| | | | | |  | | By David Wertime | | The United States is as vulnerable as your host can remember it, with a populace riven by partisan anger and often, drunk on disinformation. The president is distracted and the heads of the Defense Department and Homeland Security are manned by stand-ins. While Chinese propagandists are making hay at American division, it seems China won't exploit this moment to make a military move on the self-governing island of Taiwan, an action some analysts have openly feared this juncture might bring. China, after all, has its own distractions; despite a growing economy, it's undergoing another massive Covid-19 lockdown in two major cities near Beijing. While major last-minute moves requiring any of Donald Trump's attention are unlikely to materialize, what's left of his administration are making 11th-hour appeals to keep their fingerprints on U.S. government policy following what they now all acknowledge is their imminent exit. Attention is fast turning to who will populate President-elect Joe Biden 's China team. With less than a week to go before Biden's inaugural, it's clear that the post-Trump era in U.S.-China relations has begun. TRANSLATING WASHINGTON The Biden administration has selected its "Asia Czar," albeit under a different name. Former State Department diplomat Kurt M. Campbell will join the administration as Indo-Pacific Coordinator at the National Security Council (NSC), which fills the "Asia Czar" role Biden's team has contemplated. The Financial Times reported Tuesday that Ely Ratner of the Center for a New American Security is also likely to join the Department of Defense in a senior role, while Rush Doshi of the Brookings Institution (and a frequent quotable presence in this newsletter) is likely to join the NSC as a China Director. — Look for deeper and more coalitions with this team in place. Campbell and Doshi co-authored a Tuesday article in Foreign Affairs focused on Biden's core foreign policy theme: building partnerships to blunt China's rise. The essay calls for the U.S. to be "flexible and innovative," focusing not on "a grand coalition" but on "bespoke or ad hoc bodies focused on individual problems." They cite in particular the proposed D-10 — an alliance of the G7 democracies as well as Australia, India and South Korea — and the "Quad," an informal strategic group comprising Australia, Japan, India and the U.S. In his waning days in power, Pompeo dials back restrictions on U.S. engagement with Taiwan. Outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might not be welcome in European capitals anymore, but he still has power over his own bureaucracy's machinery. He used it to controversial effect on Saturday when he announced that so-called "contact guidelines" about U.S. engagement with Taiwan were "null and void." The guidelines are intended to keep U.S.-Taiwan contacts from looking too much like bilateral relations with any other country; for example, they restrict where U.S. officials can meet with Taiwanese counterparts and prohibit them in the State Department or the White House. — The news has divided China experts , some arguing the last-minute move uses Taiwan as a pawn and leaves the Biden administration holding the bag for any Beijing blowback, with others saying it's overdue. Taiwanese officials and diplomats quickly praised the move. President Tsai Ying-wen has so far remained silent, although a spokeswoman, Kolas Yotaka, pointedly wrote on Twitter that "the 'likely to anger China' takes [are getting] a bit old. For Taiwan the priority isn't to avoid upsetting others, it's simply being recognized as an equal." — The guidelines have been on the chopping block for some time, says Gerrit van der Wees , a former Dutch diplomat who teaches about the history of Taiwan at George Mason University. He tells China Watcher that "there is pretty broad consensus — certainly in Congress — that the guidelines had outlived their usefulness. For several years, Congress has been urging the administration to lift the restrictions." But it could have been done with less fanfare, says former U.S. Ambassador to China Winston Lord. "This should not have been pronounced as a new policy, but rather incrementally and quietly carried out de facto," he tells China Watcher. | | | | KEEP UP WITH THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WITH TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: It was a dark week in American history, and a new administration will have to pick up the pieces. Transition Playbook brings you inside the last days of this crucial transfer of power, tracking the latest from President-elect Biden and his growing administration. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter breaks big news and analyzes the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming Biden administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | The U.S. has declassified its Indo-Pacific strategy far ahead of schedule. The (now lightly redacted) strategy, finalized in February 2018 and declassified on Tuesday, perhaps to pressure the Biden administration to continue much of it, has much with which the new president is likely to agree, including an emphasis on alliances and "free and open access" to the region. Its descriptions of China as a rising power seeking to disrupt U.S. alliances and own the technologies of tomorrow are hard to dispute. But as American Enterprise Institute research fellow Zack Cooper points out on Twitter , the emphasis on "U.S. primacy" in the region is a bit trickier — it's harder to define, and unclear whether that should be the goal or how it can be achieved. After much urging, Twitter removed a post from the Chinese embassy in the U.S. that had declared Uighur women in Xinjiang "emancipated" by a terrifying government program that includes compulsory Party indoctrination, forced labor and, in some cases, forced sterilization. In addition to being false, the post was "a direct example of Chinese disinformation with the intent to skew public perception in the United States," says Alicia Fawcett, a freelancer on Chinese disinformation and information operations who earlier authored an Atlantic Council report on Chinese discourse power. While those up to date on China may find the tweet entirely unconvincing, "Chinese government messaging about the so-called 'emancipation' in Xinjiang ... has the ability to imperceptibly impact Twitter users in the United States," Fawcett says, noting an "illusory truth effect" whereby "repeated statements are more likely believed to be true whether or not the fact is legitimate." Fawcett advises Twitter to move beyond labeling government accounts to include labels like "reference check" or even "humanitarian crisis." Launching January: 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. | | | For sale: a (once) priceless artifact of American Democracy. On shopping site Taobao, multiple ads for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's speaking podium, briefly pilfered by a trespassing mob, made the rounds: | 
POLITICO Screengrab by Shen Lu via Taobao.com | It was part of a predictable field day that Chinese state media had with the storming of the U.S. Capitol. The Beijing-backed tabloid Global Times crowed that it was "the nation's Waterloo." Netizens called it a "world masterpiece" and authorities scrambled to exploit the event, according to a Friday analysis in Foreign Policy by writer Tracy Wen Liu . "A reporter from Chinese state media shared with me the guidelines she received on how to report the Capitol riot," Liu wrote. "She was told to focus on how the United States' global reputation would be damaged and deteriorated in her article, mentioning how world leaders were shocked by this insurrection and were concerned about their alliance with the United States. She was also asked to write on how democracy could be hijacked by a group of uneducated people and how democracy could only be realized when the population is highly educated — and that China's current education level is not suitable for democracy." Twitter's suspension of Trump's account somehow united Chinese nationalists and dissidents, China Watcher contributor Shen Lu reports. Influential propagandist Hu Xijin, who edits the nationalist tabloid Global Times, interpreted the move as an ideological "Civil War" and used it as a prime example to argue the demise of democracy and American hypocrisy. "Freedom of speech in the United States is perhaps being redefined, or perhaps its true meaning is finally surfacing: voices that support me politically should be fully free, and voices that oppose me politically and whose values are the opposite of mine should be restricted and are inferior," Hu wrote on Weibo. Wang Dan, a leader of the 1989 student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, tweeted : "It seems that to people on the left, the words 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' are nothing but a lie." Dissident-cum-artist Ai Weiwei also read it as an attack on freedom of speech, comparing Twitter's action with students purging of teachers during the Cultural Revolution. Beijing tries to push back on U.S. restrictions with a new rule. On Saturday, China's Ministry of Commerce issued an order preventing Chinese firms from following foreign rules that "improperly prohibit or restrict" Chinese people or companies, like, say, contemplated U.S. sanctions on tech firms like Huawei. Julia Friedlander , a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who focuses on sanctions, says Beijing is "attempting to replicate the EU blocking statute," which tries to protect EU entities by prohibiting their compliance with U.S. sanctions on non-EU countries. But Friedlander tells China Watcher there's a lot of wiggle room. "Each case will be reviewed individually in line with Chinese interests," which provides "an 'out' when Chinese financial ties to external markets are simply too big to fail." The unintended effect may be to encourage Chinese firms abroad to become legally independent entities — and to make firms in China "conduits for illicit financial flows." Key wrinkle in the new U.S. policy aimed at Communist Party members: Is it possible to leave? Freelance journalist Tony Lin wrote last week in Rest of World that following new State Department rules limiting Party members to short-term visas, Chinese nationals with Party "affiliations" keen to immigrate to the U.S. are wondering online if it's even possible to renounce them. The CCP is a giant bureaucracy