| | | | | |  | | By David Wertime | In a Tuesday interview with The New York Times, President-elect Joe Biden said something fairly remarkable: dealing with China requires "leverage" and "in my view, we don't have it yet." That's an apt summary of a U.S. still gripped by a Covid-19 pandemic, not to mention a dis- and misinformation epidemic, all on the precipice of a long and deadly winter. But the comment also signals that Biden is focused on picking his spots with Beijing, shoring up alliances and U.S. national power first, rather than rushing to accommodate a Chinese government that seems to think the burden for detente lies entirely with Washington. Friends and allies concerned about a U.S. over-correction on China must be feeling some relief. When Biden's finally ready to deal, his ability to find soft spots behind Beijing's iron facade will prove crucial. His administration will need a solid grasp of the internal pressures that even the powerful ruler Xi Jinping still faces, and be able to turn those to American advantage. Just this week, hundreds of supporters gathered in full view of police to cheer on a now-famous plaintiff in a landmark sexual harassment case that could end the career of a major public figure. Xi has harshly suppressed dissent, and those include many reasonable demands for things like gender equity, a transparent judiciary and greater freedom of expression. But those needs haven't gone away. Pervasive censorship can make the country feel impenetrable, but there are courageous and idealistic people there, not just "wolf warriors." China analysts everywhere would do well to remember that. | | | How to be a China Watcher in this new, constrained era. In a widely discussed Nov. 28 article, The Economist's Sue-Lin Wong reported that the study of China has become less popular in the West, just as it has become most crucial. Growing restrictions on academic and journalistic work within China are partly to blame, not to mention an increasingly antagonistic climate that generally makes studying the country less attractive. What is a China watcher to do? We asked the experts. "It is quite distressing to see the reversion to a much more constricted information and access, [but] I think that is what Xi prefers ," as it hands more power, and the microphone, to the Chinese Communist Party, says Bill Bishop, author of the Sinocism newsletter. "How to transform it? Increase funding for Chinese language studies and scholarships for study in China, restore the Fulbright programs, reverse some of the more onerous recent visa restrictions on PRC students, scholars and journalists [and] encourage more Americans to spend time living and studying in Taiwan, as Taiwan has some of the smartest PRC watchers in the world." "It has never been more important to understand the domestic tensions and debates that seethe inside China, even as the worsening domestic and international climate have made traditional modes of face-to-face research more difficult," says Jessica Chen Weiss , professor of Political Science at Cornell. "But there is still an incredible amount of information that analysts can use … [such as] official and commercial news, social media and blogs, academic and industry publications and conferences, satellite imagery, and big data on everything from pollution levels to credit card transactions. Even surveys and virtual academic discussions are still possible, if more constrained." "Going to Taiwan for language study might be an attractive alternative," says Melissa Chan of the Global Reporting Centre. "This might [also] be a moment for American experts to build stronger connections than they currently have with counterparts in Japan, South Korea, and other places including India and countries in Southeast Asia. China's geopolitical rise will impact the region first — it behooves us to understand their concerns and to learn what their policymakers know." "We should consider offering not only opportunities to study China, but also chances to consider 'China and X,' where the X can be global economics, international law, bioethics, development, design, climate, and just about everything else. … The opportunity now is to explore how China is shaping and reshaping every field," says Amy Gadsden , associate vice provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. Gadsden also suggests making China studies "more accessible [by] focusing on short-term, immersive experiences that pull in more students who might not see themselves as budding Sinologists, but [rather] engineers, health professionals, designers and lawyers wanting to understand what China will mean for their field." "The best China-watching begins with a serious engagement with China, which will always mean years of language study and years of effort to better understand Chinese culture, history, society and so on," says Michael Szonyi, director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard. "To learn another language and about another society is to open up a whole new way of looking at the world. That's true whether or not studying that