New Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his article in "The National Interest" on Chinese foreign policy

David Rothkopf is initially optimistic about the new Chinese Foreign Minister:

The appointment of Qin Gang as PRC Foreign Minister is good news for the world's most important bilateral relationship. He is a deft, experienced diplomat, knows the United States exceptionally well, is close to President Xi and is [in Rothkopf’s view, a] good man who seeks stability and to build trust. The US and China will continue to face great challenges in our relationship. Nor does it mean that he will not be tough on the issues that matter to the PRC. But as a vital point of contact in the relationship, both sides could hardly do better.

Qin has published an English-language article at The National Interest. Obviously we have to assume it reflects what the Chinese government wants a Western audience to think about Chinese foreign policy, not some independent expert analysis. As Rothkopf says, we should expect Qin to be “tough on the issues that matter to the PRC.” But this article is also the kind of of thing the experts analyze.

Presumably this paragraph on the Russia-Ukraine War was crafted especially carefully:

China is highly concerned about the situation in Ukraine. Though deeply saddening, what has been happening there reveals some important lessons: conflicts and wars produce no winner; there is no simple solution to a complex issue; confrontation between major countries must be avoided. The most urgent task for the moment is to promote peace talks between Russia and Ukraine as well as dialogue between the United States, the EU, NATO, and Russia. In the long term, people must realize that grounding one’s own security on other countries’ insecurity won’t work; it is necessary to establish a balanced, effective, and sustainable European security framework. There is no choice other than this. [my emphasis]

On the surface, it’s a pretty bland paragraph. “Peace talks” and “dialogue” are general enough and vague enough to mean nearly anything. And, “people must realize that grounding one’s own security on other countries’ insecurity won’t work” could easily refer to both Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and to NATO expansion/enlargement. At the least, it is no one-sided endorsement of Russia’s position on Ukraine.

Diplomatic statements and “information operations”

A recent report by The Intercept based on “documents found in a trove of hacked emails from Russia state broadcaster VGTRK” describes a close cooperation between China and Russia based on a specific 2021 agreement between the two countries:

A bilateral agreement signed July 2021 makes clear that cooperating on news coverage and narratives is a big goal for both governments. At a virtual summit that month, leading Russian and Chinese government and media figures discussed dozens of news products and cooperative ventures, including exchanging news content, trading digital media strategies, and co-producing television shows. The effort was led by Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development, Communication and Mass Media, and by China’s National Radio and Television Administration.

The article does mention that China promoted the Russians’ “biolabs conspiracy theory” about facilities operating in Ukraine and that “Chinese media echoed Russian government talking points on the war” just after the February 24, 2022 invasion.

Neither China nor Russia have the sort of press independence that the US and EU countries have. That’s not an autocracies-vs.-democracies argument and is not meant to give countries like Hungary and Poland an excuse for their authoritarian bent. Nor is it meant to minimize the extent to which news agencies in the US and Europe far too often serve willingly help their respective governments “manufacture consent.” What it means is that news consumers have to consider which sources they are using. And, of course, not a large percentage of US or EU citizens are fluent in either Russian or Chinese and have to rely on reporters and analysts for additional steps of mediating sources and original language.

A lot of popular reporting and discussion on “information operations” tend to present the concept as more-or-less espionage operations: virtuous and admirable when Our Side does it, sinister and dangerous coming from the Other Side. But even though the transmission channels continually evolve, this is not new. Critical thinking has always been helpful in evaluating competing claims. And it has also always been important to distinguish facts from the way those facts are employed in arguments.

Jon Stewart recently held an informative discussion on his podcast The Problem which features not only discussion of the Russia-Ukraine War but also of social media algorithms and the increasing role that artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to play in how we receive news and information online.

Military confrontation points

Much of Qin’s short article is, not surprisingly, diplomatic boilerplate about how it would be nice if China and the US could just get along. And the enormous problems of nuclear proliferation and the climate crisis are certainly major incentives for international cooperation. Neither is specifically mentioned in Qin’s article. And the following points are notable:

Qin touts China’s commitment to “free trade” in international commerce. But China’s major trading partners in the US and the EU are increasingly concerned about China being treated as a “developing economy,” because that gives China easier terms than other developed countries under the neoliberal trade agreements of which the US and European establishments have been so fond for the last three decades.

And in the regions of most likely military clashes between China and the US - Taiwan, Japan (East China Sea) and the South China Sea - Qin not surprisingly blame the Other Side. He also mentions border disputes with India. But it probably has some arcane diplomatic significance that in the paragraph where those four conflict points are mentioned, he does not specify the US as being part of the Other Side.

