Professional Documents
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China Relations Core - Berkeley 2016
China Relations Core - Berkeley 2016
2016
***Uniqueness***
Relations High
U.S. and Chinese officials are continuing to coordinate against the threat of
online crime and are working to ensure that hacking allegations do not lead
to hostilities between the world powers. On the heels of a meeting in the District of
Columbia between high-level officials from both countries, the Department of Justice on Wednesday further
aim to nail down the scope and procedures for the hotline before their next cybersecurity meeting in
Beijing in June. The idea of establishing emergency lines of communication that resemble the type of Cold
War-era hotline set up between the U.S. and Russia to avoid escalation and paranoia centered around
relationship had gone through many ups and downs since diplomatic ties
were established, he said. It has always been moving forward, which I
believe is the underlying trend, he added.
before. While our cooperation is expanding and deepening, our differences stand out more and more.
While there is growing evidence that our two countries are increasingly
connected to each other, there are also mounting worries that we might
eventually clash. This is, I believe, partly because of the inherent complexities of the relationship,
and partly because fundamental changes in the global political and economic
structure have made these complexities even more complicated and have
magnified their impact. Therefore, the China-U.S. relationship today is probably at
another defining moment. How we define and direct it now will have far-reaching consequences.
Both countries have a big stake in the choices we are going to make. Whether or not we will be able to
make the right choices depends on a few key factors. First, it will depend on our vision of the world today.
Do we see a world in which great powers can and should coexist and cooperate with one another, or do we
see it as a place of inherent conflict among those powers? Do we embrace the opportunities for win-win
cooperation, or do we believe in the inevitability of a zero-sum game? Do we base our policies on full
recognition of 21st century global challenges with a view to partnership and community building, or do we
still see everything through the lens of allies versus rivals? Actually, the case for great-power partnership
and global community building is now stronger than ever. We are all faced with tremendous global
challenges: climate change, disease, natural disasters, terrorism, poverty, energy security, food security,
financial instability, and so on. On the positive side, all major powers are now members of key international
institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World
Trade Organization. We are also working together in new global governance mechanisms such as the G20.
All of this means that the major powers are committed to the maintenance and better functioning of the
existing international order. As long as there is sufficient political will, it will be possible for us to seize this
historic opportunity and build a new partnership for long-term stability and prosperity in the world. Here let
me say a few words about U.S. alliances in the world. We all know the origins of these alliances and how
they operated during the Cold War era. People may believe that they served American interests well in
those years. But here is the question today. Without necessary reforms, are these alliances really up to the
task of addressing the global challenges of the 21st century? Are they winning more partners for the
United States or are they turning away and even antagonizing other important players? Second, our ability
to make the right choices will depend on our perceptions of each other. There are people in the United
States who believe that everything China does is aimed at challenging the U.S. position in the world. And
there are people in China who think that everything the United States does is intended to contain China. I
believe that both groups are wrong because neither has come to recognize that, when it comes to
policymaking in countries like China and the United States, there are always many variables in the
equation. For China, the top priority is to accomplish economic, social, and political transformation for the
modernization of the country. Its most important tasks are domestic and its foreign policy is first and
foremost aimed at preserving a peaceful external environment. Naturally, as China develops and
integrates more deeply with the rest of the world, it will have more interests to attend to beyond its
borders and greater international responsibilities to fulfill. In doing so, China has to deal with the United
States and develop a positive and stable relationship with it. Of course, when U.S. policies hurt Chinas
interests, we will do what we can to safeguard and protect ourselves and ask the United States to change
its position. But this is entirely different from challenging the American global position and trying to
establish Chinas own dominance in the world. We are also aware that nowadays what China says and does
is closely followed by many. But some prevailing perceptions are simply wrong. A telling example is the
issue of the South China Sea. The real issue there is disputes over territorial and maritime jurisdiction.
China is doing nothing more than maintaining and defending its long-standing and legitimate position. But
this has been grossly misperceived as a strategic move by China to challenge U.S. dominance in the Pacific
and the world. American responses to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road
Initiative are similar examples of misperceived intentions. Some people seem to be concerned about a socalled Asian version of the Monroe Doctrine. They see Chinas call for Asians to take up more responsibility
for Asian affairs as an attempt to drive the United States out of Asia, whereas China is simply saying that
no one else can solve Asian problems if we Asians fail to shoulder our own responsibilities. The fact is that
China consistently stands for open and inclusive regional cooperation. But there is an alarming
development toward exclusion here. Today, whatever China does, even within its own territory, some
people in the United States always question Chinas intentions and challenge Chinas position. So the
reality is not that China is trying to drive anyone out of the Asia-Pacific, but that there are attempts to deny
Chinas legitimate interests in its own region. I would call this a Monroe Doctrine in reverse. Third, whether
or not we can manage differences while enhancing cooperation will depend on our will and our skill .
It is
encouraging to note that China-U.S. cooperation is expanding and deepening.
Our success stories include agreements on climate change and the Iran nuclear issue. However, there are
always differences between us. Many of them will not disappear overnight. It is imperative to manage
them in a constructive and pragmatic way, so that they will not dominate our bilateral agenda and derail
the overall relationship. We are doing relatively well on some issues, such as cyber-security. But we have
reason to be concerned about others, such as the situation in the South China Sea. Statements made by
U.S. officials and actions taken by the American military risk escalating tensions there. There have been
assertions that the United States is against actions to militarize the South China Sea. But it is the United
States that is sending more and more military vessels and airplanes there. Such deployments, if not
curbed, can only have the effect of militarizing the region. There have been demands on China to abide by
international rules, especially the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. But these same people
are denying Chinas rights under the Convention. Besides that, they often forget to mention that the scope
of the Convention does not cover sovereignty and territorial issues, as made clear in the Convention itself.
The concept of freedom of navigation is frequently used to justify actions by the U.S. military in the South
China Sea. The fact is that the U.S. freedom of navigation operations were originally designed as a countermeasure against the freedom of navigation defined by the Convention, as the United States believed that
the Convention provisions would restrict freedom of movement of its navy around the world. What is more
disturbing is that such statements and actions are likely to embolden some players to be even more
aggressive and provocative. And we are told that the U.S. alliance obligations would be invoked if China
responds to such provocations. It could be that all of this is intended to intimidate China, not to start a real
conflict. But what if China is not intimidated? This approach is clearly a path to conflict. It is indeed a
dangerous path and an irresponsible policy. In conclusion, the world has changed. We need a new vision for
our relationship based on a recognition of the new realities in the world. China and the United States
should form a new partnership to work together on todays global challenges. This will help both countries
to better accomplish domestic goals and fulfill international roles. It will thus serve the interests of the
next year, and we should keep moving forward on this positive track. I hope and believe that this
Leadership Forum will take the lead in helping shape government policies and public opinion in support of
our joint efforts.
Iran
ebola
military collaboration
export growth
paris deal
north korea
we
have seen real progress on important issues that do advance our interest s.
The relationship that we have been working on with China paved the way for a landmark
joint announcement on climate change that galvanized the international community to reach a global
climate agreement in Paris last December and sign it in New York just last week. We
engaged China in the global response to Ebola with positive effec t. We grounded
our work together to craft a deal that prevents Iran from developing a nuclear
weapon far into the future. We produced new confidence-building measures
between our militaries, and we sparked growing collaboration to meet
development challenges from Afghanistan to Sierra Leon e. From top to bottom, this
we can; and where we cant to manage those differences peaceably. Over the past year, we believe
Administration has worked to expand and deepen our diplomatic, military, economic, and people-to-people
we have taken significant steps to make it more difficult for North Korea to acquire technology and
equipment for those programs or the resources to pay for them, the fact remains that their development
continues. As a result, they get closer to the day when they have the capacity to strike at our allies, at our
partners, and at the United States with a ballistic missile armed with a miniaturized nuclear warhead. That
is simply unacceptable. This threatcombined with an inexperienced leader who acts rashlymakes it an
urgent priority not only for us but increasingly for China. While the United States and China share an
interest in ensuring that North Korea does not retain a nuclear weapons capability, we have not always
agreed on the best way to reach that objective.
China plays
an active role in establishing, constructing and upholding this international nuclear security
architecture. China supported the NSS process by participating in and carrying out the
outcomes of the previous summits. In The Hague in 2014, President Xi put forward a Chinese approach to
nuclear security for the first time, which provided an important and useful perspective to promote
placed more emphasis on the overall planning of nuclear security and made great efforts in various fields
from the improvement of administration to the formulation and amendments of laws and regulations,
the development of advanced technology and the fostering of nuclear security culture. By doing so, China
achieved movement forward in developing nuclear security, which constitutes an important contribution to
the international nuclear security architecture. We will
At the same
time, China fully participates in global nuclear security governance. Alongside other countries, China is
committed to promoting a healthy and sustainable development of the international nuclear security
process. China firmly supports the work of the IAEA and the U.N., and continuously benefits from the
deepening exchange and cooperation with other countries on nuclear security. China takes an active role in
rule-making in the field of nuclear security and plays a constructive role in influencing the nuclear security
governance and establishment of nuclear order. In the end, China adds its share to the cause of global
nuclear security by utilizing its experience and capacity. Though this is the conclusion of the NSS process,
the endeavor to promote global nuclear security will never stop. The small steps we made will lead to
great advances in the field of nuclear security. We will build an international nuclear security architecture
featuring fairness and win-win cooperation and will embrace a world with shared nuclear security.
that its all theirs and please everyone else stay away. US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) speaks during a
session on across from Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (R) during a Strategic Track small session as
part of the US China Strategic and Economic Dialogues at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on June
6, 2016.President
the United States both move in predictable ways and military commanders from each side have probably
ordered no shooting except in extreme cases, says Denny Roy, senior fellow with the East-West Center
think tank in Honolulu. The idea is the United States could strike on behalf of its old colony the Philippines
Wang Yang told a news briefing on Tuesday. "We will try to reach a mutually beneficial and high-level
agreement at an early date," he said. A negative list outlines sectors closed to foreign investment. The last
time the two sides exchanged such lists was in early September last year, days ahead of Chinese President
for a BIT to become realistic," Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International
Economics, told Xinhua. That will "bode well" for the negotiations if China's new negative list offer is
"significantly reduced" in length from the previous offer, said John Frisbie, president of the U.S.-China
Business Council (USCBC). China and the United States started to negotiate a BIT in 2008 and 24 rounds of
talks were held ahead of the eighth S&ED as both countries sought to increase mutual investment. STEEL
the United States to use "internationally-accepted, legally-sound" trade tools to address distortions in the
U.S. market caused by overcapacity problems. The China-U.S. annual strategic dialogue comes at a time
when steel overcapacity has become an acute global challenge and U.S. steel producers are increasingly
resorting to trade remedies and tariff protection to ride out a sluggish steel market, a practice strongly
opposed by Chinese steel producers and exporters. Kirkegaard said he was convinced that this round of
strategic dialogue "will help prevent a much more damaging confrontation later this year over steel and
help channel the issue into a multilateral OECD-led process." RMB TRADING & CLEARING IN U.S. China has
set up offshore RMB trading hubs in Hong Kong, London and Toronto, but the U.S. market remains
untapped. China will grant the United States a quota of 250 billion yuan (38 billion U.S. dollars) under the
country's Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor program and appointed one Chinese and one
U.S. bank to conduct RMB clearing business in the United States, according to the statement. "It's very
for promoting cooperation and managing differences between the world's two largest economies, but this
mechanism needs improvement to become more effective in the future. "As we approach the close of the
dialogue can be tweaked to make further improvements and become more effective, but high-level
engagement is now mandatory in the U.S.-China relationship," he added. Kirkegaard said the S&ED is very
important issue suddenly needs to be dealt with in U.S.-China relations, in the S&ED the two governments
have a channel available," he said. "This S&ED will surely have been instrumental in paving the
ground for any big announcements made when President Xi and President Obama meet later in the year
and also for
steel,"
he said
Relations UQ no war
Public support to avoid military conflict with China is high
and is less likely to cause conflict between the US and
China.
A. Trevor Thrall, senior fellow for the Cato Institutes Defense and Foreign
Policy Department, Eric Gomez, research associate for defense and foreign
policy studies at the Cato Institute, 6/9/2016, THE AMERICAN PUBLIC IS NOT
VERY HAWKISH ON CHINA, Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org/blog/americanpublic-not-very-hawkish-china
Most importantly, though, Americans overwhelming support a cooperative
approach to dealing with China rather than a confrontational one. Sixty-seven
percent responded to the 2014 CCGA poll that the best way to handle the rise
of Chinese power is to undertake friendly cooperation and engagement ,
compared to 29% who said the United States should actively work to limit
the growth of Chinas power. And when it comes to the prospect of military
conflict with China the public is truly not interested. Just 26% believe the
United States should send troops to help if China invades Taiwan. These
figures provide fair warning to the next president to think twice about how to
deal with China. An aggressive military posture like the one in place today
(and promoted by both candidates) not only runs contrary to public
preferences, it also increases the prospects for direct conflict between the
United States and China.
and should maintain this key position that strengthening cooperation yields
more benefits for all than does dwelling on diversions and friction points.
international military forums. His comments come at a time where mil-mil relations between the United
States and China are growing ever more consequential, in light of recent developments in the Asia-Pacific.
militarization in the region and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea
heighten the need for mil-mil contacts as a way to manage tensions, ensure
stability, and communicate each sides respective interests to avoid
miscalculations. Both Washington and Beijing have acknowledged the importance
of the U.S.China relationship for maintaining stability in the Asia-Pacific .
Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping jointly advocated for a more mature and
robust mil-mil relationship during respective state visits in November 2014 and September 2015.
Clearly both sides want to avoid military tensions and armed conflict because
they recognize that conflict would be disastrous for both countries and
catastrophic for the region. However, the United States and China share a long
history of highs and, more frequently, lows in the mil-mil domain, given its correlation to
overall political ties. The mil-mil relationship took root during the SinoSoviet split. But mil-mil
relations fluctuated in the following years, subject to the ripple effects of the
Increasing
Tiananmen Square incident, the cross-strait crisis in 1995 and 1996, NATOs accidental bombing of the
Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, the EP-3 incident, and arms sales to Taiwan .
not cynicism. In
particular, there is now a heightened awareness about the need for more restraint in suspending ties. For
example, Admiral Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, was welcomed in November 2015
by Chinese counterparts, despite the USS Lassens freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea
a few days earlier. A new round of arms sales to Taiwan late last year also did not result in suspension of
mil-mil activities, serving as another solid indicator. Yet the mil-mil program between the United States and
China could be further optimized in the near term through collaboration in areas of shared interests. This
includes enhancing communication mechanisms to reduce miscalculations and assuage differences. For
example, they could mutually determine the correct mix of mil-mil activities or clarify interests to the other
party.
Longer term, the development of a collaborative agenda could both increase security and
strengthen the relationship in important ways. There seems to be scope based off the success of extraregional initiatives such as the Gulf of Aden exercises for the United States and China to develop a
framework of mil-mil engagement through activities that manage each others important constraints and
deal with existing challenges.
because both the United States and China have failed to effectively communicate their respective
have not seen adequate efforts to this and. And so the mistrust and suspicions continue. As Peking
Universitys Wang Jisi, dean of the Institute for International and Strategic Studies, pointed out last year in
an influential essay on Sino-U.S. relations, the problem of two orders lies at the heart of the Sino-U.S.
seems like an inevitable conflict between a dominant power and a rising power, both China and the United
States should take a step back and reevaluate their fundamental interests with regard to the South China
Sea. Once this is done, China will realize its first priority is to realize the China dream or modernization
for the Chinese people, not its claims in the South China Sea. Also, the United States will realize that its
own first priority is maintaining a liberal international order, which can only be done by bringing China into
politics
Relations Low
The
lawmakers said China continues to follow old models of investment-led
growth and that path is creating severe shocks in the global marketplace.
At the same time, the new policies that China is unveiling appear to
undermine fair and open competition in the Chinese market, they wrote. The
lawmakers also noted that trade secrets theft in China is a major problem for
U.S. companies. Additionally, Beijing is implementing policies that will
hamper the development of the digital economy and U.S. agricultural exports
to China continue to face significant regulatory barriers. "Despite positive
commitments made by China during President Xis visit to Washington last
year, approval of innovative U.S. biotechnology products remains slow,
irregular, and unpredictable," they wrote. "This situation has caused serious price
In the evening, he will attend a dinner with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang at the Summer Palace.
disruptions in the international market for U.S. agricultural products and harm
to U.S. farmers." "There are important, difficult reforms and course
corrections that China must undertake in order to make it possible for the
U.S.-China economic relationship and the global economy to achieve
their full potentials," they wrote. "We urge you to impress upon China the
enormous stakes at issue in our bilateral relationship and partnership."
