Fan Jishe: U.S. Decision-Making on China: Mechanism Adjustment and Team Transformation
Author: Fan Jishe, Research Fellow, Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (National School of Administration), Director of the Institute of American Studies
Source: Contemporary American Review, No. 4, 2021; Contemporary American Review
WeChat platform editor: Zhou Yue
Since the end of World War II, the U.S. foreign strategy has been (or attempted) to make three major adjustments. These adjustments present four characteristics: consolidating the domestic consensus of foreign strategic adjustment, allocating the comprehensive strength of the United States to point to a specific country or direction, making corresponding adjustments by domestic decision-making organs, and cultivating research and decision-making teams on relevant national or regional issues. These are not only the main characteristics of the US foreign strategic readjustment, but also the time process of the US strategic readjustment from imagination to implementation; it can not only summarize the US foreign strategic adjustment after the end of World War II, but also become a reference index for analyzing the current US strategic adjustment to China. This paper attempts to evaluate the degree, direction and impact of the US strategic adjustment to China from the perspective of the adjustment of the US decision-making mechanism and the transformation of the team. From the launch of the China policy debate in the United States, to the announcement by the US military that it will deploy more strategic assets to the "Indo-Pacific" region, to the adjustment of the decision-making mechanism for China and the intergenerational transformation of the Decision-making Team for China, the strategic adjustment of the United States toward China is similar to the process of cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union after the end of World War II. While President Biden and his foreign policy team argue that they have no intention of confronting China, their policy actions show signs of confrontation, and negative interaction between China and the United States has become long-term and normalized.
Keywords: U.S. diplomacy; U.S.-China relations; biden administration; strategic competition
After Biden took office, the United States roughly continued the China strategy during the Trump administration. The Biden administration has identified China as the "most serious competitor" to America's values of prosperity, security, and democracy, "the only competitor capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to pose a continuing challenge to a stable and open international system," either in "extreme competition" or "stiff competition." Many experts and scholars believe that the Biden administration's China policy is dangerous and confrontational, similar to the policies of the Truman administration in the early Cold War. However, President Biden and his team denied that the United States wanted to fight a "cold war" with China, and said in a video meeting between the two heads of state that "we do not seek to change China's system, do not seek to oppose China through strengthening alliances, and have no intention of conflicting with China."
So, how to analyze and judge the adjustment of the US strategy toward China, whether this adjustment is only a rhetorical adjustment, or has it been put into action? If action has been taken, what state has the US strategic readjustment toward China entered? Where does this adjustment point, competition, confrontation or a "new Cold War"?
At present, there have been many articles analyzing the strategic adjustment of the Trump administration and the Biden administration toward China and its practice, especially the interaction between China and the United States on many issues involving territorial sovereignty and security, economy and trade, high and new technologies, and multilateral mechanisms. This article will review the three strategic adjustments of the United States since the end of World War II, summarize the characteristics of the previous strategic adjustments, and focus on the embodiment of the current US strategic adjustment to China in terms of decision-making mechanism, as well as the impact of the intergenerational transformation of the US decision-making team in China, and briefly analyze the development prospects of the US strategic readjustment toward China and Sino-US relations.
I. History and Enlightenment of the United States' Foreign Strategic Readjustment
Since the end of World War II, the United States has made three major adjustments to its foreign strategy (or attempts): after the end of World War II in 1945, the United States adjusted its strategy toward the Soviet Union, and the United States and the Soviet Union moved from cooperation to the Cold War that lasted for nearly half a century; after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States tried to find a new strategic direction, but did not completely get out of the Cold War in the confused decade; after the "9.11" incident in 2001, the United States entered a period of 20 years of war on terrorism.
The first major U.S. foreign strategic readjustment began after the end of World War II. The United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union formed a series of communiqués, agreements, statements, and other documents through the Tehran Conference, the Yalta Conference, and the Potsdam Conference, arranged the post-war political map, created the Yalta system, and to some extent jointly dominated the overall planning of the post-war international order. The United States and the Soviet Union have gone through a period of time and experienced a series of landmark events from cooperation to the Cold War, which is a process of adjustment of the US foreign strategy.
After the end of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union attempted to divide the spheres of influence and sowed the seeds for the deterioration of bilateral relations, and the development of a series of events and bilateral interactions since then became the development process of the United States to build a Cold War consensus. In February 1946, George Kennan, chargé d'affaires ahead of the U.S. Embassy in the Soviet Union, sent the famous "long telegram" to the State Department. In July 1947, Kennan published an article entitled "The Roots of Soviet Behavior" in Foreign Affairs under the name "Mr. X", proposing to use the "containment" strategy to deal with the Soviet Union's "expansionist tendencies". In March 1946, Churchill delivered the "Iron Curtain Speech" entitled "The Pillar of Peace" in Fulton, Missouri, declaring that an Iron Curtain across the European continent had fallen. The United States then launched the Truman Doctrine and created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the confrontation between the two camps led by the United States and the Soviet Union took shape in Europe.
