The U.S. needs unity to confront China

WASHINGTON — Behind the frosty exchange with Chinese diplomats in Anchorage last week, U.S. diplomats see a deeper danger: The Chinese appear so confident that the United States is in decline that they’re pushing the limits and “unsettling the Asian operating system,” as one top U.S. official puts it.

“We are seeing growing assertiveness from China,” argues Kurt Campbell, the National Security Council’s top

Asia expert, who attended the meetings along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake

Sullivan. “Our approach is to be direct — to avoid needless provocation, but to convey our sense of purpose and staying power,” he told me after returning from Alaska.

Washington put down another marker on Monday, joining European countries in announcing sanctions against China for human rights violations against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province. That move followed U.S. sanctions announced last week, on the eve of the Anchorage meeting, against 24 Chinese and Hong Kong officials for suppressing rights in Hong Kong.

The Biden administration’s baseline goal with China is evidently to buy some time — to gain a year to put the United States’ house back in order. That means focusing on domestic issues, such as curing the coronavirus pandemic, rebuilding the U.S. economy and restoring a measure of bipartisanship in Washington. And it means rebuilding alliances by reassuring regional partners such as Japan, South Korea, India and Australia that the United States is back.

The Anchorage meeting was partly formulaic. The two sides exchanged sharp criticism, but the Chinese also promoted, as always, their eagerness for “win-win cooperation,” while the Americans proposed working together on mutual concerns, such as Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and climate change. What was different this time, perhaps, was an unspoken Chinese sense that because of the United States’ internal divisions, Beijing has the upper hand.

The biggest potential flash point is Taiwan, where the Chinese might be tempted to exploit what they see as U.S. weakness and division. Normally, the Chinese believe that time is on their side and play a waiting game, but Taiwan might be an exception. In private conversations, Americans are cautioning the Chinese not to overplay their hand against a country that has immense military experience.

The message to Beijing on Taiwan seems to be: Don’t push your luck and overturn a stable status quo. “We have stressed that the Chinese would need a lot of confidence about how things would go to take preemptive action on Taiwan,” explains one official. “We need to underscore the unpredictable and dangerous nature of a conflict over Taiwan.”

Blinken and Sullivan underlined the United States’ continuing commitment to the “foundational documents” on Taiwan. Those include three joint communiqués, signed in 1972, 1979 and 1982, in which the United States acknowledges “one China” across the Taiwan Strait; the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act that established de facto diplomatic relations with Taiwan; and the “Six Assurances” of 1982 that the United States would continue to support Taiwan even though it didn’t have formal state-to-state ties.

The durability of this ambiguous status quo has been a diplomatic achievement, the Americans stressed to their Chinese counterparts, top diplomats Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi. “We argued that an underappreciated model for U.S.-China relations going forward is the long-term management of the Taiwan issue,” Campbell explained. “It has been a successful but at times challenging effort — built on distrust to be sure — but steadied by restraint on all sides and open lines of communication.”

The Chinese initially appeared almost cocky in Anchorage, with Yang lecturing his hosts about the United States’ moral and diplomatic shortcomings. This message was probably intended to impress the domestic audience back in China about Beijing’s resolve. But behind this outward confidence, the Chinese seemed peeved that before the Anchorage meeting Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had traveled to China’s backyard to visit neighboring Japan and South Korea.

The Biden administration’s emphasis on “the Quad” — the informal U.S. partnership with India, Japan and Australia — has at least modestly bolstered the United States’ position in the region. India, in particular, has moved farther and faster than U.S. officials expected. And Japan, though feeling its way under new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, remains a committed partner.

China faces a paradox in Asia: The stronger and more confident it becomes, the more it frightens its neighbors and pushes them toward Washington. That’s why the United States’ recent political disarray worries its Asian allies: Against a rising China, they don’t want to bet on a fading superpower.

The Biden administration has already started fixing three areas of U.S. weakness relative to China: The pandemic is receding, the economy is beginning to roar, and the technology sector is getting government research money and planning. Convincing the world that Biden can heal the United States’ political divisions is the hardest task — and probably the most important in restoring the credibility of American power.