Chinas illegal,
subsidizing of an industry the U.S. government recently accused of
dumping, or selling products below production cost to improperly gain market
share. From outright government ownership to an array of illegal subsidies, Chinese steel
companies are being propped up at the expense of U.S. and other producers,
American officials and firms complain. When U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew presses
of high-level U.S.-China talks kicking off in Beijing Monday. The trouble, he says, is
unfair
Beijing on the matter, Chinese officials will likely reiterate recent promises to gradually cut annual
production by 100 million to 150 million tons over the next five years. But Nucor is taking a seeing is
We dont need any more promises, said Mr. Ferriola. What we need is for China to provide a capacity
reduction plan that provides timelines and a mechanism to verify that cuts have occurred. And even if the
country delivers on its existing promises, that is only a slice of the estimated 425 million tons many
consider needs to be shuttered in China to balance out supply with demand. To put that in perspective, the
entire U.S. steel market is only around 100 million tons. China has conflicting motivations. Beijing knows it
needs to cut production across a range of industrial sectors so as not to exacerbate growing debt problems
that risk creating a financial crisis. At the same time, it risks a dangerous surge in unemployment and a
sharp deceleration in growth if it moves too quickly and allows its unproductive capacity to fall offline.
Thats a particular problem for President Xi Jinping as he seeks to consolidate power ahead of a key
enforce our trade laws, Mr. Ferriola said. If we allow Chinas steel producers to break our trade laws
without any consequences, that will embolden other Chinese manufacturers to do the same thing, he
said. Anyone who thinks theyre not going to take the next step down stream is dreaming. Such concerns
are driving opposition to the administration potentially declaring China a market economy in December,
a move that will change how the government calculates tariffs against allegedly unfair Chinese imports.
Under the deal the U.S. signed with China when it backed its entry into the World Trade Organization,
Washington agreed to no longer recognize the country as a non-market economy after 15 years. We
should vigorously oppose Chinas ascension to market economy status, the Nucor chief said. The
Communist country has failed to meet the criteria needed, he said. They broke those rules, they violated
Russia and China are now seeing eye to eye on Syria, US-inspired regime
changes in many countries and other important international political
problems. Meanwhile, Sino-US cooperation has been put under political pressure
by Washingtons concern about Chinas peaceful rise (the favorite expression of the
Chinese foreign ministry, describing Chinas growth as devoid of imperial ambitions). The new
configuration of forces on the world stage reflects in the dynamic of Putin-Xi summits. At least two of the
last years meetings between the leaders had an important symbolic meaning. The BRICS summit in Ufa the capital of an autonomous region with a mostly Muslim population in central Russia - took place in July
2015. The Ufa summit is seen now as the most productive in terms of BRICS development projects, with
labeled China's behavior in the South China Sea "self-isolating" and visited American aircraft carriers in the
area. Read more Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sergey GuneevShanghai Cooperation Organization
expands, commands respect worldwide Putin to Xinhua I dont think Russia needs to get involved in
the Sino-American rivalry in the South China Sea directly, said Aleksandr Lukin, the director of
the Center for East Asian Studies at MGIMO University in Moscow. But this rivalry creates an important
supplied to China via the 2,500-mile Power of Siberia pipeline now under construction. The deal, worth
$400 billion over 30 years, was helped by the fact that days earlier Obama promised American support to
just about all of Chinas rivals in South-East Asia. The EU is also helping Russian-Chinese cooperation by
threatening to reduce its dependence on Russian energy. The recent threat by the European Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker to apply the same EU legislation to the newly planned Nord Stream-2
pipeline - which foiled Russias South Stream project to supply gas to Greece and Italy - will no doubt make
Russias turn to the East timelier than ever. Russias turn to China is natural, and wise people would not
need the EU and the US to tell them that Russia had to look east at last, said Sergey Karaganov, Dean of
the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the Moscow-based Higher School of Economics.
But we had a lot of illusions about the West, for many years after the fall of communism in 1991. We
should thank the disastrous leadership of Mr. Obama and the Eurocrats for setting us on the right path.
entertainment software, 90% for records and music, and 82% for business software. Piracy in China for business and
entertainment software alone is estimated to cost U.S. firms $3.5 billion in lost trade annually, which were was than losses
from any other foreign country.50 The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that China accounted for 81%
($221 million domestic value) of pirated goods seized by the agency in FY2008.51 Piracy also has a number of negative
effects on Chinas economy. For example: The Chinese government estimates that counterfeits constitute between 15%
and 20% of all products made in China and are equivalent to about 8% of Chinas annual gross domestic product. A
study by the Motion Picture Association of America estimated that Chinas domestic film industry lost about $1.5 billion in
revenue to piracy in 2005 (and that the combined losses of both foreign and Chinese film makers totaled $2.7 billion).52 It
also found that about half of pirated films in China are Chinese movies. A Business Software Alliance study estimates
that a 10 percentage point reduction in Chinas PC software piracy rates would raise its GDP by $20.5 billion and create an
additional 355,179 jobs. Opinions differ as to why the Chinese government has been unable (or unwilling) to make a
significant reduction in the level of piracy in China. Some explanations put forward by various analysts include the
following: Chinas transformation from a Soviet-style command economy (in which the government owned and
controlled nearly every aspect of the economic life) to one that is becoming more market-based is a very recent
occurrence. IPR is a relatively alien or unfamiliar concept for most people in China to grasp (as is the concept of private
Chinese
leaders want to make China a major producer of capital-intensive and hightechnology products, and thus, they are tolerant of IPR piracy if its helps
Chinese firms become more technologically advanced .54 Although the central
government may be fully committed to protect IPR, local government officials
are often less enthusiastic to do so because production of pirated products generates
jobs and tax revenue, and some officials may be obtaining bribes or other benefits which
property rights) and thus it is difficult for the government to convince the public that piracy is wrong.53
prompts them to tolerate piracy. The USTRs April 2009 report on IPR stated it was concerned by reports that government
officials in China were urging more lenient enforcement of IPR laws because of the impact of the global financial crisis.
As a developing country, China lacks the resources and a sophisticated legal system
to go after and punish IPR violators, and establishing an effective enforcement
regime will take time.5 As a practical matter, IPR enforcement in China will be
problematic until Chinese-owned companies begin to put pressure on the
government to protect their own brands and other IPR-related products. U.S. trade officials
note that the Chinese government took aggressive action during the 2008 summer
Olympics in Beijing to stop infringement activities. Chinese trade barriers and
regulatory restrictions on IPR-related products and their distribution are so onerous
that they prevent legitimate products from entering the market, or raise costs
high that they are unaffordable to the average individual, thus creating a huge demand for lowcost pirated products.
so
to the United States from a steady drain of U.S. commercial secrets and other private information
norms, it is difficult for U.S. leaders to craft an effective response. That problem is particularly acute with
commercial cyberespionage because many American businesses prefer to keep cyberthefts private to
avoid undermining investor confidence.
rules that Beijing is manipulating for protectionist purposes makes it very difficult to counter these actions.
Forbidden Citys Qianlong Garden in Beijing, June 5, 2016. ENLARGE U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and
Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong tour the Forbidden Citys Qianlong Garden in Beijing, June 5, 2016.
Photo: Reuters . Candidly,
Taiwans election of a new leader from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, leading to pressure by
Beijing to insure against a declaration of independence; pro-democracy activism in Hong Kong, most
recently fueled by Chinas illegal seizure of five journal editors; and the Beijing leaderships assault on civil
society, which has created a backlash against President Xi that surely troubles his inner circle. These are
all sources of actual or potential pressure on political leaders not to stray from their tough stances on
international issues. Containment of China? Like the Philippines, Vietnam is a big fan of a larger US military
presence in Southeast Asia. How ironic that the one-time US base at Cam Ranh Bay may soon be regularly
visited again by the US Navy for resupply, while US multinational corporations eagerly pursue investment
opportunitiesdespite Vietnams serious human rights problems and growing rich-poor divide. In return for
US access, Obama announced an end to the US embargo on arms sales to Vietnam at the time of his visit
to Vietnam in late May. Though he explicitly stated that the decision was part of the normalization of
relations with Vietnam and unrelated to China, of course it had everything to do with reining in China
(while, unfortunately, setting aside US human-rights concerns). The official Chinese response to the USVietnam agreement was subdued. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said China welcomes normal relations
between Vietnam and the United States. Likewise, the China Daily found nothing amiss in Obamas
the three-day
visit has been described by some as a pivotal move in the US strategic
rebalancing to curb the rise of China. The US, they say, is using Vietnam as
an offset to Chinas growing strength in the region , especially after tensions increased in
the South China Sea because of regional countries competing sovereignty claims. This, if true,
bodes ill for regional peace and stability, as it would further complicate the situation in the
South China Sea, and risk turning the region into a tinderbox of conflicts . India is a
agreement but only so long as Chinas interests are not harmed: It is worrying to note
newcomer to US maritime strategy, though the Pentagon doesnt officially classify India as a partner in
containing China. But how else to interpret Indias signing of a Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific
and Indian Ocean region with the United States, a Special Strategic and Global Partnership with Japan and
a Framework for Security Cooperation with Australia, frequent visits to India since 2008 by US defense
secretaries, a pending logistics support agreement that would enable repair and resupply of US air and
naval forces on Indian territory, and official Indian statements with the US and Southeast Asian countries
about the destabilizing effects of (read Chinas role in) the South China Sea dispute? As US relations with
Pakistan deterioratethe drone strike that killed the Taliban leader on May 21 was conducted without
Pakistans approvalties with India become more crucial to Washington. Though no one is talking about a
formal alliance, cooperative ties with India, highlighted by Prime Minister Nahendra Modis visit to
Washington in June, stretches US military arrangements around Chinas rim, notably with a longtime
adversary of Chinas. During his visit, Modi was quite effusive about mutual security concerns, among
them freedom of navigation on seas.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Monday. But Carter and President Barack Obama, who is
visiting Vietnam, insisted the move was not directed at China, which is locked in a dispute with Hanoi and
other neighbors over ownership of islands throughout the sea. The decision to lift the ban was not based
on China or any other considerations, Obama said at a press conference in Hanoi on Monday. It was
based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving towards normalization with
Carter echoed Obama, saying the move to sell arms to Vietnam was
not aimed at Beijing, he said theres no question that Chinas actions there,
particularly those over the past year, have heightened concern in the region,
and thats another factor that causes everyone to want to work with us. In
Vietnam. While
terms of its wider regional meaning, what it is is a reflection of the fact that more and more countries in
the region are coming to the United States to do more and more with us because of their general concern
with the security environment, Carter told reporters en route to New Haven, Conn., where he will watch
the commissioning of Yales first graduating ROTC class since the 1970s. Deepening U.S.-Vietnamese
military cooperation is part of a larger trend under Obama of improving bilateral relations with Pacific Rim
a decades-long embargo on the sales of lethal arms to Vietnam. Were going to continue to engage in the
case-by-case evaluations of these sales, Obama said. But what we do not have is a ban thats based on
an ideological division between our two countries, because we think, at this stage, both sides have
established a level of trust and cooperation, including between our militaries, that is reflective of common
interests and mutual respect.
resolving the disputes on how China tackles its overcapacity or over the South China Sea, according to
experts at Wharton and New York University. The disputes actually seem to make sense for select interest
groups in both countries, the experts said.
in the disputed waters and employ international law to help resolve the issue. The lure of Chinese money is
having an impact in the Philippines, where President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has made wildly contradictory
comments on the issue but has suggested some openness to bilateral negotiations if China builds
railways there. Carter: China risks erecting 'Great Wall of self-isolation' Play Video1:36 U.S. Defence
Secretary Ash Carter urges China to join a "principled security network" for Asia during a regional security
summit. (Reuters) A farcical display of disunity from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was
another case in point. On Tuesday, China sensed a mild rebuke when ASEAN appeared to issue a statement
expressing serious concerns over rising tensions in the South China Sea, urging restraint in land
reclamation and full respect for international law. Within hours, the statement had been retracted for
urgent amendments. No revised statement ever emerged. Beijing, experts said, was riled because the
statement was issued at a meeting held in China and at a sensitive time in the run-up to the arbitration
ruling, expected anytime in the next three months. It was withdrawn after China lobbied close ally Laos, an
official at the talks told Bloomberg News. Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in
Singapore, called it another embarrassing episode of ASEAN disunity. China didnt create the disunity in
ASEAN, but it does exploit the divisions and uses its economic clout to try to get its way, Storey said.
jurisdiction and ruled that it does have the authority to consider many of the issues raised by the
Philippines. While I have expressed strong criticism of
the U.S. role in supporting it) from a strategic perspective, I dont have any such criticism of
their legal arguments, Ku wrote in a blog post. Chinas claim that it can legally ignore the pending
arbitral award is not only wrong, it is legally insupportable. The weakness of Chinas legal case may
But legality is only part of the argument, since the court is not in a position to enforce any rulings. In the
end, the matter will be settled militarily, in the chess game of global power relations or in some notional
point out, has ignored a 2014 ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against its whaling
the United States ignored a 1986 ICJ ruling against the Reagan administrations
the United States has never
ratified UNCLOS, countries that have maritime disputes with it are unable to
take it to legal arbitration, said Storey, arguing that the issue has become even more glaringly
operations, and
apparent in the run-up to the ruling. Although the U.S. government says it follows UNCLOS as customary
international law, its failure to submit itself formally to its provisions rankles many nations especially
China. China
hypocrisy. Big powers rarely subject themselves to international law, he said. Thats the reality we
have to face. Aside from Russia, experts note that none of Chinas supporters are major maritime powers,
and some question Beijings tally. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says that only
eight countries have explicitly supported Chinas position, while Cambodia, Slovenia and Fiji have
disavowed Chinas description of their views. The 60-country claim is complete nonsense, said Gregory
Poling, head of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at CSIS. The vast majority have made very vague
comments in support of peaceful resolution or that negotiations are the best way to deal with conflict
and China takes that and says, See, they side with us in the arbitration. WorldViews newsletter
Important stories from around the world. Sign up Nevertheless, Chinas ability to get poorer countries on
its side could be important if the issue ever comes up at the United Nations. China can also portray this as
the West against the Third World, of the developed world bullying the developing world, Xie said. The
narrative matters. But however the arbitration panel rules and however Manila reacts China wont be
giving an inch on its territorial claims in the South China Sea. A move to declare an Air Defense
Identification Zone under which foreign planes would be asked to inform Chinese authorities before
entering airspace above the South China Sea would be seen as provocative and seems unlikely for now,
Beijing wont be letting up in its drive to expand its military presence in the South China
Sea, experts say. That spells more tension with the United States. Emily Rauhala and Xu
but
Jing contributed to this report. Read more: Storm clouds gather over South China Sea ahead of key U.N.
ruling U.S. ramps up military presence in Philippines, starts joint patrols in South China Sea China
scrambles fighter jets as U.S. destroyer steams past disputed island Todays coverage from Post
correspondents around the world.
shoot down the next spy plane, wrote the Global Times, Chinas official nationalist mouthpiece. Though
little talked about in the West,
maritime dispute
between the U.S. and China has become the most contentious issue in their
complex relationship, and conditions seem ripe for a military clash between
the two countries: This summer, an international court will rule on a Philippine challenge to China's
claim to the disputed waterway, and for the first time, Beijing appears poised to send
nuclear-armed submarines into the South China Sea . Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per
Yet history is riddled with wars that appeared to make no sense. Today, the
week Philippines says China blocking access South China Sea atoll. Chinese soldiers of the People's
Liberation Army Navy stand guard in the Spratly Islands, known in China as the Nansha Islands, on
February 10. The Spratlys are the most contested archipelago in the South China Sea. Stringer/Reuters On
one level, the dispute is about territory. Beijing insists that nearly the entire seafrom its islands, reefs and
submerged rocks to its fish and underwater energy reserveshistorically belongs to China. The U.S.,
however, regards the South China Sea as international watersat least until rival claims by several
neighboring countries can be resolved. Until then, Washington contends, only the U.S Navy can be trusted
to ensure freedom of navigation in those waters, which include some of the worlds most important
control over the South China Sea after more than a century of foreign domination would do just that.
