Robert Daly is the Director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. He served as a U.S. diplomat in Beijing and as an interpreter for Chinese and U.S. leaders including President Carter and Secretary of State Kissinger.
China Desk
How would you characterize our approach to US-China relations?
Robert Daly
To give you a very specific example, I was in the foreign service under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and I had the great privilege of working with Ambassador Jim Lilley for two years after 1989. He spent some time there at the Maryland China Initiative, and this was when the debates about China's most favored nation status or permanent normal trading relations and then WTO [World Trade Organization] session were coming up.
Lilley was a guy [who] had a sort of vinegar Joe Stillwell approach. He was somebody who could speak with tremendous credibility to both Democrats and Republicans and was very comfortable getting in the door, even among some of the more hardline Republicans…He's very comfortable with that, but he was also fantastically knowledgeable and pro-America but not anti-China. He was able, as they say, to speak with equal credibility and influence across the aisles.
I don't see many Jim Lillies out there today, even though there is pretty broad bipartisan agreement–not about every aspect or the focal points of China competition–but really, there's a consensus that China's our greatest long-term geo-strategic threat. And yet in Thinklandia–in Washington–I don't see many of the more conservative or liberal thinkers speaking with each other. They're not invited to each other's conferences most of the time, and I think it probably hurts our policy formulation.
I suspect when you strip away rhetoric, we're not always that far apart. There's at least a very important conversation to be had, and it's often not being had.
China Desk
Where do you see the shifts relating to trade with China?
Robert Daly
I think we're still in the midst of a fairly long transitional period, and we haven't yet figured it out. You hear large inconsistencies in some of the things that we say about the trading relationship and its relation to our security concerns. It's going to take a while to figure this out.
I do think that Congressman Mike Gallagher and his select committee have said this is going to be the focal point. They're going to get around to this. They're talking about TikTok and the Confucius Institutes, but what we really haven't taken on is this question–and we've been saying for a while–it goes beyond an industry-by-industry analysis. We're in this position where we're saying to any American, ‘Our power is built in part on having the world's greatest companies.’
You can't be the world's greatest company if you're not dealing somehow with the world's largest market. But insofar as you succeed in China, you are in some way either directly or indirectly building up what China calls its comprehensive national power. We now understand that power to be in serious and ongoing opposition to our own. This is what has changed. We used to trade with China because of our desire for profit, because of human flourishing, improving the well-being of 1/6 of humankind.
That's no small thing, and to some degree to get China integrated was about human flourishing. But now that we understand China's economic and technological power and its development…as instrumental to China's power, that's really the fundamental shift. But our companies are still very involved.
So how do we handle that? Do we pull all of them out? We don't know the answer to this. We've been highly selective. We're trying to protect our profits, but our statements about our security problems vis-a-vis China are fairly absolutist followed through to their logical conclusion. They do lead to something like a complete decoupling, which no one quite wants, and it's not clear that that even makes sense and works out for us in the long term.
These are issues that are rooted in our economic system, in our history, and they're not going to change in a year or two.
I see a lot of confusion on both sides. One example, the [China] Select Committee to date is looking primarily at Hollywood tech to some degree and universities. But it sounds from where I sit also a little bit political, because these are also the sectors that a lot of Republicans think are irredeemably woke anyway.
Any successful business with China can be seen as contributing to comprehensive national power, almost all of which we regard as problematic, and I think that's essentially the correct view.
China Desk
Have our approaches to China changed–should they?
Robert Daly
There has been a critique over the past several years that says engagement failed, and not only did engagement fail, but it was always a sucker's game, we should have known better. Actually, I disagree with that view. I would say that engagement was working gradually and unsatisfactorily but consistently up until, and there's an argument about this, the Beijing Olympics or up until the advent of Xi Jinping. But China was in fact becoming more integrated and more open.
While there were always tremendous human rights problems and the Communist Party was always in control even from the point of view of personal freedom, seen broadly China was improving during much of the period between 1979 and Xi Jinping's arrival in late 2012.
But you can argue that China under Xi Jinping has gone from being an authoritarian developmental state to being a techno totalitarian and profoundly ideological state that is often said to be more oppressive at home and more aggressive abroad. This I think can't be argued. It's very clearly the case now that Xi Jinping or that China under anybody [is] feeling its oats, that one gets a little tougher to answer, and it gets into civilizational and cultural questions that we may not have time for now.