When the consensus on the foreign strategic adjustment of the United States was formed, and "containment" was regarded as the main means of confrontation between the capitalist camp led by the United States and the Soviet And Eastern camp, the United States concentrated all its forces in the political, economic, military, and security fields to deal with the so-called "systemic challenge" posed to it by the socialist camp led by the Soviet Union. The United States has established a military alliance system in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, deploying troops to allies; enhancing cooperation with allies diplomatically, exchanging economics with allies, and strengthening the research and development and deployment of weapons and equipment militarily. In short, the military threat from the Soviet Union defined U.S. military strategy, tactics, principles, the size and structure of the military, the design of weapons, and the military budget.
The U.S. decision-making mechanism has then made targeted adjustments. The United States systematically mobilized all government agencies, including foreign affairs, defense, intelligence, and economics, from the model during World War II to the Cold War model, and responded to the challenges from the Soviet Union. Among them, Congress passed four pieces of legislation that reshaped U.S. government agencies and decision-making structures, including the National Security Act of 1947, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1948, the Smith-Mundt Act, and the CIA Act of 1949 1949）。 The National Security Act of 1947 established the Department of Defense and the National Security Council, established the CIA, and made significant adjustments to the U.S. military and intelligence system to rationalize foreign strategic decision-making and execution during the Cold War. The Foreign Aid Act of 1948, which deals with economic cooperation for European revival, the provision of international children's emergency fund assistance, and assistance to Greece and Turkey, constitutes much of U.S. aid to the cold war. Originally titled The U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, the Smith-Monte Act authorized the State Department to engage in public diplomacy through broadcasting, contact, and communication, and publishing, and agencies such as the U.S. Information Service, Voice of America, and Free Asia later became important tools in dealing with the Cold War and peaceful evolution in the United States and the Soviet Union. The CIA Act of 1949 provides the CIA with a number of policy exceptions, such as the ability to act under secret financial and administrative procedures and to be exempt from many constraints when using federal government funds.
During the Cold War, the United States also created other government agencies to serve Cold War diplomacy. In order to transform foreign aid into a more powerful policy tool, the United States Congress passed the Foreign Aid Act of 1961 in September 1961, reorganizing the structure of foreign aid programs at that time, distinguishing between military and civilian assistance, and creating the United States Agency for International Development, which is responsible for coordinating non-military assistance projects such as disaster relief and poverty alleviation, so that they have a longer-term socio-economic development significance. USAID provides not only financial assistance, but also technical assistance. In order to better control the arms race, the United States Congress passed the Arms Control and Disarmament Act in September 1961, creating the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, whose core mission is to conduct and coordinate policy research, prepare the United States for arms control and disarmament negotiations, and handle public information related to arms control and disarmament. The Director of Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is directly accountable to the President and the Secretary of State to ensure that arms control issues are important in U.S. foreign policy. For more than 30 years, the mechanism played an important role in U.S.-Soviet arms control and disarmament negotiations.
Another important manifestation of the STRATEGIC readjustment of the United States is the boom in Soviet studies and the rapid development of the contingent of experts on the Soviet question. U.S. research on the Soviet Union began in the late Second World War II, when the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) set up a Soviet section with 60 social scientists. After World War II, Columbia University established the Russian Institute in 1946, and Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley also set up similar research institutes, but there were not many practitioners. After the beginning of the Cold War, Soviet studies in the United States became a popular discipline, and by the end of the 1950s, 13 universities in the United States had set up research centers, institutes, and research programs focusing on Russian, Slavic, and Soviet studies. Universities, foundations, and the U.S. government have worked together to promote the rapid development of related research and the cultivation of professionals. After the successful launch of the first artificial satellite by the Soviet Union, the Eisenhower administration urged Congress to pass the National Defense Education Act and allocate funds to support regional studies, which became the most beneficial area. The U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of State, and THE OFFICE FOR ARMS CONTROL and Disarmament Affairs also strongly supported Soviet research on Eastern Europe in the 1970s. The Ideological Conflict of the Cold War became the most important driver of Soviet research in the United States, and government agencies became the most important employers of Soviet experts. By the early 1970s, Soviet and Eastern European studies in the United States had reached its peak, with 58 research centers, 83 degree-granting programs, and 40,000 students studying Russian. The study of the Soviet Union's Eastern European issues and the cultivation of related talents were all products of the Cold War, serving military and intelligence needs to facilitate the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War pushed the United States to make a second strategic readjustment. The United States hopes to enjoy the "peace dividend" and tries to adjust its foreign strategy, but it is difficult to quickly and clearly adjust the direction. The Clinton administration put forward a national security strategy of "engagement and expansion," actively promoted economic globalization, and reconstructed the relations between the United States, Russia, and the major powers of the United States and China. The United States has also proposed so-called "humanitarian intervention", the promotion of "values diplomacy", the promotion of democracy, and the intervention in civil wars and regional conflicts in many countries. However, the strategic adjustment goal of the United States is unclear and the direction is unclear, and it has tried to reconstruct the US-Russia relationship in the direction of Europe, but because of the various differences between the United States and Russia, the United States has promoted nato's eastward expansion and returned to the old road of guarding against Russia. The United States has also tried to reduce and restructure its military forces in light of the new security situation, but has made little progress. Although the Cold War has ended, the Cold War architecture of the Us foreign strategy has not changed.