On Taiwan (Republic of China [ROC] with its capital in Taipei), he writes: “The tension across the Taiwan Strait was not created by the Chinese mainland breaking the status quo, but by ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists and external forces continually challenging the status quo of ‘one China’.”

This is at least partially true. Since the normalization of relations with the government in Beijing, the US has formally adhered to a One China policy that recognizes that Taiwan is part of China but recognizes the Chinese government in Beijing, while nevertheless providing aid, arms, and diplomatic support for the government in Taipei. The constitution of the Republic of China also explicitly recognizes that Taiwan is part of China. As the BBC noted last year:

Until now, Washington's policy of "strategic ambiguity" has meant the US has been deliberately unclear about whether or how it would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack.

Diplomatically, the US currently sticks to the "One-China" policy, which recognises only one Chinese government - in Beijing - and has formal ties with China rather than Taiwan.

But in May, US president Joe Biden appeared to harden Washington's position.

Asked whether the US would defend Taiwan militarily, Mr Biden replied: "Yes."

The White House insisted that Washington had not changed its position. [my emphasis]

The Council on Foreign Relations website also has a backgrounder on the One China policy:

Taiwan’s KMT-drafted constitution continues to recognize China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Tibet, and the South China Sea as part of the ROC. The KMT [Kuomintang Party’s] does not support Taiwan’s independence and has consistently called for closer ties with Beijing. But in the face of recent election losses, KMT leaders have discussed whether to change the party’s stance on the 1992 Consensus.

The KMT’s chief rival party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has never endorsed the understanding laid out in the 1992 Consensus [an agreement between the KMT and the Chinese Communist parties acknowledging the One China policy].

President Tsai [Ing-wen], who is also the leader of the DPP, has refused to explicitly accept the consensus. Instead, she has attempted to find another formulation that would be acceptable to Beijing. In her 2016 inaugural address, Tsai noted she was “elected president in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China [Taiwan],” which is a one-China document, and said she would “safeguard the sovereignty and territory of the Republic of China.” Tsai also pledged that she would “conduct cross-strait affairs in accordance with the Republic of China Constitution, the Act Governing Relations Between the People of [the] Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area, and other relevant legislation.” Beijing, however, rejected this formulation and cut off official contacts with Taiwan. [my emphasis]

This recent English-language report from Deutsche Welle describes current US-China confrontations, including the Taiwan issue.



Americans have good reason to demand that the Biden-Harris Administration make it clear what its policy on defending Taiwan is. Is the US committed to going to war with China over Taiwan? That is, direct military conflict between Chinese and US military forces, which last occurred during the Korean War.

Congressional oversight?

It’s actually the duty of the Congress to exercise meaningful oversight on how the Administration is conducting foreign policy. In the Deutsche Welle video just after 37:35, a Chinese analyst, Zhao Bo, who presumably is very familiar with Beijing’s position, discusses three broad (which also means vague) situations in which Beijing would initiate military action to forcibly take Taiwan: a declaration of independence by the Taiwanese government; provocations like Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan that threaten to increase tensions between Taipei and Beijing; and, a decision by Beijing that developments are permanently foreclosing the possibity of unification.

As the DW commentator notes, that leaves an awful lot of options open.

But the sad story is that Congress has largely waved meaningful oversight over foreign policy. We can expect the new Republican majority in the House to open all kinds of frivolous investigations. Meaningful foreign policy oversight is not likely to be one of them. But the Democrats have also been very passive in uncritically applauding Biden’s policy on the Russia-Ukraine War. We can at least hope and should certainly demand that Senate Democrats will do better on China policy.

No one expects the US to suddenly declare, no, we’re done with Taiwan, China can take it over and we don’t care. Although in a second Trump Presidency or a Ron DeSantis Administration, who knows what bizarre stuff they may be willing to do for the right payoff?

But the US officially recognizes the regime in Beijing as the legitimate government of all of China including Taiwan. We have no formal defense alliance with Taiwan because the US does not recognize it as an official government, whatever Nancy Pelosi’s preferred travel destinations may be. And even recognizing the need for some level of the kind of ambiguity in the One China policy, Congress and the American public should be asking exactly what is the American national interest in going to direct war with China over Taiwan, which would also be known as World War Three.

The US does have formal defense commitments to its NATO allies. Do the (technically) informal commitments to Taiwan have the same level important, or even more, than the NATO obligations?

When a Chinese version of a “Gulf of Tonkin incident” rolls around, it will be much harder to ask questions like these.