| | | | | |  | | By David Wertime | Today marks the first full day of Joe Biden's tenure as 46th President of the United States. President Biden has repeatedly sought to rally American confidence by insisting the country "is back." But as his foreign policy team surely knows, reputation is a lagging indicator. Outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo 's favored diplomatic attitude, "swagger," was not matched with enough of its necessary corollary, admiration by foreigners, which declined in much of the world during Trump's term. Not long ago, China's economy was projected to surpass that of the U.S. in 2033 — but that's been revised to 2028, five years earlier, due to the devastating toll America's catastrophic Covid-19 response has taken on the U.S. economy. There's now a rebuttable presumption in Beijing that the sun is setting on the American empire. It falls on the shoulders of Biden and his team to rebut it. TRANSLATING WASHINGTON Biden's China team is falling into place. At least one other China hand will be joining Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell as well as Laura Rosenberger and Rush Doshi on the National Security Council. Sources tell China Watcher that departing Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow (and onetime guest host of this newsletter) Julian Gewirtz will become a China director. Meanwhile, China hand Jeffrey Prescott, who worked on Biden's agency review team, will join the administration as deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., a Washington D.C.-based position focused on a wide portfolio of issues. Incoming at DoD: According to Defense One, Center for a New American Security's Ely Ratner will be appointed special assistant to the Secretary of Defense. He'll be joined by RAND political scientist Michael Chase as Deputy Assistant Secretary (China). "Laser focused" on Asia, and China: Their likely boss, Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd Austin, repeatedly engaged the China issue during a Tuesday hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Austin called China the major "pacing threat" facing America and promised a "laser-like focus" on retaining the U.S. "competitive edge" against China's increasingly powerful military so that military parity between the two powers "never happens." Austin declined an implicit invite from Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to signal an end to the U.S. policy of "strategic ambiguity" toward Taiwan. Some analysts have called it outmoded, but Austin pledged only to uphold U.S. commitments to help the island defend itself. Blinken: "[Trump's] basic principle was the right one." Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also gently questioned Secretary of State nominee Tony Blinken on Tuesday, who said that Trump was "right in taking a tougher approach to China" even though the two differ on the means of doing so. On genocide in Xinjiang: "That would be my judgment as well." Blinken said he agreed with Pompeo's Tuesday declaration that Beijing's campaign of imprisonment, indoctrination, forced education and forced labor, and forced sterilization directed at Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang constituted a "genocide." The official designation followed months of internal study and deliberation at the State Department, and it could prompt other countries to follow. | | | | A NEW YEAR, A NEW WASHINGTON, A NEW PLAYBOOK TEAM: Ryan Lizza, Tara Palmeri, Eugene Daniels and Rachael Bade take the reins of Playbook this week to set the agenda for the political day and days ahead; break news and make sense of it; and provide a steady dose of insider nuggets and intrigue for and about the power players in Washington. Delivered to your inbox twice a day, POLITICO Playbook keeps you up to speed with everything happening in the world of politics as a new administration enters the White House. Subscribe today to the unofficial guide for official Washington. | | | | | Techno-democracies unite. Blinken's most interesting quote was less discussed. He said there is "an increasing divide between techno democracies and techno autocracies. Whether techno democracies or techno autocracies are the ones who get to define how tech is used … will go a long way toward shaping the next decades." While Blinken didn't explicitly name China and the U.S. as the captains of those two teams, he didn't need to. — Thought bubble: Will we hear more soon about that "digital currency of the democracies" that China Watcher told you about in August, and which the G7 and G20 might get behind? — Read between the lines: "There is no doubt [China] poses the most significant challenge of any nation-state to the United States." Note Blinken's qualifier, "nation state." That leaves space for other threats greater than China, including Covid-19 and climate change; a departure from Trump administration official rhetoric that China was the single largest threat to American interests. Not mentioned: "Chinese Communist party." Your host didn't hear Blinken or Austin utter the term (although plenty of GOP Senators did). They will focus on what China does, or doesn't do — which the U.S. can directly, if marginally, affect — and not the country's form of governance, which the U.S. cannot. A Biden Doctrine for China emerges. Taken together, Austin and Blinken's testimony, along with the Tuesday testimonies of Director of National Intelligence nominee (now confirmed) Avril Haines and Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen, suggest an administration with a largely unified view of China. They see it as the greatest challenge to the U.S. among nation states, one aspiring to America's throne as dominant global power with an exportable model, and one willing to use every tool at its disposal to do so, necessitating a "whole of government" response from Washington. — Reality check: Rubber has not yet met road. It's easier to find agreement when talking about China in the abstract. The hard part is prioritizing China against other pressuring issues, particularly climate. Even if foreign policy hands like Blinken have plenty of subtle disagreements with U.S. senators about the precise nature of the challenge China poses, that's not the proverbial hill they plan to die on en route to confirmation. Launching Jan. 27: Protocol | China, your knowledge center for China tech. Sign up for our newsletter and learn more about our research tracking the intersection of technology and policy in the world's largest country. Led by Executive Director (and China Watcher host) David Wertime, Protocol | China is a new venture within Protocol backed by Robert Allbritton, publisher of Protocol and POLITICO. Our journalists will show you how Beijing regulates its tech sphere, how China's tech giants make decisions, and what companies and technologies from China will impact your life and work. Our private researchers will use the power of data to help sophisticated clients spot trends and put the day's stories into context. Learn more here. Meme break: Navarro absconds. Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro was spotted leaving the White House for the last time carrying a large framed photo of Trump and his retinue sitting across from Chinese leaders including Xi Jinping, apparently at the G20 summit in 2018 in Buenos Aires. The pic of Navarro was quickly memed half to death by a humor-starved China watching Twitterverse. One sample: | 
POLITICO Screengrab by David Wertime via Twitter | | | | Who will be the U.S. Ambassador to Beijing? Biden has still not named one, and your host has not heard a consistent drumbeat suggesting one or two names on the ascent. It's not a gaping void, as the ambassador is very constrained in what he or she can do in the best of times, but the post offers upside if filled by the right diplomat. What qualities will this person need? Former U.S. Ambassador to China Winston Lord , who served under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, tells China Watcher he'd emphasize the letter C: "Know China and Chinese well, past and present. Be clear-eyed about the [Xi regime and the Party] … without succumbing to hysteria or lack of confidence in our ability to compete. Be candid, both in dealing with the Chinese and reporting to Washington. Avoid panda hugging and dragon slaying." Lord also emphasizes communication skills. "Despite severe Chinese censorship, the Ambassador can still reach the Chinese people in social media and [via] travels around China. Charisma would help." Brookings Institution senior fellow and former diplomat Ryan Hass says that with the downward trajectory in bilateral relations, "the incoming ambassador ideally will need to have a visible connection to the president and his senior advisers, familiarity with the range of issues that comprise the relationship, and a future in American politics. The more the ambassador is seen as likely to wield influence in the future on issues affecting China, the higher the cost and risk for Beijing to mistreat him/her." Hass adds the appointee will need "a thick skin." NYU School of Law professor Jerome Cohen, who started traveling to China in the 1970s, says the ambassador must be able to "navigate not only within foreign policy circles but also in the broader public and business arenas. The ambassador should be able to speak directly to the Chinese leadership, the Chinese media and the nation's people in fluent Chinese." | | | | KEEP UP WITH CONGRESS IN 2021: Tensions remain high on Capitol Hill as we inaugurate a new president this week. How are lawmakers planning to move forward after a tumultuous few weeks? How will a new Senate majority impact the legislative agenda? With so much at stake, our new Huddle author Olivia Beavers brings you the most important news and critical insight from Capitol Hill with assists from POLITICO's deeply sourced Congress team. Subscribe to Huddle, the essential guide to understanding Congress. | | | | | Why not appoint a Black ambassador with those traits? "Appointing Black ambassadors to America's greatest adversaries will align the United States' strategic advantage of diversity and pose an ideological and material challenge to China as well as other adversaries," German Marshall Fund analyst Bryce C. Barros wrote in Foreign Policy on Tuesday. — Count your host a fan of this idea. During his Peace Corps service in China, this author was repeatedly frustrated by the still-prevalent view that "real" Americans were white. Meanwhile, anti-Black racism in China is still common, albeit slowly eroding. Washington could address both issues with a smart pick. | | | China turns up the heat, and the crazy. While Washington has promised a more professional diplomatic tone, Beijing has not. On Tuesday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokeswoman Hua Chunying revived a baseless theory about the U.S. being the source of Covid-19, urging Washington to open Fort Detrick for inspection. Her statement was disturbingly popular on Chinese social media. I'll see your sanctions, and raise. Then on Wednesday, while Biden was taking the oath of office, MOFA gave senior outgoing Trump officials including Pompeo, Navarro, National Security Adviser Robert C. O'Brien, his deputy and China hand Matt Pottinger, and diplomat David R. Stilwell a parting gift, naming them in sanctions that ban them and their immediate family from China and also prohibit any company or institution "associated with them" from doing business in China. These are teethier than previous sanctions leveled at Americans like Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), which said little about their scope or implementing provisions. None of those sanctioned were likely planning to summer in the Chinese beach town of Sanya, but the institutional measures could get tricky depending on what "associated" means. Read broadly, it could apply to banks, consultancies, think tanks or law firms that hire these people or put them on their boards. And these officials, like the rest of us, probably have savings and checking accounts at big banks, virtually all of whom are salivating over the Chinese market. — Beijing is probably trying to make Biden officials think twice about turning the screws on China too tightly. But it seems to assume the new administration is staffed with mercenary self-dealers. More likely, Washington will view the move as a crass continuation of scorched-earth tactics that firms up bipartisan resolve on the China challenge. This warning shot could go straight into Beijing's foot. Thanks to: Editor John Yearwood, Matt Kaminski, Ryan Heath, Luiza Ch. Savage. 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.
| | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment