{"id":42797,"date":"2018-10-18T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T19:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=42797"},"modified":"2018-10-23T13:32:39","modified_gmt":"2018-10-23T02:32:39","slug":"the-us-shift-on-china-australias-options-narrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-us-shift-on-china-australias-options-narrow\/","title":{"rendered":"The US shift on China: Australia\u2019s options narrow"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

At the beginning of October, US Vice President Mike Pence delivered arguably the most significant policy statement produced by the Trump administration. His<\/span> speech<\/span><\/a> to the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, on \u2018the administration\u2019s policy toward China\u2019 sets out the most dramatic shift in relations with Beijing since Nixon and Kissinger\u2019s \u2018opening\u2019 of relations in the early 1970s. Australians should read Pence\u2019s remarks because they will surely lead to changing American expectations of alliances in Asia. Here are six conclusions about the speech and the trajectory of US\u2013China relations.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. This is a genuine policy change<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Pence\u2019s speech amasses a strong case for \u2018a new approach to China\u2019 and builds on a slew of American policy documents such as the<\/span> national security strategy<\/span><\/a> of December 2017, the unclassified<\/span> summary of the 2018 national defense strategy<\/span><\/a>, and<\/span> White House<\/span><\/a> and<\/span> Pentagon<\/span><\/a> statements on Chinese theft of American intellectual property. The speech points to intelligence assessments \u2018about China\u2019s actions\u2019 that conclude \u2018Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States\u2019. That\u2019s a view reinforced by senior intelligence officials publicly saying in recent weeks that China<\/span> rather than Russia<\/span><\/a> is the biggest threat to American strategic interests.<\/span><\/p>\n

The speech is the product of something we have recently overlooked in Washington: away from the soap opera of the Oval Office, coherent policy work still goes on. What we have here is a widely shared administration, national security and intelligence community view that China has launched on an all-out competition to supplant America as the dominant strategic and technological power in the Asia\u2013Pacific. The White House\u2019s National Security Council has been working on a new China policy for months, is deeply critical of the Obama administration\u2019s drift and indecision about pushing back against Beijing\u2019s military annexation of the South China Sea, and is determined to stop the wholesale predation of American intellectual property.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Pence\u2019s moment<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s significant that Mike Pence has emerged as the champion of this new China policy agenda. Vice presidents don\u2019t usually get to steer such consequential issues. Why so this time? Well, unlike Trump, Pence can deliver a tightly scripted 40-minute speech that goes much deeper than Trump\u2019s inchoate distaste for \u2018unfair\u2019 trading relationships. Pence\u2019s speech is unfailingly polite about Trump, noting that the president has \u2018forged a strong personal relationship\u2019 with Chinese President Xi Jinping, working on \u2018most importantly the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula\u2019. Is it too cynical to imagine that Pence well understands that Trump\u2019s infatuation with the \u2018little rocket man\u2019 is a busted flush? Stand aside Nikki Haley, Mike Pence is interested in the presidential nomination too.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. \u2018Wholesale theft of American technology\u2019<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

