Why is China policy so hard?
By Bates Gill, Executive Director, Center for China Analysis, Asia Society, and Richard Maude, Executive Director of Policy, Asia Society Australia.
Three hard truths face the West’s China policy. But are the alternatives any better?
Even as trust between Beijing and the West grows ever more tenuous, no country, not even the United States, has entirely given up on China.
With Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to Beijing, the Biden Administration continues its effort to invigorate dialogue and reassure Beijing of its strategic intentions—and serious preference—to avoid conflict. The Administration says it does not want a new Cold War, does not seek regime change in Beijing, and does not want to decouple from China’s economy.
The European Union has introduced a policy framework of “de-risking”. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, says Europe won’t cut ties with China but wants a re-balance on the basis of transparency, predictability, and reciprocity.
The Australian government is stabilising its battered ties with China with a framework of “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must, manage our differences wisely”.
Is Beijing in a mood to listen to this outreach? On the evidence, not so much.
China doesn’t want to manage competition with the United States “responsibly”, it wants Washington to stop competing. “De-risking” is as dimly regarded in Beijing as “de-coupling”.
Nor is China inclined to see any virtue in the now common list of grievances from Western nations, whether on Ukraine, the militarisation of the South and East China Seas, treatment of foreign companies, industrial subsidies, rampant cyber theft, foreign interference, or human rights.
And unfortunately, dealing with China is likely to get harder. Indeed, what little optimism left in China policy in the West confronts three hard truths.
First, China is a great power with a deeply realist approach to the pursuit of its interests. Its leaders feed a nationalism that is both aggrieved and triumphant – China will overcome a “century of humiliation” and is destined for “national rejuvenation”. In Xi Jinping’s words, “the East is on the rise, while the West is in decline.”
Beijing wants to maximise advantage for China. The Party’s view of the world is that this is how great powers behave (and how the United States behaves). This should not surprise us, but from the perspective of the West, China’s pursuit of advantage comes all too often without any regard for the interests of others.
Second, the Party fears that addressing Western concerns will weaken its Leninist grip on China. Xi increasingly chooses the opposite course, strengthening the Party state, bringing politics and ideology to the fore, restraining market reforms, and cracking down on dissent.
Third, Beijing is convinced the United States is intent on the containment and suppression of China and the Party in particular. Starting from that premise, compromise is likely to be both futile and dangerous in the long struggle ahead. Rather, the power of Party—and through it the power of the nation—is the key to co-existence on terms favourable to China.
There is no break on the horizon. The Party perceives a more dangerous world. Regime security is assuming an ever more central role in geopolitical strategy.
This leaves the West with few good China choices. Jollying Beijing along in the hope that something will change is a form of delusion about the nature of the Party State under Xi Jinping.
But there is danger, too, in the West retreating to a series of ever more rigid or punitive policy responses.
There is little evidence this would change China’s behaviour or its ambitions. High levels of decoupling would be hugely costly and unnecessary. Strict reciprocity can be self-defeating.
How then, should the West proceed? First, with realism. The West needs to approach China with the understanding a less contested modus vivendi is unlikely for the foreseeable future. To paraphrase the writer Andrew Small, there is not a version of this China with which the West can easily live.
Second, prosaically perhaps, with good diplomacy: calm and disciplined management of China ties paired with vigilance and determination to protection national sovereignty and resilience and compete in the global contest of ideas and norms that Xi Jinping is now driving.
The West can afford to have confidence in its strengths and some scepticism about the ability of China to achieve all it wants. There is room still for calibration of China policy to advance broader strategic and economic goals, find space for cooperation on global issues, and reduce the possibility of conflict.
Third, by managing risk systematically and responsibly, whether over Taiwan, the security dilemma created by boosting military deterrence, global economic fragmentation, or rising anxiety in the global South about the trajectory of relations between the West and China.
And fourth, the United States and like-minded allies and partners in the global West and beyond need to work effectively together in advancing these aims. Governments in Europe, Japan, Australia and elsewhere, while inclined to side with the United States, won’t back a fully adversarial US approach to China. That is not a point that resonates much in the heated politics of China in Washington, but it is another hard truth.
This will be hard to execute and, even if meeting with some success, relations with China will still be difficult. The Chinese leadership recognises a great deal of contentiousness and hard work lies ahead. They are preparing for a long "struggle". So should we.
This article originally appeared in the Financial Review Australia.