What I would say is that China has politics just as we have politics, and if I look back at our last four presidents I would argue each of them in their own way [was] American to the core. None of them un-American, but representing different major strands that make up the American braid, and there's something of the kind - obviously not in the absence of political pluralism that exists in China - there are different major braids in modern China.
The nationalist, aggressive, expansive one that Xi represents was always there, but there's also a far more liberal, outward-looking, open, integrationist China that we have seen. I think it is still there, although it's really gone to ground in the public sphere.
The views of Chinese intellectuals and Chinese economists in particular when they can speak freely tend to be that it is more Xi Jinping, that there has really been a change, and that it was the move away from what China called reform and openness that is the big error that has been compounded by other errors, most notably in the views of many Chinese standing shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin.
Clearly a lot of this is Xi Jinping. But we can't rest too easily on that. If Xi meets his demise tomorrow, China doesn't let Xinjiang or Tibet go free. China may still want to incorporate Taiwan. China is still a very large, powerful nation. So yes, I agree with you that Xi Jinping marks the moment of change. We don't know everything we need to know to analyze what is Xi’ist and what is going to be typical of a wealthy, powerful China under any circumstances.
China Desk
The Chinese Nationalists have always chided overseas Chinese communities to remember the motherland, but in the last several years it seems to have become more aggressive and focused on making them much more pro-China. Are you seeing this trend as well?
Robert Daly
The trend is continually developing. We had an interesting sounding on this recently when China's new ambassador, Xie Feng, arrived. The first thing he did–it wasn't widely reported– but he published two open letters. One was to Americans of Chinese extraction in the United States, and one was to Chinese students in the United States.
China learned the message that Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang had been delivering to the Chinese diaspora was…”Once a Chinese, always a Chinese.” You all have a contribution, you all have an obligation that you know from your DNA to contribute to the rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation. This among other things puts a great big target on the back of many patriotic Americans who don't deserve to have a target on their back.
So the new letter from Xie Feng was much more benevolent. It was in a loving, paternalistic but inclusive way, that you didn't feel iron beneath the velvet glove, and so they're learning. It's becoming a more attractive, inclusive, and inviting message, the purpose of which remains absolutely the same, but they learn as a matter of style.
What came to be called wolf-warriorism, which was a term I didn't exactly like…Lu Shaye, the Ambassador to France and the things he says, on the one hand it's wolf warriorism, on the other hand maybe this guy's just an ass?
It's hard to know quite what you're dealing with, and they think they're rolling that back now, they're being a little bit less coarse. But the new ambassador Xie Feng also opened with “all friction in the relationship is entirely the fault of the United States and what must be done is..”, I guess in sackcloth and ashes, “stand on the right side of history,” And of course that's the death of any meaningful conversation.
But yes, they are still looking at members of the diaspora. They are still hoping to work through the diaspora. One of the things that we've learned over the past few years is how very difficult this is, because China does try to work with the diaspora.
Our concerns about their goals and their methods are essential, and yet we've got to be really careful about racial profiling. How do you go at this without sounding as though you're accusing people before the fact?
I think we're getting better on that, and I think again the select committee has done a pretty good job on this. They open with this. They acknowledge the difficulty then they move on. So maybe we're finding a way to have this conversation, but it's a tricky one.
China Desk
Well, if the Communist Party is going to target those population groups for exploitation, then they’ve taken steps to open them up to legitimate counterintelligence probes. Does this then make people think they have to be their own advocates?
Robert Daly
That's not working for them so well anymore; they're having real trouble with that. But yes, that's what I would love to see, because a lot of the advocacy organizations for Asian Americans and Chinese Americans I think have done a very good job pushing back against what has been some real concerns regarding racial profiling. Some of the problems that we've had in this country, they've been calling that out, and that's been very effective.
What they haven't done, and what I've been telling some of them that I wish they would do, is call out Beijing as well. They really need to say to Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, or Xie Feng, ‘We're not your diaspora, we're Americans, and we have a wide range of views on these issues, as do all Americans, and as do all Chinese, and to cease and desist on this sort of proprietary patriarchal tone.’