Failure to do so, however, analysts say, could threaten Xis grip on power. China says its claim to the South
China Sea dates back thousands of years. But historians date the modern dispute back to about 130 years
ago, when various European countries took over the waterway. Over the next century, the sea formed part
of French Indochina, then Japans Pacific empire, and after World War II, the U.S. Navy acted as its
caretaker. But in the 1970s, oil and gas deposits were discovered under the sea bed, prompting the
Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan to stake their own claims to the region. Those countries
have since seized 45 islands. Since 2012, China has occupied seven shoals and, through land reclamation
operations, turned them into man-made islands with landing strips and missile defenses. History
matters, says Fu Ying, a former ambassador to Britain and now spokeswoman for the National Peoples
Congress, Chinas parliament. In recounting Chinas litany of foreign invasions, beginning in the 1840s with
Britains seizure of Hong Kong and ending with Japans brutal occupation of China before and during World
Weve lost enough. Wary of an armed conflict, U.S. President Barack Obama has responded by quietly
permitting Beijing to operate in the South China Sea while building up military and economic relations with
Chinas neighbors in hopes of weakening its influence. And despite the administrations repeated vows to
sail continuously through the disputed waters, it has mostly avoided them. Weve done a lot sailing in the
South China Sea but in areas that arent claimed by anybody, says Bryan Clark, a retired Navy veteran
who last served as a special assistant to the chief of naval operations. Critics of Obama, including
Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, say such nonintrusive voyages easily could be construed as
acknowledgement that China has a valid claim. McCain and others have called on Obama to get tougher
with Beijing and conduct more aggressive operations in the disputed waters. Chinas neighbors, such as
Vietnam and the Philippines, have also urged Obama to be more aggressive, and theyve offered U.S.
forces the use of their bases. But theres a limit to how far they want Washington to go. While they may
resent Beijings bullying, China is their largest trading partner and a major source of funding for
infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and ports. Bilahari Kausikan, a senior Singaporean diplomat,
notes that small Southeast Asian countries must navigate a path between China and the United States by
constantly playing one against the other, hedging their bets and sometimes deferring to Washington or
Beijing. We see nothing contradictory in pursuing all...[of these] courses of action simultaneously, he
to the South China Sea. The ruling is expected to go against Beijing, which has declared it wont accept
any decision from the court. China says its willing to talk one-on-one with the Philippines, as well as with
the other countries with rival claimsa position that would give Beijing a clear advantage over its smaller
neighbors. The U.S. wants China to negotiate with these claimants collectively, and Beijing has told
Washington to butt out. Our
military officials say, these American weapons threaten to neutralize Chinas land-based nuclear arsenal,
the South China Sea. Add submarine operations to the mix, and the chances of an accident multiply
Americans (which could apply to Chinas fighter pilots as well), he added: Should major countries time
and again make the mistakes of strategic miscalculation, they could create such traps for themselves."
was a turning point. It blew up the fiction that globalisation was good for everyone. American workers defended their
living standards with debt, partly backed by inflated property values, as their income came under pressure from global
competition. The crisis blew that away. Living standards fell amid declining wages. Globalisation has since become a dirty
word in American politics. Decades after the US embraced free trade, its clear who the losers are( Corporate America had
a great ride in China. The big consumer companies saw their sales rivalling those at home and achieving bigger profit
margins. American companies came to dominate the markets for fast food, personal hygiene, soft drinks, smartphones
are having an impact on profitability in the market and could make it completely unprofitable in a few years. The long-
pride?( On top of a weakening economic foundation comes the new element of strategic rivalry. China has been taking
steps to flesh out its claims in the South China Sea. Despite its broad claims, the competing claimants have been
extracting up to half a million barrels of oil in the contested waters with nothing for China. China feels aggrieved. SSIf the
Sino-US relationship breaks down, global chaos becomes inevitable China and the US have fundamentally different views
of the South China Sea dispute. China sees it as a regional issue. China is by far the
biggest country in the region and should have a big voice there. The US could still be the sole global superpower, but
China should have a bigger voice in East Asia.
global domination. East Asia accounts for one-third of the worlds population and gross domestic product. And
most of the worlds savings and manufacturing are located there. If the US is not the dominant force
in East Asia, its superpower status is untenable . Hence, the US will commit more
and more resources to limit Chinas ambitions in the region. The downward
spiral in the bilateral relationship could get much worse in the coming years .
The next US president will be protectionist in trade. Increasing anti-dumping measures and
possible penalties for outsourcing will further slow or even decrease bilateral
trade. That would decrease Chinas incentives to open its domestic market further to
corporate America, which in turn weakens the domestic voice for taming the
strategic rivalry with China. What really happens when Chinese investment goes bad, and is there any
way out of the hole?( The only way out is for China to reform its economy and become an engine for regional and global
growth. Its economy is stuck with overcapacity and excessive leverage. Other countries increasingly view China as a
negative force, destroying capital value and suppressing labour wages.
sustainable from any perspective. China must shrink the state sector and empower the household sector to break
away from the vicious spiral of capital destruction and stagnation. It will earn the trust of the international community by
demonstrating that economic development is for enriching the people, not merely empowering the government and
affiliated elite. SSChina will earn the trust of the international community by demonstrating that economic development is
for enriching the people China has been driving global trade through rearranging the global supply chain rather than being
the final source of demand. When it becomes a balanced economy by increasing the workforces disposable income to 60
per cent of GDP from 40 per cent, China will be a real driver for global trade and economic growth. Countries from far and
near will sing its praises. China will eventually be, and should become, the dominant voice in East Asia. That position can
only be achieved by becoming a place that people look up to and try to join if possible. Pax Sinica during the Tang dynasty
was achieved through a superior way of life that others, like Japan, earnestly emulated. Projection of force may be
necessary and effective at some point in time. But, without a superior system at home, its impact would be fleeting.
Global stability depends on a solid relationship between the US and China. The European Union is failing. The fact that so
many in the core of the system want out means that its influence in the world will continue to decline. Russia, on the other
side, is severely weakened by low oil prices and has had to pull back strategically and focus on economic development. If
the Sino-US relationship breaks down, global chaos becomes inevitable. Is a new cold war brewing over the South China
ups in bilateral relations. Now, with the US having second thoughts about China, the relationship is increasingly anchored
***Links***
Harms Relations
Tensions between the US and China in the region have been on the rise
essentially because of the increasing friction between the US strategic
rebalance to Asia and Chinas pursuit of new strategic and security interests
in the region. Washington's new regional strategy has multidimensional
characteristics involving economic, diplomatic and military components.
Economically, recognizing Asia as a new source of demand and investments
for global economic growth, Washington is keen to push for the conclusion of
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) initiative. Diplomatically, the US has
emphasized multilateral engagements with institutions led by ASEAN (the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and increased high-level visits to
many regional states by senior American leaders. Militarily, the US has
undergone a qualitative and quantitative upgrading of force capabilities and a
rebalancing of key military assets to the Asia-Pacific including expansion of its
military exercises in the region. US leaders have repeatedly explained that
their strategic rebalance to Asia is aimed at benefiting from the thriving
regional economies and that it emanates from a desire to play the leading
role in maintaining peace and stability in the region, but China seems to be
not entirely convinced. The majority of the Chinese elite believe that
Washington is intent on containing China or at least undermining China's
growing regional influence. Even the small group of Chinese officials and
analysts who do not believe in any 'US conspiracy' theory conclude that the
American strategic rebalance will inevitably lead to the weakening of China's
strategic position and influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Various statements
emanating from China indicate that Beijing is particularly concerned about US
efforts in further consolidating its alliances and in deepening security
partnerships with a number of regional states. Beijing is extremely critical of
US intervention in the territorial and maritime disputes involving China and
some regional states in the East China Sea and South China Sea. In fact, it is
widely believed in China that Washington has tacitly encouraged or
emboldened regional states to challenge and provoke China on those
disputes in the past few years purely for the purpose of retaining
Washingtons preponderant strategic position and the pursuit of US security
interests. The United States, however, argues from an altruistic stance that
all the initiatives related to the rebalancing are undertaken to maintain peace
and stability in Asia, while simultaneously benefiting from the expanding
economic opportunities offered by the regional economies.
Second, sources of instability and conflict in US-China relations are many and
profound. The most dangerous source of conflict in their bilateral relations
has been identified as maritime security in East Asia. Territorial disputes over
various islands and other land features in the East and South China Seas,
maritime zone demarcations and maritime resources could easily sour US-
China relations and could even lead to open conflicts between the two
countries. It is also pointed out in this volume that the deterioration of
strategic trust between Washington and Beijing has generated significant
negative impact on bilateral relations in some of the less sensitive areas,
such as regional economic integration, energy, and various non-traditional
security issues. Contending for influence and the shaping of the regional
strategic landscape in the Asia-Pacific is likely to continue to be a major
element in US-China relations.
the United States will host the seventh annual U.S.-China Strategic
and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), the capstone piece of more than 90 high-level meetings
This week,
between American and Chinese officials. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and his Chinese counterpart will lead
the economic track, while Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterpart will co-chair the strategic
This years
dialogue has special significance because it will set the stage for President Xis state
visit in September. U.S.-China relations have been rocky recently, owing
primarily to tensions in the South China Sea, Chinas new law governing foreign nontrack. All four will be acting as the direct representatives of their respective presidents.
governmental organizations, and friction over membership in Chinas Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
and the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In addition to these issues, Chinese and American leaders
will devote substantial attention to cybersecurity and the recently disclosed hack of the Office of Personnel
Managements database, as well as the ongoing negotiations toward a U.S.-China Bilateral Investment
Treaty (BIT). The diplomatic community has expected previous dialogues to produce substantial
agreements, but they have lower expectations for this round due partly to recent difficulties in the
relationship, as well as an inclination on both sides to save major announcements until President Xis state
The South
China Sea issue has been front and center for the last 18 months, as China
carried out major land reclamation efforts. While the issue stems from territorial disputes
visit. Ill briefly explain the significance of these five major issues. 1. The South China Sea
between China and various Southeast Asian nations, which dont intrinsically involve the United States,
Addressing the distrust and fear should be a key mission for both leaders. Doing so would have historic
meaning, both for U.S.-China relations and for a chaotic world. The question, though, is how. First, its quite
understandable that China as a rising power would attempt to defend some of its vital interests at a
minimum level, even if in the past it used to sacrifice them out of weakness or other considerations, such
as domestic stability or a positive international environment.
growth has convinced the West that it is just a matter of time until China becomes a
world superpower. But its ideological orientation makes China a revolutionary
power that is threatening both to the United States' status and global
structure. Three different logics have been constructed to substantiate the "China threat" thesis. First,
ideological and cultural factors make China a threat. For neo-conservatives in the
Bush Administration, the mere factor that China still sticks to communism makes
view it adversely. Samuel Huntington has added a cultural factor: in the clash of civilizations, the
"unholy alliance between Islamic and Confucian civilizations" is the most
fundamental threat to the West. For people using this logic, the sensible response from the U.S.
is, in the short run, a containment policy, and confrontation is possible if needed; in the long run, the
promotion of a peaceful transformation within China. Second, geopolitical and geoeconomic factors. For
Third, the collapse of China. Opposed to the previous two perspectives, some people are concerned that if
China suffers a Soviet-style sudden-death syndrome and spins out of control, it can create an even worse
scenario. The sheer size of the population makes refuge problem, the failed state and the followed crises
(warlordism, civil war, crime, proliferation of nuclear weapons, etc) impossible for the world to deal with.
American China specialist characterizes the bilateral relationship as "the sweet-and-sour Sino-American
relationship." The Japanese have a different set of reasons to feel upset by China's rise. Although Japan has
been culturally indebted to China since the Tang dynasty, somehow Japan has developed a strong Oedipus
complex toward Chinanamely to commit patricide against its cultural patron. In the past century, China
suffered several severe acts of aggression at the hands of the Japanese. The mutual animosity between
these two countries has been strong. The Japanese deep involvement in Taiwan, its stubborn refusal to
offer unequivocal apologies to the Asian neighboring countries over its aggressions, and American military
alliance with Japan all have been irksome to the Chinese. The construction of Chinese nationalism by
mainly relying on anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese turned Japan into an easy target. To some
degree, the Chinese leadership has tried to release the popular anger against the regime by directing it
either to the local tyrants or to the international bullies (U.S. and Japan are two natural candidates). Now
Japan and China still have not developed any framework to resolve their territorial disputes and their
relationship has reached a low point. The Chinese often suspect that U.S. and Japan are the originators of a
variety of "China threat" arguments. In addition to the ideological threat, many other neighboring countries
have more stakes in China's new move. For Southeast Asian nations, the presence of a sizeable and
extremely rich Chinese ethnic group and their increasing dependency upon China's economy for growth
forced them to be very careful in handling their relationship with China. With a continental size (China has
almost two times the territorial and population sizes of all other Asian Pacific countries combined), China
consumes a tremendous amount of foreign direct investment and pops out huge volume of exports; other
countries feel the competition from China. At this moment, no government in the Asian Pacific region has
adopted a clear anti-China policy; but sporadic anti-Chinese riots have occurred in Malaysia, Indonesia, the
Philippines; and strong resentment against the Northern economic and cultural invasion has surfaced in
Myanmar (former Burma), Thailand, Vietnam, and other countries. Even Singaporethe self-proclaimed
third Chinese territory in addition to China and Taiwanwas upset by China's strong hand in 2004 after Lee
Hsien Loong, the soon-to-be-inaugurated Prime Minister of Singapore, visited Taiwan. The combination of
stunning economic growth and unpredictable political governance causes deep concerns about China
among the nations in the world. The Chinese leadership has realized the urgency to calm down these
concerns and to build a supportive international environment for its ascendancy. To make its rise less a
threat, the Chinese government has sponsored many PR events, such as exhibitions in foreign countries,
promoting Chinese language programs, and so on. But most importantly, the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao
put forward the thesis of "China's peaceful rise" in his speech to a Harvard University audience in
December 2003. Under this thesis, there are several points: First, China's development depends upon and
in return will contribute to the world peace; second, China will resort to peaceful means for development;
third, China's development will rely more on its own resources and market; fourth, China is prepared for a
long-term process of hard work, even several generations, for economic prosperity. Finally, even as China
has achieved its economic development, it will not seek hegemony in the world or come out as a threat to
any country. Under the guiding principle of "China's peaceful rise," the Chinese government has conducted
actively diplomacy at four (at least) different levels: (1) Creating strategic partnerships with the second-tier
powers. China has signed strategic partnership treaties with the EU, Russia and India to strengthen their
relationships as well as to balance the American power. (2) Promoting "good neighbor policy" in the Asian
Pacific region. By increasing trade with the Asian-Pacific region and also let these countries enjoy trade
surplus with China, China has positioned as an important trading partner with these countries. Besides,
China has entered into various mechanisms of regional cooperation with these countries. During the 1997
Asian financial crises, that China refrained from devaluing its currency and helped stabilize the regional
economy by mobilizing its foreign currency reserve won positive reactions from this region and the U.S. (3)
Seeking cooperation and avoiding confrontation with the U.S. The Chinese side basically has sent to
Washington a clear message that China is a conservative power and has no intention to upset the status
quonamely the U.S. as the sole superpower in the world. (4) Neglecting Japan. As China has successfully
managed relationships with the sole superpower, the second-tier strategic partners, and neighboring
countries, China is able to afford to ignore Japan and occasionally show some toughness. For the past five
years, the Chinese leadership has been cautious and successful in managing the internal nationalism and
American unilateralism, to some degree, thanks to the anti-terror war. Now some signs have indicated that
the honeymoon between the U.S. and China in the aftermath of Sept.11 attack and anti-terrorism coalition
have been more provocative toward China, the latter has been more on defensive; but if we look at the
Sino-U.S. relationship from the macro-level, it seems that China can take back initiative if it can remove
the thorn of communist ideology and authoritarianism, because the Americans tend to believe that under
the doctrine of democratic peace, democratic countries do not fight war against each other. Therefore, to
create long-term internal and external stability, the CPC has to learn how to play the card of democracy.
Does this amount to ask a leopard to change its spots?
Helps Relations
firm but non-escalatory response of the United States and the Republic of Korea to North Koreas recent belligerent
rhetoric provides a positive example.)