The "9/11" terrorist attacks in 2001 pushed the United States from the post-Cold War era to the era of the war on terrorism, and the strategic adjustment of the United States with counter-terrorism as the core task was similar to the adjustment of the Transition from World War II to the Cold War. In his address to Congress and the nation on September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush made it clear that every nation in all regions now has to make a decision: either with the United States or with the terrorists. Counterterrorism has become a new consensus in U.S. foreign strategy, and all political, economic, and military plans and means must be adjusted accordingly. At the same time, the United States has adjusted its external decision-making mechanism to better meet the needs of counter-terrorism. The U.S. Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, which merged 22 agencies to form the Department of Homeland Security, whose primary missions are counterterrorism, border security, immigration and customs, cybersecurity, disaster prevention, and disaster management. As the 9/11 terrorist attacks exposed the failure of U.S. intelligence efforts, congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Prevention Act of 2004, establishing the post of Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, whose primary mission is to integrate foreign and domestic intelligence to protect U.S. and overseas interests. The United States has also strengthened its research on regional issues in the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa, and cultivated talents in related fields to serve counterterrorism strategic needs.
Looking back at the measures taken by the United States in its three foreign strategic adjustments so far in World War II, we can roughly see four characteristics: first, to consolidate the domestic consensus on foreign strategic adjustment; second, to allocate the comprehensive strength of the United States to point to specific countries or directions; third, the domestic decision-making organs to make corresponding adjustments; and fourth, to cultivate the supporting forces needed for decision-making on relevant national or regional issues. This is not only the main feature of the US foreign strategic readjustment, but also the time process of the strategic readjustment from imagination to implementation, which can not only summarize the US foreign strategic adjustment after the end of World War II, but also become a reference index for analyzing the current US strategic adjustment to China.
Ii. Adjustment of the US decision-making mechanism toward China
Since the beginning of the Obama administration, the United States has been planning to withdraw from the war on terror, but the withdrawal process has many twists and turns. It was not until the end of August 2021 that U.S. troops completely withdrew from Afghanistan that the United States ended a 20-year war on terror. At the same time as the United States withdrew from the war on terror, it began to adjust its strategy toward China. Comparing the characteristics and processes of the first three U.S. foreign strategic readjustments after The end of World War II, it can be found that this strategic readjustment toward China already has all the indications of systematic adjustment: the domestic consensus on strategic readjustment toward China has been basically reached, the political, economic, diplomatic, and military forces have been reconfigured to engage in "strategic competition" with China, and at the same time, it has tried to adjust the decision-making mechanism and cultivate the required talents.
It is generally believed that the US strategic adjustment toward China began with the US china strategy debate in 2015, and the "Asia-Pacific rebalancing" strategy proposed by the Obama administration coincided with this. Trump's four years in office are the stage when the consensus on the strategic adjustment of the United States toward China is formed and consolidated. The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy report refers to China as a "competitor" and a "revisionist power," arguing that China challenges U.S. power, influence, and interests and undermines U.S. security and prosperity. Since then, senior US officials have frequently delivered speeches on China policy on different occasions, discussing the necessity of adjusting strategies. On May 20, 2020, the White House issued the "U.S. Strategic Guidelines for China"; from the end of June to the end of July, O'Brien, the Trump administration's national security adviser, FBI Director Ray, Attorney General Barr, and Secretary of State Pompeo delivered intensive speeches to justify the adjustment of the strategy toward China. Through the promotion of the Trump administration, a basic consensus has been formed within the US executive branch, between the executive branch and Congress, between members of the two parties of Congress, and between elites and the people on the issue of strategic adjustment toward China. After Biden took office, he continued the momentum of adjustment in his China strategy and strengthened the new consensus on china strategy.
During the Obama administration, the United States proposed to "return to the Asia-Pacific region", re-attach importance to the Asia-Pacific region from the political, economic, diplomatic and military aspects, actively join the negotiations of the "Trans-Pacific Partnership", strengthen exchanges and dialogues with ASEAN countries at all levels, and adjust alliance relations. In the security and military fields, the United States has proposed to adjust its military deployment and tilt its focus to the Asia-Pacific region; it has proposed "air-sea integrated warfare" in its military strategic concept. The Obama administration's strategic adjustment to China has been constrained by the rise of the Islamic State, changes in the situation in Syria and the Crimean crisis, the United States has not really withdrawn from the war on terror, and the implementation of the strategic focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific is limited. Now, with a complete withdrawal from the war on terror, the United States is better positioned to tilt various strategic resources toward the "Indo-Pacific" region.
The controversy over the strategic readjustment of China in the United States and the comprehensive allocation of comprehensive forces by the United States to carry out strategic competition with China are relatively rich, and this article will not repeat them. This article will focus on two indicators of the U.S. decision-making mechanism and decision-making team on China to assess the extent, direction and impact of this strategic adjustment. The adjustment and change of the US government's decision-making mechanism on China is reflected in the new China-related departments and projects added by the White House, the State Council, the Ministry of Defense, intelligence departments and law enforcement agencies, and its characteristics of guiding the country and focusing on China are very prominent.