China Desk
Recent actions from the Biden Administration could be seen as attempting to cool tensions between the US and China. We’re asking the Chinese if we do it, will you reciprocate? How should we unpack that?
Robert Daly
I don't see the Biden administration as going for a reset. I think we're seeing two things, one of which per relevant conversations I know is going on, and the other of which I'll offer an interpretation of, although it's something that the Biden administration wouldn't say.
The first thing is that the Biden administration has done a very good job of outreach to allies, partners, and other countries. I think that has been very successful. It's not complete, but it's been a constant effort. And they really have on-boarded the messages that they get from close allies, as well as to more distant partners and non-partners.
Other countries want to know that this relationship is being managed carefully and well–that it's not improvised, that it's not ideological, and that it's not going to draw us into a third world war.
They've been hearing a lot of this. I see the administration having found its sea legs, no longer being as afraid of political criticism from their opponents that they’re soft on China. A lot of this is about showing Europe in particular, but Asian partners and other countries, that in fact we’re committed to managing this and not dragging the world into war. That's one piece.
The second piece is my own view that the framework that makes sense for this relationship accounts for all of the facts most completely and most fruitfully is that we are, in fact, already engaged in a cold war. I think that this is a cold war. It's not the cold war with as many distinctive features, some of which are more worrisome, some of which are encouraging. But in fact, it's a cold war.
It's going to be long, dangerous, costly, and wasteful. A number of young people are just starting to learn Chinese and come to me all the time and ask, ‘What's our career path?' And I tell them, ‘Well, most of you are going to be cold warriors in one form or another.’ I think that's where we are.
The Biden administration won't say it's a cold war, but I think that their own language points in that direction, and of course the goal of a cold war is to keep it cold. It's a play for time such that we avoid war, and I think that this is trying to stabilize the relationship.
Notice that when China and the United States say we need to stabilize the relationship, they never characterize the nature of the relationship that we're stabilizing. They’re very careful not to, and what this really means is that we want to be in a sort of post-Cuban missile crisis area of constant discussion with China, precisely so that we maintain peace, but we're still going to be going at each other with everything we've got.
I don't see any sign that the threat perceptions of the Biden administration and its determination have weakened in the least. So I think it's to show responsible management, and it is to get to a point where we are actually managing, whether you call it a cold war or not, a relationship in which we are trying to prevail and even to do some harm to the other, by all means short of war, and this is part of that.
China Desk
There are many examples of China’s actions toward other countries that it would find objectionable if those countries took the same actions against China. Doesn’t it make sense for every country to adopt a Reciprocity Doctrine toward China–what they allow we will allow, and what they prohibit we will prohibit?
Robert Daly
I think the way you just put it, does it have a place in the conversation? I think that's the right way to regard it. I think it's an underused tool that the difficulty with reciprocity and a lot of other policy tools is that it inherently makes sort of a moral claim. It's a moral standard. It's not just a tariff or a mechanical aspect of trade.
I remember after I joined the foreign service, George Cannon, in what may have been one of his last essays in Foreign Affairs (‘Morality in foreign policy’) said that if there is such a thing as morality in foreign policy, then one of its hallmarks must be consistency. This is where we get into difficulty, because there are some areas in which the relationship is not wholly reciprocal, but we want to do it anyway, because either we want the profits or we know somebody else would take them.
There are places where we might want to invoke reciprocity vis-a-vis China, but we don't wish to invoke reciprocity in those same sectors vis-a-vis allies, partners, places and other parts of the world.
So I would use it more regularly as a tool. I think it needs to be pointed out constantly when it's not reciprocal.
But I think we need to be careful about having it as too prominent a banner, because history indicates that it's impossible for us to be consistent about it either in our relationship with China and certainly not in our relationships with all of the world, but we need to talk about it more often, and it's not just trade if it were up to me.
If the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post is going to publish an op-ed by a Chinese ambassador, it should say it right up front, ‘Because we value freedom of expression and want to have a full public debate and understand the views of other countries, we welcome this essay by the Chinese ambassador.’ But Ambassador Nick Burns would never be allowed to print an uncensored piece in The People’s Daily.
