Impasses no relacionamento do “Ocidente” contra a China devem continuar - editorial do Japan Times

 A próxima década continuará a ser marcada pela atitude confrontacionista de grande parte dos países “ocidentais” — aqui incluídos Japão e Austrália — contra a China. Ou seja, o mundo vai continuar gastando mais do que o desejável em defesa e dissuasão, o que manterá as desigualdades internacionais no mesmo nível atual, em lugar de um grande esforço de cooperação em favor da redução da miséria e pobreza em vastos setores da periferia.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

 

The Japan Times, Tóquio – 11.8.2021 - Editorial

The U.S.-China downward spiral will only get worse

 

In his meeting last week with visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Xie Feng, China’s vice foreign minister, accused the United States of treating China as an “imaginary enemy.”

He and his government are dismayed that the Biden administration has not softened Donald Trump’s hard-line policy toward China and instead continues to hold it accountable for its misdeeds. The expectation that the U.S. would reverse course was folly.

U.S. policy reflects a new consensus about China and this consensus extends to other governments as well. China needs to recognize this new normal and adjust policy accordingly. It appears to be doubling down on belligerence instead.

Xie’s characterization of U.S. policy is wrong on both counts. The U.S government does not consider China the enemy. The Biden administration has made it clear that it sees China as a competitor and a rival, but also a partner. It is eager to work with Beijing on issues of mutual concern, and there are many — climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, the bloody situation in Myanmar and the North Korean nuclear problem top a long list.

But the U.S. also has a list of complaints about Chinese behavior that it — like other nations — rightly considers inappropriate and dangerous. Those offenses include, but are not limited to, the disregard for international law in the South China Sea, a similar indifference to its international obligations in regard to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the increasing pressure on Taiwan and ongoing attacks on U.S. computer networks.

Japan too is ready to work with China on pressing issues, but it also wants Beijing to respect international law, cease the pressure on Taiwan, quit turning a blind eye to and enabling North Korea’s disregard for its nuclear obligations, end the daily incursions into waters around the Senkaku islands and provide greater transparency about its military.

Meeting Sherman, Chinese diplomats countered with their own demands, among them: end visa restrictions on members of the Communist Party of China, as well as their families and Chinese students; stop suppressing Chinese companies and Confucius Institutes; stop registering Chinese media as foreign missions; and halt the extradition of Meng Wanzhou, a senior Huawei executive held in Canada on U.S. charges of money laundering.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, with whom Sherman met on her second day of meetings, provided a revealing set of principles for the bilateral relationship. He insisted that the U.S. must not challenge or attempt to subvert the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, it must not block China’s development process and it must not infringe upon China’s sovereignty or territorial integrity.

Charges of unfair economic practices apparently violate the first and second principles, while the demand that Beijing respect the international arbitral decision that ruled illegal China’s island-building projects in the South China Sea transgresses the third.

Beijing responds to all accusations with either a flat denial or a claim that China’s behavior is of no concern to other nations. It thunders that any criticism constitutes interference in its internal affairs. It accepts no authority — not even the treaties and charters that it signed — as superior to that of its own government. Beijing is quick to attribute any charges to a desire to keep China from assuming its rightful place in the regional and global order or the belief that the U.S. is using China to “reignite a sense of national purpose.”

China’s refusal to accept that it plays a role in the downward spiral in relations with the U.S. guarantees that the deterioration will continue. No nation is above criticism. Unnamed U.S. officials reportedly said that they would “take a look at … some of the concerns that were raised with us.” China is likely to see that as validation of its complaints rather than an opening to engage in self-reflection.

The way that Xie’s remarks were released — first through Chinese language social media — reveals that China’s stiff-necked and caustic engagement is aimed as much at domestic audiences as those in Washington and other capitals. It is part of a belligerent triumphalism that has assumed still more strident tones since the ruling Chinese Communist Party marked the centennial of its founding earlier this month.

This nationalist crescendo seems to be girding the public for hardship as much as celebrating China’s strengths. The country’s leadership should worry that tidal waves of emotion are difficult to control or direct.

One of Beijing’s greatest concerns is the creation of a multinational front that takes a united stand against China on issues such as its human rights practices, its predatory economic policies or its cyber attacks. The Biden administration is committed to forging that consensus among like-minded nations and has had success with statements condemning China’s behavior in bilateral summits like that with Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga or the multilateral G7 and NATO meetings last month. That, for Beijing, is an alarming development.

China and the U.S. need to have a working relationship. The world needs China and the U.S. to have a working relationship. That will include both cooperation and competition, and both sides need to find common ground to ensure that the latter does not dominate, nor does it slide into conflict.

 

Para acessar a íntegra:

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2021/07/30/editorials/china-downward-spiral/

Sino-American Rivalry in the Shadow of Trump: Images and Impressions - essay by Jonathan M. DiCicco

H-Diplo/ISSF Policy Series 2021-41: Sino-American Rivalry in the Shadow of Trump: Images and Impressions

by George Fujii

H-Diplo | ISSF Policy Series
America and the World—The Effects of the Trump Presidency

Sino-American Rivalry in the Shadow of Trump: Images and Impressions

Essay by Jonathan M. DiCicco, Middle Tennessee State University

Published on 23 June 2021 | issforum.org

Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii

https://issforum.org/to/ps2021-41

Donald J. Trump made no secret of his resentment toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC).^[1] As the Republican Party’s presidential nominee he tweeted hundreds of times about China’s unfair trading practices.  As president he railed against China as a currency manipulator, dubbed COVID-19 “the China virus” and labeled China an enemy of the United States.^[2] But for all of Trump’s bluster – and the tariffs, sanctions, and export controls – it is misleading to paint Trump’s China policy as altogether deviant.  In truth, the slide toward greater antagonism was, and is, a widely anticipated development in a relationship that is recognized by elites on both sides as a strategic rivalry.^[3] That rivalry has historical and structural roots, and is far bigger than any one president. Trump’s bombastic presidency consequently should not, and likely will not, reorient PRC elites’ fundamental views of the U.S.-China rivalry.

