What’s next in U.S.-China relations.
What’s next in U.S.-China relations.
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By PHELIM KINE
Capital Economics/Julian Evans-Pritchard @capeconchina
Hi, China Watchers. This is Xi Jinping’s glide path week to a third term as China’s paramount leader. And my Brussels-based colleague Stuart Lau and I have a transatlantic analysis of what Xi’s foreign policy settings hold for China’s relations with the U.S. and the E.U. We’ll also parse the language in Xi’s work report speech to measure what his real priorities are, scrutinize Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s warning about Xi’s Taiwan intentions and look for the lessons in the People’s Liberation Army’s last attempt to invade Taiwan. Amid the bilateral relationship gloom, we’ll profile a book that votes for hope by urging a renewed U.S. diplomacy push aimed to moderate Xi’s policies.
Let’s get to it. — Phelim
Chinese President Xi Jinping has made clear at the ongoing 20th Party Congress in Beijing that U.S.-China relations aren’t going to improve anytime soon.
Xi’s much anticipated speech on the opening day of the ruling party meeting framed foreign relations – including those with the U.S. – as a struggle between China and “external attempts to suppress and contain” it.
Xi’s speech distilled the key points of his “work report” which will guide the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s domestic and foreign policy priorities until 2027
Siege mentality: And Xi depicted the CCP as a guardian of the one-party authoritarian state facing unspecified threats of “infiltration, sabotage, subversion, and separatist activities by hostile forces.”
The 20th Party Congress, a gathering of more than 2,000 CCP officials, is widely expected to conclude on Saturday with the confirmation of Xi’s third term as the country’s paramount leader. And the tone and substance of his speech differed sharply from the self-congratulatory English-language video that CCP propaganda minions started circulating on Tuesday
Xi’s implicit messaging: A key priority of his third term is to defend China’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” key components of his combative concept of “national rejuvenation.” That’s code for pursuing “reunification” with Taiwan, backed by Xi’s warning that the CCP “will never promise to renounce the use of force” to assert its claim to the self-governing island.
The Congress began just four days after the Biden administration released a National Security Strategy that focused on China as “the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it.”
Grim outlook: Xi’s speech provides a window into the Chinese leader’s increasingly bleak view of the future of U.S.-China relations and could intensify moves by the U.S. to pursue policies and partnerships to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
“What is striking … is how pessimistic China is in terms of assessing its overall security environment, particularly its external environment,” said BONNY LIN, former country director for China at the Office of the Secretary of Defense and director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Many of the measures it lists China as needing to undertake are intended to prepare the PRC population for domestic or external crises.
By the numbers: The good people at Capital Economics did the hard work of analyzing key words and phrases in Xi’s 25,000-word speech and comparing their usage in past Party Congress speeches by Xi’s predecessors including HU JINTAO, JIANG ZEMIN and ZHAO ZIYANG. The results are telling. Xi mentioned “security” 91 times in his speech, compared to 36 times by Hu in 2012 and zero references by Zhao in 1987. Conversely, Zhao mentioned “reform” 136 times in his 1987 speech, while Xi’s 48 mentions of the word on Sunday marked the lowest tally of any Chinese leader on record. Perhaps mindful of China’s rocky economic and foreign policy environment, Xi used Xi’s used the word “persevere” 168 times on Sunday, outpacing its 128 mentions in Xi’s 2012 speech and far above the 36 times Zhao said the word in 1987.
Read more analysis of Xi’s speech in my story here.
Xi’s looming third term: Capitol Hill reacts
The White House won’t talk about the looming extension of Xi Jinping’s leadership.“I don’t want to comment from here on any internal political process of other countries,” White House spokesperson KARINE JEAN-PIERRE said on Monday when asked about Xi’s anticipated third term.
But several U.S. lawmakers with opinions on Xi — none of them kind — have been freely sharing them. And those comments have resonance with voters. The results of a Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday indicates that 71 percent of Americans consider a third term for Xi as either “somewhat serious” or “very serious” for the U.S.
I’ve distilled the lawmakers’ highlights into four distinct categories of critique.
Xi the oppressor
Sens. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) and JIM RISCH (R-Idaho) argued that Xi’s leadership will guarantee continued repression on multiple fronts: against Tibet, Xinjiang’s Muslim Uyghur population and through “digital authoritariasm” — a reference to the use of digital technology to enable pervasive surveillance and control of the Chinese population.
“Xi securing a third term will only continue this path of repression, economic coercion and regional instability,” the senators said in a statement.
Xi the threat
Sen. MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.) warned that Xi’s third term will empower him to intensify his increasingly aggressive projection of Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific — threatening to destabilize the entire region. Xi’s “absolute control” of the ruling Chinese Communist party is likely to embolden him to move from aggressive rhetoric to a military conflict setting, he said.
“Expect a one man-ruled CCP to be more willing to wage war over Taiwan, more repressive at home and abroad, more dominating of business and more insistent on overturning the U.S.-led rules-based world order,” Rubio said in a statement.