If the Chinese ambassador gives a speech, he should be asked right up front, ‘Could an American ambassador give a speech to a group of this kind and have it reported on freely in China?’ Answer, no. ‘How do you feel about that?’
We know they're going to say, ‘Well actually, there is reciprocity, because we act here according to American law, and you have to act in China under Chinese law.’ My 5-year-old kids would see through that. It's, yes, in trade, but it's not just trade access, and voice is another place to invoke it regularly, because they don't have a good answer. You don't take away their voice. But you note this right up front.
China Desk
The conversation around Taiwan has been changing and this coincides with various coercive actions from China. What should American policymakers be putting forth as priorities regarding Taiwan?
Robert Daly
There's an encyclopedic book in the answer to that question, and it would end up still being ambiguous and inconclusive, and frustratingly so. I think that overall, the attention on Taiwan internationally does not work in Beijing's favor at all.
This was a topic that a great many countries were just very accustomed to not raising one way or the other, and now it's not just the Americans that raise this. Most European countries [do] as well. How does China's analysis of what happens in Ukraine influence its decisions about Taiwan? I say, this doesn't work for China.
We have an interesting case in Lithuania. Vilnius, about a year ago, changed the name of what we would call TECRO - Taipei Economic and Cultural Relations Office - simply to the Taiwan Representative Office. China engaged in a predictable round of economic coercion, and initially the rest of Europe was a little bit miffed at Lithuania for raising this and leading it at all. Because China was taking a page out of our book and saying that Germany also couldn't export to China any equipment that had Lithuanian made parts. This has played out pretty well for them.
Lithuania, South Korea, Australia, and Canada have shown that even middle powers or small countries, if they stand up, can actually counter Chinese coercion and can flourish in some ways.
Taking this in a slightly different direction, but just to make the point that Europe is also focused. China hates that question, because for Beijing nothing is analogous to China. All analogies to China are, on the face of them, illegitimate, because China is sui generis, so this is just wrong at the outset. But in fact, the focus I think harms Xi Jinping.
We all know that he has asked the People's Liberation Army to be fully ready by 2027 to move on Taiwan under all contingencies. That is not a decision to do so, it's a decision to be ready. I am not among what seems to be a slight majority in Washington that thinks that a move might be imminent. I'm not of that view.
I think that we can, through deterrence and strengthening deterrence considerably through alliances, rhetoric, and public diplomacy, do what we've always done, which is kick the can. To have Xi Jinping wake up and say, ‘My determination is undimmed, but this is not the day, this is not the year, because the potential costs outweigh the benefits.’
I think that has to be the goal of policy. The morning we wake up and hear that they've moved, even by a blockade, that's a bad morning, and so our goal is to have that morning not occur.
By a relative diplomatic isolation, it was Xi Jinping's fault. Yeah, the debt crisis, housing crisis, a secular slowdown, this is his real focus for now.
I think that we are broadly on the right track in raising the profile of the issue and increasing Taiwan's ability to deter. I think that we can also, through all means including diplomacy, have them keep on deciding that now is not the time. I think this is within our broad shifts. Little forward, little back in this department over the past six to eight years I think have been encouraging.
China Desk
Where can we go to follow your work?
Robert Daly
About a year ago on June 3rd I was invited to give a talk to a less than typical think tank. There's a group on the Hill called Faith in Law…They asked if I would give a talk on US-China relations from an explicitly Christian viewpoint. This doesn't happen in think tanks, and the Wilson Center is federalized, I'm a Fed. But I did it, and so you can find that on the podcast on the Faith in Law website. It's a slightly different angle on all of this - they asked for an explicitly Christian viewpoint, and that's what I gave them. It's still my viewpoint. It's just a different aspect of it than I often have.
Coming out very soon there is a new major report from the Hoover Institution on semiconductors, American security, and Taiwan's security that Larry Diamond, Orville Shell and a few others led on. It was a great mix of technologists of political types. Matt Pottenger has one of the chapters in it. McMaster I think penned some things there. Matt Turpin and I co-authored one of the chapters in this, of course it's a growing issue. It's dense. It's highly technological. But for those who are so inclined, this is probably a good place to look.
