West needs a plan to compete with China
In February 1946, George Kennan, a senior American diplomat in Moscow, sent his famous “long telegram” to the U. S. secretary of state outlining a new strategy for managing relations with the Soviet Union. He later published an abbreviated version in Foreign Affairs magazine under the pseudonym “X.” Kennan’s missives, which articulated the case for what came to be known as the “policy of containment,” shaped America’s Cold War strategy for the subsequent 40 years.
We could sure use a modern version of the long telegram today as the U.S.- China geopolitical rivalry intensifies and the threat of a new Cold War looms. While there’s a growing consensus that Western countries need to rethink their economic and political relationships with China, there’s far less agreement on the goals, purpose and tactics of a new strategy. As Princeton University Prof. Aaron Friedberg has put it: “We’re now running behind ( the evolving U. S.- China relationship) trying to figure out exactly what we want it to look like.”
The impetus for these fast- moving developments is, of course, the COVID-19 crisis and China’s illegal incursion into Hong Kong. It’s not that the U. S.- China relationship wasn’t already fraught. But these recent episodes have intensified their geopolitical competition. Journalist Fareed Zakaria has characterized it as a shift from a “soft rivalry” to a “hard rivalry.”
One of the main casualties is the broad- based consensus that has shaped Western policies toward China for the past 40 years or so. The assumption was that greater economic integration would contribute to democratic reform within China and its full partnership in global governance. This has proven false as everyone from former U. S. treasury secretary Larry Summers to former speaker of the House Paul Ryan now concedes.
The past several weeks has instead exposed what a minority of voices such as National Post columnist Terry Glavin have been saying for several years. China is neither a “responsible stakeholder” nor a “status quo power.” Its economic and geopolitical ambitions are competitive rather than co-operative and its overriding priority is its own strategic and technological advantage. False hopes about Chinese liberalization have thus been replaced with hardened views about the renewal of “great power competition.”
Several commentators have come to describe it as a new Cold War. But the analogy isn’t precisely right. The West and China are much more economically integrated than was the case with the Soviet Union. The notion of separate and isolated blocs seems implausible. Just consider, for instance, that there are more than 140,000 Chinese students studying in Canada and another 370,000 in the United States. The current rivalry is also shaped less by ideological conflict and is more about technological competition in strategic areas such as artificial intelligence, biopharmaceuticals and semiconductors. U. S. Vice- President Mike Pence has called it a battle for the “commanding heights of the 21st- century economy.”
The tools of statecraft will therefore necessarily be different than in the Cold War. A technology-based competition will require serious and practical thinking about, among other things, supply chains, intellectual property, basic and industrial research, foreign investment, free trade and cybersecurity. It will be less about defeating the other side with a degree of finality and instead about staying ahead in an ongoing technological race.
It will also require new forms of co-operation among allies with shared priorities and values. The British government, for instance, is reportedly pursuing a new alliance of the G7 plus Australia, India and South Korea to create alternative suppliers of 5G equipment and other technologies so we don’t need to rely on Chinese firms for crucial supplies. This is a great idea.
Western countries should advance similar models in other areas of shared economic and security interests. One option that has been promoted by former Obama and Reagan administration appointees is the establishment of a Nato-like alliance focused on trade issues. The purpose would be to create “strength- in- numbers” in order to deter China from targeting smaller countries such as Australia and Canada with unfair trade actions. It’s also an idea worth pursuing.
But the key point here is that we’re going to need new approaches to a wide range of domestic policies and global arrangements to stay ahead. We cannot afford to be complacent. Falling behind would have major economic, political and technological consequences.
Many experts agree that the U. S.- China geopolitical and technological rivalry will likely shape the rest of this century. How countries such as Canada navigate this new world will be the most important question facing their political leaders in the coming years. The stakes are high. We could use a modern-day George Kennan and his long telegram to help us figure it out.
THE CURRENT RIVALRY (WITH CHINA) IS MORE ABOUT TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITION IN STRATEGIC AREAS. — SEAN SPEER