Professor Robert Ross dismisses the idea of reciprocity in trade relations between the United States and China.
“There has not been reciprocity in terms of equal treatment in U.S.-China relations ever since the end of the Maoist era,” Ross told Federal Newswire. “But now we use the term reciprocity because we find that Chinese trade has a greater impact on American interests. So it’s a term that’s used to justify policies rather than a principle with an enduring impact on policy.”
Ross, 69, is a political science professor at Boston College and a center associate at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He is also considered an esteemed scholar in U.S.-China relations whose research and publications analyze Chinese security and defense policy, earning him recognition from leading institutions and invitations to advise government agencies.
Ross has testified before various Senate and House committees and the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, advises U.S. government agencies, and serves on the Academic Advisory Group, U.S.-China Working Group, United States Congress. He has written extensively on China and U.S.-China relations.
Reciprocity in diplomacy, according to the American Foreign Relations website, represents mutual exchanges between nations for equivalent benefits. For the United States, it signifies more than a negotiation tool; it embodies a principle of international relations aimed at dismantling international barriers and opposing restrictive economic systems. This approach encourages free global exchanges of goods, services and ideas.
He said discussions about reciprocity are really about the rise of the Chinese economy and military, and its growing influence on global matters. American politicians have adopted the term but it doesn’t really mean what they claim it does, Ross said.
“That’s right," he said. "The United States doesn’t have reciprocity with many countries in the world, if any."
“So the issue is not reciprocity; the issue is with China, its impact, and the rise in China’s overall political strategic influence in the world, the way it contributes to China’s defense budget, the way it impacts American workers and therefore domestic politics and political pressures, so on and so forth.”
This is about reducing the effectiveness of the Chinese political and economic system that has given it great advantages in trade, he said.
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen spoke on the U.S.-China economic relationship at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in April. In her remarks, Yellen said the United States and China, being the world’s largest economies, share a deeply intertwined economic relationship. Despite disagreements on certain issues, the U.S. does not aim to separate its economy from China's, recognizing that a total decoupling would be disastrous for both nations and globally destabilizing, Yellen said. A prospering China abiding by international rules could potentially fuel a rising demand for U.S. goods and services and foster more dynamic U.S. industries.
Ross said it’s important to look at the realities of how these giant powers carefully monitor and adjust to each other.
“The U.S.-China trade relationship is a political relationship, not one based upon fairness or reciprocity, but one based upon interests, cost-benefit analysis and leverage,” he said. “So reciprocity is often a term used by politicians to explain or justify a particular policy, but it doesn’t really reflect the source of that policy.
“We talk about reciprocity, but what we’re targeting is their high-tech sector,” Ross said. “We’re targeting their high-tech sector because, one, it contributes in the 21st century to military capabilities. And so the United States will focus on that. And two, it contributes to the overall rise of China.
"So it’s difficult to distinguish in American policy to what extent we are restricting cooperation technology to simply deny China access to the most advanced technologies that contribute to military capabilities, or whether we’re trying to compete with China across the board and thus actually undermine their entire high-tech sector. It’s not clear,” Ross said.
He points to recent statements on a technology policy from the National Security Council.
“We are developing a technology policy because of its military implications, which is to suggest that our concern is that China’s economic-political system is quite successful in developing military power and incorporating Western technologies,” Ross said. “So the issue is China’s success, not necessarily the bilateral relationship.”
He said the sudden focus on human rights in China is also interesting.
“Once again, China does not have a good record in human rights going back,” Ross said. “So the question we have to ask is why do we care more about human rights now than we did before? After all, the situation in Tibet was never very good. The situation in Xinjiang has been bad for decades.”
He said there are human rights violations in half the countries in the world but China’s is getting more attention now because its abuses are truly heinous, and because of rising political tensions between the two superpowers.
Ross said he doubts the World Trade Organization can have much of an impact. As long as China and the U.S. are at a standstill, he said he doubts a major compact is likely.
“How long has it been since we’ve had a new WTO agreement?" Ross said. "The trend in international politics today is not global trade agreements, but regional trade agreements. And so we've seen China develop free trade agreements within East Asia, within Central Asia. And the United States is on the same course with NAFTA. And of course, you have the EU with trade agreements in Europe.
“The United States is trying to compete in Asia with its own form of a multilateral trade agreement,” he said. “But it’s not been very successful competing with the influence and impact of China’s trade policy in attracting and promoting trade with China and therefore, cooperation with China.”
Ross said the problem is not the lack of reciprocity between the U.S. and China.
“Countries never grant reciprocity on the basis of reciprocity. They make concessions in trade on the basis of a calculation of leverage and impact and cost-benefit analysis,” he said. “So, again, reciprocity is a nice idea, but it’s not a political notion, it’s not a foreign policy concept. It’s a value-laden term that governments use to justify policies.
“So the problem is not U.S.-China lack of reciprocity, but how the Chinese system is different than the American system and has been successful,” Ross said. “So if you look at the United States, we’ve decided to adopt many policies that China has, because they’ve been successful. So the administration now has an industrial policy to promote technology. Why? Because we believe it’s successful. China has been successful with it.”
He said the call for reciprocity with China is causing other countries to note the lack of such an understanding with the United States.
“And so the irony, of course, is that we are not giving reciprocity to South Korea, Japan, European countries,” Ross said. “And they all have accused the United States of violating international trade agreements by having preferential treatment to American technology companies. So the United States is mimicking China and denying reciprocity to other countries that we have long had a strong relationship with, including Europe, Japan, South Korea.”
