Officials in both U.S., China push relations toward point of no return
WASHINGTON — Step by step, blow by blow, the United States and China are dismantling decades of political, economic and social engagement, setting the stage for a new era of confrontation shaped by the views of the most hawkish voices on both sides.
With President Donald Trump trailing badly in the polls as the election nears, his national security officials have intensified their attack on China in recent weeks, targeting its officials, diplomats and executives.
While the strategy has reinforced a key campaign message, some American officials, worried Mr. Trump will lose, are also trying to engineer irreversible changes, according to people familiar with the thinking.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has inflamed the fight, brushing aside international concern about the country’s rising authoritarianism to consolidate his own political power and to crack down on basic freedoms, from Xinjiang to Hong Kong. By doing so, he has hardened attitudes in Washington, fueling a clash at least some in China believe could be dangerous to the country’s interests.
The combined effect could prove to be Mr. Trump’s most consequential foreign policy legacy, even if it’s not one he has consistently pursued: the entrenchment of a fundamental strategic and ideological confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.
A state of broad and intense competition is the end goal of the president’s hawkish advisers. In their view, confrontation and coercion, aggression and antagonism should be the status quo with the Chinese Communist Party, no matter who is leading the U.S. next year. They call it “reciprocity.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in a speech Thursday the relationship should be based on the principle of “distrust and verify,” saying the diplomatic opening orchestrated by President Richard Nixon nearly half a century ago had ultimately undermined American interests.
“We must admit a hard truth that should guide us in the years and decades to come: that if we want to have a free 21st century, and not the Chinese century of which Xi Jinping dreams, the old paradigm of blind engagement with China simply won’t get it done,” Mr. Pompeo said.
The events of the last week brought relations to yet another low.
On Tuesday, the State Department ordered China to shut down its Houston consulate, prompting diplomats there to burn documents in a courtyard. On Friday, in retaliation, China ordered the U.S. to close its consulate in the southwestern city of Chengdu. The Chinese Foreign Ministry the next day denounced what it called “forced entry” into the Houston consulate by U.S. law enforcement officers Friday.
In between, the U.S.
Department of Justice announced criminal charges against four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army for lying about their status to operate as undercover intelligence operatives in the United States. All four have been arrested. One, Tang Juan, who was studying at the University of California, Davis, ignited a diplomatic standoff when she sought refuge in the Chinese consulate in San Francisco but was taken into custody Thursday night.
This comes on top of a month in which the administration announced sanctions on senior Chinese officials, including a member of the ruling Politburo, over the mass internment of Muslims; revoked the special status of Hong Kong in diplomatic and trade relations; and declared China’s vast maritime claims in the South China Sea were illegal.
The administration also imposed a travel ban on Chinese students at graduate level or higher with ties to military institutions in China. Officials are discussing whether to do the same to members of the Communist Party and their families, a sweeping move that could blacklist 270 million people.
“Below the president, Secretary Pompeo and other members of the administration appear to have broader goals,” said Ryan Hass, a China director on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council who is now at the Brookings Institution. “They want to reorient the U.S.-China relationship toward an all-encompassing systemic rivalry that cannot be reversed by the outcome of the upcoming U.S. election.”
Beyond China, few of the Trump administration’s foreign policy goals have been fully achieved.
Mr. Trump’s personal diplomacy with Kim Jong-un has done nothing to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. His withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal has further alienated allies and made that country’s leaders even more belligerent. His effort to change the government in Venezuela failed. His promised withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan has yet to occur.
In Beijing, some officials and analysts have publicly dismissed many of the Trump administration’s moves as campaign politics, accusing Mr. Pompeo and others of promoting a Cold War mentality to score points for an uphill re-election fight. There is a growing recognition, though, that the conflict’s roots run deeper.
The breadth of the administration’s campaign has vindicated those in China — and possibly Mr. Xi himself — who have long suspected the U.S. will never accept the country’s growing economic and military might or its authoritarian political system.
“It’s not just electoral considerations,” said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor at the School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing. “It is also a natural escalation and a result of the inherent contradictions between China and the United States.”