society is easy, and it's true even if you find aspects of that society — like some of its government's policies — unattractive or even repugnant." | | | | NEXT WEEK - DON'T MISS THE MILKEN INSTITUTE FUTURE OF HEALTH SUMMIT 2020: POLITICO will feature a special edition Future Pulse newsletter at the Milken Institute Future of Health Summit. The newsletter takes readers inside one of the most influential gatherings of global health industry leaders and innovators determined to confront and conquer the most significant health challenges. Covid-19 has exposed weaknesses across our health systems, particularly in the treatment of our most vulnerable communities, driving the focus of the 2020 conference on the converging crises of public health, economic insecurity, and social justice. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage from December 7–9. | | | | | TRANSLATING WASHINGTON Beijing won't get a quick reset with Washington, but Brussels might. Chinese state-backed tabloid Global Times floated the prospect of a "reset" between the world's two great powers in an article published last week. That won't happen, at least so long as Beijing policymakers think all the accommodating needs to come from the U.S. side. But beleaguered allies in the EU might get quick validation from the new Biden administration. In a Tuesday interview with The New York Times, Biden said he thinks "the best China strategy" is one "which gets every one of our… allies on the same page." Biden said he would not immediately roll back Trump's tariffs or tear up the Phase One trade deal. "I'm not going to prejudice my options." Biden told interviewer Thomas L. Friedman that dealing with China requires "leverage" and "in my view, we don't have it yet." EU ask: A new "anti-China" tech alliance. POLITICO's Jakob Hanke Vela and David M. Herszenhorn reported Monday that the European Commission's proposal for a "Transatlantic Trade and Technology Council" is intended to team up with Biden "to squeeze China out of the global technology trade." That proposal comes in a document, released Wednesday, that also calls for a new "EU-U.S. Dialogue on China" that will "provide a key mechanism for advancing our interests and managing our differences." Obviously not invited: China. — This is a big deal, says Helen Toner of the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University. "EU rhetoric on technology over the last few years has often focused on achieving independence from both China and the U.S. rather than adopting the U.S. view that liberal democracies should push back together against China. If EU leaders are willing to soften that stance and the U.S. manages to coordinate with them on specific initiatives, that could lead to a real shift in the global power dynamics around technology," Toner tells China Watcher. Biden's national security team may create an "Asia tsar" position, says a Tuesday report in the Financial Times. The article names Jeffrey Prescott, formerly a senior official in Barack Obama's National Security Council and a China hand, as a possible candidate. Incoming National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is reportedly mulling the position in order to focus more on both the "tremendous opportunity" and "increasing challenges" that Asia presents, in the words of one transition official. That's a sentiment with which few would disagree; pushback in your host's networks mostly relates to the danger that the move would create additional red tape. An influential congressional commission says it's time to elevate the top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan. In an annual report to Congress released Tuesday, the Economic and Security Review Commission says Congress should "consider enacting legislation to make the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan a presidential nomination subject to the advice and consent of the United States Senate." It also recommends Congress ask the White House to make it easier for people fleeing political persecution in Hong Kong to acquire a U.S. visa. | | | | TUNE IN TO OUR GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST: The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded in 2020 amid a global pandemic. Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe for Season Two, available now. | | | | | CHINA AND THE WORLD The wolves come home to roost. On Sunday, Chinese diplomat (or is that "diplomat"?) Zhao Lijian managed to turn hostilities between Beijing and Canberra up yet another notch when he shared a graphic illustration on Twitter depicting an Australian servicemember gleefully cutting the throat of a small Afghan child. Australia's defense minister had released a report on Nov. 19 recommending 19 Australian soldiers be investigated for what it called the "murder" of 39 civilians and prisoners in Afghanistan. Australian PM Scott Morrison promptly demanded an apology for the image, but he got the opposite. "Do they think that their merciless killing of Afghan civilians is justified but the condemnation of such ruthless brutality is not?" spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a Monday presser. — Nationalistic Chinese netizens were excited by the row, lauding Zhao for "standing up and speaking up against the enemy," reports China Watcher's Shen Lu. Many raved about Zhao's "agenda-setting capability" on the international stage. The creator of the image Zhao posted, who calls himself a "wolf warrior illustrator," quickly followed up with another creation: | 