Xi the sham
Sen. RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.) issued a call to arms for a combined U.S. government and private sector effort to decouple the U.S. economy from Chinese supply chains in order to strike a blow against the “tyranny” of Xi’s rule.
Scott argued that countering China’s potential for aggression requires the U.S. to dramatically upgrade its military capabilities. “Xi does not want peace and under his leadership, the Chinese Communist Party has chosen to be America’s enemy.”
Xi the rogue
Sen. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R-Tenn.) said that the U.S. and its allies are at high risk from Xi’s pursuit of “total dominance” in areas including global governance and tech. Blackburn argued that threat demands a stern U.S. response. “The United States must stand firm against this rogue dictator and bolster our national defense to ensure he does not succeed,” Blackburn said in a statement.
What’s Next
WHAT WE WILL BE WATCHING: First, who’s going to replace Premier LI KEQIANG, who has already reached the constitutional limit of two terms? It would be seen as a compromise decision if, for instance, current party No. 4 WANG YANG takes his place because he didn’t come from Xi’s faction of the Party. If LI QIANG, the Shanghai boss, gets the premiership on the other hand, that would be a strong signal of Xi’s power. It’d also be a big career jump for Li since all the recent prime ministers, like incumbent Li Keqiang, have served previously as deputy PMs.
Second, will any of those joining the top team come from outside Xi’s clique, like current vice-premier HU CHUNHUA, who was once floated as a possible next-generation leader until Xi’s term limit was scrapped?
MISSING FIGURES: China’s statistics bureau made the unusual decision on Monday to delay the release of economic indicators scheduled for publication this week. One of those figures is China’s third-quarter GDP, which economists say could show further weakening of China’s economic growth due to the “zero-Covid” policy — something that Xi has already vowed to maintain at the Congress.
Is Xiconomy working? Bloomberg passed a damning judgment: Xi’s “renewed pledge to grow China into a ‘medium-developed country’ by 2035 implies a doubling in the size of the economy from 2020 levels … a challenging goal given the nation’s slower growth path.”
Meanwhile in Europe
All of the E.U.’s 27 foreign ministers gathered in Luxembourg on Monday to begin a process of rethinking Europe’s China policy. It’s a remarkable moment, not only because of the coincidental timing with the Beijing gala, but also because it shakes up the EU’s stated policy.
For the first time: The official document after the meeting refers to China not just as a competitor, which is the official line, but a “tough competitor.” There’s also an emphasis on “avoiding to turn dependencies into vulnerabilities.”
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: Most EU ministers agreed that the relationship with China is shifting more toward competition and rivalry, even though they’re still keen to highlight partnership especially on climate change. “Everyone is pretty much on the same page,” an EU diplomat told us.
Read our entire special 20th Party Congress transatlantic newsletter special edition here.
TRANSLATING WASHINGTON
—WARNER CALLS OUT CORPORATE CHINA TIES: Senate Intelligence Chair MARK WARNER (D-Va.) slammed Apple and Tesla on Tuesday for their reliance on Chinese supply and production chains linked to possible human rights abuses and environmental degradation. Warner accused the firms of prioritizing Chinese market access while turning “a blind eye” to those factors in an interview with Bloomberg. Warner warned that lawmakers will take steps to limit Chinese access to U.S. emerging technologies including quantum computing and advanced energy systems. Neither Apple nor Tesla responded to a request for comment.
—BLINKEN: CHINA ACCELERATING TAIWAN ‘REUNIFICATION’ TIMETABLE: Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN warned on Monday of China’s “change in approach” to “reunification” with Taiwan. “Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline,” Blinken said. “And if peaceful means didn’t work, then it would employ coercive means, and possibly… forceful means – to achieve its objectives.”
“It was a puzzling statement… what [Blinken] seems to be saying is that the status quo across the strait has been shifting because of China’s actions toward Taiwan in the past few years,” said M. TAYLOR FRAVEL, director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “There are real risks of over-interpreting what he said, especially in light of other, more detailed assessments.”
Meanwhile POLITICO’sMAGGIE MILLER reported on Wednesday that China’s Taiwan threat made the agenda at the Mandiant mWise conference in Washington, D.C. A China-Taiwan conflict is “a scary thought … [but] needs to be a consideration in risk registers, and you need to have a plan,” ROB JOYCE, the National Security Agency’s director of cybersecurity, told attendees.
Matthew Leung/The Chaser News
— CHINESE DIPLOMATS ACCUSED OF ASSAULTING PROTESTER: U.K. authorities called in the deputy Chinese ambassador on Tuesday to complain about an assault and apparent abduction attempt by Chinese diplomats of a pro-democracy protester outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester on Sunday. Demonstrators had erected protest banners outside the consulate, spurring a masked individual identified as consul-generalZHENG XIYUAN to attempt to tear them down. That sparked a melee in which several consular staff attacked a protester and tried to drag him onto the consulate grounds, resulting in lacerations to his face. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson WANG WENBIN denied any wrongdoing by consular staff and accused the injured protester of having “jeopardized the security of the Chinese diplomatic premises.”