True, Trump’s norm-busting presidency cultivated a reputation for disruption.  The unilateral imposition of tariffs on PRC-produced goods broke with trade practices institutionalized by the World Trade Organization, and arguably heralded an atmosphere of toe-to-toe competition between China and the United States.^[4] For some elites, the tacit framing of PRC-U.S. relations as a bilateral struggle between near-peers was seen as validating claims of emergent bipolarity – and that overt competition absolved Beijing of any remaining need to “hide and bide,” even with the attendant risk of stumbling into dangerous metaphorical traps.^[5]

Trump’s moves are sometimes interpreted as a rejection of the status quo, but viewed in broader perspective, his ratcheting up of the U.S.-PRC rivalry instead reflected the status quo.  Indeed, ramping up the rivalry fits an overarching narrative that pre-dates Trump’s presidency and continues in its wake.^[6] That narrative is scarcely lost on China’s foreign-policy elites, as Minghao Zhao’s survey of elite views on U.S.-China strategic competition demonstrates.^[7] Zhao’s observations inform what follows.  But first, a caveat:  reliable assessment of elite views in the PRC is exceedingly difficult.  The University of Pennsylvania’s Jacques deLisle aptly notes several obstacles: evidence “remains limited and unsystematic,” and sources are “imperfect” due to political bias and self-censoring.  Expert commentary is sparse, diverse, and constrained by experts’ awareness of “political limits on what they can safely say and publish” — and therefore may not be altogether forthcoming.^[8] Bearing that caveat in mind, an assessment of Chinese elite views derived from published academic works can nevertheless yield tentative insights.

Chinese observers forecast increasing US–China competitiveness long before Trump’s election.  Indeed, Zhao argues that the Trump presidency occasioned a third wave of debate, coming after the Obama administration’s strategic pivot to Asia, and before that, the global financial crisis of 2008.^[9] Yuan Peng of the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) flagged the crisis as marking the onset of a shift in the global order: the U.S. would retain its superpower status, but the foundations of its hegemonic position were exposed as weakened.  The crisis “altered the state of asymmetry in US–China relations, gradually compelling the United States to treat China as a co-equal,” according to Zhao’s reading of the arguments of Tao Wenzhao, senior researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).^[10]

How have Chinese thinkers made sense of the shift, and of Trump’s presidency, as part of the story?  Four elite viewpoints can be identified, and they all fit neatly with the assumption of rivalry: realist analyses that draw on power transition theory; analyses emphasizing mutual perceptions; ideological competition as a lens for understanding strategic competition; and analyses focused on granular policy differences (or issue disputes) that animate U.S.-China relations.^[11] Trump’s presidency is not a decisive factor in any of these, though it may be understood as an accelerant of certain trends – and as an irritant or a salve, depending on one’s perspective.^[12]

Least helpful in the big-picture sense is that specific policy conflicts drive Sino-American strategic competition.  The list is long and familiar, and features Taiwan, North Korea, and other longstanding flashpoints.  Each conflict grows and matures, and together they stand between the U.S. and China; so many trees make a forest, and, perhaps, so many issue disputes make a rivalry.^[13] But it is a mistake to reduce the overarching conflictual relationship to the sum of its parts.  Scarborough Shoal and the South China Sea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Senkakus and the Spratlys are important, of course, but each is a metaphorical Pleiku.^[14] Any one of them would provide reason to escalate, should either side find it useful to do so.  Rather than any one point of conflict, what is truly at stake is the underlying relationship.^[15]

Realist analyses ostensibly privilege that relationship and the structural factors that shape it.  Yan Xuetong of Tsinghua University, as Zhao notes, argues that “US-China strategic competition is inevitable due to the structural contradictions between the hegemon and the rising power.”^[16] China’s narrowing of the national capabilities gap, then, is identified as the root cause of the two countries’ burgeoning competition, which calls to mind theories of power transition and war.^[17] Indeed, in 2017 Yan appealed to the facts of structural change: “Donald Trump will come to understand that even though the United States was able to grow at a much faster rate than all other nations in the world after the end of the Cold War, China…has been able to grow faster than the United States in recent decades,” and that “while the United States will be able to make China’s rise more challenging, it will be unable to prevent China from rising successfully in the end.”^[18] Yan’s commentary is consistent with power transition theory and endogenous growth theory which, like Yan’s article, identify the engine of growth as primarily domestic.^[19] Tariffs, trade wars, and even aggressive “decoupling” will not derail the locomotive of China’s economy.^[20]

Yan, however, does not reduce “composite national strength” to economic or material factors; he also assigns considerable importance to political leadership.  In his “moral realist” view, a rising power must work to reduce international resistance to its ascendancy.^[21] Friction with the declining power might be unavoidable, but overreaching by the rising state is avoidable; China should allow the declining power to make mistakes, reasons Yan, while cultivating “strategic credibility” with other countries.^[22] Recent incidents of rabid “Wolf Warrior diplomacy” aside, the PRC is more typically depicted as having transformed itself from “revolutionary order-challenger” (say, under Chairman Mao Zedong) to “reformist order-shaper” – an image that, along with its considerable and growing influence, could be reconcilable with a widening base of support.^[23]

On the topic of leadership, in early 2017 Yan projected a sanguine attitude toward what a Trump administration might do to frustrate China’s rise.  “At most,” argues Yan, “the United States will only be able to create certain challenges for China by adopting tactics in the security and political realm.”^[24] The use of the word tactics surely is far from accidental, as it underscores the non-strategic and fleeting nature of “America First” policies.  Yan recognized that such “tactics” could include U.S. efforts to exacerbate tensions inside the PRC, or to use China’s internal problems as a lever in international politics.  But Trump privileged trade over, say, human rights; for example, he sidelined the issue of Beijing’s alarming persecution of Uighurs in Xinjiang until trade negotiations with the PRC had ended.^[25]

In this sense, Trump’s presidency was as much salve as irritant.  Even though Trump used trade policy as a cudgel, prioritizing economic competition is a calculus well understood by the authorities in Beijing.^[26]Those in Beijing with a dim view of the United States likely suffered the foolishness gladly, finding schadenfreude in the knowledge that United States was hurting itself with a short-sighted trade policy salvaged from history’s dustbin.^[27] To borrow an image from the classic cartoons of Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones, the United States might have seemed less “Uncle Sam” and more “Yosemite Sam”: loud, temperamental, and given to wild threats, but prone to shooting himself in the foot.