Premier Li Keqiangs government work report and watch the U.S. economic performance in the 4th quarter
of 2015, you can see that economic growth tops the agenda of both the Chinese and American
governments. On Jan 27, when President Xi Jinping met with Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing, Xi
pointed out: Ive emphasized several times, when China and U.S. strengthen cooperation, we can do big
things for the benefit of the world. President Xi is right. Look at the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the
Iranian nuclear deal and the U.N. Security Councils resolution on North Korea China-U.S. cooperation
played a pivotal role in each. Sluggish economic growth is a major issue facing both China and the U.S., as
The
primary means of government-to-government discussions about problems in the
commercial relationship have been the Joint Commission on Commerce and
Trade and the Strategic and Economic Dialogue. These forums have in the past been
successful in resolving disputes between the two countries, but in recent
years their deliverables to U.S. commercial interests have come fewer and
farther between. This may be due in part to the Chinese perception that accommodating U.S.
requests is less important to China: China wants less from the United States, so it is
willing to give up less. Negotiations leading up to the signing of a potential bilateral
investment treaty (BIT) present an important opportunity to stabilize U.S.-China
commercial relations. China is genuinely interested in successfully concluding a BIT
for two reasons: First, the standards in a BIT would provide useful external pressure
within the Chinese economic reform process . Second, Chinese firms are
increasingly investing in the United States, and a BIT would provide greater
security for their investments. China is also carefully watching negotiations of the Trans-Pacific
that support for open markets between China and the United States is not to be taken for granted.
Partnership (TPP), with a view to possible accession if the TPP is not directed at building a trading bloc that
excludes China.
after the summit, Obama should clearly explain to Xi how they will be implemented and what evidence the
In
June at the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington,
Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi called for China to work with the United
States to develop an international code of conduct for cyber information
sharing. While there have been no further details from the Chinese side, Obama should pick up on the
United States has of the hacking. Beijing continues to question Washington's ability to attribute attacks.
offer to discuss the types of information that are adequate to identify an attacker, thereby setting a
shared interests.
leaders from both countries to feel at ease with one another. The result is that the two countries have
struggled to establish the lan and comfort level required for solving problems where real common interest
is shared. Disagreement over human rights grows out of a more divisive problem that sits unacknowledged
like the proverbial elephant in the room. Because nobody quite knows what to do, we are hardly inclined to
direction congruent with Western hopes. Xi seems to suggest that China has its own model of
development, one that might be described as Leninist capitalism, with rather limited protection of
individual rights. This is a model with so-called Chinese characteristics, which, in the world of human
rights, means that China will emphasize collective welfare rights, such as the right to a better standard
values. Whether we should confront these differences head on or seek some artful way to set them aside
so the two countries can get on with other serious issues of common interest is a question we have hardly
dared even think about. The elephant is still in the room, and the fact that no one knows quite how to
address it lays at the root of our human rights disagreements. These differences often gain such an
antagonistic dimension that they not only inhibit our ability to make progress on the rights front, but also
To overcome mutual suspicion, both parties should follow some guiding principles:
abide by international law, establish common standards of action in the AsiaPacific, and improve communication lines and increase transparency;
preserve as much as possible the status quo. The use or threat of force undermines the existing security
discussion regarding the TPP has focused on the absence from the pact
of China, the largest economy in the Asia-Pacific region . President Barack Obama
has portrayed the exclusion as an attempt by the U.S. and its allies to write the
rules in the region before China does. But this kind of antagonism does nothing to
push U.S.-China relations perhaps the most important bilateral relationship in the world
toward anything productive. The increasing anti-China rhetoric that has accompanied
the Obama administrations Asian pivot will result in fewer opportunities to partner on
major global initiatives and hurt both nations economically.
Much
Link flux
Relations = Cyclical
US/China relations prone to fluctuations but mutual
dependence checks significant deteriorationno chance
of triggering impact
Alexandroff 11 (Alan, research director of the Program on Conflict
Management and Negotiation (PCMN) at the University of Toronto, Grasping
fully the realities and challenges in US-China relations, China US Focus,,
2/25/2011, http://www.chinausfocus.com/foreign-policy/grasping-fully-therealities-and-challenges-in-us%E2%80%93china-relations-the-key-bilateralrelationship-in-international-relationsthe-key-bilateral-relationship-ininternational-relationsthe-key-bila/) KC
In contemporary geo-politics/economics many experts have observed that the key power relationship
today and seemingly for the next decades is the United States-China relationship. The United States
has exercised a near-hegemonic role in global affairs for the past several decades. US leadership was only
accentuated with the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. This unitary moment saw
the US dominant militarily accompanied by assertions that it would maintain dominance militarily against
other powers. The appearance of China as a large emerging market country was powered by the
extraordinary economic growth unleashed in the late 1970s with Deng Xiaopings Reform and Opening.
After several decades of such high growth China today challenges Japan for the second largest economy.
Chinas peaceful rise was analyzed and commented on by most international relations experts. The
growing redistribution of economic power, most notably China, but also other emerging powers Indian
and Brazil raised concerns among many. International relations experts had traced the difficult transition
of powers and pointed to the many historical instances where these power transitions had led to
competition and even conflict among the great powers of the time. With the rise of the China threat
perspective in Washington a view of the rising challenge of China to the United States regionally but even
globally observers and experts focused closely on the course of relations between the two powers. And
China-US relationship has not disappointed observers. This great power relationship
exhibits a highly cyclical even unstable pattern of behavior. The
relationship has been able to shift from a near friendship hugto an
almost Cold War stance. The hug came most evidently the 1970s with the
reestablishment of relations between the two countries and the Nixon trip to China to
meet with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. On the cold war-like behavior instances are
numerous. There is the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the
impact on relations; then there was the emergency landing of the EP-3 surveillance
plane on Hainan Island in April 2001 after collision with a Chinese navy
fighter jet and the relations thereafter. These changes can come quickly and
unexpectedly. How then are we to describe US-China relations? Fei Di Fei You () Neither Friend
nor Foe. In the early 1990s, American scholar and long time China expert Harry Harding now
the dean of the University of Virginia's Frank Batten Sr. School of Leadership and Public Policy, described
the US-China relations as being:fei di fei you ( ) neither friend nor foe. As he
the course of
said at the time: The most likely future is for a difficult relationship, featuring a China that is neither friend
nor foe in the international arena. More recently the well-known Chinese scholar and international
relations expert Yan Xuetong, the director of The Institute of International Studies, Tsinghua University,
described the US-China relationship in much the same way and captured the relationship in exactly the
Xuetong the difficulty in the current relationship between these two critical powers arises because
globalization and mutual interdependence even dependence- hold sway and are far more developed than
was the case between the US and the former Soviet Union, and also far greater than earlier periods of
was made quite visible with the global financial crisis that emerged in 2008. While analysts had been
suggesting that the large emerging market countries were likely decoupled from the structure and
behavior of the traditional powers, the crisis made it clear that all the major countries, traditional, large
emerging market and developing countries were staring into the same economic and financial abyss.
Collective action was called for and the G20 countries including the United States and China met
repeatedly to ensure that the global economy would not slip into a new great depression. The mutual
grasp of the two was only underscored when analysts, and even some officials talked of possible Chinese
efforts to liquidate the heavy US Treasury position China had accumulated in its foreign exchange
account. But it became clear that such a strategic change would of course hurt the United States and the
US dollar reserve position. But right next to the US would come China and the sale of a depreciating asset
and publics are prepared to recognize at times. So China experts will suggest, for instance, that Iran and
the question of nuclear proliferation represents a core or major interest for the United States but represent
a much less central concern for China. Indeed China sees Iran as an important source of oil for China. Yet it
is evident that a conflict between the US and Iran would explode the situation in the Middle East, threaten
oil supplies and at raise the cost of oil to close to unimaginable price levels. Such an outcome is no less a
crisis for China than for the United States. That kind of conflict and international instability is equally a
dilemma for China as it is for the United States. There is no decoupling here just as there wasnt in the face
of the global financial crisis. If it is the case that both are friends if only because of structural realities and
national objectives, there are aspects where the two are positioned as foes as well. Both countries are the
most sovereign-oriented and most domestically politically driven of any of the great powers. As my
colleague Chen Dongxiao of SIIS has pointed out China favors the creation of the G20 and sees it as
legitimate and has the potential to be the primary institution for global economic issues [but] it is also
concerned about protecting its own independence over domestic economic policies.. Thus Chinese
leadership has accepted that a framework must be constructed for the G20 to deal with global imbalances
but at the same time has sought retain control over its domestic economic policy by urging that the
framework be only consultative and instructive. National political assertions, even populist politics, color
the positions of both countries and lead leaders to raise objections and even objectionable policies for the
other. A pure strategic policy calculation driven only by geopolitical policy concerns is unlikely to
more
than a year of fluctuating and deteriorating ties, causing unsettling ripple
effects throughout the Asia-Pacific region and globally , US-China relations were in dire
Barack Obama and Hu Jintao succeeded in stabilizing the worlds most important relationship. After
need of stabilization. Now the key question is how long can the new stability achieved at the summit last?
administration coupled the toughness in its pre-summit speeches with the warm, respectful welcome for
Hu at the summit. The administration coupled the toughness in its pre-summit speeches with the warm,
respectful welcome for Hu at the summit. The administration understood well that what Hu and his
entourage wanted most from the summit, by significant measure, was largely the symbolism of protocol.
This is true for one important reason: The Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) political legitimacy rests in
part on restoring Chinas international dignity as a major global power. Ever since 1949, when the
Communists came to power, this has been the consistent narrative that the CCP has told its people. Thus,
with all the protocol trappings of a high-level state visit a welcome at Andrews Air Force base by VicePresident Joseph Biden with a phalanx of armored Cadillac limousines, staying at Blair House, a White
House South Lawn honor guard reception and 21-gun salute, black-tie state dinner and champagne toasts,
Oval Office fireside chats, high-profile public speeches Hu was accorded the symbolic respect from the
worlds leading power, which Chinese believe is due their country, and all-important mianzi, literally face
but translated more as respect. As a result, Xinhua News Agency and other Chinese media beamed an
unrelenting series of photo images of Hu playing the role of international statesman back to domestic
constituencies in China. The Peoples Daily, the flagship newspaper of the CCP, delayed publication of its
January 19 edition by an unprecedented six hours to carry images of the summit. With all the protocol
trappings of a high-level state visit, Hu was accorded the symbolic respect from the worlds leading power.
The Obama administrations wager is, first, that providing President Hu and his party with full symbolic
respect will play into the CCPs domestic legitimacy and sense of security, hopefully undercutting those
constituencies in China that perceive the United States is trying to subvert the CCPs political power,
restrain the nations rise, and contain Chinas growing presence in East Asia and globally. Second, by
according Hu respect and a civil tone on display in Obamas own welcoming speech, banquet toasts, and
comments at the joint press conference the administration hopes that it might produce a more trustful
and cooperative China in addressing the long list of American concerns inside China, throughout East Asia,
and globally. The detailed 41-point joint statement released by the two sides at the conclusion of the
summit was a good step in the right direction, setting out common positions and perspectives on a range
of issues. But so too did the joint statement issued at Obamas November 2009 summit in Beijing only for
it to become a stillborn document that immediately foundered on a series of irritants and actions by both
sides. Time will tell whether the 2011 statement has more staying power than the last one, as both
countries have powerful bureaucratic constituencies that remain distrustful of each other with huge
detailed joint statement is a step in the right direction, setting out common positions and perspectives on
a range of issues. While some skepticism about the future of US-China relations is thus warranted for these
reasons, nonetheless the summit did produce new and much-needed stability and improved levels of trust.
What it did not produce, though, are new mechanisms of institutionalized interaction to follow-through on
groups that forge tangible cooperation across bilateral, functional, regional and global issues 365 days per
year. Looking to the future, cooperative moves by both sides will likely take place in a parallel rather
than joint fashion. Whether the issue is North Korea or Iran, commercial or currency differences, release of
imprisoned dissidents or increasing press freedoms, Beijings ability to appear to be overtly cooperating
with a US agenda will be severely constrained by domestic nationalistic pressures and bureaucratic
constituencies. The Chinese military, internal security and intelligence services, protected domestic
industries, and the Communist Party propaganda apparatus all have vested institutional interests in
countering American influence and, to some extent, benefit from an antagonistic relationship with the
United States. For its part, the US military, intelligence services, protectionist and xenophobic elements in
Congress, the human rights community, and other domestic actors similarly have a stake in an adversarial
relationship with China. While these domestic actors will no doubt play their constraining roles, for the
moment both sides seem pleased with the outcome of the summit. Whether they can now convert the
improved atmosphere into practical gains remains to be seen.
absolute military power is not formally equal to those of the United States,
developing sophisticated means to negate traditional US advantages and this could eventually lead to the
creation of China-centric Asian bloc which would ultimately dominate Western-Pacific.6 Thus, according to
them, the US and Chinese interests are destined to clash as China continues its rise and, in coming
decades, reaches economic and military parity with the US.7 These apprehensions are also implicitly
the US policy
toward China has swung back and forth and finally converged around the
reflected in various US defense strategy reports. Amidst of these views from both sides,
middle. The current approach therefore, seeks to combine engagement with containment or in other
words the US is engaging China but even as it does so, it is preparing itself for the eventuality of the future
In
Chinas threat perception, the United States is regarded as one of the most
important and serious security threat to its interests . They are also convinced that the
conflict. On the other side, the provoking/challenging interpretations in China fallow an opposite logic.
US as a declining power is determined to thwart the rise of any challenger, of which China is the most
credible.8 Thus it is widely held in China that the primary goal of the US is to westernize, split, and
weaken China. Some Chinese argue that in spite of intense cooperation which Beijing seeks with
Washington, its fixed objective is contain the rising China by increasing its military forces around Chinas
periphery and thus preventing China from playing its historic role as the Middle Kingdom.9 Many Chinese
strategists also believe that even the engagers within the US would like to see China evolve towards a
politically pluralistic democratic system. The difference between those who advocate engagement and
containment in the US policy is therefore, only of strategy and not of goals and the main goal of the US
strategy is to perpetuate its own global dominance and to thwart any attempt by any state particularly
Chinas leadership has adopted Deng Xiaopings advice be calm, keep low profile, hide your capacities
the two, both sides benefit from these economic links and neither would like to see deterioration in the
relationship which would undermine these benefits. As Brookings Institute scholars Richard Bush and
Michael O Hanlon noted, Most
relationship in these words, if one simply conceptualizes the extremes of conflict and accord at the two
The US-China
relationship today operates in the spectrum between the competitioncooperation bands, never achieving real accord and (hopefully)
avoiding conflict.14 Figure 1 illustrates a Simple Spectrum of U.S-China Relations adopted by
ends, then the middle is composed of the band between competition and cooperation.
David Shambag Figure 1 illustrates a Simple Spectrum of U.S-China Relations adopted by David Shambag
Thus, both the powers are likely to find it increasingly difficult to coexist yet they do not have any other
option. This uneven relationship, marked by twists and turns, can be further interpreted as an unhappy
marriage where the two dare not to divorce each other or as one expert remarked, the two huge powers
have divergent interests but also deep interdependence. Working together is hard and frustrating, but not
working together is worse.15 As long as there is no fundamental conflict of national interests, the US and
China will continue to manage this sort of relationship as depicted above.
and China are being pushed together again and they seemingly share more security interests than do the
U.S. as a challenge to its dominance. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a
month. U.S. scholars and strategists often prefer to attribute Chinas changing pattern of behavior to its
growing power, rather than to any occasional burst of nationalism or efforts to defend its legitimacy. Either
way, given all these changes,
have many interests in common, especially in areas of global governance, such as climate change,
terrorism and non-proliferation. This is taken by more optimistic observers as strong justification for U.S.China cooperation. However, close cooperation on these issues will not guarantee the peaceful resolution
of the disputes between them, such as the wrestling over maritime and cyber issues and the inevitable
scramble for financial and economic influence, all of which can be reduced to the redistribution of power
relations should focus more on the pluses than on the minuses, which sounds convincing but
Addressing the distrust and fear should be a key mission for both leaders. Doing so would have historic
meaning, both for U.S.-China relations and for a chaotic world. The question, though, is how. First, its quite
understandable that China as a rising power would attempt to defend some of its vital interests at a
minimum level, even if in the past it used to sacrifice them out of weakness or other considerations, such
as domestic stability or a positive international environment. Nor should the U.S. be criticized for seeking
to maintain its dominant position in the region; that inclination is based on a realpolitik principle that holds
for now. China and the U.S. have no choice but to strike a new deal on how to protect Chinas vital interests
without undermining the dominance of the U.S. or its credibility within the alliance system. That will in turn
require crisis control and compromises by both parties for a peaceful redistribution of power and rights.
longer capable of handling regional or global issues on its own, it creates a long-term disconnect between
simply arguing for the interests of China; it also draws on lessons from past conflicts. Both leaders should
bear in mind that the new model needs to be built on a new balance of power and psychological
expectations, rather than on unilateral concessions by one party. Finally, we should temper our
expectations of Xis visit. In contrast to Dengs visit to the U.S. in 1979, the lack of a common enemy
deprives the bilateral relationship of an obvious direction. Until a new consensus or equilibrium is reached,
the two powers must manage their disputes while seeking cooperation where it is possible. If the leaders of
the U.S. and China are not clearly aware of the arduousness of this long process, any visit or top-level
communication will only add to their illusion, putting the two countries on an undesirable path. In that
sense, the significance of Xis visit to the U.S. and his handling of U.S.-China relations lies in
these
U.S. constructs a missile defense system in East Asia with the excuse of defending regional alliances,
South Korea is remaining cautious not to irk China, despite strong pressure from the Pentagon. In earlier
June, when the commander of the United States Forces Korea (USFK), Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, said the U.S.
was considering to deploy THAAD (Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense) in Korea, the South Korean
Defense Ministry spokesperson was very quick to deny this by saying that Seoul had received no such
request from Washington. Some military experts pointed out that such a system would threaten Chinas
highly valued portfolio of ballistic missiles. As such, South Korea is extremely sensitive about the issue.
