Dr. Anders Corr is the publisher of the Journal of Political Risk. He is the author of “The Concentration of Power: Institutionalization, Hierarchy, and Hegemony,” “No Trespassing! Squatting, Rent Strikes, and Land Struggles Worldwide,” and “Great Power, Grand Strategies: The New Game in the South China Sea.”
Federal Newswire
Back in 2012, what led you to believe the dominant narrative about China?
Anders Corr
I remember it was a CFR [event] in Providence, Rhode Island. They invited me to speak. I said, “well, what do you want me to speak about?” I think I gave him three options, China, Russia, or terrorism, which at the time I saw as the top three risks. Somehow it became the South China Sea, and so I gave them a talk about that, and the more I looked into it, the more I was very confused about US policy around it.
Go back all the way to 1973 [when] the Paracel Islands [were] taken over by China, then in 1988 the takeover of another little island from Vietnamese soldiers, then in 1995 the takeover of Mischief Reef, and then Scarborough Shoal. The US Navy never really stopped China from doing this, even though..it would have been easy to do so, [as] South Vietnam back in 1973 and then the Philippines were our allies.
It got me very confused, and the more I did research into it, the more I started feeling like it was because of our trade relations with China - that the business people had a lot of influence in DC to basically stop us from defending our interests in the South China Sea, which I think now is kind of obvious. But I think back then it really wasn't so obvious.
Federal Newswire
At what point did you notice the US beginning to wake up to China’s actions?
Anders Corr
I think the Trump administration really did it. During the Obama administration, everything was fine and dandy as far as he was concerned. Covid really also woke people up. Then all this talk recently about a Taiwan invasion, where you have admirals talking about it as if it could happen in the next couple of years.
Now we have Representative Mike Gallagher's CCP committee, and I'm just continually impressed by him and his analysis. He recently let loose a tweet with a 3-4 page letter they sent to the Pentagon demanding answers about “how are we going to arm Taiwan with conventional weapons?”...It's a very good set of letters, and after reading that I thought, “This guy should be Secretary of Defense.” He's good.
Federal Newswire
What would you assess to be the strengths and weaknesses of where America is in the world right now and what do we need to do to recalibrate, rebalance, or refocus?
Anders Corr
We've talked about China. Russia obviously is a major issue. China and Russia are linked in terms of their aggressive actions. Iran is also linked. I would argue Hamas is a proxy of Iran…Of course there's North Korea, which no one talks about anymore, which worries me, because I know those guys are bad. Why aren't they making any noise, why are they so quiet at this point now?
The US Navy is now getting involved in the Red Sea, which of course is far away from Taiwan, which also worries me. I think we need to start asking questions about what kind of links are there between all these bad actors.
I also think we need to rope in our allies, partners, and other democracies. For example, I think we need to demand that India be a team player. It wants to be part of the old non-aligned system and do business with Russia and even China…To be fair, their criticism of us when we say that is “oh, well you still trade with China so why can't we trade with Russia?” That's true.
That means we need to move forward on decoupling so that we're not being hypocritical.
I think if we're going to put a lot of investment into places like Vietnam and India, we need to demand that those countries be better team players in terms of China and Russia. We should be asking Vietnam to democratize before putting a lot of money in there. We should be asking them to make some progress on democratizing, because we don't want to be in the same problem that we've been in with China, empowering them through trade, and then [seeing] them turn against us. I worry about that with Vietnam.
Federal Newswire
What do you think of the advisability and viability of a doctrine of reciprocity with China?
Anders Corr
To me it's a no brainer. I'm astonished that we haven't been following it for decades.
I would go back to it in the same way with my confusion about the South China Sea. Why weren't we taking action against China? I would question this reciprocity issue, and the fact that our businesses were being hurt by a lack of reciprocity would indicate the CCP has us so far over a barrel that we're not even looking out for our own corporate interests in China.
To me it's just astonishing and surprising. I think it's a real indicator that the CCP influence in the US government is way too deep. It must be to explain the lack of reciprocity for decades.