Cartoonish images aside, rivalries are partly constituted by enemy images, and elite viewpoints emphasize the importance of mutual perceptions.^[28] In Zhao’s words, “Many Chinese scholars observe that the new wave of China threat perceptions in the United States has deepened the anxieties of the hegemon about the rising power… As [Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University] Wang Jisi argues, ‘the Americans are alarmed at China’s expanded global influence, exemplified by the Belt and Road Initiative, and its reinforcement of the role of the state . . . as well as the consolidation of the Communist Party leadership and its ideology’.”^[29] The shrill warning in Foreign Affairs magazine in October 2020 by then national security advisor Robert C. O’Brien provides one highly visible data point affirming Wang’s observation.^[30]

Perceptions may be complicated by domestic politics within both countries.  It might seem from a Chinese perspective that the polarization and divisiveness of American politics have created fertile conditions in which perceptions of China-as-Other will thrive – but it also suggests vulnerability and contradiction in the United States’ claim to global leadership.  Symbolized by (but not reducible to) the Trump presidency, the populist turn in American national politics signals a rejection of liberal elites and the liberal international order. Moreover, Trump’s attempts to undermine the results of the 2020 election suggest that the U.S. might appear to be its own enemy when it comes to democracy promotion in today’s world.  Ryan Hass, Senior Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies, outlines the optics of the grotesque attempt to keep Trump in the White House:

The January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C., provided powerful ammunition to Chinese propagandists that long have sought to delegitimize democracy as a dangerous Western conceit that lacks solutions for 21st-century societal challenges.  Chinese media outlets broadcast images of mayhem inside the American Capitol to a domestic audience to buttress a narrative of America as a country in descent, plagued by deep divisions and a broken political system… The images of insurrectionists occupying America’s legislative seat of power will be part of the Chinese official media’s playback loop for a long time to come.^[31]

Though Chenchen Zhang has documented a tendency among Chinese social media users to co-opt right-wing populist tropes from the West – including racism – the larger point is not lost.^[32] The image of the United States struggling to preserve its democratic traditions, and the erosion of American credibility in upholding the values that U.S. leaders have promulgated for generations, threatens to be a persistent legacy of the Trump presidency.  The Biden administration’s perceived need to restore confidence in an American commitment to democracy, rule of law, and human rights sets the stage for what might be an integral component of global rivalry: ideological competition.

Chinese elites recognize that competition may be fueled by ideological differences – or at least the appearance of ideological differences.  The backdrop of global capitalism – whether interpreted as the government-led coordination and state-owned enterprises of the PRC’s statist capitalism, or, on the other hand, the deregulation, corporate tax breaks, and privatization of public services associated with the current U.S. model – provides more common ground than is sometimes acknowledged.^[33] Family squabbles over which brand of capitalism is superior are a far cry from the pitched ideological confrontation that animated the U.S.-Soviet Cold War.

That said, Zhao attributes to Chinese analysts usage of the phrase “Cold war mentality” and a corresponding tendency to regard American rhetoric as symbolizing an ideologically charged Cold War in the making. For example, he cites CASS senior researcher Zhao Mei’s concerns about “a new ‘political correctness’… apparent in the spreading of anti-China discourse in the United States,” a “‘neo-McCarthy’ stance on China” characterized as “a truly disturbing trend that bodes far-reaching negative impact on US–China relations.”^[34]

Trump may be fairly criticized for blaming China for the United States’ economic woes, but he did not elevate the U.S.-China trade rivalry to the abstract heights of an ideological one.  Indeed, Trump’s trade negotiations with Beijing communicated an ‘American economic interests First’ sort of pragmatism.  However, as the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world and threw diplomacy into a tailspin, the Trump administration became increasingly transparent about its emergent whole-of-government approach to countering China^[35] – and introduced an explicitly ideological dimension to the competition.  Consider the title of Robert C. O’Brien’s aforementioned Foreign Affairs article: “How China Threatens American Democracy.” 

If Trump resisted pressure from ideologues to raise the stakes with China during the first half of his term, the second half revealed the resilience of China hawks.^[36] Foreshadowing the argument in O’Brien’s subsequent article, the administration’s 2020 strategic guidance document on China emphasized ideological conflict on a global scale.^[37] It leveled the following accusation at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP):

The CCP’s campaign to compel ideological conformity does not stop at China’s borders… PRC authorities have attempted to extend CCP influence over discourse and behavior around the world, …[and] PRC actors are exporting the tools of the CCP’s techno-authoritarian model to countries around the world, enabling authoritarian states to exert control over their citizens and surveil opposition, training foreign partners in propaganda and censorship techniques, and using bulk data collection to shape public sentiment. 

That document has since been removed from the White House website by the Biden administration, but (perhaps ironically) its ideological edge – as well as the whole-of-government approach to great-power competition with China outlined in the document – seems even more likely to stick with Joe Biden as president, according to reports at the time of the writing of this essay.^[38]

Indeed, Biden takes the helm from Trump in a moment of almost incomprehensible precarity for the United States.  Assured by experts that great-power competition with China is an essential component of the way forward, Biden almost certainly will not deviate from the designated path: continued maintenance, if not escalation, of the strategic rivalry with the PRC.^[39]

Whether Biden is able to counter images of the United States as a decaying, declining power wracked by divisions is an open question. It is, at least, what thinkers like Wang Jisi would anticipate; in Zhao’s rendering, Wang “argues that although a large number of Chinese analysts believe that American power has declined, the Americans themselves cannot accept such a view. Therefore, as the United States is unwilling to acknowledge its weakness vis-à-vis China, a kind of strategic competition between the two sides is inevitable.”^[40] Wu Xinbo, Dean of Fudan University’s Institute of International Studies and Director of Fudan’s Center for American Studies, also forecasting an “inevitable” increase in competition and friction.  But despite some Americans’ tendency to see the rivalry as ideological, Wu argued just before the pandemic that “China did not intend to enter into such ideological competition…we have no intention to compete ideologically.”^[41] Whether such claims can or should be taken at face value is unclear.

What is clear is that strategic rivalry is what states, and their leaders, make of it.  A structurally overdetermined rivalry need not take on the Manichean fervor of an ideological cold war.  Whether it does so depends on mutual perceptions, particularly among leading elites on both sides. As president, the norm-defying Trump normalized a hard-nosed approach to the U.S.-China rivalry – a rivalry that existed before he took office, and that persists after his departure.^[42] Strident insistence on a values proposition threatens to entrench the rivalry as a global franchise that could force other countries to choose sides.  If a post-Trump United States takes that tack, it remains to be seen what the PRC’s elites, and leaders, will make of it.  

 

Jonathan M. DiCicco is an associate professor of political science and international relations at Middle Tennessee State University, where he teaches in the international affairs M.A. program.  A senior fellow with the TransResearch Consortium, DiCicco researches power transitions, leaders and leadership, and international rivalries, current and historical. Representative works appear in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Studies Quarterly, Political Research Quarterly, and The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security.

© Copyright 2021 The Authors

 

Notes

[1] The author thanks the editors and Jingjing An for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay.

