The notion of guardrails for the U.S.-China relationship needs to go beyond keeping the nations from spiraling down into a kinetic conflict, to having more channels of communication, according to some foreign policy experts.
The experts were taking part in the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) “U.S.-China Relations: Are We Building Guardrails?” session, part of the first annual Big Data China (BDC) conference on Dec. 13. BDC, a collaborative project between the CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics and Stanford University's Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI). In the session, "China experts in the policy and academic communities will discuss China’s economic policy, exit strategies for China’s Covid-19 policy, and potential pathways to improve the US-China relationship," the CSIS stated in its announcement of the event.
If a guardrail is considered to just prevent the relationship from spiraling down into conflict, the temptation is to think of it as focused on State Department diplomacy or military-to-military relations, Jan Berris, vice president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, said at the event.
She said she thinks what came out of President Biden and President Xi’s meeting was a broader notion of channels of communication.
“You saw coming out of the Xi-Biden summit discussions of food security and public health and climate change, macroeconomic stability issues, as areas where not only mil to mil but areas where we really wanted to develop these guardrails,” Berris said.
To change the dynamic of the relationship they can articulate a broader strategy for the relationship that Secretary of State Antony Blinken did in his outline of the U.S. invest align, compete diplomacy strategy, she said. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo did this in a November speech where she laid out how things like export controls fit with priorities the U.S. has in its economic relationship with China.
Turning export controls into an area of conversation with the Chinese as to what’s happened with intellectual property rights protection is another method.
“China, as we know, is a significant appropriator illegally of U.S. IP. And so it’s a source of ongoing contention in our relationship,” Berris said.
But the robust dialog has contributed to how China has developed stronger intellectual property laws and courts, she said. [22:23]“But at the same time, we do have this really excellent and as I said, robust dialogue, and that contributes to sort of capacity building in China where China has developed stronger IP laws, have developed IP courts.”
But it does take two to tango, she said.
CSIS moderator Scott Kennedy said comparing China today to where China it was 150 years ago, or even 15 years ago, it’s doing much better. He asked why China feels like it is under siege.
Elizabeth Economy, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, challenged Kennedy’s premise. She doesn’t think China is in a better place today given the level of repression and polarization.
“Look at what’s gone on with women in China over the past 10 years, women’s access to health care, the educational system, the political system, the economy,” she said.
The World Economic Forum ranks 140 countries every year and China fell from 69 to 113 in the past decade.
She said with the gap between rich and poor, the creative and bureaucratic classes, she sees a lot of problems. On the international front, it has been its own worst enemy, Economy said.
John Holden, a managing director for McLarty Associates, said it’s an imperfect analogy, but consider that Xi and the Chinese Communist Party are like the CEO and top executives of a corporation. But they have no board of directors to fire the CEO.
Leading countries around the world criticize China, and it’s uncomfortable, he said.
“And it’s led to this action-reaction this prickliness and hypersensitivity that does seem to be counterproductive for China,” Holden said.
Kennedy said he agreed with their points, but thinks in material terms, China has done a lot better.
“If they lightened up and liberalized at home, and were more collaborative, I think they'd actually be in a way better place,” Kennedy said.
