China analyst Evan Medeiros, a professor at Georgetown University, said rising tensions between the U.S. and China have him and other observers more and more concerned.
Medeiros said the challenge is not that China has acquired more power but how it intends to use it.
“It is how China has chosen to use its power and, in particular, challenge many of the key attributes of the rules-based system, whether it's norms and rules related to human rights norms and rules related to maritime territorial disputes, nonproliferation rules and norms related to trade and investment,” he said. “As China has grown more powerful, it’s basically tried to push and probe the boundaries of what it can get."
Medeiros is watching how the Biden administration develops a plan for the Indo-Pacific region and especially its approach to China.
The administration has instituted new economic, security and diplomatic policies to bolster U.S. involvement in the Indo-Pacific region and provided clues to its priorities through high-profile events such as the publication of its Indo-Pacific strategy in February and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech outlining its China policy in May.
Amid an economic slowdown, the war in Ukraine and the closely watched lead-up to the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress, how might Beijing respond to the latest developments in Washington’s stance toward Asia? And can Washington finally find a way to keep up with China’s growing presence in the region?
Medeiros met with Paul Haenle to explore the Biden administration’s approach to Asia.
Medeiros is Penner Family Chair in Asia Studies at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and a nonresident senior fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Haenle holds the Maurice R. Greenberg Director’s Chair at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is a visiting senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. He served as the White House China director on the National Security Council staffs of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Medeiros said setting the baseline is essential for any kind of assessment of where we're going in the future.
“And any time analysts or diplomats compare it to ‘89 or ‘72, it's very difficult to draw these kind of historical comparisons because the U.S.-China relationship was so radically different in ‘72,” he said. “As bad as things are right now, we still have a $600 billion-plus trading relationship with China. We, obviously, didn't have that in ‘72. I find some of these historical comparisons to be challenging, but I understand the intent of the message.”
Medeiros said the most important point to keep in mind while assessing the U.S.-China relationship is to separate the cyclical from the structural.
“I think that this distinction is an essential one to assessing the trajectory of the relationship, because the cyclical basically has to do with the next six months, the next 12 months. How do political and economic cycles in both countries affect the relationship?” Medeiros said. “Cyclically, I think we're in a period of a very fragile equilibrium. But I believe that there is an equilibrium that exists now. How long it will hold or whether it will hold is an open question, but separate from the cyclical or the structural.
“And that’s where I become a lot more pessimistic because what I see is the areas of divergence growing, the areas of convergence shrinking," he added. I see the communication channels as having been atrophied and I see domestic politics in both countries having an increasing and in some cases outsized influence on the trajectory of the relationship.”
Medeiros and Haenle discussed Harvard professor Graham Allison’s “Thucydides’ Trap,” which is based on the dynamic between a rising power and an established power.
“In Graham Allison's research, a number of those historical precedents result in conflict because the established power becomes anxious and nervous about the rising power and then moves to contain or block the continued rise of that rising power,” Haenle said. “And we hear this from the Chinese, frankly, in spades. How much of the deterioration of the relation is a result of this dynamic of the ‘Thucydides’ Trap?’”
Medeiros said he was “not a big fan” of Allison’s theory because it implies that there are immutable laws of international relations similar to the immutable laws of physics.
“I simply don’t think that that’s true,” he said. “I think human agency, the agency of states, domestic politics, the interaction between countries, is really what drives bilateral relationships. And I think that’s especially the case in the U.S.-China relationship. There are also lots of debates among scholars about whether Graham Allison’s analysis of the 14 cases of ‘Thucydides’ Trap’ is an accurate one.”
Medeiros also rejects the idea that the problems between the two nations are all caused by the U.S.
“It takes agency away from China and basically says the United States, because the gap in relative capabilities is shrinking, is now feeling insecure and it’s lashing out, and it’s that lashing out that's causing it, which means that this is not China’s responsibility,” he said. “You and I have been in multiple conversations independently and together with Chinese scholars, where they make this argument, essentially suggesting that it’s America that precipitated this downturn in relations, not China's actions itself."
Haenle noted that he served in the Bush administration for 4 1/2 years, while Medeiros was a member of the Obama administration. Both were periods of engagement with China.
“We saw China moving away from the bide-your-time-and-hide-your-capabilities strategy to something that's much more assertive in nature, that China’s domestic approach became more restrictive and repressive, and that economically there were shifts which created unfavorable conditions for U.S. companies and other international companies,” he said. “You were there during the Obama administration when those changes seemed to be taking place. How much of the downturn in relations to do you ascribe to changes in Chinese behavior and policies?”
Medeiros attributed the changes in Chinese capabilities, policies, practices and behaviors to the change in leadership.