First, the National Security Council has added a China-related department, and the size of the relevant teams has increased significantly. After the end of the Cold War, China was not a strategic priority for the United States, and the National Security Council put China, Taiwan, and Mongolia together to create a director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Affairs, which was subordinate to the Senior Director for Asian Affairs. According to reports, the Biden administration has adjusted the institutional settings of the National Security Council involving China, the former China, Taiwan and Mongolia departments have been adjusted to China and Taiwan affairs departments, and a new senior director position will be held by Laura Rosenberger; and a number of director positions will be set up by Rush Doshi, Julian Gewirtz, Jonathan Czin, Jennifer Welch served. In addition, the National Security Council created a new position as Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, which also serves as the President's Deputy Advisor on National Security, covering China, East Asia, South Asia and Oceania, and is now held by Kurt Campbell. The creation of the position of Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs has greatly increased Asia's strategic importance in the U.S. policy machine. In response to climate change, the Biden administration has also created a new position as special envoy on climate change, to former Secretary of State John Kerry, who has visited China twice with limited access to official dialogue between China and the United States.
Second, the State Council has fine-tuned some of its institutions and functions and is considering adding functions and positions for China. In March 2016, Obama issued Executive Order 13,721 establishing the Global Engagement Center at the State Department to coordinate cross-departmental counterterrorism communications to the foreign public. The FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act adjusted its purpose, structure, and mandate from a focus on countering the influence of terrorists and extremist groups to one that takes into account, or even primarily, counters foreign propaganda that could jeopardize the national security interests of the United States and its allies. During Trump's presidency, the State Department created the position of "Special Envoy for UN Integrity" in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs in January 2020, whose role is to counter China's rising influence in international institutions, with the first envoy being Mark Baxter Lambert. During Trump's presidency, the State Department created a class of positions in regional bureaus to track China's actions around the world. According to the Foreign Policy website on September 21, 2021, the State Department is considering increasing the size of such personnel by 20 to 30 people, who will not only be deployed in Washington, but will also be sent around the world to monitor China's actions in certain countries. The State Council is also considering adding more employees to track China's procurement of emerging technologies and efforts to combat climate change. While it remains to be seen whether the State Council will eventually make institutional adjustments to China, it may be a long-term trend for regional bureaux and functional bureaux to enhance coordination and collaboration among China-related departments and increase overall attention to China.
Third, the Ministry of National Defense has made more adjustments and changes to China-related institutions. During the Trump administration, the Department of Defense renamed the Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command on May 30, 2018, and the responsibilities of the Department of Defense's assistant secretary of defense for Asia-Pacific security affairs were adjusted accordingly to be in charge of Indo-Pacific security. In June 2019, the Ministry of National Defense added a position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (also known as Assistant Defense Minister Deputy) specializing in China-related military affairs, whose main responsibilities are to unify foreign policies, coordinate various departments internally, serve as the chief adviser to the Minister of Defense on China-related affairs, and is also the only "hub" within the Ministry of National Defense for policy and strategy formulation, supervision, authorization evaluation and cross-departmental coordination involving China. Previously, the three deputy assistant defense ministers in the Asia-Pacific region were responsible for a region or group of countries, and the new position was the only one of the 21 deputy assistant defense ministers in the Ministry of Defense focused on a specific country. The scope of responsibility of the three deputy assistant defense ministers related to the "Indo-Pacific" region has also been adjusted accordingly, which means that the Ministry of Defense has gradually clarified its priorities and focused more on China in accordance with the requirements of the 2018 National Defense Strategy Report. In December 2019, the United States created the Space Force, which became the sixth largest military branch of the U.S. military. In October 2020, the Ministry of Defence added the post of Assistant Secretary of Defence in charge of outer space policy. The restructuring and addition of these institutions is all in response to the big foreign space game, and China and Russia are clearly their main targets. After Biden took office, the Department of Defense set up the China Task Force, led by Ely Ratner, to launch a four-month military policy assessment program for China. The team, which comprises 15 people from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the services, the Operational Command and the Intelligence Services, is primarily tasked with assessing the Department of Defense's China-related programs, policies and processes and providing the Secretary of Defense with a set of policy recommendations and action plans that need to be prioritized. The evaluation was completed in June 2021, and Ratner was nominated and confirmed by Congress to serve as assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security. The assessment of the "China Task Force" has set the direction for the various security situation assessment reports and national defense and military strategic assessment reports that have been issued successively, straightened out the primary and secondary relations, set the tone, and established a strategy to deal with China's challenges in a "whole-of-government" and "cross-departmental" manner. The Defense Department then adjusted its internal operating mechanisms, and Defense Secretary Austin personally inquired about China-related policies, operations and intelligence. The relevant agencies of the Ministry of Defense will also make adjustments accordingly to respond to the needs of the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" and serve the strategic competition with China.