With U.S. military presence and deployment approaching China, regional countries have good reason to
ask if the U.S. is preparing for war against China. Even more,
has alerted some Asian countries. For example, during a recent visit to Washington, the
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott urged President Obama to remain focused on the U.S. strategic pivot
to the region and to not view Chinas rise as a threat. The Australian opposition party leader Tanya
Plibersek made it even clearer, Our alliance with the U.S. is really important to Australia right now, but we
also have a very close relationship with China. The best outcome is to have strengthened, closer
relationships with both. Ms Pliberseks remark showed the reluctance of regional countries that were
emboldened Vietnam and the Philippines to act more provocatively. Top officials from Singapore correctly
pointed out that the regional countries should not ignore the reasonable part of Chinese claims, as the
joining the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) proposed by China last November. It is reported
that the U.S. was deeply concerned over the South Koreas participation in the mechanism, as it believes
this would inevitably pose challenges towards the U.S.-dominated international economic order. Such a
move is not unusual for the U.S. When Japan proposed the Asian Monetary Fund in 1990s, the U.S. did not
confidence would be more difficult to build. For example, the indictment of five PLA
officials was more of a farce, as humiliation can never achieve one countrys foreign policy objectives.
Recently, more and more strategists from the U.S. began to question the Obama Administrations policy
the
U.S. military deployment in Asia, stating that it was sending a vague message of
containment, and it characterized the interaction between the two countries
as increasingly antagonistic.
towards China. In early June, the former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski criticized
***Laundry List***
Relations Good
international visions of the great powers. But the identity and number of the worlds leading states is changing, creating new challenges and
opportunities for global governance. The world order that ultimately results from this transition period will reflect difficult negotiations between
No
relationship will be more important in shaping prospects for a cooperative
world order than that between the United States and China . Yet the past year has witnessed
established powersincluding the United States, European Union, and Japanand emerging onesincluding China, India, and Brazil.
Sino-American tensions and mutual disillusionment, including acrimony over climate change, currency manipulation, Internet censorship, and
arms sales to Taiwan. It was against this backdrop that the Council on Foreign Relations convened a workshop in Beijing on March 15 17, 2010,
with the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. The two-day event brought together more than thirty experts from both
countries to discuss Chinas rise and the evolving world order. The purpose of the meeting was to identify points of Sino-American divergence
and potential areas of bilateral cooperation in addressing a daunting global agenda and in updating the existing institutional architecture of
multilateral collaboration. The workshop underscored the deep and growing interdependence between the United States and China. Indeed,
priorities of the two countries that unless carefully managed could hamstring effective collaboration on this global agenda, as well as domestic
constraints on the constructive exercise of U.S. and Chinese global leadership.
most difficult
and most consequential challenges cannot be managed effectively without
sustained cooperation between the largest developing country, China, and
the largest developed country, the United States . Stated another way, the ability of
China and the United States to work together on critical global challenges will
determine whether the world is able to sustain and enhance mutually
beneficial developments or fails to cope with the issues critical to the global
future and to the security and prosperity of the United States and China. This
shared conviction persuades us that we must do more than just hope that our countries will
find ways to cooperate. This report represents a joint effort to develop both the rationale and concrete mechanisms for
sustained, proactive collaboration to address challenges resulting from long-term global trends and consequential uncertainties. It
builds on the findings of independent efforts to identify megatrends and
potential game-changers with the goal of developing a framework for the US
China relationship that will better enable us to meet the challenges facing the
global community and the strategic needs of both countries. The Joint Working Group
round of challenges can only be managed successfully if nations, especially major powers, cooperate. Moreover, the
recognizes that China and the United States hold different views on many bilateral and international issues, and that our relationship is
constrained by mutual suspicion and strategic mistrust. Nevertheless, our common strategic interests and responsibility as major powers are
more important than the specific issues that divide us; we must not make cooperation on critical global issues contingent on prior resolution of
bilateral disputes. Our disagreements on bilateral issues are important, but they are not as important to our long-term security and prosperity
how difficult the task ahead will be. Leaders in both countries face relentless domestic pressures to focus on near-term issues, often to the
detriment of long-term interests, as well as on looming US-China bilateral differences and mutual suspicions. This report seeks to illustrate why
it is imperative and how it is possible to pursue long- and short-term interests at the same time.
Policy and in Global Economy and Development and is Director of the John L.
Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. Wang Jisi is Director of the
Center for International and Strategic Studies and Dean of the School of
International Studies at Peking University, March 2012 Addressing U.S.-China
Strategic Distrust, John L. Thornton China Center Monograph Series Number4, pg 13, HY)
This cries
out for top political leaders to step in and, along with their
militaries, discuss principles and accommodations that give each
side reasonable certainty about its core security interests through a
set of understandings and agreements that include steps embodying
mutual restraint on development and deployment of particularly
destabilizing weapons systems and platforms. Such discussions also need to probe
their relationship to various decisions about deployment of military capabilities as pertains to Asia.
each sides goals and expectations on such sensitive issues as the Korean peninsula and Taiwan in order to improve
Mutual
restraint on new capabilities: This is a particularly important topic
because many capabilities are being developed in direct response to
what the other side is doing. Demonstration of the viability of
commitments to mutual restraint may in turn increase mutual trust . The history of
mutual understanding and build greater trust. Specifically, such discussions might fruitfully address:
international arms control agreements highlights that this is an area worth pursuing. Anticipating future possibilities in
Both
sides want to work toward a peaceful resolution of existing
differences between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. U.S. weapons
sales to Taiwan are viewed in Washington and Taipei as a necessary
ingredient for sustaining the confidence of U.S. support in Taipei necessary for
Taipei to continue to develop wide ranging cross-Strait relations. Those same
sales in Beijing are viewed as confirming American arrogance and
determination to interfere in Chinas domestic affairs and to prevent peaceful
unification from occurring, thereby harming a clearly-articulated Chinese
interest. Washington and Beijing should engage in serious discussion
of the overall security situation surrounding the Taiwan Strait . Lack
of such discussion has contributed to having each side make worst
case assumptions in their acquisition and deployment of military
resources, enhancing mutual distrust and ultimately potentially reducing the
chances of maintaining the peace in the Taiwan Strait that both sides desire .
Maritime security: Maritime security discussions already take place and have
produced a U.S.-China Military Maritime Consultative Agreement,
but there remains significant room for expansion and enhancement
of those discussions.8 It is worth considering whether there are steps that
might address U.S. security concerns in a way that reduces Washingtons
perceived need to conduct reconnaissance and intelligence activities just
beyond Chinas territorial waters and air space . Nuclear modernization and
militarization of outer space: Each of these spheres exhibits all of the
characteristics of a classic security dilemma, where measures taken
to enhance defensive capabilities by one side are seen as
threatening and requiring commensurate measures by the other.
These are spheres in which greater mutual transparency, potential
agreements on specific areas of mutual restraint, and deeper
understanding of respective concerns and doctrines can potentially
reduce the chances of destabilizing changes occurring in these
technologically dynamic realms.
upon their sovereign rights, which is not a feasible or desirable objective. Reducing distrust over Taiwan:
Defense
construction of infrastructure (China pledged US$20 billion for such activities alone in 2013) has created a
two-fold benefit for the Chinese by both creating opportunities to earn government contracts from African
states while also strengthening the means by which Chinese resource industries based out of the African
spectrum would cite an interest by the Chinese in forging stronger relations with unique and untapped
foreign markets for the exportation of goods. As Deborah Brautagam notes in The Dragons Gift: The Real
necessary are safe living conditions in which companies and workers are willing to brave thousands of
miles to relocate to. With estimates of over one million Chinese currently living across the African
continent, the push to attract greater business initiatives will require migrants to believe that they will
prosper relatively uninhibited overseas. The Ebola crisis in West Africa has affected the ability of Chinese
companies to conduct business in the region. A Chinese diplomat was quoted as claiming that while the
nearly 1,500 Chinese workers in Liberia face little risk of exposure to Ebola, the disease has negatively
impacted the operations of many Chinese businesses. Xue Xiaoming, vice-chairman of the Chinese
Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Nigeria, stated that many potential Chinese companies looking to
invest in what has become Africas largest economy have put existing plans on hold in response to
international airlines suspending flights to Ebola-affected countries. This economic interest may have
stirred up humanitarian aid by China in combating Ebola in West Africa. The relief efforts mark a rare action
on their behalf when referring to overall global Chinese humanitarian aid.
developed into the worlds second largest economy, the state ranked 29th in
2012 in international monetary humanitarian aid, remaining in stark contrast
from its Western economic equivalents in terms of assistance. The continent
of Africa represents a historical anomaly in traditional Chinese humanitarian
efforts. For China, the state has dispatched over 20,000 medical practitioners to Africa dating back to
Mao Zedongs regime. Chinese workers worldwide administered over 240 million medical treatments in 71
countries, 45 of which located in Africa. These efforts were curbed under Deng Xiaoping when the state
turned its efforts towards intensive economic development, perhaps a signal that the previous decades of
From the
American perspective, the amount China has donated still reflects only a
fraction of U.S. humanitarian monetary assistance . Even in West Africa, the U.S. (ranked
work was not simply mercantilist policy but the result of humanitarian inspiration.
1st in 2012 in humanitarian assistance donations) allocated US$100 million to aid in the Ebola crisis
through U.S.A.I.D. (United States Agency for International Development) as of September 2014, with
congress assessing whether to send an additional amount in the form of C.D.C. personnel and equipment
that would bring the overall total of U.S. aid to US$250 million. This is despite not possessing the same
breadth of business interests as China in the region (only trading at a rate of nearly half that of China
within the continent). However, the organizational purposes of U.S.A.I.D., to end extreme poverty and to
promote resilient, democratic societies while advancing our security and prosperity, reflect the myriad of
criticism has
been levied against the American government from multiple angles, accusing
the U.S. of overseeing the distribution of aid only to favorable regime-types
or attaching political structural adjustment requirements in order to become
a recipient. Still, regardless of motivations, both states have seemingly formed a stake in aiding the
intentions behind humanitarian aid donations backed by the U.S. government. Indeed,
The
Chinese government first mentioned ETIM in a vaguely sourced document in 2001,
shortly after then-U.S. President George W. Bush announced his global war on
terror. In it, China called the group a major component of the terrorist
network headed by Osama bin Laden. United States seemed to agree that
ETIM posed a real threat, listing the group as a Specially Designated Global
Terrorist group in 2002 and detaining 22 Uighurs captured in Afghanistan and
Pakistan at Guantnamo Bay. Some were held for more than a decade, though the United
States later acknowledged that it didnt have adequate evidence against
them. Just over a year ago it sent the last three to Slovakia one of a handful of small countries that
agreed to host them. But George Washington Universitys Roberts concluded in a 2012
paper titled Imaginary Terrorism? that Washington also may have inflated the Uighur
threat. The Uighur detainees at Guantnamo who said theyd received jihadi training described a
Movement, comprises a distinct, self-identified terrorist entity or a looser grouping of individuals.
training camp in Afghanistan that amounted to a small, run-down shack. The highlight, in Robertss words:
A one-time opportunity to fire a few bullets with the only Kalashnikov rifle that was available at the camp.
detainees expressed anger about Chinese rule, they all denied belonging to ETIM,
and many said theyd never heard of the group. Roberts has argued that the United
States may have backed Chinas claims about ETIM in order to cement Chinas
support for the occupation of Afghanistan and, later, Iraq. Nevertheless, various
Although
international terrorism analysts continued to perpetuate the allegations about ETIM in work that cited
China uses
this echo chamber of supposed evidence about ETIM to keep alive the idea of an
international Uighur threat, conflating ETIM with the newer, propagandaproducing Turkistan Islamic Party. A U.S. State Department official told Foreign
Policy that the United States designated ETIM a terrorist group after careful
study, having concluded that its members were responsible for terrorism in
China and were planning attacks on U.S. interests abroad, but declined to
specify the sources of this information. The official added that the government still
government statements as their primary sources. According to Georgetowns Millward,
maintains this listing. Officials at Washingtons Chinese Embassy and Chinas State Council didnt return
two bystanders and injuring 40, it didnt take Chinese officials long to name culprits.
about 300 Chinese extremists were fighting alongside ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and in January that another 300 had
one of these Uighur recruits in September and two in December when they tried to flee its control, attributing the
information to an anonymous Kurdish official. Many experts dismiss Global Timess numbers. I assume there are
Uighurs joining ISIS, but I also assume the numbers are quite small in comparison to other groups throughout the world,
said Sean Roberts, a George Washington University professor who studies the minority group. Were probably talking
about 20 to 30 people max. Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong-Kong-based senior researcher with Human Rights Watch,
experts
say any increase in Uighur extremism is largely due to the fact that the very
policies China says are meant to combat terrorism have actually made the
threat worse. Chinese reports about hundreds of Uighurs fighting with the Islamic State are likely
intended to make the Uighurs look as if theyre a threat, an Islamist terrorist
organization, said Dru Gladney, an anthropologist who studies ethnic identities in China. Several international
media outlets havere peated the numbers from Chinese media. But Chinas inflated claims are
ultimately counterproductive, Gladney said. They create more fear
and marginalization, which exacerbates the problem. China isnt wholly
Islamic State has given a few disenfranchised young Uighurs a cause to fight and potentially die for. Still,
inventing the threat. Propaganda material from a group China links to ETIM that calls itself the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP)
suggests there are at least 30 to 40 Uighur jihadis in Syria and Iraq, according to Washington Institute for Near East Policy
fellow Aaron Zelin, who runs the website Jihadology.net. TIP has an increasingly active online presence thatincludes
footage of young children firing guns in mountain valleys. In recent years, it has also claimed responsibility for attacks like
the Tiananmen Square SUV incident via videos in which its purported leader, Abdullah Mansour, has called for more
attacks. But many researchers doubt TIPs claims, as its accounts of attacks often contradict facts on the ground that
dont seem to indicate the sophistication of internationally organized terrorist operations. The general consensus,
according to Georgetown professor James Millward, is that radicalized Uighur expats, who mostly seem to be based in
Pakistan rather than Iraq and Syria, havent provided any operational support for recent violence in China, but rather just
propaganda. And any who are fighting with Middle Eastern jihadi groups dont seem to be rising very high in their ranks,
region. The United States condemned Tohtis sentence, with Secretary of State John Kerry warning that silencing
moderate voices can only make tensions worse. Indeed, acts of apparent Uighur terrorism within China have risen
sharply over the past couple years. An attack last March by eight knife-wielding men and women at a train station in
Yunnan provinces city of Kunming left 29 dead and at least 130 wounded. In April, people armed with knives and
explosives killed three and injured 79 at the railway station in Xinjiangs capital, Urumqi. The next month, attackers
crashed two cars into shoppers at an Urumqi market and set off explosives, killing 31 and injuring more than 90. The
Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, the leading advocacy organization for the minority (which uses an alternate
spelling of the groups name), condemns violence but says China uses the threat of terrorism to stifle peaceful dissent as
well. Alim Seytoff, the Washington spokesman for the group, told Foreign Policy by email that he didnt know whether any
Uighurs had joined ISIS, but if they had, they by no means represent the vast majority of peace-loving Uyghur people,
just as those who joined ISIS from the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Europe by no means represent the freedom-loving
China is
conflating the Uyghur peoples legitimate demands for human rights,
religious freedom, and democracy with international Islamic terrorism , he said.
peoples of America, Great Britain, Australia and Europe. In order to deflect criticism of its Xinjiang policies,
Gladney, the anthropologist, said any Uighurs with ties to ISIS were more likely driven by resentment of China than by
aims of global jihad. They may want militant training to fight China and even to establish a Uighur state, he said, but
theyre less interested in creating a global caliphate. Analysts also note that those who do desire a global caliphate seem
to have little more than a passing interest in Uighurs relatively parochial aspirations, despite some tokengestures, such as
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadis reference to Chinese violations of Muslim rights last July, and exaggerated claims about such
abuses made last fall by an al Qaeda-run magazine.