and there's no clear means and proof of exit. Obtaining a "Certificate of Quitting the Chinese Communist Party" by paying Falun Gong-backed website Tuidang might be one successful form of costly signaling, but the U.S. has issued no clear guidelines on how and whether it's possible to leave the Party. Expect the incoming administration to do something to make this policy less bewildering, even if it means quietly scaling it back. | | Hot from the China Watchersphere | | Billionaire hedge fund manager says China will be the next global financial center. In an FT interview published Friday, Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio predicts that China will eventually become "the world's financial center" because "throughout history, the largest trading countries evolved into having the global financial center and the global reserve currency." China watchers love to dunk on Dalio, who's certainly keen to keep in Beijing's good graces. Of course, that doesn't mean his argument is wrong. — The bigger problem: the importance of the rule of law in modern financial markets. "A global financial center would require a free financial system, rule of law, and free flow of information. China is lagging behind in all of these," Johns Hopkins professor of Political Economy Ho-Fung Hung tells China Watcher. The result: "Wealthy elites in China, including families of the CCP leaders, are eager to park their wealth in offshore financial centers like Hong Kong and Singapore." Matthews Asia Investment Strategist Andy Rothman also points to the "absence in China of the rule of law" as the main obstacle to Shanghai or Hong Kong replacing New York. "What I do worry about is the risk that we take more steps to weaken our own advantages, such as the recent delisting of three Chinese telecom companies by the New York Stock Exchange, as well as Executive Orders banning Americans from investing in some Chinese securities," he tells China Watcher. | | | | TUNE IN TO NEW EPISODE OF GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS: Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded over the past year amid a global pandemic. This podcast helps to identify and understand the impediments to smart policymaking. Subscribe for Season Two, available now. | | | | | This is the best formulation your host has seen on the meaning of learning Chinese. Via Yale Law School fellow Yangyang Cheng in Wednesday's Guardian: "Understanding a foreign language is desirable, but takes resources that not everyone can afford. What is more important is the ability to hold foreign people in the same regard as one's own." This next passage should be pasted into a Peace Corps advert: "The end of the world does not arrive through water, fire, or the plague: it begins with the slow death of language, when words grow stale and complacent with power, when artificial boundaries between nations harden. A new order for our collective survival can only be birthed when we acquire new ways of speaking." — More on this touchy subject: Do you need to know Chinese to study China? While it's considered impolite to test one another's Mandarin, China watchers generally view advanced Chinese as the price of admission to their informal club, according to an unscientific poll this newsletter conducted in July 2020. Most said it was very or "extremely" important to have advanced or at least competent Chinese. But this does not mean non-Chinese speakers cannot very meaningfully contribute. The greatest threat to U.S. national security is coming from the inside, not China, Center for New American Security senior fellow Elsa B. Kania wrote Jan. 7 in Foreign Policy following the domestic attack on Congress. "America's approach to national security has been distorted in recent years by a pathological tendency to focus on threats from abroad at the expense of recognizing the risks and systemic failings at home," Kania wrote. "As one case in point, while Congress was being evacuated in the face of threats of seditious right-wing violence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also known for trying to restore what he dubbed U.S. diplomatic 'swagger,' continued to warn about the threat of China and celebrate achievements of American diplomacy, tweeting about how Chinese telecommunications equipment 'threatens our families and our security.'" — "I remain skeptical that the pursuit of "great power competition" can be sustainable, let alone successful, under current conditions," Kania tells China Watcher. The U.S. "cannot remain a great power — and a viable democracy—unless [it] manages to overcome threats from far-right extremism and white supremacist violence and terrorism." Kania adds that "those of us who study or specialize in U.S. policy on China must be mindful of ways in which our work and our field can be susceptible to exploitation as political debates on China become increasingly polarized. The tendency to blame and inflate the threats from a foreign 'adversary' can distract from recognition of the systemic problems and changes that must be undertaken domestically." Thanks to: Editor John Yearwood, Shen Lu, Matt Kaminski, 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 | | | | |
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