— REPORT: CHINESE PROPAGANDISTS ARE COLONIZING YOUTUBE: Chinese propaganda authorities are deploying Uyghur Muslim and Tibetan social influencers on YouTube to peddle narratives that contradict well-documented human rights abuses in those regions reveals a report released today by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The effort is “aimed at outperforming other more critical but stale content,” the report says.
TRANSLATING CHINA
Carl Court/Getty Images
— THE BATTLE OF KINMEN REMEMBERED: Next Monday marks the 73th anniversary of the last time that Taiwan-based Kuomintang military ground forces battled invading People’s Liberation Army troops. And the PLA lost. Kinmen is a heavily fortified Taiwan-held island just six miles from the Chinese coast city of Xiamen. The battle of Kinmen was low-tech and non-assymetrical — the opposite of a possible future China-Taiwan conflict. But it offers hints of the challenges a PLA invading forceforcee might face in a future invasion attempt of the self-governing island.
PLA attackers hit beaches laced with what SEBASTIAN ROBLIN of The National Interest described as “over seven thousand land mines, two hundred bunkers and hundreds of beach obstacles to counter landing boats.” KMT forces also had superior air and naval support to repel a 9,000 strong PLA invasion force that by the end of the three day battle had been killed or captured.
That victory — celebrated in a Japanese board game — occurred in an era before kamikaze drones, precision long-range missiles and an aircraft carrier-equipped PLA navy. But it boosted Taiwan authorities’ confidence — bolstered by a watchful U.S. Seventh Fleet — that they could deter or defeat any future PLA invasion attempts.
“They’re afraid of the anti-Communist fortress we have established in Kinmen, Penghu and Taiwan,” KMT General HU LIEN said in 1974. “I’m confident to say that the day the Communist bandits attack, it will be the beginning of the end for them.”
HEADLINES
Wall Street Journal: “American Executives in Limbo at Chinese Chip Companies After U.S. Ban”
The Diplomat: “Xi Jinping has critics in China. They have paid a steep price”
Asia Times: “Party Congress next step to Xi’s one-man rule”
HEADS UP
— HK ACTIVISTS RUMBLE NOVEMBER INVESTMENT SUMMIT: A coalition of 20 U.S.-based Hong Kong pro-democracy groups sent a letter to President JOE BIDEN, Secretary of the Treasury JANET YELLEN and Secretary of State Blinken on Monday asking them to stop senior U.S. banking executives from attending the Nov. 1-2 Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit. The activists argue that attending the summit “is contrary to U.S. policy and will result in legal and regulatory consequences.” That’s because the keynote speaker is Hong Kong Chief Executive JOHN LEE KA-CHIU, who the Treasury Department sanctioned in 2020 for human rights abuses linked to his enforcement of Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law. Executives from financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and Morgan Stanley are listed as panel speakers on the summit’s agenda. JPMorgan and Citigroup declined to comment. The other firms didn’t respond to a request for comment.
An industry group, the Institute of International Finance, defended the right of executives to attend the summit.
“U.S. financial institutions have a responsibility to their customers and shareholders to engage with one of the largest financial markets in the world,” spokesperson LIZ MCGEE told China Watcher in a statement. “Governments are responsible for setting foreign policy, not financial institutions.” IIF’s some 400 members include Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.
“We will just laugh off the so-called sanctions,” Lee said last week. Stay tuned.
Oxford University Press
The Book: Overreach: How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise
The Author: SUSAN SHIRK is a former deputy assistant secretary of state and chair of the 21st Century China Center at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
What is the most important takeaway from your book?
China’s actions aren’t following a path pre-determined by the country’s capabilities or historical ambitions, or Xi Jinping’s ideological leanings. They are shaped by the competition for power among Chinese officials. Nowadays all ambitious officials compete to show how loyal they are to Xi Jinping by band-wagoning on his policies and implementing them to the extreme.
What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching and writing this book?
The shift from self-restraint to overreach began in the mid-2000s, under Hu Jintao’s collective leadership. It didn’t begin with Xi Jinping although it has accelerated under Xi’s centralized personalistic leadership.
The beginnings of overreach can be traced back to 2006 — the maritime agencies started challenging neighboring countries over maritime territorial claims, the security and propaganda bureaucracies in the “control coalition” started tightening control of social life, the media and the internet, and the state started its indigenous innovation industrial policy.
What does your book tell us about the trajectory and future of U.S.-China relations?
Unless other CCP leaders can convince Xi that it would help him stabilize his rule to share some power and responsibility with them, his third term could be disrupted by elite power struggles and acute conflicts with the United States and other countries. Meanwhile, US overreactions such as expansive restrictions on technological and economic collaboration could play into Xi’s narrative about the West trying to contain its development and as well as diminish America’s own competitiveness.
The U.S. shouldn’t give up on diplomacy. Instead it should test whether Xi’s regime could be influenced to moderate its policies by making a new effort at enhanced communication and negotiations.
Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at [email protected]
Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Matt Kaminski, Stuart Lau, Maggie Miller, and digital producer Andrew Howard.Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week’s items? Email us at [email protected]
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