| | | | | |  | | By David Wertime | | There's no evidence that President Joe Biden and Chinese ruler Xi Jinping have talked since Biden's inauguration, and that seems to be fine with Washington. Chinese diplomats are calling for a return to "normalcy," which includes plenty of talking but no restraints on "wolf warrior" insults or conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, last week Biden's national security adviser articulated a China policy that mostly involves rebuilding American competitiveness and alliances — implicitly without need for Beijing's involvement at all. Traditional (read: non-wolfish) Beijing diplomats probably feel pressure to show results by getting American counterparts in the (Zoom) room. But Washington seems content to play it cool. TRANSLATING WASHINGTON A China policy that doesn't really need Beijing. At a Friday talk with the Atlantic Council, national security adviser Jake Sullivan described four pillars of U.S. China policy, perhaps one of which actually requires input from, or even dialogue with, Beijing. The first step is to "refurbish the fundamental foundations of our democracy." Second is to work with allies to gain leverage and a "chorus of voices" in the face of Beijing's aggressive behavior. Third is making cutting-edge tech investments at home. Fourth is clarity and consistency on what the U.S. will accept and what it won't — something that may actually require some back-and-forth with Beijing. — For reference: Trump's first call with Xi after assuming office came on Feb. 8, 2017. Trump had thrown U.S.-China relations for a loop by holding a call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen in the month after his election. — The frosty dynamic made Chinese senior diplomat Yang Jiechi's speech feel even more off-kilter. Yang addressed a virtual audience at National Committee on U.S.-China Relations on Tuesday, and stuck to the old script, complaining that Trump's China policy was largely "misguided" and rooted in "a strategic misjudgment by some in the United States — they view China as a major strategic competitor, even an adversary." He asked to return to "normal interactions," but Biden's team has already indicated it views many of the previous administration's strategic judgments on China as correct — even if their tactics will look very different. "Challenge," with a silent caveat. Here's a departure from Trump's team: Secretary of State Tony Blinken again referred to China as "the most significant challenge to us of any other country" in a Monday interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell after saying much the same thing during his Senate confirmation hearing. The upshot: there are threats bigger than China, but they're not countries. And they may require coordination with Beijing to solve. Trump's signature "phase one" deal is "under review." Trade policy in the Biden administration is likely to look significantly different. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Friday that Trump's trade deal is being scrutinized, and "I would not assume that things are moving forward." Analysts widely see the deal as a failure, with Beijing failing to live up to its purchase pledges. More Asia hands join the administration. Former German Marshall Fund senior fellow Ellison Laskowsky joins the State Department's Policy Planning staff, the department's internal think tank. Laskowsky earlier served as a foreign service officer, with her first assignment in Taipei. As first reported in Playbook, Francisco Bencosme is now senior adviser in the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau at the State Department. He most recently was senior policy adviser at Open Society Foundations. And Kelly Magsamen, previously principal deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs until 2017, will be Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's chief of staff. | | | | THE UNOFFICIAL GUIDE TO OFFICIAL WASHINGTON: Washington hasn't slowed down in 2021. A new administration and Congress are off and running, and our new Playbook team is two steps ahead of the pack to keep you up to speed. The new Playbook foursome of Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza and Tara Palmeri is canvassing every corner of Washington, bringing you the big stories and scoops you need to know—and the insider nuggets that you want to know—about the new power centers and players. "This town" has changed. And no one covers this town like Playbook. Subscribe today. | | | | | Call it the "flip" to Asia. POLITICO's Tyler Pager and Natasha Bertrand report that the structure of Obama's NSC is getting flipped upside down in the Biden administration, with Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell's brief "growing" with three "senior directors" under him, including Laura Rosenberger for China. By contrast, Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk will oversee one senior director. It's far quieter than a "pivot," but the rebalancing of personnel resources may ultimately be more significant in guiding White House policy. On China, experts and the public are generally unified — except when it comes to Taiwan. A Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey of expert and public attitudes on China finds those two communities furthest apart on the question of Taiwan's defense. "Majorities of opinion leaders across partisan lines support using U.S. troops to defend Taiwan from Chinese invasion, while a majority of the American public opposes doing so, regardless of partisan affiliation." The American public's fatigue with military conflict abroad, it seems, extends beyond the Middle East, and will likely keep the U.S. adhering to its "strategic ambiguity" around a possible armed defense of the island. The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing are slated to open in one year. The New York-based Human Rights Watch published a scathing critique of the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday, accusing it of failing to conduct its "due diligence commitments" by making a "human rights assessment" of China. With Secretary Blinken seconding Republican declarations that Beijing's Xinjiang policy amounts to "genocide," calls for a U.S. games boycott are likely to grow. Sponsoring the games could be toxic for brands, and athletes may face reputational costs for attending. But whether to boycott is a call for the U.S. Olympic Committee, a non-profit that doesn't answer to the White House. | | | Meet China's second most powerful finance official. China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission chair Guo Shuqing is the man behind the Ant Financial crackdown and now second only to Xi senior adviser Liu He in the financial regulatory firmament, the FT's Sun Yu and Tom Mitchell reported Tuesday. Guo has avowedly never