foreign policy

How Should the U.S. Confront China?

Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Financial Times
Genesis
Response
Penultimate
Finale

Robert Spalding

Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

December 15th, 2019
This argument has shifted from whether we disagree on the nature of the Chinese Communist Party and its regime – we agree – to how to deal with it. Let me be clear that I do not favor complete disengagement with China. I believe diplomatic engagement is important for reducing the risk of confrontation and mitigating the negative consequences of any future military crisis. That said, any further engagement to encourage CCP participation in a rules-based order through cooperation is bound to fail.
I also agree that cooperative engagement with like-minded allies and partners is crucial to promoting a rules-based order.
That said, any engagement or cooperation with China in international institutions will fail because the CCP seeks geopolitical outcomes that are counter to US national interests and democratic principles.
This has been recently demonstrated: June 2017 – For the first time the EU fails to make its statement at the U.N.’s top rights body about Chinese human rights violations; October 2019 – China wins head of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) at the UN; October 2019 – 54 countries support China at the UN on Xinjiang and Uyghur Concentration Camps.
Since the Tiananmen massacre, the CCP-led Chinese regime has used the cooperative international environment fostered by the United States to co-opt allies and partners into adopting its interests. In order to ensure the promotion of democratic principles, human rights, civil liberties, rule of law, self-determination and free trade the US must forge a new consensus with like-minded nations.
In fact, this has been the goal of the National Security Strategy from the beginning. Many of our North American, European and Asian allies are beginning to – or already have – adopted a similar view on the CCP. This view is being embraced by some Latin American and African nations as well. While some claimed America was sliding into isolationism, good people in the US and other like-minded governments have been working together quietly to align efforts to promote shared principles among free peoples.
In the coming years, I look for the United States to continue to closely align economic, financial, trade and informational relationships consistent with our current security relationships. Most importantly, I look for America to invest in the productive capacity of the American people and work with democratic nations to do the same for their citizens.
Full implementation of the NSS will see a focus on investment in butter over guns as the US seeks to grow its scientific, technological and economic power while deterring conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Like-minded allies and their people can benefit from renewed economic growth and prosperity through policies that promote sound labor and environmental principles. As we shift production from Chinese factories powered by coal-fueled electricity – and in the case of Xinjiang, slave labor – global labor exploitation and environmental pollution levels will begin to fall.
This is not about punishing the Chinese people or the CCP. It is about opposing any global trend toward oppressing freedom, and investing in free peoples everywhere while ensuring the technology, talent, innovation and capital created promote the kind of world they choose to live in.
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