Fourth, the CIA added a new mission center to address China's challenge. The events of 9/11 led the C.I.A. to shift its focus to counterterrorism. As a result of shifts in the way it works, the CIA has become increasingly resembling a paramilitary force ready to act. During Trump's administration, Gina Haspel, the head of the CIA, has made it clear that the focus of his work will shift from dealing with terrorist groups to the state, and has created the North Korea Mission Center and the Iran Mission Center. William Burns, the current C.I.A., called China the biggest geopolitical challenge for U.S. intelligence at his nomination hearing, calling for more resources, manpower and technological innovation. In his terms of office, he reorganized the CIA, merging the North Korea Mission Center and the Iran Mission Center into a regional center focused on the Middle East and East Asia, while announcing the creation of two new centers: the China Mission Center and the Transnational and Technology Mission Center. The former focuses on China, the "most important geopolitical threat" facing the United States in the 21st century, while the latter focuses on foreign technological advances such as those related to climate change and global public health. In addition, the C.I.A. has created additional positions as chief technology officers and established the Technology Fellows Program, while planning to send more China experts to Asia and regions where China is active to better analyze China's strategy and tactics.
The CIA has also adjusted its work style within the agency, identifying the exclusive geographic area or functional area of intelligence personnel, focusing on long-term operation and training professionals. In addition, the U.S. government has adjusted its intelligence budget allocation to make it more focused on China. The U.S. intelligence agency's annual budget is more than $85 billion, and the U.S. increased its budget for China by nearly 20 percent in fiscal year 2021. The reshuffling of intelligence agencies coincided with the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the withdrawal from the war on terror, a process that Sue Gordon, the chief deputy director of national intelligence, called "the third epoch of intelligence."
Fifth, U.S. law enforcement agencies have added new initiatives and actions against China. In November 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice launched the so-called China Initiative, which prioritizes investigating economic espionage and commercial espionage, developing enforcement strategies for non-traditional information gathering, countering malicious cyber activities, countering foreign influence and foreign intelligence activities, assessing foreign investment and telecommunications security, and urging business and academia to be vigilant. This is the U.S. Department of Justice's only country-specific initiative and is clearly discriminatory. Under the guidance of this initiative, the FBI deliberately harasses, investigates, arrests, and prosecutes Chinese, Chinese Americans, and individual Americans who have academic exchanges with Chinese universities on the grounds of preventing economic espionage and safeguarding national security. According to an investigation published on the MIT Technology Review website, only about 1/4 of the defendants charged by the U.S. Department of Justice under the "China Initiative" have been convicted, a large number of law enforcement activities have pointed to the integrity of researchers, many cases have little or no obvious connection to national security and commercial espionage, and 90 percent of the defendants charged under the initiative are of Chinese descent. The initiative created fear and anxiety for Chinese and Chinese Americans, seriously interfering with their work and life, and some Chinese who were engaged in visiting research in the United States chose to return home. After Biden took office, many people called on the Justice Department to end the initiative, but the prosecution and trial of the case continued, but the action slowed down.
The Department of Homeland Security has also increased its actions against China. In January 2021, on the eve of Trump's departure, the Department of Homeland Security issued the Department of Homeland Security's Strategic Action Plan for Responding to the Threat from China, which sets out various plans for how to protect U.S. homeland in an era of great power competition, including strengthening immigration screening to protect border security, strengthening trade rules and economic prosperity, strengthening cyber and infrastructure security, and strengthening maritime security.
In addition, the U.S. Congress has passed various pieces of legislation to empower the executive branch and strengthen its ability to compete strategically with China. In August 2018, Congress embedded the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 in the FY2019 John McCain Defense Authorization Act, requiring the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) to strengthen its review of foreign investment, urging the executive branch to provide more resource support to the commission, assist other countries in establishing a similar review process, and requiring the Commerce Department to provide Congress and the committee with a report on direct investment by Chinese companies in the United States every two years. Another law embedded is the Export Controls Act of 2018, which requires the president to establish a cross-agency mechanism to identify new controls on emerging and core technologies, tighten export licensing, and strengthen security screening. These pieces of legislation strengthen the powers of the relevant departments and enhance the content that targets specific countries, particularly China. In addition, the United States Innovation and Competition Act of 2021, which is currently being actively promoted, is all-encompassing, almost a declaration of fierce industrial competition between the United States and China.
In recent years, the adjustment and change of the US government's decision-making mechanism toward China has shown relatively distinct characteristics. All indications are that the United States has withdrawn from the 20-year war on terrorism in terms of both policy form and substance, and the focus of attention has shifted from terrorist organizations and terrorist actions to key countries and China. This adjustment is not only to add specific agencies or departments, or even adjust the division of labor, but more importantly, to achieve the overall planning and coordination of departments, and the adjustment of the National Security Council, the Ministry of National Defense and the CIA all have such characteristics. This is also the embodiment of the "whole government" approach that the United States has repeatedly emphasized in recent years, that is, to deal with the so-called "systemic challenges" in a systematic manner, and all government departments coordinate and link up to act synchronously in the political, economic, scientific, technological, military, and ideological fields to serve the long-term strategic competition of the United States against China.
