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| William Blake's depiction of the Witch of Endor conjuring the spirit of the prophet Samuel |
This paper is partially reminiscent of the infamous Project for a New American Century (PNAC), in that it centers on countering China. That in itself isn't strange, of course, because China is clearly the rising power in the world and either already has or is likely to soon have the world's largest economy. So of course other countries have o seek ways to accommodate or otherwise adjust to China's increasing international power. That much is a banal observation in 2020.
As CFR's President Richard Haass put it in his book, A World in Disarray (2017),
No relationship [in the post-Second World War period] has been more important than the one between the United States, the dominant power of the era, and China, the country widely seen as posing the biggest challenge to American prin1acy. lt is also true that no relationship was likely to experience more difficulties. Much of history is the result of friction leading to conflict between existing and rising powers, reflecting the difficulty in peacefully accommodating the changing power balance and relationship between the two. ...This background is a reminder that we all need to be cautious of hair-on-fire representations of US-Chinese relations, i.e., the presentation of China as a newly-emerged bogeyman. It's an evolving relationship, and US policy makers have been very aware of China's development over the last several decades and have generally welcomed it.
... the relationship between the two remained surprisingly good in the aftermath of the Cold War. Growing economic ties filled much of the space that hadl been taken up by shared concern about the Soviet Union. Two-way merchandise trade alone grew from $20 billion in 1990 to nearly $600 billion twenty-five years later.2 Investment likewise grew from negligible to truly substantial amounts. Meanwhile, diplomatic interaction both increased ancl expanded as top-level summits came to be supplemented by frequent meetings involving both governments' bureaucracies discussing the full range of bilateral, regional, and increasingly global issues.
But the congruence was broader. The underlying premise of China's national security following the chaos of Mao's Cultural Revolution was that the country needed several decades of economic development if it was to be stable and secure, that the rate of clevelopment needed to be rapid, and that such growth could take place only amid regional stability and decent relations with the world's largest and most innovative economy. All of this provided a rationale from China's perspective for behaving with restraint and maintaining good relations with the United States so that trade would grow and technology transfers would be forthcoming. [my emphasis]
Haass depicted the state uf US-China relationship as of 2016-17 as follows:
Overall, Sino-American relations a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War are difficult to describe or categorize. In many ways, the two are still searching for a rationale to take the place of the anti-Sovietism that informed their relationship prior to 1989. The Chinese speak of a new model of a major-country relationship, but the two governments have not for the most part been able to fill in the blanks and move past generalities. Adding to the uncertainty is the vulnerability of the relationship to a crisis growing out of competing claims in the South China Sea, Sino-Japanese tensions, or Taiwan.Blackwell and Wright present a diagnosis of US-China relations in 2020 that has much more of a new-cold-war vibe:
Still, for all this, the durability of the Sino-American relationship is striking, something worth commenting on given the changing strategic context and power balance between the two countries as China has grown in both absolute and relative terms. The relationship has clone fairly well under Democrats and Republicans alike and under a number of Chinese leaders. Again, history would have predicted far more friction, and while it is still possible that something approximating a new cold war could materialize, it is by no means inevitable. [my emphasis]
On the face of it, the answer would seem obvious: the United States should try to reconstitute a shared strategic understanding between the major powers based on these national interests—a classic world order bargain, if you will. But such a pathway is problematic. Although it may seem strategically sensible and prudent to many observers, for others the gap between the United States and China is too large to bridge, and a compromise could undermine Washington’s regional alliances. Moreover, there is for the foreseeable future no appetite in Washington on either side of the aisle, or in Beijing, for such a comprehensive effort. The U.S. executive branch and Congress are focused on drawing up bills of indictment against China (many justified), with no prescriptive suggestion except for public coercion that diplomacy, difficult as it may be, could ease the bilateral tension. Opinion polls show that the American people favor alliances, free trade, and a foreign policy that includes support for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.) With U.S. treatment of China a major issue in the 2020 presidential campaign, it is difficult to imagine a national consensus on any dramatic change of course that accommodates to some degree China’s preferences regarding world order.They present a general framing that I find dubious. They describe a post-Second World War world order that was rules-based and founded on generally accepted principles of the international order, led by an enlightened and generally benevolent United States. They see China and Russia as making "major departures from the shared understandings of the 1990s". As a result, "the return of great power rivalry" has "shattered hopes in that multilateral order." (my italics)
For its part, China seeks to comprehensively undermine U.S. alliances and to eventually replace the United States as both the most important power in Asia and the world’s technological leader. Beijing is making progress in that long-term effort, as its coercive power grows and Washington falters internationally. Whatever the objective reality, Beijing’s behavior suggests it could well believe it is playing a winning hand.
In any case, both nations at present are fully committed to their core convictions of how best to conduct their societies and governance, promote their national interests, and organize the international system. It is difficult to imagine either side offering major compromises on any of these fundamentals anytime soon. [my emphasis]
China and Russia in particular defend a Westphalian and nineteenth-century model of order organized around balance of power, national sovereignty, and spheres of influence. They oppose the U.S. model of humanitarian intervention, democracy promotion, strengthened alliances, and opposition to spheres of influence. Meanwhile, the United States distances itself from its own world order traditions. [my emphasis]Everyone, including especially American citizens, have good reason to have a critical view of what that "model of humanitarian intervention" looked like. Haass observes:
Like most other countries, China opposed the U.S. decision to attack Iraq in 2003, believing it was unwarranted. China went along with what it thought was a limited humanitarian intervention in Libya in 2011, but, like Russia, it was critical when the effort expanded into one of regime change. China also was more supportive than not of sanctions to curb lran's nuclear ambitions and, as will be discussed in greater detail below, committed itself to take steps to reduce its own carbon emissions starting in 2030. [my emphasis]It's also hard to guess what they particularly have in mind with their very general recommendations, which reads like boiler-plate diplomatic vagueness: more competent governance in the US (duh!), wield diplomatic leverage more effectively, improve relations with Canada and Mexico, try to improve relations with the EU and NATO allies, and so on.
Their paper is so full of such boilerplate that it's hard to judge what they are actually advocating. Again, I'm very wary of their description of the post-1945 world order collapsing into a "Westphalian" world due to Russia and China's bad actions and goals. We remember the Cold War understandably as primarily a contest between the US and the Soviet Union. But we also had a cold war - which became a hot war in Korea - against China. And because of dogmatic, ill-informed anti-Communist assumption, along with the purges of many diplomats with substantial expertise in the Far East during the McCarthy period, the fear of China contributed to some very dubious foreign policy decisions. A supposedly expansionist China was one of the main justifications for the Vietnam War, which was an even worse disaster for the US than the Iraq War. A 21st century rerun is not something I want to see.
But there are parts of the Blackwill-Wright paper I find attractive:
The COVID-19 crisis ought to mark the end of the post-9/11 era. The United States has overly invested in the greater Middle East, and Washington should stop trying to fix the most dysfunctional and self-destructive region on earth. It is time to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan in the next year without requiring agreement with the Taliban; recognize that the possibility of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine issue is more remote by the day; end support for the Saudi war in Yemen; revive and update the JCPOA to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons; be clear that, although the United States hopes Iran becomes a democracy, that is a decision for the Iranian people, and the United States should not be actively trying to bring this about; and downgrade U.S. relations with its Arab partners, to focus on matters of mutual interest rather than offering general support for their domestic and international objectives. While continuing its enduring commitment to Israel’s safety and security, the United States should redirect its resources from the Middle East to matters that are far more relevant to its national interests today and in the future. [my emphasis]That kind of foreign policy pragmatism makes sense!
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