What threats and opportunities does China’s rise present to the United States? How might America counter the threats and take advantage of the opportunities?
To partially answer these questions, we’ll observe how American officials in the Trump administration defined America’s relationship with China and chose strategies based on that definition. How did the most recent presidential administration approach the US-China relationship?
Trump Administration and China
Near the end of President Trump’s term, National Security Advisor (NSA) Robert O’Brien edited a series of talks given by senior members of the Trump administration on the US-China relationship. The remarks show that by mid-2020, the president and senior members of his administration were publicly aligned with the view that the Chinese government pursues policies that undermine America’s economic superiority. Although language about human rights and military competition is mentioned throughout these speeches, the top concern, by far, was China’s economic power.
In a speech at the Hudson Institute in October 2018, former Vice President Pence accused China of “economic aggression,” criticized its military’s behavior in the South China Sea, and highlighted instances of adverse Chinese influence inside America. He explained that China wants to control advanced industries such as robotics, AI, and biotechnology, and to gain pre-eminence in these areas, the Chinese government pursues economic policies that undermine American competitiveness, such as tariffs, quotas, currency manipulation, technology transfer, IP theft, and industrial subsidies. China’s “authoritarian expansionism,” Pence argued, also creates a political environment at home and abroad that enables Chinese economic dominance. He pointed to China’s surveillance state, social credit score, and abuses against religious minorities as domestic authoritarianism and China’s leverage of foreign debt, coercion of Taiwan, and economic aggression against American businesses as indicators of authoritarianism outside the mainland.
Early 2020 was, of course, marked by the spread of Covid-19 around the world, and the pandemic illustrated every country’s need to have secure supply chains and technological advantages. China’s missteps in the early days of the pandemic appeared to be the catalyst for a more aggressive American strategy towards China. By the summer of 2020, the Trump administration’s public remarks on China became much more pointed. Top officials in the Trump administration, such as NSA O’Brien, Secretary of State Pompeo and FBI Director Wray, gave speeches during the summer criticizing China’s political system, especially the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and explaining the threat the CCP posed to the American way of life. The new strategy was also characterized by economic tactics that placed Beijing on the defensive. Though the domestic priorities of the administration certainly played a role in the emphasis on China, the Trump administration regularly and publicly raised issues in the American-Chinese relationship that the United States had been concerned about for decades, including market access in China, intellectual property theft, currency manipulation, intelligence operations, and industrial subsidies. Nevertheless, the pointed criticism of the CCP and economic countermeasures were the most important developments.
In May 2020, President Trump began a speech on China with the following:
China’s pattern of misconduct is well known. For decades, they have ripped off the United States like no one has ever done before. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year were lost dealing with China, especially over the years during the prior administration. China raided our factories, offshored our jobs, gutted our industries, stole our intellectual property, and violated their commitments under the World Trade Organization. To make matters worse, they are considered a developing nation getting all sorts of benefits that others, including the United States, are not entitled to.
Economic policy, the United States’ longstanding concern with China, was not enough to produce a more confrontational American strategy. But the arrival of the coronavirus, which was determined by the Trump administration to be the result of the CCP’s incompetence or hostility, was. Covid-19 presented an opportunity to push back against Chinese policies that had been unresolved for decades, including the previous three years of the Trump administration. In May 2020, President Trump announced the United States government would “study the practices of Chinese companies listed on US financial markets...as investment firms should not be subjecting their clients to the hidden and undue risks associated with financing Chinese companies that do not play by the same rules. Americans are entitled to fairness and transparency.”
In June 2020, NSA Robert O’Brien argued that the CCP “threatens America’s way of life.”He mentions the expulsion of NYT, WSJ, and WP journalists from China, the Chinese response after an NBA team manager tweeted support for Hong Kong protestors, the removal of references to Taiwan from American, Delta, and United airlines’ websites, and Mercedes Benz’s apology for posting a quote from Dalai Lama. He notes the alleged Chinese hacking of Anthem, Equifax, the Office of Personnel Management, Marriott, and Grindr. In response, says O’Brien, the United States has led an effort to ban Huawei, restricted the provision of American semiconductor tech to Huawei, introduced additional export restrictions on Chinese companies, announced that American federal employee retirement funds will not be invested in Chinese companies, and continued to expose Chinese military-linked companies in the United States. O’Brien also highlighted recent restrictions on the operations of Chinese state media in the United States and the American withdrawal from the WHO. Notice that the majority of the issues and responses are economic in nature.
Remarks from FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General William Bar in 2020 were particularly focused on China’s economic capacities. Wray said in July of last year that:
The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China.
That same month, former Attorney General William Bar argued:
The People’s Republic of China is now engaged in an economic blitzkrieg—an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government (indeed, whole-of-society) campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent technological superpower.
The Trump administration saw primarily economic threats from China and adopted competitive language and policies to undercut those threats. Although the administration saw an opportunity, as all administrations have, in economic cooperation, it seems to have reasoned that the threat of Chinese economic superiority outweighed those benefits.
Cover image obtained from WSJ: https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-the-u-s-and-china-wage-a-new-cold-war-they-should-learn-from-the-last-one-11596223180