foreign policy
coronavirus

Is the Era of Cooperation Between the U.S. and China Finished?

Journal of Political Risk
MacAndrews & Forbes
Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale

Anders Corr

Journal of Political Risk

April 11th, 2020
Ms. Townsend makes a lot of good points with respect to China, leading me to think that we have potential for agreement on the following: The U.S. is in a Cold War with China. China should not only be held legally liable for its negligence with respect to COVID-19, but it should be sanctioned if it does not immediately correct the practices (like wet markets, lack of rigorous infection control measures in its virology laboratories and lack of freedom of speech) that likely led to the pandemic in the first place. And, the U.S. should correct its supply chain vulnerabilities from overdependence on China, e.g., our lack of mask and ventilator manufacturing.
However, Ms. Townsend is more sanguine in her view of possible future cooperation with China than I am. Ignoring China’s track record of broken promises and damaging outcomes, she cites three opportunities for cooperation, the pandemic, climate change and terrorism, addressed below.
Cooperation on the pandemic has boomeranged in unsavory ways, for example when China: sold back to Italy donations that Italy had previously given to China, used mask diplomacy and distinguished ‘friend from foe’ in donation decisions, papered over its negligence by touting itself as a global savior, and spread fake news via paid posts on Facebook that none of the 42,000 health workers in Hubei province who fought the virus were infected. China’s paid posts on COVID-19 got almost 3x the views in the last 14 months as did the Russian Facebook campaign during the 2016 U.S. election. Rather than invite more such “cooperation”, the U.S. and allies should reveal any attempts to link aid to other concessions. Chinese state advertising on U.S. social media should be banned.
On climate change, China used influence to obtain an unfair 2016 Paris Agreement that allowed it to continue increasing emissions until 2030, while the U.S. had to immediately decrease emissions. Sure enough, in 2019 the world decreased coal power capacity, even as China increased its own by 34.1 gigawatts. Paris improved China’s economic competitiveness relative to the U.S., which by extension fuels the China-led arms race in Asia. We should cooperate on climate change, but only if both the U.S. and China decrease emissions immediately and to a similar degree.
On terrorism, China used its supposed “counter-terrorism” efforts to target ethnic minorities like the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, 1-3 million of whom are now detained in “reeducation camps” and doing forced labor. Calling for cooperation with China on counter-terrorism without noting China’s racist application of the same again plays into China’s narrative.
We should be quietly skeptical of further cooperation with China, rather than publicly gushing. Cooperation can serve as a foot in the door to continue taking advantage of the U.S., especially in one-sided deals on trade, military and scientific matters. Cooperation can weaken American vigilance against China’s unrelenting industrial and academic espionage.
With an adversary who lacks our values, sometimes the only smart cooperation is no cooperation at all.
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