3. The transformation of the U.S. decision-making team toward China
The China decision-making team is another window or indicator for observing the US strategy toward China. From the end of the Cold War to the time before Trump took office, the policy preferences of the US decision-making team on China were relatively certain, and the issues of concern were generally clear, so the direction and characteristics of the adjustment of the US China policy after the change of government still have traces to follow. The Democratic and Republican governments have a clear distinction in their China policies, and they also have strong continuity. With Trump in office, the certainty and clarity of the U.S. decision-making team on China is shifting.
Trump and Biden's political resumes and knowledge and perception of China vary widely. Trump lacks political experience, is informal in words and deeds, likes to subvert conventions, and does not accept the constraints of the bureaucracy. He does not understand China, but he has a very simplified understanding and obsession with China policy. Biden is almost the opposite of Trump. He served as a U.S. senator in 1972, gained insight into the rules of the political game and the characteristics of the bureaucracy in Washington, experienced half a century of international changes, and personally perceived the great changes in American power and the internal and external environment. Biden has experienced the development of Sino-US relations and the establishment of diplomatic relations throughout the process, witnessing the formation of the Sino-US and Soviet triangles, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, and the rapid rise of China. Biden has not only long been involved in U.S. foreign policy as a congressman, but also personally participated in the formulation and implementation of the Obama administration's China policy during his tenure as vice president. Equally important, he is, in a sense, a bystander to the Trump administration's adjustment of its China strategy. From the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States in 1979 to his election as president, Biden has visited China four times and witnessed a poor and weak China, a developing China and a rising China. Although the two presidents have different resumes, they both advocate strategic competition with China, and the degree of distinction between their policy tendencies is becoming more and more blurred, which is very different from before.
The foreign policy team of the Trump administration and the Biden administration has a markedly different understanding of China. Mr. Trump's foreign policy team is unfamiliar with China, and its key officials, whether in key positions on the National Security Council or other government functions, either don't know China at all, or have a deeper and more pronounced hostility to China, or they know China but have been far from the core of decision-making. Usually, these people are unlikely to enter the government to participate in policy decisions and practices, but it was they who led the adjustment of the US strategy toward China during the Trump administration. A number of national security advisers have been replaced during the Trump administration, with Flynn having a very brief tenure and limited influence; McMaster is a decent type; Bolton is a traditional Republican conservative; and O'Brien has a more distinct ideological preference. Whether or not Trump relies heavily on these national security advisers, they are not moderate or friendly forces in their China policy. Several other key figures who have profoundly influenced Trump's China policy are also hostile to China, such as Chief Strategist Bannon, who has a great influence on overall strategic issues, Navarro, director of the Trade and Manufacturing Policy Office, who has a great influence on economic and trade issues, and Bo Ming, deputy national security adviser who has a great influence on China and Asia-Pacific policy. Their worldview, China view, and methodology have been clearly presented in many remarks, and toughness, lack of patience, and fear of conflict are the main characteristics of their China policy preferences.
The China policy teams of other government agencies have similar characteristics. At the State Department, Pompeo, the Trump administration's second secretary of state, is full of ideological bias against China; Skinner, the director of the Policy Planning Office, has made remarks about the "contest of civilizations" between China and the United States, and Yu Maochun, a key figure in the department, has also taken a hard line on China policy; and Susan Thornton, who was nominated as assistant secretary of state for Asia-Pacific affairs, left the post early because he was moderate in China policy, and took over his post, David R. Thornton, who took over his post. Stilwell) is intellectual and tough, and belongs to the more typical conservative Republicans. His position is in the Department of Defense, and Randy Shriver, assistant secretary of state for Asia-Pacific affairs, is similar to Starvey's style. National Economic Council Director Kudlow, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Ross tend to deal with Sino-US economic and trade disputes in a dialogue and negotiation manner, but they have little impact on Trump; US Trade Representative Lighthizer has been strongly praised by Trump for advocating tariffs on China, becoming a key figure in handling Sino-US economic and trade disputes.
The Biden administration, by contrast, has assembled a completely different team. Within the National Security Council, the core team responsible for China policy includes National Security Adviser Sullivan, Indo-Pacific Coordinator Campbell, and Senior Director of China and Taiwan Affairs Rosenberg; in the State Department, the core team responsible for China policy includes Secretary of State Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State Sherman, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Daniel J. Kritenbrink, Chief Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kin W. Moy, and Kin W. Moy. Jung H. Pak, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Multilateral Affairs and Global China, and Rick Waters, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia; at the Department of Defense, the core team responsible for China policy includes Secretary of Defense Austin, Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Affairs Colin H. Kahl, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Rattner, Michael Chase, deputy assistant defense secretary for China affairs, etc. In addition, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Treasury Secretary Yellen, Commerce Secretary Raimondo, C.I.A. Burns, and incoming Ambassador to China R. Burns. Nicholas Burns) and others are also key figures in the U.S. decision-making team on China. Because the Biden administration has placed a particular emphasis on a "whole-of-government" approach to China policy, officials in charge of other regions or functional issues, such as Kerry's special envoy on climate change, will also be involved in decision-making on China.
