Keep Your Enemies Closer

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First Contact

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Why is the U.S. suddenly reaching = out to China? Eyck Freymann on the motivations and challen= ges for cooling things down in Washington and Beijing.

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Felix Luo

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There’s a steady pol= itical consensus in Washington these days, despite the steady part= isan discord, on taking a hard line with China. And now a U.S. House of Rep= resentatives panel has recently recommended new confrontational policies: T= he Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party advocated stepping up th= e U.S. military’s presence in Taiwan and imposing sanctions on Chines= e technology companies doing business in Xinjiang Province—where the = People’s Republic is committing ongoing acts of genocide against Uigh= ur Muslims.

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These measures follow former Presi= dent Donald Trump’s 2018 declaration of a trade war against China, Pr= esident Joe Biden’s continuation of Trump’s tariffs on Chinese = goods, and more tough moves against Beijing. These include U.S. administrat= ion agreeing to send nuclear submarin= es to Australia and ban the expor= t of semiconductor chips to China. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, then the sp= eaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, infuriated Beijing with a trip to Taiwan.

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Last month, however, Biden predict= ed a “thaw” in U.S.-China relations shortly after U.S. National= Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with his Chinese counterpart in Vienna.= The two countries’ top commerce officials also met last month. And, = it turns out, CIA Director Bill Burns secretly traveled to Beijing in May. = What’s going on?

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Eyck Freymann is = the author of One Belt One Road: Ch= inese Power Meets the World. As Freymann sees it, the U.S. is tryi= ng to create guardrails for its relationship with China, as the two countri= es otherwise fiercely compete for global influence. The Americans are espec= ially anxious to establish a process for averting a crisis over Taiwan.

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Washington has chosen to reach out= to Beijing, Freymann says, on the belief that the U.S. can now negotiate f= rom a position of strength. American allies worldwide mostly adopted its to= ugh approach to China, while China struggled with an economic slowdown, a s= hambolic Covid response, and a blow to its international status for standin= g by Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. Still, Freymann says, it’s= not clear how Beijing will respond to the U.S. outreach. Competing groups = in the Chinese leadership hold opposing views on whether to engage with Was= hington—and Xi Jinping’s opinion, which will be decisive, remai= ns as yet unknown.

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Michael Bluhm: Wh= y would the U.S. be doing this?

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Eyck Freymann: Si= nce 2018, U.S.-China relations have been in an unrestrained free fall. Secu= rity analysts have been especially worried about a breakdown in military-to= -military crisis communication—but really, cooperation has broken dow= n on nearly every issue, even ones like climate change and arms control, wh= ere both sides have common interests.

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Meanwhile, perceptions on both sid= es have been heading toward a dark place. In Washington, there’s by n= ow a bipartisan consensus that China is probably planning a surprise attack= on Taiwan by 2027, even though the evidence for the idea is very thin. In = Beijing, there are strong suspicions that Washington is trying to “co= ntain” China and infiltrate it from within—which has led to gre= ater repression and an obsession with security in virtually all forms. Ther= e’s also a real concern in Beijing that the U.S. might push for Taiwan’s independence, crossing Ch= ina’s longstanding red line and forcing a war.

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The two sides are also engaged in = brinkmanship in the South China Sea on a near-daily basis; it could easily = lead to an accidental collision of ships or planes that kills someone. At t= his rate, it’s going to happen.

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The Biden administration said last= year in its National Security Strategy that the U.S. and China are in a pi= votal and highly uncertain decade of competition. It’s unlikely that = the ultimate winner of the competition will be determined in this decade, b= ut the norms and trends established in this decade could eventually determi= ne the winner—and the question of whether any future competition can = be managed without spilling over into conflict.

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Biden’s people believe you s= houldn’t approach such a negotiation unless you’re coming from = a position of strength. Of course, Xi and his people believe the same. But = optimists on each side hope that at some point in this decade—if not = in this presidential term—the other side might see an interest in est= ablishing some ground rules and creating a floor for the relationship. We&r= squo;re seeing those optimists about to make first contact.

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Bluhm: The U.S. h= as had some recent diplomatic successes against Beijing: a chip-export ban, a G7 commitment to moving supply= chains away from China, and countries in the Indo-Pacific such as Australia and the Philippines aligning m= ore closely with Washington against Beijing. What’s the balance of po= wer between the two countries look like now?

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Freymann: The U.S= . position in what we might callC= old War II is far stronger than it was when Biden took office. Som= e of that’s Biden’s doing, but not all of it. Two catastrophic = developments have strengthened the U.S. position in the past 18 months. The= first is Putin’s brutal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine; the other i= s Xi Jinping’s botched handling o= f Covid.

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The war in Ukraine has scared the = bejesus out of the Japanese, South Koreans, and other U.S. partners in the = Indo-Pacific. It’s driven home the reality that history didn’t end with the Cold War—and tha= t a Chinese attack on Taiwan, with all the cataclysmic consequences that wo= uld follow, is actually a plausible scenario.

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Zhang Kaiyv

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More from Eyck Freymann at The= Signal:

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“There’s not m= uch daylight between the Democrats and Republicans on China policy= . Under all plausible scenarios, the U.S. and China are going to remain eac= h other’s most important strategic competitors for decades. They have= the world’s two largest economies. They have the two largest militar= ies. They have different political systems. Their global aspirations confli= ct with each other’s. I don’t think it’s hard-line to say= the two countries are destined for intense, long-term competition; it&rsqu= o;s just stating the obvious. The difference between Biden and many Republi= cans is that Biden thinks it’s both possible and desirable to take me= asures to minimize the risk that an accident or misperception spins out of = control.”

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“What’s th= e Biden administration hoping to get out of trying to ease tension= s? The first step is to build, at minimum, crisis-management channels = between high-level officials on both sides. Over time, as trust builds, thi= s might lead to arms-control agreements on AI, hypersonic missiles, space w= arfare, and more. Some would add climate to the list, though I’m skep= tical that Washington could offer anything realistic to persuade Beijing to= adopt lower emissions targets. Really, no serious person in Washington thi= nks we can just turn back the clock to 2014 or 2015, when Obama and Xi Jinp= ing met in California to discuss cooperation on climate change, restriction= s on cyber espionage, and a bunch of other issues. China has changed. Ameri= ca has changed. But if the two sides restart dialogue now, they might plaus= ibly get to a point by the middle of the decade where the relationship has = stabilized.”

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“Unfortunately, the = Chinese Communist Party has become utterly paranoid that Western p= owers are trying to infiltrate China and divide it from within. Its respons= e has been to systematically monitor or shut down every channel of communic= ation with the outside world. Beijing’s zero-Covid policy gave it an = excuse to obstruct Western researchers, companies, or tourists from visitin= g China and engaging with Chinese friends and colleagues. Chinese researche= rs can’t communicate with foreigners anymore without pre-approval and= CCP monitoring. This policy has not meaningfully changed since China ended= zero-Covid last year. If the CCP is determined to seal off the population = in an information bubble, then I doubt we’ll see tensions ease in the= short term. Neither side is going to make concessions to the other on fait= h; they want to see credible evidence that the other side isn’t tryin= g to screw them by exploiting theatrical diplomacy for geopolitical advanta= ge.”

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