POLITICO Screengrab: Weibo.com via Shen Lu | This one, which appears to depict a press corps more interested in a violent painting than a battlefield, has received over 546,000 likes and counting. But in posts that censors later deleted, Chinese critics said they believe Zhao does owe Australia a mea culpa, and delivered a reminder that Zhao used to go by Muhammad Lijian Zhao on Twitter while he was a diplomat in Pakistan. — Meanwhile, incoming Natsec adviser Sullivan sure seemed to subtweet Zhao when he wrote Wednesday on Twitter that America will "stand shoulder to shoulder" with Australia, "as we have for a century." It's another important signal that Beijing won't get a reset on its terms. | | | China's landmark #MeToo trial finally begins. After two years of delay, a Beijing court on Tuesday heard a landmark case in China's beleaguered MeToo movement, where Zhou Xiaoxuan , who goes by the appellation Xianzi, has accused one of the country's most prominent and most powerful (male) public figures, Zhu Jun, of sexually harassing her in 2014 when she was an intern at state broadcaster CCTV and he was an ultra-prominent host. The lawsuit has garnered widespread attention in China and Xianzi herself has transformed into an activist icon, frequently speaking up about a host of social justice issues. — Outside the court, a remarkable display of courage in a country where protest is effectively illegal. An estimated 500 people gathered outside the court in support of the plaintiff and held aloft slogans like "Go, Xianzi. We are with you" while police watched. Live videos and photos circulated widely on Chinese social media as the hearing was in session, and at one point "Xianzi" topped Weibo's trending chart, Shen Lu reports, before being censored. The scene before the hearing: | 
Via Twitter.com by Caiwei Chen | "Together we ask an answer of history," the signs read. Xianzi was visibly moved by the outpouring of support, and spoke at midnight to her followers after walking out of the 10-hour hearing. Her legal team has requested a public jury trial with the defendant required to appear in person. Chinese privacy advocates notched a major win after a court in the city of Hangzhou ruled on Nov. 20 that a wildlife park could not require a pass-holder to submit to facial recognition to keep his access. It's part of a growing push for privacy in China, at least against collection by private companies: "In the first seven months [of] this year, more than 8,000 apps and 478 companies were penalized by regulators for violating data collection rules," according to a Monday cover story in the independent outlet Caixin. A draft of major nationwide privacy legislation was made public in October and is currently under review. — "China has a split identity when it comes to privacy," says Samm Sacks , a fellow at New America. "People are demanding more protection from companies collecting their personal data — driven by rampant online fraud and black markets for data brokers — even as the government expands its own surveillance powers," she tells China Watcher. "We often think of China as a data free-for-all, but the reality is that a fierce debate exists about data ownership and how to place limits on both company and government access to data. The problem, of course, is that there are no meaningful channels for contestation or oversight to the new restrictions." Leaked Chinese documents show a Covid response hampered by incompetence, although not malice. A Monday CNN report shows that in early February in Hubei province, where original Covid epicenter Wuhan is located, "China reported 2,478 new confirmed cases nationwide, [while leaked] documents show Hubei actually circulated a different total of 5,918 newly reported cases." — "The fact is that every country grappling with COVID made some costly but inevitable mistakes at the early stages of the pandemic, and China is no exception," says Andrew Mertha , director of the China Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He tells China Watcher the report describes "how overworked health care professionals and bureaucrats in China worked around-the-clock to collect and analyze imperfect and incomplete (but vast amounts of) information and how they sought to maintain their professional integrity while facing political pressures to do exactly the opposite." Thanks to: Editor John Yearwood, Shen Lu, Luiza Ch. Savage, Matt Kaminski, Nahal Toosi, Ryan Heath. Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Stories we should follow and haven't? (Reasoned) complaints? Email davidwertime at politico dot com.
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