Looking at the Biden administration's decision-making team on China, its characteristics are very prominent. First, it is a very professional team, they are familiar with the business they are in charge, have written and published relevant papers or review articles, have held more important positions in government departments, have rich work experience, and are familiar with the political decision-making process. Second, it is a team of acquaintances, a considerable number of senior officials who have had various intersections with President Biden, who have served biden as a member of Congress, vice president, participated in the presidential campaign, and served him in the transition period after the presidential campaign, and they have cooperated with each other for a long time and a high degree of coordination. Third, it is a team familiar with China issues, and a considerable number of officials can say Chinese, have had short-term study abroad or study visits and academic exchanges in China, have participated in the decision-making and implementation of Various China policies during the Obama administration, and have had more direct experience with Chinese officials. Fourth, this is a young team, Secretary of State Blinken is less than 60 years old, while U.S. Trade Representative Dai Qi, National Security Adviser Sullivan, Assistant Secretary of State Condell, Assistant Secretary of Defense Ratner, etc. are all "post-70s", and other members are "post-80s" or even "post-90s". Fifth, it is a team of professional bystanders who have witnessed the Trump administration's extremely confrontational approach to differences in the U.S.-China relationship, major adjustments in U.S. strategy toward China, and U.S.-China interaction in the political, economic, diplomatic, and security fields. Comparing the U.S. China policy team from the end of the Cold War to the Obama administration, it can also be found that the power of Wall Street has been difficult to see in the Trump administration and the Biden administration, and the voice of important US commercial interest groups in the government continues to weaken.
In addition, the distinction between members of the two parties in Congress on China policy is becoming increasingly blurred. In recent years, the US Congress has become more proactive in its China policy, frequently launching legislative motions, echoing the executive branch's strategic adjustment to China and jointly exerting pressure on China. Take the 116th National Assembly, for example, which has proposed 366 China-related bills in less than two years, covering trade, investment, national security, human rights, and information technology. Correspondingly, a group of young congressmen have risen rapidly, such as Republican Senators Marco Rubio (49), Josh Hawley (41), and Tom Cotton (44), who are political rising stars in the "post-Trump era" and are good at showing a tough stance on China policy and pushing the executive branch to strengthen and solidify the strategic adjustment of China. Members of Congress are not directly involved in U.S. foreign policy decisions toward China, but their policy influence will become more pronounced.
Comparing the Trump administration and the Biden administration's China decision-making team, we will find that the difference between the two administrations is very obvious, but its China policy is not fundamentally different, only the way and method are different. Why? This is partly due to changes in the nature of the U.S.-China relationship, which has narrowed the space for cooperation and coordination and expanded the content of conflict and confrontation. Another part of the reason is that the US China experts are undergoing "intergenerational transformation": the older generation of "China Passes" have gradually withdrawn from the stage, and a new generation of China experts have begun to influence and shape the US China policy in various forms from different angles. The professional qualities, knowledge systems, experiences and experiences of the new and old generations of China experts are different, and their cognition and perception of China are different, so they also reflect more significant differences in the practice of China policy. These differences are becoming increasingly clear in the interaction between China and the United States.
The understanding of China by the older generation of "China Communicators" is both "fragmented" and "systematic". Their Chinese are not necessarily fluent, but their reading scope is relatively extensive, and their understanding of China is pluralistic, multidimensional, and three-dimensional. They have seen China shift from closed and conservative to reform and opening up, from poor and weak to rich and strong. They understand the complexity of China, the economic and social gap between China's east, west, south, and north; they see an america that has always been strong and a China that is gradually becoming stronger. In general, their confidence is relatively strong and their self-confidence is relatively strong. They look at China from a longer historical period, eagerly expecting its politics, economy, and society to evolve in a direction that emulates the United States and the West in a broader sense; on the other hand, they are willing to try to understand China's policy logic and Chinese characteristics. The older generation of "China Connect" experienced the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, knew the risks of great power competition and confrontation, and when they became members of the decision-making team on China strategy or advised the United States on China strategy, their style was a traditional and classic diplomatic model: not only about policy, but also about politics.
The new generation of China experts in the United States have received relatively systematic training and have a high degree of "specialization" in a certain professional field. They have traveled many times in China, seen the rapid rise and development of China's economy in the past 20 years, and learned about China's most economically and socially developed coastal provinces. They have seen China become the world's second-largest economy and an increase in "rights defense" in foreign policy. They see an increasingly powerful China and a declining United States, and thus a stronger sense of competition. They are familiar with their professional fields, have experience in politics, and have been immersed in policy circles for a long time. They do not necessarily care about the overall thinking when dealing with problems, but they have a strong subjective tendency to "solve" problems rather than "discuss" problems. The new generation of China experts has not been tested by the "Cold War", and when they enter the government department as members of the decision-making team on China or provide policy advice for U.S. policy toward China, their style is biased toward being tough, talking about policy rather than necessarily politics.
