Defense Initiative, which aimed to
neutralize the Soviet Union’s long-range nuclear-armed missiles. We
also established programs to encourage higher education in relevant
areas—for example, the Russian language and nuclear weapons
technology.
To counter Chinese threats to U.S. vital interests, it is necessary
for us to think creatively and courageously—and without any
illusions about our adversary’s intentions. To begin with, we should
revise our regulations on trade and investment, especially in the
high-tech sector, so that China can no longer exploit our openness.
In general, I dislike government interference in private business.
But our national security takes precedence over free-market
policies. Adam Smith made this point in The Wealth of Nations,
arguing that Great Britain’s interest in preserving naval supremacy
was more important than free trade in the maritime sector:
“Defense,” he wrote, “is of much more importance than opulence.”
With China committed to taking military advantage of all private
commercial activity, we must alter the lens through which we examine
U.S. regulation of foreign trade, international supply chains,
inward investments, intellectual property protection, and incentives
for critical defense technologies. The necessary regulation will be
expensive and onerous, but it is the price we must pay to secure our
country.
Even as we adjust our economic policies, we will also need to
improve our diplomacy. The radical nature of China’s national
security strategy has become clear only in the last few years. As we
rethink our own national security strategy in response, we have an
interest in encouraging our allies to rethink theirs. Congress
should ensure that U.S. officials have the authority and resources
they need to promote understanding of China’s strategy and to rally
multilateral efforts to compete with it—to counter Chinese
influence, to defend against military threats, and to preserve the
principles on which the prosperity-promoting post–World War II
international system was constructed.
To handle threats posed by China—as well as by Russia, North Korea,
Iran, and jihadist terrorist networks, among others—we must
strengthen our military. We need greater naval capability, more
long-range air strike forces, and improved information technology
and cyber-capabilities. We must also modernize our long-neglected
nuclear infrastructure. The U.S. defense budget is huge, but not
enough is allocated for capital investment. With limited resources,
there will always be tradeoffs. But we must always be able to
respond, in strong and measured fashion, to our most militarily
sophisticated adversary.
China poses intellectual, technological, political, diplomatic, and
military challenges to the United States. The necessary response is
similarly multifaceted, requiring action in fields as disparate as
intelligence, law enforcement, private business, and higher
education. In recent years, many problems have been described as
requiring “whole of government” responses. China requires a response
that is not just “whole of government” but “whole of nation.”
Fortunately, there is support across the political spectrum for
countering China’s new aggressive policies. We must act now, before
it’s too late. The stakes are high. They could be life or death.
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