{"id":56463,"date":"2020-06-09T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=56463"},"modified":"2020-06-09T09:58:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T23:58:02","slug":"us-strategic-approach-to-china-compete-compel-and-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-strategic-approach-to-china-compete-compel-and-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"US \u2018strategic approach\u2019 to China: compete, compel and challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Since US President Richard Nixon journeyed to Beijing in 1972, America\u2019s grand strategy for China has been to engage and hedge.<\/p>\n

Now the hedge is burnt and the engagement is off\u2014no marriage of minds possible.<\/p>\n

Washington proclaims its new grand strategy is to \u2018compete\u2019 against challenges from China and \u2018compel\u2019 Beijing to stop and reduce harmful actions.<\/p>\n

Compel! Remember when the argument was whether the hedge policy was edging to containment? We have officially entered the era of compete and compel and challenge.<\/p>\n

On 19 May, the White House sent to Congress<\/a> a report titled \u2018United States strategic approach to the People\u2019s Republic of China\u2019<\/a>,\u00a0 based on a \u2018<\/em>fundamental re-evaluation of how the United States understands and responds to the leaders of the world\u2019s most populous country and second largest national economy\u2019.<\/p>\n

The US predicts \u2018long-term strategic competition between our two systems\u2019, which is one of 19 instances of words built on the stem compet<\/em>\u2013 (\u2018competition\u2019, \u2018competitors\u2019, \u2018competitive\u2019, \u2018compete\u2019, \u2018competing\u2019) in the 16-page document.<\/p>\n

Beijing\u2019s challenge<\/em> gets a dozen mentions, under headings for \u2018economic challenges\u2019, \u2018challenges to our values\u2019, and \u2018security challenges\u2019. Compel<\/em> is used 11 times, to describe how Beijing applies pressure and how Washington will force China to change.<\/p>\n

To take Washington at its words, the foreign policy blob<\/a> has hardened and sharpened.<\/p>\n

Many factors are at work in the hardening. Not least is the change wrought by Xi Jinping. The leader for life proclaims the values of his techno-authoritarian state with the Chinese Communist Party at its heart. The US has accepted that Xi means what he says and does what he means.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Xi said he wanted a \u2018new type of great power relations\u2019<\/a>. Five years on, he\u2019s certainly got it.<\/p>\n

The US National Security Council\u2019s<\/a> take on the strategy document is all about the \u2018malign actions and policies\u2019 of Xi and the party: \u2018As demonstrated by the Chinese Communist Party\u2019s \u2026 response to the pandemic, Americans have more reason than ever to understand the nature of the regime in Beijing and the threats it poses to American economic interests, security, and values.\u2019<\/p>\n

Much history flavours the power equation as the US muses into the mirror: glimpse the old missionary duty, glance again at \u2018Who lost China?<\/a>\u2019, and ponder Kipling\u2019s line<\/a>, \u2018A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.\u2019<\/p>\n

The lament is that China has disappointed the US. China has not become what the US hoped for. To repurpose a bit of Beijing-speak, China has hurt the feelings of the Washington people.<\/p>\n

The new strategy\u2019s story is that the old engage-and-hedge approach was based on the \u2018hope\u2019 that the US could \u2018spur fundamental economic and political opening\u2019 and make China a responsible global player with a more open society.<\/p>\n

Even if Donald Trump is swept away by the presidential election in November, the new grand strategy has taken root.<\/p>\n

The paper proclaims that it\u2019s based on the Trump administration\u2019s vision of \u2018principled realism\u2019, but don\u2019t waste time trying to relate the policy to The Donald\u2019s realism (?) or principles (?!)<\/p>\n

The importance of the new design is what it says on the box: this is a \u2018whole-of-government\u2019 document. Washington institutions are on board while Democrats and Republicans are in rare agreement.<\/p>\n

The history narrative offered by a strategy paper from a Republican administration has plenty of Democrat adherents. It\u2019s the narrative captured by the headline \u2018How Washington got China wrong\u2019 on the cover of Foreign Affairs <\/em>in March 2018. That article was \u2018The China reckoning: how Beijing defied American expectations\u2019<\/a>, authored by the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the Obama administration, Kurt Campbell, and Ely Ratner, the deputy national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

If Trump wins, we get more of this grand strategy. If Biden wins, it\u2019s the same strategy with less Trump fireworks.<\/p>\n

Describing the hardening of US views, a former deputy director of the CIA, John McLaughlin, comments<\/a>: \u2018There is today the closest thing I\u2019ve seen to a consensus among scholars, policymakers and the public that China presents a serious threat coming at us fast.\u2019<\/p>\n

The strategy document accuses China of employing \u2018intimidation and coercion\u2019, attempting to reshape the international rules in its own image, and using \u2018economic, political, and military power to compel acquiescence\u2019.<\/p>\n

One lonely, obligatory paragraph states that the contest can have limits:<\/p>\n

Competition need not lead to confrontation or conflict. The United States has a deep and abiding respect for the Chinese people and enjoys longstanding ties to the country. We do not seek to contain China\u2019s development, nor do we wish to disengage from the Chinese people. The United States expects to engage in fair competition with the PRC, whereby both of our nations, businesses, and individuals can enjoy security and prosperity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In setting this balance, though, the US says it\u2019ll have \u2018a tolerance of greater bilateral friction\u2019. Buckle in for shouting and plenty of bumps.<\/p>\n

The US says its competitive approach has two objectives:<\/p>\n