IV. The US Strategic Readjustment toward China and the Prospects for Sino-US Relations
The George W. Bush administration brought the United States from the post-Cold War era into the era of the war on terror, and the Obama administration tried to withdraw from counterterrorism and shift its strategic focus eastward. The U.S. strategic adjustment to China was launched in this context, the Trump administration accelerated this process, and the Biden administration is translating the strategic adjustment to China into policy action.
There are two reasons that contributed to the current ADJUSTMENT of the US strategy toward China at both the domestic and international levels. The war on terror has depleted America's hard and soft power, and the United States needs to withdraw from it to stop the loss. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the anti-terrorist operations taken by the United States not only targeted al-Qaida, which launched terrorist attacks, but also targeted the Taliban regime that "sheltered" al-Qaida, and then expanded the war to Iraq, and the geographical scope of counter-terrorism was getting larger and larger, so that the United States fell into a "global war on terrorism.". Not only that, but the original intention of the United States government has shifted from fighting terrorism to eliminating the root causes of terrorism, and even committed to rebuilding some so-called "failed countries", which have overwhelmed them. At the same time, the marginal benefits of the United States in counter-terrorism continue to decline, China has begun to become a new target for the United States to adjust its strategy, and withdrawing from the war on terror has become a rational option.
The United States hopes to "cure internal and external diseases" in order to cope with the "anti-phagocytosis" of economic globalization on the United States. After the end of the Cold War, economic globalization was rapidly promoted by the United States, and the United States became the biggest beneficiary of economic globalization because of its leading technology, advanced management concepts and abundant capital. However, while economic globalization has brought huge profits to big capital and high-tech companies on Wall Street, it has also "squeezed out" the low-end manufacturing industry in the United States with low added value, high energy consumption and high pollution emissions. Low-end manufacturing can be moved out, but industrial workers in the United States cannot be relocated, which has led to many practitioners becoming victims of economic globalization, and the gap between rich and poor in the United States has intensified. These domestic problems were supposed to be resolved by the federal government, but the fierce partisanship prevented these social problems from being alleviated, and the United States instead blamed China for many of the problems it faced at home.
As China rises, the United States believes that China's rights defense actions have challenged the international order it dominates, so it adjusts its strategy toward China to cope with the pressure to maintain its international hegemonic position. In recent years, China has stepped up its rights defense actions in the East and South China Seas, which is considered to be a challenge to the alliance between the United States and Japan and the Philippines; China has demonstrated its determination and will to uphold the one-China principle in the Taiwan Strait, which has been identified by the United States as unilaterally changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and challenging the U.S. commitment to Taiwan; China has proposed the "Belt and Road" initiative, which is considered to be a geopolitical strategy designed to challenge the international leadership of the United States; and China's active participation, strengthening, or creation of regional mechanisms is considered to be challenging the U.S.-led international order. China proposed that China and the United States should respect each other's chosen political systems and development paths, and should respect each other's core interests and major concerns in foreign policy, but the United States did not respond positively, and regarded China's interaction with developing countries as an "export" of China's model.
From the launch of the U.S. strategic debate on China, to the U.S. military's announcement of deploying more strategic assets to the "Indo-Pacific" region, to the adjustment of the decision-making mechanism toward China and the intergenerational transformation of the Decision-Making Team in China, the adjustment of the U.S. strategy toward China is similar to the process of the United States and the Soviet Union moving from cooperation to confrontation after The end of World War II.
After Biden took office, many foreign policy actions taken by the United States are intensifying and solidifying the situation of competition and even confrontation. Diplomatically, the United States has promoted European allies to coordinate their China policies with them, built a "four-country security dialogue" mechanism, and formed a trilateral security partnership between the United States, Britain, and Australia; economically, the United States has taken a number of policy actions aimed at achieving Sino-US "decoupling" in the field of high and new technologies, and mobilizing advanced economies to follow similar policies adopted by it, reconstructing the industrial chain in the form of "small courtyards and high walls" to exclude China; ideologically, high-level US officials have made a big fuss about the Xinjiang issue, wantonly attacked China, and sanctioned Chinese officials. It is an attempt to use this as a tool to complete the domestic and international mobilization of strategic readjustment toward China.
President Biden and his foreign policy team argue that they have no intention of confronting China or fighting a "new Cold War," but their policy actions have shown a clear confrontational intent. "Fierce competition" with China will not solve many of the problems facing the United States, and today's China and the United States are very different from the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II. Nevertheless, the U.S. strategic adjustment to China has led to a long-term and normalization of the negative interaction between China and the United States, and this process will contain more accidents and crisis risks.
*Disclaimer: This article only represents the personal views of the author and does not represent the position of this official account
Think tank of the digital economy
Political Science and International Relations Forum
In order to better serve the construction of digital China, serve the construction of the "Belt and Road", and strengthen theoretical exchanges and practical exchanges in the process of digital economy construction. Experts and scholars from China's digital economy and the "Belt and Road" construction have established a digital economy think tank to contribute to the construction of digital China. Wei Jianguo, former vice minister of the Ministry of Commerce, served as honorary president, and well-known young scholars Huang Rihan and Chu Yin led the way. The Political Science and International Relations Forum is a dedicated platform under the umbrella of the Digital Economy Think Tank.