[2] Toh Han Shih, “Trump on China: 7 years and 400+ tweets later,” Inkstone News, https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/history-trumps-view-china-tweets/article/2141292; Joshua Rovner, Dingding Chen, Mira Rapp-Hooper, M. Taylor Fravel, Joseph M. Siracusa, Toshi Yoshihara, and Zhu Feng,H-Diplo/ISSF Policy Roundtable 1-9: U.S.-China Relations and the Trump Administration, https://issforum.org/roundtables/policy/1-9-us-china#_Toc482487430.  On calling China “enemy” see M. Taylor Fravel, J. Stapleton Roy, Michael D. Swaine, Susan A. Thornton and Ezra Vogel, “Opinion: China Is Not an Enemy,” Washington Post, July 3, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/making-china-a-us-enemy-is-counterproductive/2019/07/02/647d49d0-9bfa-11e9-b27f-ed2942f73d70_story.html.

[3] William Thompson and David Dreyer classify the US-PRC relationship as a strategic rivalry from 1949-1972 and from 1996 onward.  William R. Thompson and David R. Dreyer, Handbook of International Rivalries, 1494-2010 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2012), 195–198.  For a general discussion of international rivalries, please see Jonathan M. DiCicco and Brandon Valeriano, “International Rivalry and National Security,” in Derek S. Reveron, Nikolas K. Gvosdev, and John A. Cloud, eds., The Oxford Handbook of US National Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).

[4] Emma Farge and Philip Blenkinsop, “WTO finds Washington Broke Trade Rules by Putting Tariffs on China; Ruling Angers U.S.,” Reuters, September 15, 2020, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-wto/wto-finds-washington-broke-trade-rules-by-putting-tariffs-on-china-ruling-angers-u-s-idUSKBN2662FG.

[5] Yang Yuan, “Escape both the ‘Thucydides Trap’ and the ‘Churchill Trap’: Finding a Third Type of Great Power Relations under the Bipolar System.” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 11:2 (2018), 193–235; Chunman Zhang and Xiaoyu Pu, “Introduction: Can America and China Escape the Thucydides Trap?” Journal of Chinese Political Science 24 (2019), 1–9.

[6] See for example, Robert Sutter, “Barack Obama, Xi Jinping and Donald Trump — Pragmatism Fails as U.S.-China Differences Rise in Prominence.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 24: 2 (2017), 69–85.  For historical perspective on narratives concerning China’s rise and role, see Ja Ian Chong, “Popular Narratives versus Chinese History: Implications for Understanding an Emergent China.” European Journal of International Relations 20:4 (2014), 939–964.

[7] Minghao Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?  Chinese Perspectives on US–China Strategic Competition,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 12:3 (2019), 371–394.

[8] Jacques deLisle, “Purple State China: China’s Preferences in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election are…Complicated.” https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/10/purple-state-china-chinas-preferences-in-the-2020-u-s-presidential-election-arecomplicated/ October 30, 2020.

[9] Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?” 373–374.

[10] Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?,” 374, citing Tao Wenzhao, “Jinrong weiji yu zhongmei guanxi” (“The Financial Crisis and Sino-U.S. Relations”), Heping yu fazhan (Peace and Development), No. 4 (2009): 28–30. Note that Tao Wenzhao’s views on the US-China power relationship are nuanced and should not be reduced to a simplistic understanding of relative power position.  See, e.g., Tao Wenzhao, “International Order Won’t Be Bipolar,” China-US Focus, January 21, 2020, https://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/international-order-wont-be-bipolar. On changes in the system related to this more nuanced perspective, see also Edward Rhodes, “Challenges of Globalization, Flattening and Unbundling,” South Asian Journal of Business and Management Cases 2:1 (2013): 17–23.

[11] Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?,” 376. Ronald Tammen has argued (against most others) that power transition theory is not a realist theory; see Ronald Tammen, “The Organski Legacy: A Fifty-Year Research Program,” International Interactions 34 (2008): 314–332.

[12] William Pesek, “China’s Xi Jinping Is Really Going To Miss Donald Trump Despite Four Chaotic Years,” Forbes, 18 January 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampesek/2021/01/18/chinas-xi-jinping-is-really-going-to-miss-donald-trump-despite-four-chaotic-years.

[13] Indeed, political scientists Paul Hensel, Sara Mitchell, and Cameron Thies have linked issue conflicts to rivalry relationships, and David Dreyer demonstrates that accumulated issue disputes make for war-prone rivalries.  Paul R. Hensel, “Contentious Issues and World Politics: The Management of Territorial Claims in the Americas, 1816–1992,” International Studies Quarterly 45:1 (2001), 81–109; Sara McLaughlin Mitchell and Cameron G. Thies, “Issue Rivalries,” Conflict Management and Peace Science28:3 (2011), 230–260; and David R. Dreyer, “Issue Conflict Accumulation and the Dynamics of Strategic Rivalry,” International Studies Quarterly 54:3 (2010): 779–795.  For disputed issues in the U.S.-China context, see e.g. M. Taylor Fravel, “The Certainty of Uncertainty: U.S.-China Relations in 2017,” H-Diplo/ISSF Policy Roundtable 1-9: U.S.-China Relations and the Trump Administration, https://issforum.org/roundtables/policy/1-9-us-china#_Toc482487429.

[14] Paul R. Pillar, “Streetcars Named Deception,” The National Interest, May 30, 2016, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/streetcars-named-deception-16398.

[15] The point is made in detail in Karen A. Rasler and William R. Thompson, “Contested Territory, Strategic Rivalries, and Conflict Escalation,” International Studies Quarterly 50:1 (2006): 145–167, at 148; see also John Logan Mitton, “Rivalry Intervention in Civil Conflicts: Afghanistan (India–Pakistan), Angola (USSR–USA), and Lebanon (Israel–Syria),” Canadian Foreign Policy Journal 23:3 (2017): 277–291.

[16] Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?,” 376.

[17] See e.g., A. F. K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958); A. F. K. Organski, and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980); Ronald Tammen, Jacek Kugler, Douglas Lemke, Allan Stam, Mark Abdollahian, Carole Alsharabati, Brian Efird, and A.F.K. Organski, Power Transitions: Strategies for the 21st Century (New York: Chatham House Publishers, 2000).  See also Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), and commentaries including Jonathan M. DiCicco and Jack S. Levy, “Power Shifts and Problem Shifts: The Evolution of the Power Transition Research Program,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 43:6 (1999), 675–704; Jack S. Levy, “Power Transition Theory and the Rise of China,” in Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng, eds., China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2008), 11–33; and H-Diplo/ISSF Roundtable XII-2 reviewing Steve Chan, Thucydides’s Trap? Historical Interpretation, Logic of Inquiry, and the Future of Sino-American Relations (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020), https://issforum.org/roundtables/12-2-Thucydides.

[18] Yan Xuetong, “Strategic Challenges for China’s Rise.” Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, February 23, 2017, https://carnegietsinghua.org/2017/02/23/strategic-challenges-for-china-s-rise-pub-71208.