A substantial part of Pence\u2019s speech details the range of methods used by China to steal American IP. In June, the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy said that \u2018estimates of the cost of trade secret theft alone range between<\/span> $180 billion and $540 billion annually<\/span><\/a>\u2019\u2014that is between 1% and 3% of US gross domestic product. A week after the speech, the US Justice Department<\/span> advised<\/span><\/a> that an intelligence officer, Yanjun Xu of China\u2019s Ministry of State Security, had been extradited from Belgium to face charges of \u2018attempting to commit economic espionage and steal trade secrets from multiple US aviation and aerospace companies\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The<\/span> criminal complaint<\/span><\/a> lodged with the US District Court in southern Ohio makes fascinating reading, showing that between \u2018at least March 2017\u2019 and Xu\u2019s arrest on 1 May 2018, US intelligence officers had tracked Xu\u2019s cultivation of an employee in GE Aviation using the cover of working with academics at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics to steal data relating to the \u2018manufacture of jet engine fan blades and fan containment structures\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Xu case is one spectacularly public example of what FBI Director Christopher Wray<\/span> told<\/span><\/a> the US Senate Intelligence Committee in February was being tracked \u2018in almost every field office that the FBI has around the country\u2019\u2014industrial-scale Chinese IP theft. Pence rather biblically claimed that \u2018the Chinese Communist Party is turning plowshares into swords on a massive scale\u2019. This, rather than the balance of trade, is what has Washington most riled.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Curious reference to allies<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Pence quotes China scholar Michael Pillsbury, saying: \u2018China has opposed the actions and goals of the US government. Indeed, China is building its own relationships with America\u2019s allies and enemies that contradict any peaceful or productive intentions of Beijing.\u2019 The speech points to the \u2018debt diplomacy\u2019 of the Belt and Road Initiative. The takeaway for Australia is that Washington is watching how its allies deal with Beijing. Australia is regularly cited in DC these days as being ahead of the game in pushing back against Chinese influence. The US will expect us to continue the push. This surely will be raised when Pence meets Prime Minister Scott Morrison in the margins of the East Asia Summit and APEC in November.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. \u2018Beijing\u2019s malign influence and interference\u2019 in the US<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

About half of Pence\u2019s speech focuses on Beijing\u2019s shaping and influencing agenda within the United States: \u2018The Chinese Communist Party is rewarding or coercing American businesses, movie studios, universities, think tanks, scholars, journalists, and local, state, and federal officials.\u2019 What is most striking about his comments is that they precisely graft onto China\u2019s own efforts in Australia. From encouraging American business leaders to \u2018condemn our trade actions, leveraging their desire to maintain their operations in China\u2019, through to media supplements, radio and TV broadcasts, and the role of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, Pence makes clear that there is an established CCP playbook \u2014called a \u2018propaganda and censorship notice\u2019\u2014guiding their activities. It\u2019s in play in Australia too.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. \u2018China wants a different American president\u2019<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

In a speech with many surprises, perhaps the most startling claim is that \u2018China has initiated an unprecedented effort to influence American public opinion, the 2018 elections, and the environment leading into the 2020 presidential elections\u2019. Pence claims \u2018what the Russians are doing pales in comparison to what China is doing across this country\u2019 with the aim of removing Trump as president. It would be a great pity if a widely shared American concern about the PRC\u2019s behaviour were to be turned into a highly partisan American political stoush.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pence ends with the rather forlorn hope that \u2018China\u2019s rulers can still change course and return to the spirit of reform and opening that characterize the beginning of this relationship decades ago\u2019. Nothing in his speech suggests that that hope is realistic.<\/span><\/p>\n

What happens next? Trump remains mercurial and wildly unfocused, but Pence shows that there is a strategic plan behind the broader administration\u2019s China policy. This has Beijing worried. China\u2019s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, told<\/span> Fox News Sunday<\/span><\/i><\/a>: \u2018Honestly, I\u2019ve been talking to ambassadors of other countries in Washington DC and this is also part of their problem \u2026 They don\u2019t know who is the final decision-maker. Of course, presumably the president will take the final decision. But who is playing what role?\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Now here\u2019s a curious thing: On 4 October\u2014the same day Pence made his speech\u2014Scott Morrison made an address to what was described as a Chinese\u2013Australian community event. The speech appears on the website of the Australian embassy in Beijing, but not the prime minister\u2019s official website.* Morrison<\/span> says of China<\/span><\/a>: \u2018We welcome its remarkable success and we are committed\u2014absolutely committed\u2014to a long-term constructive partnership with China based on shared values, especially mutual respect.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

Shared values, indeed. Australia\u2019s wiggle room to \u2018balance\u2019 American and Chinese interests is narrowing. The key message for Australia is that we need to get our own China thinking in order, reduce our dependence on Beijing\u2019s money and set some realistic strategic policy goals for our national security. These are challenging times.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* As of the afternoon of Friday 19 October, we note that Scott Morrison\u2019s speech to the Hurstville Community Lunch has been posted on the PM\u2019s website<\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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