America’s relationship with China: power or principle?
In these polarised times, there are few areas of policy that garner much cross-party consensus in the US or UK. One area that does is relations with China.
Most Americans agree that China is authoritarian & undemocratic, commits human rights abuses, commits intellectual property theft and engages in uncompetitive trade practices. Most Europeans would agree too.
Where there is divergence in Trump’s America, it is largely about two things:
- The means of projecting US influence on China
- How much of a priority China is on the US policy agenda
I’ll elaborate.
1. Trump is confrontational. He’s brash, hostile, impulsive and bellicose. He favours tariffs and trade wars. He distains allies, international organisations and rules based systems. Democrats have criticised many aspects of how Trump has dealt with China without disagreeing that it needed standing up to.
2. Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ and TPP trade deal were designed to contain China’s influence. Many Congressional Democrats today have big concerns about Hong Kong, the Uighurs and trade. But while China is certainly one of a number of key issues facing America, foreign policy is definitely less of a focus for Democrats than domestic issues of healthcare, minimum wages and racism.
America is undoubtedly in trouble. Living standards are stagnant for many. Real wages have barely risen in 40 years, inequality is rising and public services are deteriorating. The Democratic diagnosis is that this is primarily a domestic issue — thanks to the decline of labour unions, insufficient increases in the minimum wage, job automation and tax cuts for the rich.
Trumpian Republicans have a different diagnosis: free trade deals gutted domestic manufacturing, foreign countries are cheating at trade and migrants are taking your jobs. The blame is on the ethnic other, the foreigner and the unpatriotic centrists who betrayed America with bad deals. (Classical Neo-Liberal Republicans would also add that if taxes were a little lower you’d get more yummy economic growth.) Seen in this light, pushing back against China is a bigger priority for Republicans than Democrats. It’s a bigger part of the explanation of why the American economy is failing its citizens.
With each passing year the West’s relationship with China receives more attention and becomes more important, tense and volatile. It is no longer one among many foreign policy issues — largely thanks to Trump thrusting it into the spotlight. As global mega tech companies becomes ever more important to the world economy, the dominance of Chinese & US firms is only going to increase the relevance of the rivalry for the citizens of other countries too.
As the China-US relationship has become more important I’ve started to notice diverging perspectives among Western politicians. It is still largely a question of emphasis but I suspect it heralds the beginning of harder partisan divisions.
Democratic Congressmen opposed Chinese steel dumping and raised concerns about cyberattacks and intellectual property theft. But the issues that captivated Democratic voters revolve around human rights; Uighur camps, Hong Kong and the treatment of other political dissidents. Meanwhile Trump couldn’t give a shit about Uighur concentration camps. He cares about trade and its effect on American prosperity. And he cares about geo-political power. In the words of Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr:
“The People’s Republic of China is now engaged in an economic blitzkrieg — an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent technological superpower”
This growing divide is increasingly reflective of domestic US politics. The same people who want to end police brutality against racial minorities in the US want China to treat Uighurs better. The same people who want the people of Hong Kong to be able to decide their fate want to give Puerto Rico statehood. The same people who want to keep America as a majority white Christian country fear economic and military parity with a country with different cultural and political values.
It’s not that conservatives are power hungry for its own sake. They’re more afraid than liberals and power is a means of protecting yourself. They worry about an arms race because they project their own hyper-militaristic hawkish & interventionist mindset on others. They’re more mistrustful of foreigners. Of Marxists. Of a future where they’re not in control.
I’m not naïve about China. There are plenty of things about China that are concerning. Just as there are some reasonable, practical concerns that one might have about a domestic issues like a sudden spike in immigration or an anti-police riot. But just as the conversation about immigration or BLM is polluted with xenophobic sentiment, so too the conversation about China risks becoming increasingly nationalistic.
It should be the wish of every American and European that the Chinese people, along with the population of every other developing nation, achieve the same level of prosperity that we have. The inevitable result of that will be the relative decline of the West in geo-political terms. That should be a trade off we’re glad to make.
The fight for America’s soul is on. And a lot will depend on how Americans choose to behave towards China over the coming decades.
Will Americans deny the reality of that decline and throw away their values in an attempt to resist it? Or will they accept their new place in the world with dignity and continue to project their values as equals on the world stage?