Federal Newswire
How do we start the process of de-risking and decoupling from China?
Anders Corr
I think of de-risking as a step towards decoupling. When people make this distinction between de-risking and decoupling, I don't really see it.
No one is really proposing that we decouple tomorrow, which would mean that all of the ships that are headed here and vice versa turn around. No one's really seriously proposing that, so it's all about gradually increasing and decoupling. Decouple as a binary word. You're either coupled or you're not coupled, so it's really not a good word for it.
It's a gradual process, and I think the question is “how fast do you do it and is it an offramp?”
Federal Newswire
What would you see as key steps to transition away from overdependence on China toward something that is safer?
Anders Corr
I think the China tariffs that the Trump administration put in were brilliant. They also surprised me in a very good way. I've never even thought about reimposing tariffs, and I think they surprised a lot of people.
Tariffs should be higher for countries that are not voting with the United States in the UN, or are not supporting democracy and human rights. They should not get a lot of foreign aid from the United States. [And] they should have their trade privileges revoked.
We need to start charging China for what they do to us. If they're stealing up to six hundred billion a year in IP, there should be a charge for that. We need to get more aggressive with China economically.
Federal Newswire
Is this where the aggressor knows that we cannot afford the conflict and they think maybe they can?
Anders Corr
That hits the nail on the head. It's our weakness with China, Russia, and Iran. That has actually been what gets them to escalate the conflicts.
They think they can walk over us. They think they can take Taiwan and we're not going to react. Part of that is because they walked on us in the past and we didn't react, whether it's Covid or IP. We don't actually take our money back.
The first step to deterring China from Taiwan is to say, “if you invade Taiwan we're going to charge you for any damages, and we're going to…charge you for all the IP theft you've taken from us for decades, and all of the Covid damages.”
Federal Newswire
How do you put into context your tough approach?
Anders Corr
Well, I'm worried. Rush Doshi's book…does a very good job of arguing that the Chinese Communist Party for decades has had a long-term goal of global hegemony. This is an incredibly globally expansive power. It's totalitarian, which only has recently been accepted as an adjective about China in the press. It's genocidal. So why would you [give] its GDP purchasing power parity? It's the biggest economy in the world. You should really be worried about that if you're a normal human being.
Federal Newswire
How open do you find people to the idea that we need to take a different approach to China?
Anders Corr
Average Americans that I've spoken with I think are there. I think there is a kind of left-right divide on China, where Republicans are a bit tougher, Democrats a bit less. A lot of that may be from a kind of basic Democrats want more social services, they don't want to spend on the military. They don't want to do things that are going to cause them to spend on the military, which is confronting China. Whereas Republicans I think are more willing to confront what they see as injustice when it comes to international relations. Even if that might lead to some conflict, they may accept a bit more risk of conflict in order to get the right thing done.
Federal Newswire
Do you think we really have a choice?
Anders Corr
I think we do. We're going to make a choice, and I'm not confident that we're going to make the right choice yet. I just don't see the toughness from either side really that I would like to see.
We need to think about Winston Churchill when he realized that the Nazis were coming after Europe, and he told the Parliament “we have to be fierce.”
Federal Newswire
You point out that historically a shock is required for democracies to change gears into military mobilization. Is that what’s needed here?
Anders Corr
[Consider that] the response to the Pelosi visit to Taiwan was an end to counternarcotics cooperation by the CCP, which basically means they're killing us on purpose. What's profoundly disappointing to me about the US government response is that we have not made this clear to the American people.
My feeling from DC is the threat’s continually downplayed. Whatever the threat is, take it down half a notch and then talk to the American people as if that's true in an attempt to keep the waters still with Beijing. I just don't think that's responsible.
We need more public education, and this is something that Captain Jim Fanell has long called for–more public education. He was chief of intelligence for the US Pacific Fleet and the Seventh Fleet. He argued for years that we need more education about what exactly the Chinese are doing in the South China Sea. We just have not gotten it.
Federal Newswire
Where can we go to follow your work?
Anders Corr
I'm on Twitter @anderscorr.