***North Korea***
Relations Good
the United States and Russia should reexamine the current practice of storing
hundreds of short-range nuclear weapons in Europe. We must also bring the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty a powerful nonproliferation tool
into force globally, including by securing U.S. Senate approval. Finally, it
defies human nature to build trust when weapons remain postured for mutual
assured destruction. Washington and Moscow together must carefully
dismount the nuclear tiger by reducing first-strike capabilities and fears,
increasing warning and decision time for leaders and improving the
survivability of their nuclear forces. We must escape the trap of continuing
this high-risk and costly policy, with the likelihood of other nations following
in our footsteps.
ongoing tensions on
the Korean Peninsula have the potential to undermine trust and increase
military competition between China and the United States, a development
that is set to detrimentally affect overall Sino-US relations and cannot be in
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operation against North Korea is increasingly becoming less realistic. Third,
month. Seoul, under the government of Park Geun-hye and after repeated provocations from the North,
has abandoned engagement and stepped up its bellicose rhetoric and uncompromising stance against
North Korea. Over the last decades, both sides have mastered the game of bringing tensions to the
precipice and then pulling back. However, as tensions rise, there is less and less flexibility in this perennial
brinkmanship with both sides in danger of losing control during a future confrontation as martial
propaganda and provocations will reach unprecedented heights. In addition, there is little understanding
how much control Kim Jong-un genuinely exercises over the military and the party and whether they would
stand down in the face of South Korean provocations when given the order by the supreme leader. Certain
South Korean policies have also helped to further fuel tensions. For example, ever since 2010, South Korea
has implemented a disproportional response theory of deterrence. As John Delury, a professor at Yonsei
University, explained in an interview with The Diplomat: Seoul has proclaimed that for every one shot
fired by the North, the South will hit back with 3 to 5 times greater force. That principle for deterring the
North along the contested maritime border seems to apply to the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone] as well. This
concept of deterrence increases the chance of an escalating spiral of attacks and counter-attacks that
could eventually lead to full-scale war. A military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula has the potential to
once more draw in both the United States and China. Beijing is committed to the defense of the North
under the 1961 Sino-North Korean Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, whereas the
United States and South Korea have kept a mutual defense treaty since 1953. However, China has
repeatedly said that in a conflict provoked by the North, it would not uphold its treaty obligations. (Indeed,
according to a US scholar, China has tried to have the clause requiring it to defend North Korea revoked.)
Any type of large-scale military operation on the Korean Peninsula will almost certainly involve large-scale
destruction of human life and property. As the commander of US forces in South Korea, General Curtis
Scaparrotti recently testified: Given the size of the forces and the weaponry involved, this would be more
akin to the Korean War and World War IIvery complex, probably high casualty. North Korean artillery
could shell Seoul with thousands of rounds within the first hour of a full-scale war. Yet, certain weapon
Next to an arsenal of
approximately 700 (potentially nuclear-armed) Soviet-designed
short-range ballistic missiles (and an unknown number of
intermediate-range and long-range missiles), North Korea also has
one of the worlds largest chemical weapons stockpiles including
mustard, phosgene, and sarin gas. According to a RAND study cited
by the Congressional Research Service, One ton of the chemical
weapon sarin could cause tens of thousands of fatalities.
Pyongyang has also made substantial investments in special
operations forces, cyber weapons, and unmanned aerial vehicles to
offset the Souths conventional military advantage. Even short of full-scale
systems could make a confrontation even worse than the Korean War.
war, the tensions on the Korean Peninsula have the potential to derail the Sino-US relationship. For
example, China vehemently is opposing the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to
South Korea. Yet, Pyongyangs nuclear and missile tests over the last couple of weeks, finally convinced
Seoul to move forward with plans to station the US missile defense system in the South. China sees the
deployment of THAAD as an outright provocation not only designed to thwart North Koreas missiles but
also its own military power. We are firmly opposed to the deployment of the THAAD system on the Korean
Peninsula and urge relevant parties to act cautiously. No harm shall be done to Chinas strategic security
interests, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in March 2016. While Washington and Seoul could
have used the potential deployment of THAAD merely as a threat to obtain Chinas cooperation on
imposing tougher UN sanctions on North Korea (something US diplomats have denied), the diplomatic
consequences of stationing THAAD in South Korea could hobble the Sino-US strategic relationship and
cause China to retaliate in other areas, for example in the South China Sea or in cyberspace, where it feels
Sanctions work best when implemented and more important lifted in the context of negotiation, and a
robust diplomatic process backed by political will on both [all] sides. This does not necessarily mean the
resumption of Six-Party Talks, but rather quiet backdoor channel diplomacy laying the groundwork for
future negotiations. A diplomatic deal with the United States and South Korea might be useful for Kim Jongun at this juncture given that it would cement his legitimacy in the upcoming Seventh Korean Workers
Party Congress in May 2016. We
interest in stable relations with Pyongyang and the timing might just be right
for a concerted Sino-US diplomatic effort. Indeed, it is a political necessity.
Only US-China coop can solve North Korea threatalienating China risks increasing Chinese aid to North
Korea
Avery, Rinehart, and Nikitin 16 [Emma Chanlett (specialist in Asian
affairs), Ian E. (analyst in Asian Affairs), Mary Beth D. (specialist in
nonproliferation), Congresstional Research Service, North Korea: U.S.
Relations, Nuclear Diplomacy, and Internal Situation, 1-15-2016,
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R41259.pdf]-DD
U.S. policy to pressure North Korea depends heavily on Chinas influence. In
addition to being North Koreas largest trading partner by faraccounting for
about 70% of North Koreas total tradeChina also provides food and energy
aid that is an essential lifeline for the regime in Pyongyang. Chinas
overriding priority appears to be to prevent the collapse of North Korea.
Analysts assess that Beijing fears the destabilizing effects of a humanitarian
crisis, significant refugee flows over its borders, and the uncertainty of how
other nations, particularly the United States, would assert themselves on the
peninsula in the event of a power vacuum. Beijing is supporting joint industrial projects
between Chinas northeastern provinces and North Koreas 14 See, for example, Jonathan D. Pollack, No
Exit: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, and International Security (New York: Routledge, 2011); North Korea:
Beyond the Six-Party Talks, International Crisis Group, Asia Report No. 269, June 16, 2015. 15 Choe Sanghun, North Korea Vows to Keep Nuclear Arms and Fix Economy, New York Times, March 31, 2013. 16
DPRK NDC Issues Statement Refuting UNSC Resolution, Korean Central News Agency (North Korea),
January 24, 2013. Congressional Research Service 9 northern border region. Some Chinese leaders also
may see strategic value in having North Korea as a buffer between China and democratic, U.S.-allied
of the Korean Peninsulareportedly even in meetings with North Korean officialsmay suggest that
assumption is a key factor driving the U.S. and South Korean approach, which
seeks to avoid pushing China to a place where it feels compelled to provide
more diplomatic and economic assistance to North Korea.
the South Korean Ministry of National Defense.32 A RAND analysis says that 1 ton of the chemical weapon
Convention (CWC) which bans the use and stockpiling of chemical weapons. North Korea is suspected of
Ministry of National Defense estimated in 2012 that the DPRK possesses anthrax and smallpox, among
other weapons agents.35
Defense
a year after proclaiming the PRCs formation, Mao Zedong took his country into war against America to prevent the latter
matter less for security in a world filled with nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles, the PRC appears to be no more
receptive today to the idea of a united Korea hosting U.S. forces. The possibility may have become even more sensitive
Pyongyang is the
PRCs only formal ally. Despite evident tensions, the two remain close. At the end
of May, North Korea sent a newly empowered former foreign minister to Beijing for talks.
Ri Su-yong, a Kim Jong-un favorite recently promoted to the Politburo, reportedly told his hosts that the
nuclear program was permanent. Beyond the DPRK, China sees potential
adversaries everywhere. The U.S. maintains close military relationships with Japan, South Korea, Australia,
Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore, and is building ties with Burma and Vietnam. The PRC understandably
feels vulnerable. Moreover, the cost of a North Korean implosion would be
great. The DMZ seals the inter-Korea border while the Yalu offers the PRC no
similar protection. If intensified sanctions produced regime collapse, violent
conflict, loose nukes, humanitarian catastrophe, mass refugee flows and
more, the PRC would suffer more than any other country. The U.S. would be
far away, with the Pacific Ocean acting like a huge moat. American officials might espouse goodwill, offer sympathy,
because of Washingtons ill-disguised effort to set up a containment system around China.
and reiterate the greater global good being served by Beijings sacrifice, but thats not likely to win over the residents of
China has been slowly toughening its position toward the DPRK but has continued to
emphasize the importance of maintaining stability and discouraging conflict
on the peninsula. If forced to choose between two frenemiesPyongyang,
which poses no threat, and Washington, which is the greatest obstacle to
Chinas advanceone shouldnt bet on the PRC picking the latter . In which
case, North Korea will continue to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs . David Albright
Zhongnanhai.
of the Institute for Science and International Security figures the North has enough fissile material for about 20 nuclear
weapons and is capable of producing the equivalent of about seven more weapons a year. Northeast Asias future is
looking uglier. Unfortunately, the U.S. is out of options. Military strikes risk full-scale war and the destruction of Seoul,
South Koreas capital. Unilateral sanctions arent likely to bring the DPRK to its knees. Insisting on a commitment to
denuclearization before bilateral or multilateral negotiations with the North ensures that serious negotiations will not
occur.
significance of China-North Korean relations can be better appreciated when one looks at Chinas relations
few. China is in dispute with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and the interpretation of history
(symbolized by Yasukuni Shrine). China and South Korea have thorny issues between them as well, such as
competing claims over Ieodo/Suyan Rock, the U.S. military presence in South Korea, and defectors from
is aware that North Koreas possession of nuclear weapons would severely threaten the security
environment of China and all of Northeast Asia. Thus, as North Koreas closest friend, Beijing proposed the
six-party talks to allow the parties involved to negotiate and resolve the dispute. The six-party talks are in
fact Chinas attempt at testing the water as a responsible player in regional and international affairs. The
West is aware of this. This is why every time the Korean nuclear issue rears its head, the United States
Korea dropped out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty* in 2003 and was determined to develop nuclear
weapons, China promptly hosted a six-party talk. In October of that same year, National Peoples Congress
Standing Committee Chairman Wu Bangguo visited North Korea and was welcomed with unchanging
hospitality. This was followed by another visit by Kim Jong-il to China in April 2004 .
President Hu
Jintaos state visit to Pyongyang in 2006, one year prior to a North Korean
nuclear test, was not only an endorsement of the friendly and positive
relations between the two countries, but also intended to show concern over
the escalation of North Koreas nuclear program. Confidential diplomatic talks
between China and North Korea continued after the nuclear test, with Beijing
becoming the de-facto key to engaging North Korea . Kim Jong-il visited Beijing again in
secret in January 2006, three months after Hus state visit. In October 2006, North Korea detonated a
that it would quit the six-party talks, Premier Wen Jiabao still managed to visit the country in October 2009.
Interestingly, 2009 was also the year of China-North Korean Friendship. In the same year, North Korean
Premier Kim Yong-il was ceremoniously received in China. Kim Jong-il visited China another three times in a
row over the period of one year, in May and August of 2010 and later in May 2011. Then-Vice Premier Li
signs of deterioration after the sudden death of Kim Jong-il. Since Kim Jong-un took power, North Korea has
carried out two nuclear tests, in February 2013 and February 2016. In between these two dates, North
Koreas military second-in-command Choe Ryong-hae showed up in China twice; and on the Chinese side,
Vice Chairman of the National Peoples Congress Li Jianguo, Vice President Li Yuanchao, and Politburo
should not develop relations with North Korea, a country that is not democratic, is closed to the outside
world, and has no human rights. In fact, American pundits would sometimes use the same rhetoric about
National
interests are rational, something very different from value judgments. China
cannot afford to turn away from North Korea. Keeping a distance is part of
diplomacy between two countries with normal relations. Turning completely
away from North Korea, however, is not in line with Xis policy of developing
normal relations with Chinas neighbors . Normal relations involve a willingness to negotiate
and resolve differences. The two parties might be displeased with each other, but
they should not damage their basic diplomatic contact or their mutual
China, but the official ties between United States and China continue to strengthen.
interests. Whether during the era of Jiang and Hu or under the leadership of
Xi, Chinas basic policy toward North Korea should be to navigate the balance
between intimacy and antipathy. The apparent difference of Xis approach to North Korea from
his predecessors goes no further than strategic adjustments toward one of the two poles, without actually
breaking the balance. A move toward outright enmity is an unlikely scenario within the foreseeable future.
Another analogy is the love-and-hate relations between the United States and its major ally in the Middle
East Saudi Arabia. Many Americans are furious over the Saudi elements involved in the 9/11 attack, but
the U.S. government kept on friendly terms with its ally. The United States did not turn away from or
criticize Saudi Arabia because of its monarchial regime, nor did it compromise the common strategic
interests it shares with the Saudis in the region, despite domestic outrage. The Sunni rulers, meanwhile,
are apprehensive about American animosity, but they continued to regard the United States as the most
reliable friend in the Middle East. If one day, China and North Korea can develop a partnership like that
between the United States and Saudi Arabia, their relationship will have reached a true balance.
*Corrected. The original stated that North Korea dropped out of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty.
In fact, North Korea was never a signatory.
After Obama took office, strategic patience, a strategy of only granting talks
under the precondition of a comprehensive, verifiable and irreversible
denuclearization process agreed upon by North Korea has become the main
guidelines of US policy; otherwise, the US and its allies would resort to
military deterrence, sanctions and isolation as the main tools to deal with the country, so as to
make it yield under pressure. China, as the countrys closest friend, has been relied
upon to make all the tough measures effective, and if not, it would be
criticized for irresponsibility. Yet the US should think more squarely and
objectively if it would not intentionally use North Korea as a lever to set its
China policy on other fronts. Its unrealistic for China to follow the US every
step in dealing with North Korea, since China would not like to resolve the
nuclear issue by forcing the country into a corner by even harder sanctions,
especially by using leverage that may shake the fundamental existence of
the country, which might result in domestic turmoil that will harm the
denuclearization process per se. In Chinas eye, the US should talk with North
Korea directly without preconditions, and end hostile rhetoric and coercive
activities that will do no good for reassuring an already fiercely insecure North Korea. All sorts of
negotiations, no matter six parties or two parties, should be tried as long as it can be useful for the
denuclearization process. A systematic approach should be adopted and the normalization of US-North
Korea relations and the replacement of the armistice agreement with a peace agreement should also be
incorporated as before. Based on these, China would not oppose and even welcome a peaceful, gradual
unification of the Korean Peninsula according to the will of its own people.
reason prevailed, and the Chinese leadership decided, after indicating their
displeasure, to continue with the policy in place. It is saying that the Chinese
Internet censors began to delete messages critical of North Korea which
flooded the Chinese net immediately after both events. Some in Washington
clearly hope that Americans will influence the Chinese position if they react to
North Korean nuclear tests and missile launches with a military build-up.
Indeed, the Chinese are not pleased by the increase in the US presence in
Northeast Asia, and often complain that "North Korea's actions actually help
the Americans".
US-China relations dont solve for North Koreaempirically proven and fear of US hegemony in the area
Kleine-Ahlbrandt 14. Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt joined the U.S.
Institute of Peace as Director of the Asia-Pacific Program in August 2013.