“As somebody that lived through the transition from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping, some of these behaviors had started had their roots in Hu Jintao,” he said. “The questioning in the debate about keeping a low profile, being more assertive on maritime territorial issues, trying to weaken human rights norms internationally, moving to a more state-directed development model, all of these policies had their roots in Hu Jintao.
“But when Xi Jinping came to power, it’s as if he put his foot on the gas. He decided to be much more aggressive and assertive in all of these different areas,” Medeiros said. “Now the Chinese argument is the U.S. provoked China to do that. I don't believe that’s the case."
The discussion shifted to the Ukraine conflict, with Haenle recommending people read an article Medeiros wrote for the recent edition of China Leadership Monitor.
“It’s the most comprehensive laydown of China’s approach to its strategic relationship with Russia in the Ukraine conflict,” Haenle said. “We’re in the fourth month now. The war in Ukraine shows no sign of abating. And many analysts argue that China’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is putting even more strains on an already strained U.S.-China relationship.”
A Pew poll released in late April showed 82% of Americans have a negative view of China, an all-time high. China’s partnership with Russia was seen as the most serious problem for the United States.
“The Ukraine conflict has only increased both the perception and the reality of competition in the U.S.-China relationship in terms of a matter of perception, because the Russian invasion of Ukraine is such an obvious violation of probably the most sacrosanct principle at the heart of international relations, protection of state borders, state sovereignty, territorial integrity,” Medeiros said. “It just raised the question in the minds of policymakers and leaders all over the world, not just in the United States. Basically, Russia did this to Ukraine. Will China do it toward Taiwan?”
The historic joint statement announced just prior to the invasion effectively aligned China with Russia, he said.
It was “an extraordinary expression of a sort of common world view that was very much about constraining U.S. power,” Medeiros said.
“I think it just accentuated concerns and anxieties in the United States about what kind of rising power China is going to be," he added. "But it had other ancillary effects as well. The rest of the world is now much more attentive to and focused on the plight of Taiwan and the Taiwan question. As a result, I think there's far more international attention and frankly, sympathy for Taiwan among policymakers and business leaders all over the world than ever before, which, of course, makes China much more anxious.”
Medeiros and Haenle agreed that one of the unforeseen consequences might be stronger relations between Europe and the United States. China has a long history of misunderstanding and mishandling its connections with Europe, they said. China’s refusal to engage in meaningful discussions about the Ukraine invasion was the latest example.
Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, dismissed an April EU-China summit, the first in two years, as a “dialogue of the deaf.”
Haenle noted that the people leading foreign policy in the Biden administration were people Medeiros worked with very closely in the Obama White House. President Joe Biden recently went to the region to visit Japan and Korea with the quad leaders and to announce the Indo-Pacific economic framework.
What changes have occurred under Biden, he asked. What are their primary goals?
“It's important to remember that Biden from day one basically said, ‘We're not interested in changing China,’” Medeiros said. “So they took regime change off the table, which is something the Trump administration very specifically embraced. Number two, the Trump administration wasn’t really interested in working with allies and partners. That literally is the centerpiece of what Biden’s doing in terms of his China strategy.
“Number three, the Trump team, through their tariffs and other measures, was pretty committed to a very robust economic decoupling,” he said. “That’s not where the Biden administration is."
Biden, who has talked with Xi three times in 16 months, has shown he will chart a different course, Medeiros said. It is not “Trump Lite.”
It’s important to note the Chinese clearly see cooperation and dialog as sort of a way to manage the United States, Haenle and Medeiros said.
Haenle said the Biden administration recently announced the Indo-Pacific economic framework and they currently have 13 other allies and partners who have signed up to explore this. He asked for Medeiros’ assessment — is it going to be enough to compete, for example, with the Chinese in terms of their own economic diplomacy?
“I think the best thing you can say about IPEF is that it's an initiative that keeps the United States in the game,” he said. “We're on the field, right? We're playing ball. It keeps us there."
An audience member asked about China’s latest pronouncements regarding territorial waters and military activities outside of Chinese territory and recent actions to intercept Australian aviation activity. It is inevitable that some form of military conflict will occur between the US and China?
“I’m very concerned about the Taiwan issue, because what I see is I see a lot of loose talk, including on the U.S. side,” Medeiros said. “I think the U.S. needs to say less and do more with a greater focus on deterrence, less just you know, less commentary and discussion about actual U.S. policy. I think that’s muddying the waters. I see a lot of loose talk. “And I worry less about the outbreak of armed conflict per se, actual amphibious assault on the part of the PRC. What I worry about is a convergence of trends that could precipitate a fourth Taiwan Straits crisis.”
The discussion was the first of Carnegie China’s 2022 Distinguished Speakers Series and was recorded and published as a China in the World podcast.
