Chinese spy balloon debacle batters bilateral ties

What’s next in U.S.-China relations.

Feb 09, 2023 View in browser   By Phelim Kine Badiucao Hi, China Watchers. This week we do a diagnostic on the Chinese spy balloon incident’s impact on U.S.-China relations; introduce the Democratic members of the new House China Select Committee; parse Beijing’s beef with U.S. “long-arm jurisdiction” and probe how a dead zoo panda may be the latest stressor to bilateral ties. And we’ll profile a book that tracks 200-plus years of U.S.-China relations and warns of a deep reservoir of anti-U.S. sentiment at the top of the ruling Chinese Communist Party Let’s get to it. — Phelim Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN made it clear this week that the Biden administration won’t be turning the page on the Chinese spy balloon incident for the sake of soothing bilateral ties anytime soon. The administration is not only intent on recovering and analyzing the airship’s debris to determine its surveillance capabilities. That effort is now the centerpiece of the administration’s efforts to rally allies against China’s threat to what Blinken calls “the rules-based international order.” The U.S. will share the findings of its probe of the balloon’s debris “with our allies and partners around the world,” Blinken said at a joint press briefing with NATO Secretary General JENS STOLTENBERG on Wednesday. “We’ve already shared information with dozens of countries around the world both from Washington and through our embassies…because the United States was not the only target of this broader program which has violated the sovereignty of countries across five continents.” That means Blinken’s in no hurry to reschedule the Beijing trip originally timed before the State Department aborted it due to the Chinese spy balloon furor. It also suggests the U.S. is turning a willful deaf ear to implicit Chinese entreaties to return the wreckage. “The airship does not belong to the U.S. It belongs to China,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson MAO NING said on Tuesday. The administration is unmoved. “I know of no such intention or plans to return it," U.S. National Security Council spokesman JOHN KIRBY told reporters on Monday. We asked four China experts for their thoughts on the significance of the balloon incident and its fallout for U.S.-China ties. WINSTON LORD, former assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; DREW THOMPSON, former director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; JAMES A. KELLY, former assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and JOSEPH BOSCO, former China Country Desk Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. We’ve distilled highlights of their views below, edited for length and clarity. What the heck just happened? LORD: There remain many unknowns about the balloon saga, the most perplexing and crucial being: who in China authorized this fiasco and why? Any answers are bound to be unsettling. The bad news is that the correct postponement of the Blinken visit delays potential stabilization of Sino-American relations. The silver lining is that Chinese provocative ham-handedness increases American leverage in resuming and conducting this needed dialogue.   THOMPSON: China could have handled this very differently, but they didn't. China has lied, obfuscated and ignored the impact of their actions on others many times before. And this underscores the reasoning behind the administration's objective of creating guardrails in the relationship because I think there's very limited prospects for improving the relationship for the foreseeable future. China's just not heading in that direction. BOSCO: As we learn more about the number of balloon intrusions of U.S. airspace — and that of other countries — it all seems part of a PRC global spying program. Beijing is clearly pushing the envelope on what they can get away with, not intimidated by successive U.S. administrations. The fact that key U.S. officials say they were unaware of earlier transits is shocking — either our intel failed miserably, or our civilian and/or military officials were severely derelict in not passing the info up the line to the president. KELLY: When President Xi visited India for the first time as China’s leader, a major military incident soon occurred along the contentious mountain borders of China and India. When President BARACK OBAMA met with Xi in 2012 and was told by Xi that the several offshore reclamations in the South China Sea would not be militarized, the [People’s Liberation Army] response was to quickly begin to install all kinds of military equipment. During a visit of then Secretary of Defense ROBERT GATES there was an unscheduled demonstration of a modernized fighter aircraft to make the real news. It's impossible to say that the balloon was aimed to affect Secretary Blinken’s visit to China, but we cannot exclude that possibility. Having the army as an arm of the Party brings inherent competition within the Chinese system What happens next? LORD: The mix of pre-election hysteria and histrionics in America, elections in Taiwan [in 2024], and hyper nationalism in China, combined with Chinese paramount leader XI JINPING’s need to recover from a series of blunders, will greatly complicate the conduct of China policy. THOMPSON: We're now past the initial crisis and into the retaliatory phase. Is China going to demand the return of the debris? What kind of pressure and coercion will they impose on the U.S. to accomplish that? That could include anything from hostage taking to economic coercion to diplomatic pressure. And how is the Biden administration going to handle the remains of the salvaged equipment? Will they state their intention to return it after a suitable period of time? Or will they turn it into a political spectacle? We're into an escalatory cycle. What are the Biden administration’s options? LORD: The Biden administration should pursue its prudent firmness — investing at home to compete, aligning with others to multiply our clout and pushing back or managing or cooperating on various issues with Beijing. Fortifying our democracy, using scalpels rather than machetes on economic and other exchanges with security implications, deterring attacks on Taiwan, and staying the course on Ukraine. How Bad Could it Get? BOSCO: Though many experts in and out of government shy away from Cold War terminology, we have been in Cold War II for several years — at least China and Russia have been waging it against the West while we have acted as if it is an archaic concept from a long-ago past. This dramatic event is opening a lot of eyes. New China Select Committee Democratic Members Sound Off House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES announced last week the 11 Democratic members who will sit on the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party under committee chair Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wis.). China Watcher canvassed them on their priorities and their responses are below. You can read my earlier profile of the committee’s GOP members here. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. Rep. RO KHANNA (D-Calif.) I’ll bring attention to our trade deficit with China while also unequivocally condemning anti-Asian racism and the increase in hate crimes targeting the Asian American community. It is my hope that the work done by this committee will help chart a productive path forward and prevent inflammatory rhetoric, violence and discrimination. Rep. HALEY STEVENS (D-Mich.) I’ll advocate for our automotive suppliers, advanced manufacturers and working families. It is time to fix our unbalanced relationship with China in a way that strengthens our economy and security. Rep. ANDRE CARSON (D-Ind.) I’ll use my experience to focus on China’s deployment of unmanned vehicles, including the use of high-tech balloons, which we now know could be an urgent threat to our national security. It is possible to stand up to China without invoking anti-Asian hate. I’ll continue to work to make our homeland more secure, but I will also speak out against racial profiling and racist tropes, particularly anti-Asian hate. Rep. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-N.J.) The CCP is a threat to our democracy and way of life. They are currently reshaping the international order through economic, diplomatic, military and cyber tactics, and we must respond with smart, thoughtful policies. America will need to modernize our military, strengthen our national supply chains, advocate for human rights across the globe, and support sovereign democracies. Rep. SETH MOULTON (D-Mass.) The Select Committee on China needs to work together to focus beyond just being able to win a war — we need to prevent one from ever happening. The United States is not moving fast enough to build an adequate deterrent. We need to move faster to ensure the lessons learned in Ukraine do not go ignored. But this is not just about military might: it is about the larger battle of democracy versus autocracy. We need to meet this challenge with a unified diplomatic, economic, and military strategy that solidifies American global leadership and bolsters our alliances. Rep. KATHY CASTOR (D-Fla.) The committee is an important opportunity to focus on America’s competitive edge, jobs, national security and clean energy. I look forward to working across the aisle to examine the CCP's economic, human rights and technological aims — and ways to solve the climate crisis. Rep. ANDY KIM (D-N.J.) This Select Committee has the potential to shape a thoughtful and comprehensive strategy to tackle some of our most difficult challenges, but I’m concerned by early rhetoric saying we are already in a new Cold War. The committee should work with clear-eyed composure to address threats and challenges and refrain from acting as if conflict is inevitable. Rep. RITCHIE TORRES (D-NY) Tensions between the U.S. and China are at historic highs. Managing those tensions is the central economic, diplomatic and military challenge of our time. The Select Committee has the potential to be one of the most consequential committees in the history of Congress. Rep. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-Mass.) The best answers to Sino-American competition will be found in the United States, not in China. Our own cultivation of freedom, democracy and science will be the hallmarks of a winning strategy. TRANSLATING WASHINGTON — BIDEN’S SOTU TOUTS SPY BALLOON DESTRUCTION: President JOE BIDEN used part of his State of the Union speech on Tuesday to reference the Chinese spy balloon uproar and spiked it with an implicit threat. “As we made clear last week, if China threatens our sovereignty, we will act to protect our country. And we did,” Biden said in a section of the speech in which he claimed U.S. dominance in a global competition against China. “We are opposed to defining the entire China-U.S. relations by competition,” Mao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said on Wednesday. — HFAC CHIEF MCCAUL EYES TAIWAN TRIP: House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman MICHAEL MCCAUL (R-Texas) aims to be the next high ranking lawmaker who’ll be wheels up for Taipei this year. “The chairman is definitely planning a trip to Asia focused on shoring up our important alliances in the Indo-Pacific. And he is hopeful that will include a trip to Taiwan,” McCaul spokesperson LESLIE SHEDD told China Watcher on Wednesday. — CHINA’S DEFENSE CHIEF REFUSED AUSTIN’S CALL: China’s defense minister WEI FENGHE declined a request to speak to Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN after the U.S. downed the Chinese spy balloon Saturday, a Pentagon official said Tuesday. The Defense Department made the request for a secure phone call between Austin and Chinese Minister of Defense Wei Fenghe “immediately” after an F-22 shot down the balloon as it floated off the coast of South Carolina. Read POLITICO’s OLIVIA OLANDER’s full story here. — U.S.-CHINA TRADE DATA DEFIES DECOUPLING:  So much for that rampant political rhetoric about decoupling the U.S. and Chinese economies. Trade between the world’s two leading economies just hit an all-time high. According to numbers released Tuesday by the Commerce Department, two-way trade between the United States and China set a new record in 2022 — $690 billion — part of a surge in U.S. trade with partners around the world last year. POLITICO’s DOUG PALMER has the full story here. Hot from the China Watchersphere A memorial for the panda Le Le, who passed away at the age of 25 Wednesday, is displayed from his enclosure at the Memphis Zoo on Friday, Feb. 3, 2023. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian via AP) | Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian via AP — TENNESSEE’S DEAD PANDA PROMPTS CHINA PROBE: The newest potential irritant in U.S.-China ties: the death of a giant panda the Chinese government had loaned to the Memphis Zoo. The Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens is “very concerned” about the sudden passing of the zoo’s male giant panda Le Le last week and will dispatch a team to investigate the circumstances of its death, the South China Morning Post reported. Loans or gifts of pandas to foreign zoos is a centuries-old feature of Chinese government outreach dubbed “panda diplomacy” and helped broker Beijing’s early opening to the United States in the 1970s. — UN: CHINA IS HARMING TIBETAN CHILDREN:  A trio of United Nations’ experts slammed the Chinese government’s mandatory residential school program that has separated one million Tibetan children from their families. That policy constitutes “forced assimilation of the Tibetan identity into the dominant Han-Chinese majority, through a series of oppressive actions against Tibetan educational, religious and linguistic institutions,” the experts said in a statement published on Monday. Mao at the Foreign Ministry accused the U.N. experts of “lies and rumors to malign and discredit China.” Translating China Twitter — FOREIGN MINISTRY SLAMS “LONG ARM” JUSTICE: China’s Foreign Ministry decided that last Friday — in the heat of a widening bilateral furor over that Chinese airship loitering over Missouri that day — was the perfect time to launch a broadside against U.S. sanctions policy. The result — a 2,500 word prose porridge titled “The U.S. Willful Practice of Long-arm Jurisdiction and its Perils.” The document asserts that U.S. sanction laws including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the USA PATRIOT Act and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act are an “arbitrary judicial practice” that extend U.S. legal standards overseas in violation of international law. The U.S. Treasury Department has applied Global Magnitsky in recent years to sanction current and former Chinese officials implicated in human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The Foreign Ministry called those sanctions a “tool to maintain U.S. hegemony” that unfairly target China and fellow authoritarians including North Korea, Syria, Russia and Iran. The document omits mention of Beijing’s own style of “long arm jurisdiction” including its overseas abduction operations targeting both Chinese and foreign citizens critical of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Revelations in December that Beijing operates dozens of unlawful police posts in countries including Canada, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sparked fresh international concerns about such practices. Beijing has denied those charges. “We never bully, sanction or carry out long-arm jurisdiction,” then-Foreign Ministry spokesperson ZHAO LIJIAN said in June. “In recent years there have been more and more reports about China's long-arm jurisdiction, and the West has become increasingly aware of China's foreign expansion, human rights violations and suppression of freedoms overseas,” TENG BIAO, an exiled Chinese human rights lawyer and Pozen visiting scholar at the University of Chicago, told China Watcher. “This report is primarily a counter-narrative for overseas audiences, but it is also a domestic brainwashing exercise to continue to incite anti-American sentiment, similar to the Chinese government’s annual "U.S. human rights violations report.” HEADLINES Washington Post: Chinese balloon part of vast aerial surveillance program, U.S. says CNN: U.S. intel assessment documents Chinese spy balloon incident under Trump Wall Street Journal: Challenging the U.S. is a historic mistake HEADS UP — CHINA LOOMS OVER BIDEN-LULA MEET: Brazil’s deepening ties with Beijing will likely make the agenda when Biden welcomes Brazilian President LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA to the White House tomorrow. Brazil was China’s number one destination for foreign investment in 2021 and is Beijing’s largest trading partner in Latin America. The two countries signaled closer economic ties on Tuesday by inking a deal to allow cross-border financial transactions using China’s currency, the yuan. One Book, Three Questions Henry Holt and Co. The Book: The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. The Author: JOHN POMFRET is an award-winning journalist and author who has covered China for decades for the Washington Post. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. What is the most important takeaway from your book? Sino-American relations predate the Nixon era and have gone through cycles of over-exuberance and of crushed expectations. What's new is that since the late 18th century, the U.S. has never confronted a China stronger than today. Americans — and policymakers, too — have often believed they have a responsibility — and a special ability — to shape China. While the U.S. has indeed changed China, it has been incapable of controlling the direction China — especially the Chinese Communist Party — has taken. What was the most surprising thing you learned while researching and writing this book? Two things: first — how important the China trade was to the first fortunes of a newly-independent U.S. And second — how deep is the reservoir of anti-American feeling within the upper reaches of the CCP. A reservoir that remains very deep today.  What does your book tell us about the trajectory and future of U.S.-China relations? The U.S. does best in dealing with China when it sets aside its "missionary" instincts to shape China's rise and focuses on a far more transactional relationship. The policy — embraced for decades since Nixon — that presented China with "gifts" — such as shared intelligence, access to U.S. technology and markets — in exchange for the promise of better behavior in the future hasn't worked out.  Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com. Thanks to: Mike Zapler, Heidi Vogt, Olivia Olander, Doug Palmer, Matt Kaminski and digital producer Andrew Howard. Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week's items? Email us at chinawatcher@politico.com.   Follow us

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