Previously, she set up and ran the Beijing office of the International Crisis
Group for five years, engaging in research, analysis and promotion of policy
prescriptions on the role of China in conflict areas around the world and its
relations with neighboring countries. [U.S.-China Cooperation on North
Korea: What are the Options? United States Institute of Peace June 9 th, 2014
URL: http://www.usip.org/olivebranch/us-china-cooperation-north-korea-whatare-the-options]
United States policy towards North Korea aims at achieving verifiable steps toward denuclearization -which China says it wants, too. The U.S. believes that the best way to accomplish this is through targeted
Koreas 3rd nuclear test [in February 2013], Western officials and analysts interpreted President Xi
At a
analysts in Beijing is that the U.S.-led bloc is using North Korea as a pretext to deepen its Asia rebalance,
to strengthen regional alliances, move missile defense and military assets to the region and expand
military exercises.
China and
North Korea have a reputation for being closely aligned, both militarily and
ideologically. Except that Sino-North Korean relations are not what they once
were. More and more, Beijing views Pyongyang as a liability. And thats
leading to some seismic shifts in Asias power dynamics . After 20 years of sustained
weaponsand is bound by treaty to support the North in the event of war with South Korea.
growth, China is an economic powerhouse and a regional military power with expanding ties to the rest of
year rule, Beijing met with American delegations to talk about cooperating in the event of North Koreas
collapse. As it turned out, Kim Jong Ils son Kim Jong Un took over leadership in 2011, forestalling a
statewide implosion. Kim Jong Un continued his fathers aggressive rhetoric. This, along with strengthening
trade ties between China and South Korea, is fundamentally changing Chinas relationship with its
troublesome ally.
Relations Good
are fueled, armed and ready to launch, giving everyone time to reconsider.
Nuclear missiles on a submarine are always armed and ready. U.S. and
Chinese warships operate in uncomfortably close proximity in the South
China Sea. Add submarine operations to the mix, and the chances of an
accident multiply despite protocols meant to minimize the risk of collisions.
Submarines are stealthy vessels, and China is unlikely to provide their
locations to the Americans. That means the U.S. Navy will send more spy
ships into the South China Sea in an effort to track the subs. With the U.S.
Navy sailing more and more in the area, theres a high possibility there will be
an accident, says a high-ranking Chinese officer, who spoke anonymously to
address sensitive security issues.
Defense
***Space***
Relations Good
stabilizing element in the relationship between the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War by
providing national capabilities to reduce tensions and an outlet for collaboration. Although the future of the
taking concrete
steps to stabilize relations in space can be part of the solution to avoiding the
Thucydides trap, where an established powers fear of a rising power leads
to conflict. Space is a critical domain to the security of the United States. Space capabilities enable
U.S.-China relationship will be characterized by both competition and cooperation,
secure, hardened communications with nuclear forces, enable the verification and monitoring of arms
control treaties, and provide valuable intelligence. Such capabilities are the foundation of the United
States ability to defend its borders, project power to protect its allies and interests overseas, and defeat
adversaries. The space domain, however, is currently experiencing significant changes that could affect the United States ability to maintain all these benefits in the
future. A growing number of state and nonstate actors are involved in space, resulting in more than 1,200 active satellites in orbit and thousands more planned in the near
future. Active satellites coexist in space along with hundreds of thousands of dead satellites, spent rocket stages, and other pieces of debris that are a legacy of six
decades of space activities. As a result, the most useful and densely populated orbits are experiencing significant increases in physical and electromagnetic congestion
and interference. Amid this change, China is rapidly developing its capabilities across the entire spectrum of space activities. It has a robust and successful human
spaceflight and exploration program that in many ways mirrors NASAs successes in the 1960s and 1970s and is a similar source of national pride. Although it still has a
long way to go, China is developing a range of space capabilities focused on national security that one day might be second only to those of the United States. Some of
Chinas new capabilities have created significant concern within the U.S. national security community, as they are aimed at countering or threatening the space
capabilities of the United States and other countries. The massive changes in the space domain and Chinas growing capabilities have affected the U.S.-China relationship
in space. There is growing mistrust between the two countries, fueled in part by their development and testing of dual-use technologies such as rendezvous and proximity
operations and hypervelocity kinetic kill systems. This mistrust is compounded by a misalignment in political and strategic priorities: China is focused on developing and
increasing its capabilities in the space domain, whereas the United States is focused on maintaining and assuring access to its space capabilities. Despite these challenges
and concerns, there are concrete steps that the United States and China can take to manage tensions and possibly even work toward positive engagement. In 2011,
President Barack Obama and then Chinese president Hu Jintao issued a joint statement on strengthening U.S.-China relations during a visit by President Hu to the White
House. As one of the steps outlined in the statement, the two presidents agreed to take specific actions to deepen dialogue and exchanges in the field of space and discuss
discuss specific ideas for cooperation in civil and scientific space activities and the use of space for
peaceful applications on earth. Continuing to exclude China from civil space cooperation will not prevent it
from developing its own capabilities; this approach will only ensure that China cooperates with other
Space weather,
scientific research, exploration, capacity building for disaster response, and
global environmental monitoring are all areas where the United States and
China share joint interests and could collaborate with each other and other
interested countries to help establish broader relationships outside the
military realm. In addition, the United States should take steps on its own to stabilize the relationship.
countries in space in a way that advances its own national interests and goals.
First and foremost, it should get serious about making U.S. space capabilities more resilient. Increasing
resilience would support deterrence by decreasing the benefits an adversary might hope to achieve and
also help ensure that critical capabilities can survive should deterrence fail. While resilience has been a
talking point for the last few years, the United States has made little progress toward achieving the goal.
Radical change is thus needed in how Washington develops and organizes national security space
capabilities. Moreover, the United States should embrace commercial services to diversify and augment
governmental capabilities, while encouraging allies to develop their own space capabilities. Second, the
United States should continue to bolster the transparency of space activities by increasing the amount of
space situational awareness (SSA) data available to satellite operators and the public. Greater
transparency reinforces ongoing U.S. and international initiatives to promote responsible behavior in space
and also helps mitigate the possibility for accidents or naturally caused events to spark or escalate
tensions. Shifting responsibility for space safety to a civil agency that can share and cooperate more easily
with the international community and working with the international community to develop more publicly
available sources of SSA data outside the U.S. government are two steps that would enhance trust,
improve data reliability, and reinforce norms of behavior. The consequences of not addressing the current
Those things might have been enough in the past but, especially with a slowing economy, the conquest of
space needs to turn a profit. At 10 percent growth a year, China's space program is getting pricey.
However, there are numerous avenues to make it affordable. China already lets foreign satellites piggy
back off its rockets, space tourism is now being discussed, and in the long-term, China may even take the
lead in asteroid mining. Seeking to analyze or understand China's space program on the basis of its price
tag alone is an exercise in futility. Unlike NASA, which has seen its shuttles grounded and its budgets
restricted for years, China may not value each space venture on its own cost but as part of a larger order.
Furthermore, as China's own GDP has grown steadily, so has its space budget. In
pure dollar terms, China is still only spending about $2 billion a year on its space program as opposed to
NASA's $18 billion. However, that $2 billion is going toward supporting numerous pillars. The Jade Rabbit
Construction of the
Tiangong 2 space lab was delayed but it is now set to launch in 2016, giving
rover, which landed on the Moon in 2013, showed China's focus on our satellite.
but
seeing people, whether Chinese or American, walk on the Moon once more
will work toward a tangible purpose: the joint exploration of space. While
Russia and the US have worked together consistently on the International
Space Station (ISS), China has not been invited to take part , at the insistence of
Congress. While concerns about intellectual property and national security may have some basis, this is
nothing more than a colossal wasted opportunity . Treaties exist to prevent the
unlikely to run into similar problems. Tangible benefits cannot be easily quantified economically,
militarization or colonization of outer space and surely the best way to enforce them is to ensure all space
players work toward the same goals. China is focused on lunar exploration while the US seems bent on
also makes solid business sense. The desire to fund space exploration waxes and wanes as governments
The surge of Asian countries joining the ranks of major space powers mirrors the
rise of Asian economies and their militaries more generally since the end of the
Cold War. But following the political drivers of these trends leads most often to
regional rivalries, not a desire to compete with the United States or Russia. Being first in Asia
to do anything in space brings prestige , lends credibility to governments in power, and helps
stimulate Asias young population to study science and technology, which has other benefits for their
national economies. The responses to Chinas rise have included the sudden development of military
space programs by two countries that previously shunned such activitiesJapan and Indiaand dynamic
new activities in countries ranging from Australia to Singapore to Vietnam. On the Korean Peninsula, both
North and South have orbited satellites in the past three years and both have pledged to develop much
Many of these countries realize that they cant win Asias space
race, but they also know that they cannot afford to lose. Chinas rapid
expansion in space activity has also raised serious concerns within U.S. military
circles and in NASA. But these developments pose an existential threat to Chinas neighbors, some
larger rockets.
of whom see Beijings space program as yet another threatening dimension to their deep-seated historical,
economic, and geo-political rivalries for status and influence within the Asian pecking order. Even more,
space achievements affect the self-perceptions of their national populations, challenging their
How this competition will play out and whether it can be managed,
or channeled into more positive directions, will have a major impact on the future of
international relations in space. The U.S. government has thus far responded
with a two-track strategy, seeking a bilateral space security dialogue with Beijing, while quietly
expanding space partnerships with U.S. friends and allies in the region, adding a space
dimension to the U.S. pivot to Asia.
governments to do more.
spray paint onto surveillance satellites, blinding their lenses. Kamikaze space-bots might collide into
satellites, ramming them off course. Lasers and directed-energy beams would likely be used in space
Another element of assault would be to hack or reprogram an opposing military's satellites and use them
to send false signals to its forces, sowing chaos. An attacking army could slip past enemy lines on the
Compromised
satellites could even allow an enemy to redirect deployed missiles against the
side that launched them, said Singer. A prime target for any would-be adversary
ground as early warning systems give false all-clear readouts to defenders.
taking on the US would be the Global Positioning System, or GPS, which lets users
pinpoint exact locations on the earth's surface. GPS is a network of satellites developed
and maintained by the US Air Force. The same system that helps college undergrads road trip during
spring break is also used to drop bombs on the heads of Islamic State militants in Syria. That's one reason
China set alarm bells ringing in the halls of Washington, DC in 2013 when it launched a rocket 30,000
kilometers into space far enough to hit one of the GPS satellites, which hang in orbit about 20,000
China had
previously knocked one of its own satellites out of the sky from a height of
865 kilometers using a missile launched from earth in 2007. "China needs to be
kilometers from earth, or other key communications satellites even farther out.
more forthcoming about missile tests that appear to be more focused on the development of destructive
space weapons," US Admiral Cecil D. Haney told the US Senate Committee on Armed Services last March.
space technology applications are neutral to whether the application is overtly military or civilian.) This
path has resulted in the expansive capability they have fielded over the past decade and the advances we
the
Chinese can become increasingly competitive in the world market. China is
increasingly cooperating with other nations, particularly Russia and European
nations. This supports the technological advancements and
economies of those countries, to the detriment of U.S. industry,
which is hurt in two ways: it cannot compete for bilateral U.S.Chinese opportunities, and its contributions to international
missions are restricted if there is the possibility of Chinese
participation in or access to those missions. As the Chinese increase
their reliance on space systems, they will be less inclined to employ
counterspace attacks, thus reducing the Chinese threat to U.S. military space
anticipate in the decades ahead. Indeed, by developing their own space manufacturing infrastructure,
systems. Attacks that destroy all space systems (via orbital debris or other
means) will also take out their own systems . The Chinese may be less inclined to develop
more sophisticated counterspace methods, such as covert co-orbital intercept, since this could lead to a
counterspace arms race, which, the Chinese recognize, the United States is in a better technological
position to win.
Defense
No space war
China wants greater cooperation with other nations in space, particularly the United
States, the country's most experienced astronaut has told CNN in an exclusive interview. Fifteen nations
including the United States, Russia and Japan cooperate on International Space Station missions, but
States and Russia started their space programs early. They are the pioneers," he said. He says foreign
Chinese expect
to finish their space station by 2022 -- around the time International Space
Station runs out of funding, potentially leaving China as the only country with
a permanent presence in space. China launched its manned space program in 1992. It initially
astronauts are welcome to visit China's own space station once it is launched. The
borrowed and bought a great deal of Russian technology, primarily by replicating their Soyuz space craft -which they dubbed the Shenzhou. But it has been steadily checking off the boxes in manned space flight.
In 2003, it put its first man in space. In 2008, it completed its first space walk. And in 2013 Nie and his
crew completed the country's longest space mission to date and twice docked with the Tiangong-1 space
With support from the highest echelons of the ruling Chinese Communist
Party and exceptionally deep pockets, most analysts believe China's space
program could become a world leader.
lab.
2003 Strategic Master Plan, the ability to gain space superiority (the ability
to exploit space while selectively disallowing it to adversaries) is critically
important and maintaining space superiority is an essential prerequisite in
modern warfare. Superiority in conventional warfare relies on military assets
in space, especially satellites, which are used for intelligence, remote
sensing, navigation, and monitoring, among other things. Since the US
currently asserts its political will through force, protection of its own space
assets and disturbance of others is key to guaranteeing US dominance.
for many years has stood in almost complete isolation trying to block successive efforts of the international
while only one voted against such a resolution, the U nited States of America. Whether
the Committee can be effective, as the General Assembly desire, depends largely some some of the most
powerful nations in the world. Back to top US Seeks Militarization Of Space While various militaries around
the
Bush Administration in the United States has long made it clear that the US wishes
to expand its military capabilities and have weapons in space and therfore also be
the world have used Space for years, it has largely been for surveillance satellites etc. However,
dominant in this fourth military arena (the other three being sea, land and air). This new ultimate high
ground would provide further superior military capabilities. While
important defense mechanisms, many worry about the other benefit it would bring
capabilities for offensive purposes to push Americas national interests
even
if they are not in the interests of the international community. Furthermore, together with its pursuit of
missile defense, (which goes against the Anti Ballistic Missile treaty, an important part of global arms
Since the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, and the resulting War on Terror
military-based policies and spending has increased . So too have the policies
looking into space-based weapons. The Washington D.C.-based Center for Defence
control mechanisms), the USA risks starting a wasteful expenditure of an arms race in space.
Information (CDI) provides a detailed report suggesting that this should not be a rushed decision: Unlike in
Star Trek, the final frontier has yet to become a battlefield. But if the current trends continue, that will
changenot in the distance future of science fiction, but within the next several decades. Emerging Bush
administration plans and policies are clearly aimed at making the United States the first nation to deploy
There are several drivers behind this goal, including the very
real concern about the vulnerability of space assets that are increasingly
important to how the US military operates, and the administrations decision
to pursue missile defense. Unfortunately, the administration has done little thinkingat least
space-based weapons.
publiclyabout the potential for far-reaching military, political and economic ramifications of a US move to
break the taboo against weaponizing space. There is reason for concern that doing so could actually
undermine, rather than enhance, the national security of the United States, as well as global stability. Thus
it behooves the administration, as well as Congress, to undertake an in-depth and public policy review of
the pros and cons of weaponizing space. Such a review would look seriously at the threat, both short-term
and long-term, as well as measures to prevent, deter or counter any future threat using all the tools in the
US policy toolbox: diplomatic, including arms control treaties; economic; and military, including defensive
measures short of offensive weapons. There is nothing to be gained, and potentially much to be lost, by
rushing such a momentous change in US space policy. Theresa Hitchens, Weapons in Space: Silver Bullet
or Russian Roulette?, The Policy Implications of US Pursuit of Space-Based Weapons, Center for Defence
Information, April 18, 2002 But because space-based weapons have been on the agenda long before
September 11, and the War on Terror, the fight against terrorism is not the sole justification, though it may
now add to the reasons. However, long before September 11, the concerns of the US motives for pursuing
such policies have been questioned. The fear is that by seeking to create a dominant position in space, the
US will become more powerful and others may be compelled to join an arms race in space. The abovementioned CDI report also points out that The Bush administrations views were directly reflected in the
2001 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), released Oct. 1, 2001. A key objective is not only to ensure
US ability to exploit space for military purposes, but also as required to deny an adversarys ability to do
so, states the QDR. In this context then, space is no longer seen as the resource available for all of
New York
Times reported (May 18, 2005) that there is a further push by the US Air Force
for weapons in space. Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological,
humanity, but another ground from which to fight geopolitical and economic battles. The
political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons in
space, barring weapons of mass destruction, claims the Times. Yet, this news article appears to ignore the
Outer Space Treaty mentioned above, or the Prevention of Outer Space Arms Race resolution, adopted by a
recorded vote of 163 in favor to none against, with 3 abstentions (the US being one of those three). If
technically there are no bans on weapons, then certainly such weaponization would go against the spirit of
those treaties. What the Times does mention, though, is that There has been little public debate while the
Pentagon has already spent billions of dollars developing space weapons preparing plans to deploy
them; Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack
in space; In April 2005, Gen. James E. Cartwright, who leads the United States Strategic Command, told
the Senate Armed Services nuclear forces subcommittee that the goal of developing space weaponry was
to allow the nation to deliver an attack very quickly, with very short time lines on the planning and
delivery, any place on the face of the earth. Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny.