[19] James Morley, “What is Endogenous Growth Theory?” World Economic Forum, 24 June 2015, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/06/what-is-endogenous-growth-theory/; Jacek Kugler, “Extensions of Power Transitions: Applications to Political Economy,” Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy 5:3 (1999): 1–25, at 5–6.

[20] Though the PRC’s growth is projected to slow as its population ages.  On China’s endogenous growth path, see e.g., Ronald L. Tammen and Ayesha Umar Wahedi, “East Asia: China on the Move,” in Ronald L. Tammen and Jacek Kugler, eds., The Rise of Regions: Conflict and Cooperation (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020), 19–36.  For a nuanced analysis of Chinese intellectual elites’ discourse on the US-China trade war and the prospects of decoupling, see Li Wei, “Towards Economic Decoupling?  Mapping Chinese Discourse on the China–US Trade War,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 12:4 (2019): 519–556.

[21] See also Amitav Acharya, “From Heaven to Earth: ‘Cultural Idealism’ and ‘Moral Realism’ as Chinese Contributions to Global International Relations,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics 12:4 (2019), 467–494; Vasilis Trigkas, “On Global Power Differentials, Moral Realism, and the Rise of China: A Review Essay,” Journal of Contemporary China 29:126 (2020): 950–963; and Yan Xuetong, Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018).

[22] Some might see here a weak point in power transition theory, which typically frames a rising state as a challenger battling uphill against a dominant power and other powerful states “satisfied” with the status quo.  What of situations in which a dominant power appears to be dissatisfied, and rising challenger cultivates a wide base of support before overtly challenging the once-dominant, declining power?  Such concerns aside, power transition theorists anticipated China’s rise more than a half-century ago, and the theory’s logic is rooted in industrializing states’ endogenous growth, so its claim to provide solid foundations for analysis has genuine bona fides.  For a recent treatment, see Yi Feng, Zhijun Gao, and Zining Yang, “East Asia: China’s Campaign to Become a New World Leader,” in Ronald L. Tammen and Jacek Kugler, eds., The Rise of Regions: Conflict and Cooperation (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020), 37–54.

[23] Zhimin Chen and Xueying Zhang, “Chinese Conception of the World Order in a Turbulent Trump Era,” The Pacific Review 33:3-4 (2020), 438–468; Zhiqun Zhu, “Interpreting China’s ‘Wolf-Warrior Diplomacy’,” The Diplomat, May 15, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/interpreting-chinas-wolf-warrior-diplomacy/.

[24] Yan Xuetong, “Strategic Challenges for China’s Rise,” Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, February 23, 2017, https://carnegietsinghua.org/2017/02/23/strategic-challenges-for-china-s-rise-pub-71208. For a discussion of alternative points of view, see Chen and Zhang, “Chinese Conception of the World Order,” 453–454.

[25] “Trump Held Off Sanctioning Chinese over Uighurs to Pursue Trade Deal,” BBC World News, 22 June 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53138833.

[26] Elizabeth Economy, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); see also Benjamin Carlson, “China Loves Trump,” The Atlantic, March 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/trump-china/550886/.

[27] Ryan Hass and Abraham Denmark, “More Pain than Gain: How the US-China Trade War Hurt America,” Brookings Institution, August 7, 2020, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/08/07/more-pain-than-gain-how-the-us-china-trade-war-hurt-america/.

[28] For a critique of the United States’ “familiar tendency to attribute conflict to our opponents’ internal characteristics,” see Stephen M. Walt, “Everyone Misunderstands the Reason for the U.S.-China Cold War,” Foreign Policy, June 30, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/30/china-united-states-new-cold-war-foreign-policy/.

[29] Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?,” 377.

[30] Robert C. O’Brien, “How China Threatens American Democracy: Beijing’s Ideological Agenda Has Gone Global,” Foreign Affairs, October 21, 2020.  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-10-21/how-china-threatens-american-democracy.

[31] Brookings Institution, “Around the Halls: How Leaders and Publics around the World are Reacting to Events at the Capitol,” Brookings Institution blog: Order from Chaos, January 8, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/01/08/around-the-halls-how-leaders-and-publics-around-the-world-are-reacting-to-events-at-the-capitol/.

[32] Chenchen Zhang, “Right-wing Populism with Chinese Characteristics?  Identity, Otherness and Global Imaginaries in Debating World Politics Online,” European Journal of International Relations 26:1 (2020): 88–115.

[33] Naná de Graaff and Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn, “US Elite Power and the Rise of ‘Statist’ Chinese Elites in Global Markets,” International Politics 54:3 (2017): 338–355.  Cf. Jude Blanchette, “Confronting the Challenge of Chinese State Capitalism,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, January 22, 2021, https://www.csis.org/analysis/confronting-challenge-chinese-state-capitalism.

[34] Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?,” 379.

[35] Robert Sutter, “Pushback: America’s New China Strategy,” The Diplomat, November 2, 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/11/pushback-americas-new-china-strategy/.

[36] Josh Rogin, “Opinion: Trump’s China Hawks are Loose and Not Wasting any Time,” Washington PostJune 25, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trumps-china-hawks-are-loose-and-not-wasting-any-time/2020/06/25/cf19b98c-b719-11ea-aca5-ebb63d27e1ff_story.html.  See also Hal Brands, Peter Feaver, and William Inboden, “In Defense of the Blob: America’s Foreign Policy Establishment Is the Solution, Not the Problem,” Foreign Affairs, April 29, 2020,  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-04-29/defense-blob

[37] “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China,” The White House, May 26, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/20201009043525/https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/united-states-strategic-approach-to-the-peoples-republic-of-china/; full-text document: https://web.archive.org/web/20201010090529/https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/U.S.-Strategic-Approach-to-The-Peoples-Republic-of-China-Report-5.24v1.pdf. See also this apparently declassified internal document on “U.S. Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific”: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/IPS-Final-Declass.pdf.

[38] Jill Disis, “The China Trade War is One Thing Joe Biden Won’t be Rushing to Fix,” CNN, January 26, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/21/economy/china-trade-tech-war-biden-intl-hnk/index.html; Ana Swanson, “Biden on ‘Short Leash’ as Administration Rethinks China Relations,” The New York Times, February 17, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/business/economy/biden-china.html.

[39] For a welcome counterpoint to great-power-competition-as-strategy, see Daniel H. Nexon, “Against Great Power Competition: The U.S. Should Not Confuse Means for Ends,” Foreign Affairs, February 15, 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2021-02-15/against-great-power-competition. On rivalry maintenance, see Gary Goertz, Bradford Jones, and Paul F. Diehl, “Maintenance Processes in International Rivalries,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49:5 (2005): 742–769.

