Victor Cha has expressed that President Joe Biden's recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, while it eased some apprehensions, did not sufficiently mitigate the ongoing global tension and rivalry between the United States and China. Cha's commentary was released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on December 6.
Cha is a Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair at CSIS. In 2021, he was appointed by President Biden to serve on the Defense Policy Board in an advisory capacity to the Secretary of Defense. He also holds a position as a professor of government at Georgetown University.
According to Cha, the primary outcome of the Biden-Xi summit is a decrease in the risk of "inadvertent conflict" between the U.S. and China. Despite addressing challenges such as defense in the Taiwan Strait and semiconductor supply chain consolidation, "there should be no illusion that this summit somehow 'reset' the relationship on a cooperative track," said Cha. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that the Biden administration has reshaped Asia's security architecture by forming coalitions to address different aspects of China's challenge, including military arrangements and economic partnerships with countries like Japan or Australia.
Cha suggests that the Biden administration should continue to fortify these relationships to address issues related to China. Specifically, he says Japan and South Korea should form a security alliance as "China is building the footings of a new illiberal order using security threats, economic coercion, and disinformation campaigns."
He also emphasized challenges in information security, underscoring China's influence over information landscapes in Global South countries. To counteract disinformation, Cha recommends developing an operational plan involving collaboration with U.S. allies and news agencies to address Chinese and Russian misinformation. Regarding economic security, Cha said that the U.S. and its allies should establish a collective economic deterrence pact to mitigate China's history of employing economic coercion tactics. He further suggested an expanded G-7 group that could play a role in issuing consensus statements and imposing sanctions to address perceived misconduct in the international system.
