To prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from interfering in the US’ November election the way it did with Taiwan in January, US President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, should present a united front on US-China policy.
Beijing’s anti-US propaganda campaign long has been under way, with the usual accusations of “hegemonism,“ “containment” and “keeping China down” — all intended to put policymakers and opinion leaders on the defensive by invoking China’s “century of humiliation” at the hands of the West.
The campaign has two other purposes. First, it seeks to further exacerbate political divisions in US society, and to destabilize and enervate governmental institutions.
The second is to affect US national security policymaking in ways that advance the strategic interests of Beijing and Moscow at the expense of the US, and its security allies and partners.
Now the COVID-19 pandemic has arrived conveniently in time to stall the US economy, and deepen partisan divisions over the cause of the outbreak and the government’s response.
It also has opened a whole new disinformation front, with Beijing sources accusing the US Army of releasing the disease, denying its Chinese origins, and labeling US officials as racist and xenophobic.
The presidential candidates have the pandemic and a host of other domestic and foreign policy issues to debate between now and November.
However, the one issue they need to remove from partisan contention is the US’ single most important national security challenge: the existential threat posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Given their respective histories on China, they should be able to present a united front and eliminate Beijing’s efforts to further inflame US society, and debilitate the US government and military establishment.
They should start by fully embracing the core US national security reality embodied in the National Defense Strategy, which says that “China … seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony … and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence.”
Put more bluntly, since the PRC under Mao Zedong (毛澤東) gained political power “out of the barrel of a gun,” it has seen the US as the implacable enemy standing in the way of its goal of world domination.
The “anti-imperialist” campaign started with Mao’s “wars of national liberation” throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Then China joined with North Korea in the invasion of South Korea, pitting their combined communist forces against the US. That ended in a stalemate, with the war against the non-communist South defeated, but with the aggressors in Beijing and Pyongyang still in power to fight another day.
A decade later, China was again in the business of killing Americans, this time in Vietnam. It succeeded in helping communist North Vietnam invade and conquer the anti-communist government and people of South Vietnam after their US allies abandoned them, despite 15 years of sacrifice.
While Mao was busy engaging in foreign adventurism, his Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward at home caused the deaths of up to 50 million Chinese, and the physical and mental enslavement of the rest.
By 1972, then US-president Richard Nixon was determined to alter the geopolitical dynamic.
“China must change. The world cannot be safe until China changes,” he said.
He and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, offered China US protection from the Soviet Union, eventual diplomatic recognition and abandonment of Taiwan.
Beijing was asked only to become a more cooperative member of “the family of nations” and to start by persuading Ho Chi Minh to allow a face-saving US withdrawal from Vietnam.
Instead, China collected the diplomatic, economic and security benefits of Nixon’s opening, watched with satisfaction the US’ dying agony in Vietnam and resumed pursuit of the next step in its expansionist program — retaking Taiwan through coercion or by force.
When then-US president Jimmy Carter shifted diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, an outraged US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) to state the US’ strong interest in Taiwan’s security and its transition from dictatorship to democracy.
After firing missiles toward Taiwan in 1995, Chinese military officials asked how the US would respond if China carried its attack further.
Joseph Nye, the US Department of States’ Asia official, did not invoke the TRA, saying instead: “We don’t know; it would depend on the circumstances.”
That message of strategic ambiguity has not deterred China from preparing an arsenal of attack submarines and anti-ship missiles to keep the US Navy from intervening against a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Beijing continues a relentless pressure-campaign to gain Taiwan’s submission by repeatedly threatening force and often finds sympathetic voices in the West — Kissinger warned Taiwan that “China will not wait forever.”
However, Beijing’s program of disinformation and disunity goes beyond Taiwan.
As the US Department of Defense’s Indo-Pacific Strategy Report states: “The Chinese Communist Party undermines the international system from within by exploiting its benefits while simultaneously eroding the values and principles of the rules-based order.”
One way of doing that is to sow distrust in the integrity of Western political institutions.
Candidates Trump and, presumably, Biden can dissuade Beijing from meddling in the November election by committing to implement the China policies articulated in the cited strategic documents.
That means continuing and expanding the freedom of navigation operations the US Navy is conducting in the South and East China seas, and elsewhere. It means deepening the US’ security commitment to Taiwan, and removing the ambiguity that keeps Beijing planning when and how to strike.
It means maintaining the economic pressures of tariffs to induce fair PRC trade practices and sanctions to stop it from undermining maximum pressure on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
And it means decoupling China from the US’ vital communications systems and pharmaceutical supply lines.
A recent Foreign Affairs article cited a Chinese source as warning that “the United States could be ‘plunged into the mighty sea of coronavirus’ if China imposed controls on the export of basic pharmaceutical ingredients and face masks.”
There seems to be not much that is beyond the pale for a CCP system that herds a million Uighurs into brutal concentration camps, harvests organs from Falun Gong followers, allows a deadly flood of opioids into the US and, with reckless disregard, unleashes a pandemic.
Trump and Biden surely can agree on that threat, and the urgent need to confront and defeat it.
Joseph Bosco served as China country director in the office of the US secretary of defense. He is a fellow at the Institute for Taiwan-American Studies and a member of the advisory committee of the Global Taiwan Institute.
The 75th anniversary summit of NATO was held in Washington from Tuesday to Thursday last week. Its main focus was the reinvigoration and revitalization of NATO, along with its expansion. The shadow of domestic electoral politics could not be avoided. The focus was on whether US President Biden would deliver his speech at the NATO summit cogently. Biden’s fitness to run in the next US presidential election in November was under assessment. NATO is acquiring more coherence and teeth. These were perhaps more evident than Biden’s future. The link to the Biden candidacy is critical for NATO. If Biden loses
Shortly after Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) stepped down as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012, his successor, Xi Jinping (習近平), articulated the “Chinese Dream,” which aims to rejuvenate the nation and restore its historical glory. While defense analysts and media often focus on China’s potential conflict with Taiwan, achieving “rejuvenation” would require Beijing to engage in at least six different conflicts with at least eight countries. These include territories ranging from the South China Sea and East China Sea to Inner Asia, the Himalayas and lands lost to Russia. Conflicts would involve Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia,
The Sino-Indian border dispute remains one of the most complex and enduring border issues in the world. Unlike China’s borders with Russia and Vietnam, which have seen conflicts, but eventually led to settled agreements, the border with India, particularly the region of Arunachal Pradesh, remains a point of contention. This op-ed explores the historical and geopolitical nuances that contribute to this unresolved border dispute. The crux of the Sino-Indian border dispute lies in the differing interpretations of historical boundaries. The McMahon Line, established by the 1914 Simla Convention, was accepted by British India and Tibet, but never recognized by China, which
In a recent interview with the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called President William Lai (賴清德) “naive.” As always with Ma, one must first deconstruct what he is saying to fully understand the parallel universe he insists on defending. Who is being “naive,” Lai or Ma? The quickest way is to confront Ma with a series of pointed questions that force him to take clear stands on the complex issues involved and prevent him from his usual ramblings. Regarding China and Taiwan, the media should first begin with questions like these: “Did the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)