[40] Zhao, “Is a New Cold War Inevitable?,” 377.

[41] Tang Jie, “Wu Xinbo on the ‘Transformation’ of US-China Relations,” The Diplomat, January 9, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/wu-xinbo-on-the-transformation-of-us-china-relations/.

[42] See Keikichi Takahashi, “How Unique Is Trump’s China Policy?” The Diplomat, June 17, 2020, https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/wu-xinbo-on-the-transformation-of-us-china-relations/.

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O Império que queria ser único no mundo, e eterno - Kevin Gallagher, entrevista (O Globo)

‘Os EUA gostam de culpar outros países por seus problemas’, diz especialista americano sobre disputa com China

Kevin Gallagher, que participa nesta segunda de debate na UFRJ, diz que seu país precisa aumentar investimento interno em vez de tentar impedir ascensão chinesa e aponta como a rivalidade entre as duas potências pode prejudicar o Brasil

André Duchiade

O Globo, 07/06/2021 - 04:30

Diretor do Centro de Políticas de Desenvolvimento Global da Universidade de Boston, Kevin Gallagher ocupa uma posição cada vez mais rara: americano com especialização na China, ao mesmo tempo em que é um defensor do sistema multilateral e das instituições democráticas, também se mantém crítico da postura de seu país em relação a Pequim. Com experiência em desenvolvimento econômico, política comercial, política ambiental internacional e América Latina, ele considera o comportamento agressivo americano como arriscado do ponto de vista da economia global. Aproveitando a sua participação nesta segunda, às 10h, em um painel ao lado de André Lara Resende e Mariana Mazzucato, dentro da conferência Amanhãs Desejáveis, organizada pela UFRJ, Gallagher conversou com o GLOBO sobre os riscos que a rivalidade entre os países podem acarretar, inclusive para o Brasil.

Em vistas das mobilizações nacionais contra a pandemia, a crise provocada pela Covid-19 também é, em larga medida, uma crise relacionada à dívida. Como o senhor avalia a resposta global para alívio das dívidas até agora?

Se você for um dos países mais pobres do mundo, não é tão ruim. Por outro lado, os países de renda média foram abandonados pelo sistema global. O esquema do G-20 para a iniciativa de suspensão do serviço da dívida exclui todos os países de renda média, e a maior parte da dívida está nestes países. Se você está no Brasil, na Colômbia ou na África do Sul, a única coisa que pode fazer é recorrer ao FMI. E não preciso dizer a ninguém do Brasil como isso não é lá muito bom, para dizer o mínimo.

Quais podem ser as consequências desse abandono?

Não quero dizer nada de ruim sobre os países pobres. Mas, quando os países de renda média têm crises, há maior chance de elas se tornarem sistêmicas. Há algumas décadas, quando o Brasil teve uma crise, ela foi para a Argentina. Depois pode se espalhar para a Rússia, e se mover pelo mundo. Enquanto, com todo o respeito ao Haiti, mas, se houver uma crise financeira lá, ela não sairá do país. E eu acho que o sistema multilateral abandonou os países de renda média. Em parte, por causa da rivalidade entre EUA e China — porque, obviamente, seria necessário conceder alguns benefícios e criar algumas políticas que favoreceriam a China, e há um eleitorado que não quer isso.

Apesar da competição entre Washington e Pequim, Biden com frequência afirma que os EUA estão prontos para cooperar com a China, sobretudo contra a mudança climática. Como avalia essa cooperação até agora?

Em relação ao governo Trump, foi uma mudança significativa. Com Trump, qualquer coisa que a China fizesse era terrível, enquanto o governo Biden percebe que há algumas coisas nas quais as duas maiores economias do mundo precisam cooperar. No entanto, o Gabinete de Biden tem muitas cabeças, e há uma batalha interna. Só alguns setores do governo entendem que áreas como crises financeiras, comércio, mudança climática,  e a pandemia exigem que trabalhem juntos. E é muito cedo para fazer uma avaliação definitiva. De concreto, não há nada que possa apontar, exceto para uma espécie de grupo de trabalho sobre as mudanças climáticas que será montado. Espero que seja um sinal de cooperação.

Em quem o senhor pensa quando diz que há setores dispostos a cooperar? O primeiro encontro entre os chefes das diplomacias foi um desastre marcado por trocas de insultos.

Sim, a cúpula do Alasca foi embaraçosa, em função do excesso de arrogância da parte dos americanos. Você não pode simplesmente abandonar o sistema multilateral por quatro anos e depois voltar e pensar que pode simplesmente dizer a outros países o que fazer. Penso em John Kerry, o enviado especial para mudança climática. O Departamento de Estado está menos comprometido [com a cooperação]. O grande problema a ser observado é como o escritório do representante de Comércio dos Estados Unidos vai reagir. Ainda não houve novas medidas, há um momento de paz no conflito comercial EUA-China. Mas também não houve nenhuma resolução. E isso afeta um país como o Brasil de maneira direta e imediata.

Como?

As exportações brasileiras para a China, como aço e minério de ferro, viram produtos que são vendidos para os EUA. Portanto, nesse nível, se a guerra comercial não diminuir, isso pode ter um impacto negativo sobre o Brasil. Mas, por outro lado, o Brasil se beneficiou um pouco porque os Estados Unidos já foram o maior exportador de soja para a China, e o Brasil conseguiu pegar um pouco delas para si. Mas esses são os impactos diretos. Quando os Estados Unidos e a China estão em um grande conflito comercial na comunidade de investimento global, todos ficam nervosos, e isso realmente perturba os mercados financeiros, o que pode levar à fuga de capitais. Fora isso, há esse projeto de lei do senador Bob Menendez, apelidado de “a Lei da Guerra Fria”. Com ele, um aumento de capital para o Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID) só seria aprovado se os países começassem a considerar a redução de seus financiamentos da China

Quais seriam os efeitos de tal medida?

De acordo com estimativas de meu centro, nas últimas duas décadas, os bancos de desenvolvimento chineses forneceram mais financiamento para os países latino-americanos, especialmente o Brasil, do que o BID. Ou seja,  poderia acarretar em uma perda líquida nos fluxos financeiros.

Como especialista em China americano, como o senhor vê este conflito?