used a fintech product, but is convinced of the need for strong regulation, something his ultimate boss shares. Guo's views and those of his agency won out after a period of what sounds like interagency wrangling with the Securities Regulatory Commission, which was (over)eager for a glitzy tech IPO on Shanghai's Star market. Protocol | China has launched. The venture, backed by Robert Allbritton, publisher of Protocol and POLITICO, and led by China Watcher host David Wertime, tracks the intersection of technology and policy in the world's largest country. Sign up for our newsletter and learn more about our research here. This week's coverage includes Zeyi Yang on the China tech tell-all app that big companies hate, Shen Lu on the massive, untapped tech-for-seniors market, and a joint take on why audio chat Clubhouse is suddenly red hot among China's elites. The world is increasingly bearish on Hong Kong. The financial city falling ever further under Beijing's thumb is still churning out lucrative and massively oversubscribed IPOs for mainland Chinese companies, but other signs are less bullish. Some clients, particularly Japanese ones, are starting to ask their lawyers whether they should remove clauses from international contracts contemplating arbitrations in Hong Kong. (Lawyers are telling them to keep it.) Asset managers and bankers are relocating to other Asian finance hubs like Singapore — and more are likely to leave if/when Covid-19 restrictions lift. And a flood of (ex) Hong Kongers are taking advantage of new British National (Overseas) passports to make a new home in the U.K., which London estimates will bring a "net benefit" of billions of British Pounds. Just a sip of American democracy, please: | 
POLITICO Screengrab via Shen Lu: Taobao.com | Now for sale on Taobao: 357 grams of "Biden" Pu'er tea for about $9. This is real — tea makers are introducing special gifts for people to bring when visiting friends or family, Shen Lu reports. And no they're not partisan; Trump tea was on offer four years ago. China's population is fast entering the zero growth zone. The South China Morning Post's Sidney Leng reported Tuesday that although national figures haven't been released, regional figures from 2020 are showing sharply declining Chinese birthrates. Births are down year over year by 19 percent in Wenzhou, 33 percent in Taizhou and 23 percent in Hefei, all major cities. A senior Chinese researcher told the Post that births will likely only drop from there. This is all in line with overall projections showing China's population dropping back to 1 billion by this century's end, seriously eroding the country's productive capacities. | | Hot from the China Watchersphere | | Reactions flood into "sensible," or is that "pompous," "Longer Telegram." Last week, POLITICO published, and China Watcher excerpted, an article by an anonymous former senior government official laying out a comprehensive U.S. policy on China. The piece came from an 80-page Atlantic Council paper released the same day. Reactions in your host's network were diverse and plentiful, evidence of the resonance of the essay but also of the fact that an 80 page document by an anonymous author presents a large target. — One major critique: China is not a "revisionist" power under Xi, as the telegram insists. Daniel Larison , a senior editor at the American Conservative, wrote on Friday that "China can sometimes behave like a revisionist power, but in many ways China benefits from the existing institutions and rules and doesn't wish to overturn them." Another: Xi is less responsible for China's turn than the author thinks, making his removal less impactful. "Beijing's growing assertiveness and confidence and nationalism in its posture toward the United States and the rest of the world have more to do with strategic trends and power calculations that were discernible prior to Xi's leadership than to the impact of his personality and mindset," former U.S. National Intelligence Officer for East Asia Paul Heer wrote in the National Interest on Monday. — Reality check: So much for red lines. Key to the long(er) telegram's recommendations was the establishment of major U.S. red lines on Taiwan, the South China Sea and a host of other issues. But while discussing Covid-19 relief, Psaki told the press corps, "'red line' is an old term, we're not going to use it again." — Reader corner: "Can people mention other diplomats for once?" That request came from a CW reader named Dan in an email to your host. He was responding to the "longer telegram," which like many works on China, self-consciously channels George Kennan's (then anonymous) treatise on the need for U.S. containment of the Soviet Union. (Above your host's pay grade, sorry.) "George Kennan left the State Department in frustration in 1950 and mainly screamed angrily from the sidelines thereafter," Dan writes, and was also "a virulent reactionary racist." | | | | TUNE IN TO NEW EPISODES 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. | | | | | The U.S.-China tech conflict isn't coming, it's here. But it's more of an awkward peace than a Cold War, writes SOS International's James Mulvenon in a Monday essay in War on the Rocks . "These two spheres will continue to chafe against one another, repelling intrusions into their territory and seeking to contest unclaimed domains as new technologies such as 5G and quantum computing reach maturity. At the same time, the populations within the two spheres will still need to communicate and do business with one another. This is not a second Cold War, and even a 'post-decoupling' Sino-American relationship will be deeply economically interconnected by historical standards. The result will be continued awkward negotiations on interconnectivity at the boundaries, as well as opportunities for intelligence services to leverage that interconnectivity for all manner of espionage activities." What's the best part of China? (You get one guess.) The Wall Street Journal's Te-Ping Chen, who spent years as a China correspondent and now lives in Philadelphia, wrote last week that many Americans ask her if she's relieved to be back in her home country. "I want to say yes, but also that it's [China] a place filled with kind and clever people who are constantly finding ways to reinvent their lives, with a propulsive mix of pragmatism and playfulness," Chen writes. "I can't count the number of times I was invited off the street into peoples' homes, or describe how much I miss China today. The food and language, yes — but the people most of all. I don't know how to speak in a shorthand that captures all of this." Thanks to: Editor John Yearwood, Matt Kaminski, Shen Lu, Luiza Ch. Savage, Ryan Heath and Ben Pauker. 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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