Eu não minimizo algumas das coisas que a China tem feito. Penso que Xi Jinping consolidou seu regime de maneira autoritária, e não apoio o que tem sido feito em Hong Kong ou contra os uigures. Mas não é esta a razão pela qual há tanta desigualdade e populismo nos Estados Unidos. Isto acontece porque os Estados Unidos não têm investido em seu próprio povo. E os Estados Unidos sempre gostam de culpar outros países por seus problemas. Não deveria ser nenhuma surpresa se a China tem investido 40% do PIB em sua economia por 40 anos, enquanto os Estados Unidos não o fazem, que o país que investe se saia melhor. Não se pode culpar a China por os Estados Unidos não terem investido em si. Agora temos uma competição,  e ela se dá da pior maneira. Em vez de tentarmos nos tornar competitivos, buscamos bloquear a China do resto do mundo. Isso é perigoso para a economia global.

https://oglobo.globo.com/mundo/os-eua-gostam-de-culpar-outros-paises-por-seus-problemas-diz-especialista-americano-sobre-disputa-com-china-25048798

A paranoia anti-China alcança um dos melhores jornalistas americanos: Thomas Friedman (NYT)

 Normal entre os generais do Pentágono, a obsessão por um conflito direto entre os EUA e a China contaminou os acadêmicos e agora atinge também um dos melhores jornalistas americanos: Tom Friedman. Abastecido por informações dos próprios militares, ele entrou na onda da paranoia que pretende que a China pretende alcançar hegemonia mundial — um objetivo que é exatamente o dos EUA, que já o exerce de maneira arrogante — pela via militar.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The New York Times – 28/04/2021

Is There a War Coming Between China and the U.S.?

Thomas L. Friedman

 

If you’re looking for a compelling beach read this summer, I recommend the novel “2034,” by James Stavridis, a retired admiral, and Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine and intelligence officer. The book is about how China and America go to war in 2034, beginning with a naval battle near Taiwan and with China acting in a tacit alliance with Iran and Russia.

I’m not giving it all away to say China and the U.S. end up in a nuclear shootout and incinerate a few of each other’s cities, and the result is that neutral India becomes the dominant world power. (Hey, it’s a novel!)

What made the book unnerving, though, was that when I’d put it down and pick up the day’s newspaper I’d read much of what it was predicting for 13 years from now:

Iran and China just signed a 25-year cooperation agreement. Vladimir Putin just massed troops on the border of Ukraine while warning the U.S. that anyone who threatens Russia “will regret their deeds more than they have regretted anything in a long time.” As fleets of Chinese fighter jets, armed with electronic warfare technology, now regularly buzz Taiwan, China’s top foreign affairs policymaker just declared that the U.S. “does not have the qualification … to speak to China from a position of strength.”

Yikes, that’s life imitating art a little too closely for comfort. Why now?

The answer can be found, in part, in a book I have written about before: Michael Mandelbaum’s “The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth.” It tracks how we went from a world defined by the Cold War between American democracy and Soviet communism — 1945 to 1989 — to a singularly peaceful quarter century without big power conflict, buttressed by spreading democracy and global economic interdependence — 1989 to about 2015 — to our current, much more dangerous era in which China, Iran and Russia are each deflecting the pressures of democracy and the need to deliver constant economic growth by offering their people aggressive hypernationalism instead.

What has made this return of Chinese, Iranian and Russian aggressive nationalism even more dangerous is that, in each country, it is married to state-led industries — particularly military industries — and it’s emerging at a time when America’s democracy is weakening.

Our debilitating political and cultural civil war, inflamed by social networks, is hobbling Americans’ ability to act in unison and for Washington to be a global stabilizer and institution builder, as the United States was after World War II.

Our foolish decision to expand NATO into Russia’s face — after the fall of the Soviet Union — hardened post-Communist Russia into an enemy instead of a potential partner, creating the ideal conditions for an anti-Western autocrat like Putin to emerge. (Imagine if Russia, a country with which we have zero trade or border disputes, were OUR ally today vis-à-vis China and Iran and not THEIR ally in disputes with us.)

Meanwhile, the failure of the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq to produce the pluralism and decency hoped for after 9/11, coupled with the 2008 economic crisis and the current pandemic — together with the general hollowing out of America’s manufacturing base — has weakened both American self-confidence and the world’s confidence in America.

The result? Right when China, Russia and Iran are challenging the post-World War II order more aggressively than ever, many wonder whether the United States has the energy, allies and resources for a new geopolitical brawl.

 “Just because communism is gone — and we don’t have two political and economic systems that claim universal legitimacy competing to govern every country — doesn’t mean that ideological considerations have disappeared from international politics,” Mandelbaum argued to me.

Regimes like those in China, Iran and Russia feel much more threatened — more than we think — by democracy, Mandelbaum added. During the first decade of the 21st century, these regimes were able to generate sufficient public support through economic progress. But after that proved more difficult in the second decade of the 21st century, “the leaders of these countries need to find a substitute, and the one they have chosen is hypernationalism.”

Are we up to the challenge? I’m pretty sure we can keep a more aggressive, nationalistic Russia and Iran deterred at a reasonable cost, and with the help of our traditional allies.

But China is another question. So we’d better understand where our strengths and weaknesses lie, as well as China’s.

China is now a true peer competitor in the military, technological and economic realms, except — except in one critical field: designing and manufacturing the most advanced microprocessors and logic and memory chips that are the base layer for artificial intelligence, machine learning, high-performance computing, electric vehicles, telecommunications — i.e., the whole digital economy that we’re moving into.

China’s massive, state-led effort to develop its own vertically integrated microchip industry has so far largely failed to master the physics and hardware to manipulate matter at the nano-scale, a skill required to mass produce super-sophisticated microprocessors.

However, just a few miles away from China sits the largest and most sophisticated contract chip maker in the world: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. According to the Congressional Research Service, TSMC is one of only three manufacturers in the world that fabricate the most advanced semiconductor chips — and by far the biggest. The second and third are Samsung and Intel.

Most chip designers, like IBM, Qualcomm, Nvidia, AMD (and even Intel to some extent) now use TSMC and Samsung to make the microprocessors they design.

But, just as important, three of the five companies that make the super-sophisticated lithography machines, tools and software used by TSMC and others to actually make the microchips — Applied Materials, Lam Research Corporation and KLA Corporation — are based in the United States. (The other two are Dutch and Japanese.) China largely lacks this expertise.

As such, the American government has the leverage to restrict TSMC from making advanced chips for Chinese companies. Indeed, just two weeks ago, the U.S. made TSMC suspend new orders from seven Chinese supercomputing centers suspected of assisting in the country’s weapons development.

The South China Morning Post quoted Francis Lau, a University of Hong Kong computer scientist, as saying: “The sanctions would definitely affect China’s ability to keep to its leading position in supercomputing,” because all of its current supercomputers mostly use processors from Intel or designed by AMD and IBM and manufactured by TSMC. Although there are Korean and Japanese alternatives, Lau added, they are not as powerful.

China, though, is doubling down on research in the physics, nanotechnology and material sciences that will drive the next generation of chips and chip-making equipment. But it could take China a decade or more to reach the cutting edge.

That’s why — today — as much as China wants Taiwan for reasons of ideology, it wants TSMC in the pocket of Chinese military industries for reasons of strategy. And as much as U.S. strategists are committed to preserving Taiwan’s democracy, they are even more committed to ensuring that TSMC doesn’t fall into China’s hands for reasons of strategy. (TSMC is now building a new semiconductor factory in Phoenix.) Because, in a digitizing world, he who controls the best chip maker will control … a lot.

Just read “2034.” In the novel, China gains the technological edge with superior A.I.-driven cybercloaking, satellite spoofing and stealth materials. It’s then able to launch a successful surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

And the first thing China does is seize Taiwan.

Let’s make sure that stays the stuff of fiction.

 

Aos que acham que o sistema multilateral de comércio estará melhor com Biden - Edward Alden (Foreign Policy)

 Pois é, nem em relação à China, ou à OMC, a situação deve melhorar muito sob a nova administração Democrata. 

Eu não espero grandes melhorias em comércio ou relações com a China com Biden.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

No, Biden Will Not End Trade Wars

Biden has matched Trump’s rhetoric on trade soundbite for soundbite, and his economic plans are likely to make trade conflicts worse.

Edward Alden

Foreign Policy, Washington DC – 4/10/2020

If Democratic candidate Joe Biden becomes president next January, mending U.S. trade relations won’t be anywhere near the top of his to-do list. He has stated unequivocally that he would not enter into any new trade agreements “until we’ve made major investments here at home, in our workers and our communities.” Don’t expect a Biden-led United States to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Asia, restart talks on a new agreement with the European Union, or pursue trade deals elsewhere anytime soon—if ever.

But for the rest of the world, four years of being pummeled with tariffs and sanctions by President Donald Trump make better trade relations a priority. How deftly Biden handles that tug of war will determine whether the United States regains some of its tattered leadership over the international economic order—or stands by while the world further deteriorates into tit-for-tat trade wars.

From a U.S. domestic perspective, Biden’s priorities are certainly right. Lack of investment in workforce retraining, access to education, and critical infrastructure—as well as a tax code that favors shedding workers—goes a long way to explaining why Americans soured on trade. Former President Barack Obama, after running as a trade skeptic in 2008, fell in line with his predecessors in pursuing an ambitious agenda to expand trade, especially with Asia, despite growing evidence that imports from China were destroying U.S. manufacturing jobs.Discontent over trade helped Trump win the 2016 election in critical industrial states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. This year, the Democrats are determined not to make the same mistake. Biden’s plan to “build back better” plainly states that “the goal of every decision about trade must be to build the American middle class, create jobs, raise wages, and strengthen communities.”

These are exactly the kinds of protectionist practices that past trade agreements have sought to contain.

But the world cannot afford to wait for the many months—or years—that it would take the new administration to roll out its domestic policies, and the additional years for them to show effects. After four years of Trump, the international trade system is collapsing. A short list of the urgent priorities include fixing a broken World Trade Organization (WTO), building a stronger alliance to confront China economically, and resolving growing differences with Europe over taxation of and privacy regulations for digital companies, and avoiding a spiral of new trade conflicts over the use of border taxes to punish carbon-hungry industries. A Biden administration cannot just plead with the rest of the world to stand still while the United States gets its domestic house in order.

If anything, Biden’s plans would likely make trade conflicts worse—at least in the short run. That’s because his showcase economic proposals include preferential treatment for U.S.-made goods, a long list of subsidies to domestic industries, and a ban on foreign companies from government procurement. These are exactly the kinds of protectionist practices that past trade agreements have sought to contain because they wall off home markets from foreign competition, are widely abused by governments and corporations, and often lead to a spiral of retaliation by other countries.

For example, Biden wants a $400 billion “Buy American” scheme focused on U.S.-made infrastructure and clean energy technology. That would cut out many highly competitive European and Asian suppliers. Polls suggest this is extremely popular: A new survey by Trade Vistas found that 75 percent of Americans support Buy American policies, with 40 percent believing they would create “a large number of jobs.” Biden has been unequivocal in pledging that the government “will not purchase anything that is not made in America.” To that end, he has promised to close loopholes in the Depression-era Buy American Act, which he says result in “tens of billions of dollars each year going to support foreign jobs and bolster foreign industries.” What Biden calls loopholes, however, include long-standing commitments made by the United States and other countries under WTO rules, as well as U.S. obligations under trade agreements with Canada, Mexico, Korea, Australia, and many other nations.

Biden is also offering a cascade of government subsidies to industry, shattering what little is left of international commitments under the WTO and various trade deals to restrain such supports. The Biden plan calls for showering U.S. corporations with federal support to repatriate critical supply chains in sectors such as medical equipment, semiconductors, and communications technology—an issue on which there is little daylight between Democrats and Republicans. A bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate calls for $25 billion in government aid to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States. All this promises an escalating subsidies war, not just with China but with close U.S. allies as well.

Finally, Biden is promising little respite in the trade war with China, which has caught many U.S. trading partners in the middle. Trump might have hoped to use the election campaign to paint Biden as soft on China, but Biden has matched him soundbite for soundbite, calling out China for its “assault on American creativity” through intellectual property theft, cyberattacks, and unfair subsidies. In addition to calling for tougher trade enforcement, Democratic U.S. Senators unveiled a $350 billion spending plan last month “to confront the clear and present threat China poses to our economic prosperity and national security.” Such proposals are the Democrats’ own version of “America first,” marrying Trump’s hard line on China with a longstanding Democratic wish list of domestic economic programs—mainly subsidies to favored sectors, companies, and initiatives.

Some might still be under the illusion that a Biden-led United States would go back to being its old self on trade—the mostly benevolent hegemon dedicated to preserving and expanding the rules-based trading order, even when that sometimes led to economic harm to certain U.S. industries and workers. But they are coming around to realizing there is no going back to a pre-Trump era of free trade. And after four years of Trump, U.S. allies are likely to be willing to give a Democratic administration some room to deal with domestic challenges.

Europeans, Canadians, Australians, and other allies are likely to be patient in order to avoid having to choose between trading with China and trading with the United States, especially given how little China has done to win new friends. On the contrary: Beijing has engaged in what the Financial Times journalist Jamil Anderlini calls punishment diplomacy, using economic weapons to bully countries that dare to criticize the President Xi Jinping government over human rights, Hong Kong, or the coronavirus. 

 

Para acessar íntegra:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/02/biden-trump-trade-wars-election-2020/