Space superiority is our day-to-day mission. Space supremacy is our vision for
the future. General Lance Lord, head of US Air Force Space Command, quoted from Air Force Seeks
Bushs Approval for Space Weapons Programs, New York Times, May 18, 2005 On August 31, 2006,
President Bush authorized a new national space policy, supersedeing the National Space Policy of
September 14, 1996. The policy was based on 8 principles. One was about supporting the peaceful use of
space by all nations. However, Consistent with this principle, claimed the policy, peaceful purposes
would allow U.S. defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national interests. Two other key
and freedom of action in space; dissuade or deter others from either impeding those rights or developing
capabilities intended to do so; take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities; respond to
interference; and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to U.S. national
interests;
***Climate Change***
Relations Good
China are separated by different histories, different cultures, and different perspectives. Opportunities for collaboration in fighting climate change and promoting clean
energy are plentiful, but moving forward at the scale needed will require high-level political support in two very different societies and systems that have considerable
suspicion of the other. This report identifies major barriers to cooperation and recommends ways to overcome them. G The time for large-scale U.S.-China cooperation on
climate change and clean energy is now. Unless both countries change course soon, ongoing investments in 20th century technologies will commit the world as a whole to
dangerous levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the decades ahead. Recent political and technological developments make the benefits of such cooperation
especially compelling. Furthermore, thirty years after normalization and with the start of a new administration in the United States, the U.S. China relationship is ready to
move to a new stage. This new stage will initiate full bilateral consultation and cooperation where possible on the most critical global issues of the era. Climate change and
clean energy are at the top of the list. This new stage does not envision a U.S.-China condominium or alliance. Any U.S.-China agreements must be supplements tonot
substitutes forother relationships and obligations. If handled properly, such agreements will increase bilateral and global capacities to manage critical world challenges.
major failing in U.S.-China relations to date is that, despite much progress over the past 30 years,
mutual distrust over each others long-term intentions remains deep and
perhaps has even grown in recent years. By making active cooperation on
critical global issues a centerpiece of the relationship , both countries
governments can increase trust over long-term intentions and thereby reduce
the chances of slipping into mutual antagonism over the coming 10-20 years.
In particular, U.S.-China cooperation can make each side less inclined to point
to the other as a reason to do less at home to fight global warming. It can
also contribute to the success of multilateral climate change negotiations.
Having the U.S. and China successfully manage issues that have divided
industrialized and developing countries in the global climate change
negotiations can help shape acceptable multilateral climate change
agreements for the post-Kyoto period. Finally, U.S.-China cooperation on
climate change and clean energy can also help each country enhance its
energy security and pursue a sustainable economic path that will create jobs
and promote economic recovery.
The
international forces help explain the transformation, and reveal its potential and continuing challenges.
poor air quality Beijings most prominent challenge in 2014, while a top climate adviser deemed an
acute pollution episode in the capital unbearable. [READ: Primer: The UN Climate Summit in Paris] In
response, the metrics for measuring local bureaucratic success and promotions through party ranks
emphasize environmental performance more than ever before. Punitive measures against polluters are
gaining strength, and efforts to transform energy systems are accelerating through rapid expansions in
solar, wind and nuclear sectors. Such measures have the corollary effect of reducing greenhouse gas
emissions, which has changed the ways that Chinese leadership views international pressure to act on
climate change. Outside pressures to reduce Chinas carbon emissions used to be viewed as anathema to
the countrys development needs, and a distraction from its core business of wealth generation and
societal development. They are now seen as opportunities for gaining partnerships, technical support and
finance to help China transition toward a cleaner energy future. This includes expanding Chinas
manufacturing and export of clean-energy technologies, which have strong economic growth potential. Xis
China thus looks to the international climate arena for help addressing its domestic energy transition and
pollution reduction goals. That the measures taken will also reduce climate risks is an added bonus. U.S.
Executive Action RELATED CONTENT FILE - In this Aug. 10, 2010, file photo, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas
speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. With a re-election campaign looming,
President Barack Obama is pushing Congress to overhaul the immigration system, but lawmakers seems to
have little appetite to take on the issue. GOP Digs in Heels on Climate Action In the US, executive branch
boldness has the Obama administration toeing the line of what is politically and legally tenable to advance
some form of the environmentally progressive agenda the president campaigned on in 2008. Frustrated
with congressional intransigence and international inertia, the administration has opted for executive
regulation at home and bilateral partnerships abroad. Obamas Clean Power Plan places new emissions
standards on power plants and vehicles, mandates and supports clean energy expansion, and seeks to cut
energy waste and improve infrastructure. On the first day of the Paris summit, the U.S. announced Mission
Innovation and officials touted the potential for technologies to lower emissions and further encourage
private-sector investment in clean energy innovation. And in defending its Clean Power Plan, the White
House emphasizes public health dividends, job creation, economic growth and long-term energy security.
Like China, U.S. leadership sees these measures as being in the countrys long-term economic and
strategic interests, and not merely as a ticket out of climate pariah status. Federal actions suggest this is
not bluster, but a key part of the Obama administrations vision for the countrys future. Some Welcome
Common Ground Bilaterally, American and Chinese diplomats have come to see climate change
cooperation as low-hanging fruit in an agenda otherwise brimming with strategic tension. From currency
markets and competitive free trade groupings to maritime navigation and the rise of Chinas military, the
relationship does not lack for wicked problems. Climate change used to be just another avenue for
strategic posturing, with China clinging to its status as a developing country with little culpability for the
problem, and the U.S. justifying its inflexibility through Chinas inaction. Those days have passed, at least
for now. Beijing and Washington now see opportunity in the climate problem, and view it as a refreshingly
non-zero sum game. They recently formed and now cofund the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center,
with a mandate extending through 2020, and are pursuing technical cooperation on issues from carbon
capture and sequestration to sustainable urban infrastructure. These connections feed into growing
business ties, manifested most publicly through the annual U.S.-China Clean Energy Forum. Such ties
create incentives that are likely to keep climate cooperation from being a flash in the pan. Global Enablers
allows the U.S. and China to chart their own paths without feeling overly constrained or dictated to by
international accords. This shift also presents challenges. The US, China and their partners in Paris are
searching for acceptable ways to transparently report and verify what emissions reductions are taking
place where. This issue is taking on renewed urgency in the wake of Chinas revelations that it
underreported past coal consumption, and that it may resist including strong verification protocols in the
Paris agreement.
Of the many issues crowding the international agenda, there is perhaps none
so pressing, nor so quintessentially global, as the rising threat of climate
change. In its causes and potential consequences, climate change has
implications for every inhabitant of every nation on earth. Yet the power to mobilize an
effective response rests largely with a handful of nations. There are two in particular without which it will not be possible to find a meaningful
between the United States and China that promises a more sustainable future for both nations and for the world.1 The United States and China
should develop a sustained cooperative agenda as well as national policies to catalyze a new global strategic transformation to sustainable,
Roadmap for this new collaboration. With input from scores of experts, stakeholders, and policymakers from the worlds of science, business,
civil society, policy, and politics in China and the United States, the Report explores the climate and energy challenges facing both nations and
recommends a program for sustained high-level engagement and on-the-ground action. The Report and its recommendations are based on the
Action is Urgent. The United States and China should start now.
There is overwhelming scientific consensus that human-induced climate
change poses grave economic and environmental risks. Minimizing these
risks requires that global greenhouse gas emissions, now rising at an
unprecedented rate, peak as soon as possible and decline dramatically over
the coming decades. Accomplishing this goal will be feasible only through
concerted and sustained action, beginning immediately. The United States
and China should not await new domestic legislation or multilateral
agreements before launching stronger collaborative efforts . A Path to Energy Security.
Climate change is largely a consequence of soaring global energy use, and
addressing it requires a fundamental transformation of energy systems worldwide.
This transformation presents an unparalleled opportunity to simultaneously
address the urgent energy security challenges confronting the United States,
China, and other nations by introducing new sources and technologies capable of enhancing the diversity, reliability, and independence of
national energy supplies. New Economic Opportunity . At a time of global economic upheaval, strong
efforts to address the twin challenges of climate change and energy security
can contribute to economic recovery, while laying the foundation for a
prosperous new low-carbon economy. The near-term investments that are needed will produce substantial longterm dividends through sustainable growth and employment. Conversely, delaying these investments will
risk severe economic harm and drive up the cost of minimizing the impact of
climate change.
following understandings:
advent of a new U.S. presidential administration in Washington, D.C., coupled with a central leadership in Beijing that is increasingly aware of
the destructive impact and long-term dangers of climate change, presents an unparalleled opportunity for this new strategic partnership.
While the current global economic crisis could make joint action between the United States and China more difficult, it could also provide an
unexpected impetus. If wisely allocated, funds invested by both governments in economic recovery can help address climate change while
Stronger bilateral
collaboration on energy and climate change has at the same time the real
prospect of helping to build a new, more stable, and constructive foundation
under SinoAmerican relations, the most important bilateral relationship in the
21st century world. This Reportwhich was produced in partnership between Asia Societys Center on U.S.-China Relations
also advancing the green technologies and industries that will lead to a new wave of economic growth.
and Pew Center on Global Climate Change, in collaboration with The Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations, National Committee on
U.S.- China Relations, and Environmental Defense Fundpresents both a vision and a concrete Roadmap for such Sino-U.S. collaboration. With
input from scores of experts and other stakeholders from the worlds of science, business, civil society, policy, and politics in both China and
(US News, 12.10.2015, Why China and the U.S. Have Found Common Purpose on Climate Change,
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/12/10/why-china-and-the-us-have-found-common-purpose-onclimate-change, HY)
Bilaterally, American and Chinese diplomats have come to see climate change
cooperation as low-hanging fruit in an agenda otherwise brimming with strategic
tension. From currency markets and competitive free trade groupings to maritime navigation and the rise of Chinas military, the
relationship does not lack for wicked problems. Climate change used to be just another avenue for strategic posturing, with China clinging to
its status as a developing country with little culpability for the problem, and the U.S. justifying its inflexibility through Chinas inaction. Those
U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, with a mandate extending through 2020, and are pursuing technical cooperation on issues from
carbon capture and sequestration to sustainable urban infrastructure. These connections feed into growing business ties, manifested most
of changes in the direction of international climate change diplomacy. UN-centric approaches have largely abandoned the holy grail of an
encompassing and binding global agreement that covers an exhaustive range of climate issues. Disaggregated and largely voluntary
approaches now rule the day, which allows the U.S. and China to chart their own paths without feeling overly constrained or dictated to by
international accords. The U.S. insists upon enhanced international norms and practices around verification, which it sees as essential to
prevent the approach of voluntary commitments from becoming a house of cards. The two countries' ability to extend their cooperation to this
from reaching its full potential. These hurdles will not disappear overnight, but Paris is an appropriate forum for developing strategies to
The international community attributes the incremental progress successes at the Copenhagen and Cancun climate conferences to enhanced
. As the international society
Ecologically speaking,
China and the United States are among the countries that will suffer the worst effects of climate change, and both view climate change and energy security as two of the greatest challenges of our time as stated
in their leaders joint statement in January 2011. Just before the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, President Hu Jintao addressed the 2009 UN Climate Summit and said, Climate change is one of the serious
challenges to the survival and development of mankind. Chinas 2008 White Paper on Climate Change stated that, China is vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, like droughts, disruptive storms,
and inundation of coastal zones and decreased agricultural production. The US National Intelligence Council (NIC) concluded in 2008 that, Climate change will have wide-ranging implications for national security
interests over the next 20 years, including destructive storm activity, increased water scarcity, reduced agricultural yields, disease and pandemics, mass migration, increased conflict and destabilized states. During
his remarks on the Cancun Climate Conference, President Obama asserted that, No nation, however large or small, wealthy or poor, can escape the impact of climate change. Economically speaking, China and
the United States both face unprecedented opportunities to shift the traditional economic mode to low carbon development associated with mitigating climate change. President Hu Jintao recently encouraged low
carbon growth to the 2010 APEC Summit; Chinas National Peoples Congress passed the Renewable Energy Law; before the Copenhagen Convention China set the goal that, by 2020, carbon emission intensity
per unit of GDP will be reduced by 40% 45% compared to that in 2005; and Shanghai Expo 2010 took low carbon as its core theme. In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama announced a target of
generating 80% of electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 (presently it is less than 40%) and become the first country to have a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015. Politically speaking, global
climate change governance needs the full engagement of China and the United States. The United States, the worlds largest carbon emitter, is not a member of the Kyoto Protocol and even opposes the Kyoto
regime with Japan and Russia. As the main global energy organization, the International Energy Agency (IEA) doesnt include China as a full member. Global governance on climate change is notably becoming more
and more fragmented: the divergences among developing countries, particularly on emissions targets and timetables, are becoming larger, while the inherent conflicts on the Kyoto Protocol between the umbrella
group (Japan, Russsia, and the US) and the EU continue to reduce the Kyoto regimes effectiveness. Concurrently, the climate change governance landscape is evolving and there are new mechanisms such as the
of co-progress in three ways: Global Accountability, Win-Win Cooperation, and Co-progressive Collaboration:
to
make a breakthrough at the Durban Climate Conference. At the Cancun Climate Conference, it was resolved that any decisions on the future of the Kyoto Protocol will be deferred until Durban, particularly the global
, China
and the United States can help to work out the unequivocal commitments on
global emission vision associated with common but differentiated principle(s),
and they also should shift global attention from mitigation to adaptation
measures to cope with climate change by technology and market measures
which are the preferred ways to address climate-induced social economic
impacts. China and the United States both face unprecedented extensive
business opportunities for win-win cooperation. The burgeoning new energy
and low carbon business will create a carbon economy worth thousands of
billions of dollars
goal for substantially reducing global emissions by 2050, and the implementing the regime for financial, technological and capacity-building support to developing countries. To begin with
. In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama maintained clean energy issues as a high priority for his administration which has been associated with jobs,
competitiveness and the future. China will spend $293 billion in clean and alternative energy investment before 2020, and the clean energy market will likely amount to $555 billion in 2020. In cooperation with
China the largest global market the US can certainly achieve economic growth and enhanced competitiveness. Coal made up about 70% of Chinas electricity generation over the past year. In the clean coal area,
GE and the Chinese company Shenhua have signed a joint venture agreement on coal-gasification technology. Since 2006, Chinas installed capacity of wind power has doubled over the past four consecutive years
and brings extensive market business. In January 2011, American UPC Renewables and China Guodian signed an agreement on wind-power projects in China involving about $1 billion in investment. In 2010, China
planned to start construction of more than 20 nuclear power generators, accounting for 40% of the worlds installations. During President Hu Jintaos visit in 2011, Westinghouse Electric and China State Nuclear
. Clearly, the U.S. economy is built on a consumption-intensive fossil fuel energy infrastructure. Chinas economy, however, is also dependent on exported
services and goods with extensive energy consumption. U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu stressed that China and the United States consume 15% and 25%, respectively, of global energy supplies, but that the
Urgent tasks at the Durban Climate Change Conference, such as agreeing to the 2050 global
mitigation reduction target and solidifying developed countries second commitment period in the Kyoto Protocol offer solutions to a more harmonious relationship between man and nature
the sun, paving the way for the end of burning fossil fuels Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/china-creates-artificial-star-three-7330127
Scientists in China have created an 'artificial star' that is three times hotter
than the sun, paving the way for the end of fossil fuels. Physicists have
engineered a way to make hydrogen gas that heats up to a whopping 50
million C. And crucially, they've been able to maintain that temperature for a record 102 seconds.
While it might not sound hugely impressive, the only other attempt to reach this high a temperature was
Physicists
believe this new discovery could mean the end of relying on fossil fuels . This
is because scientists can harbour nuclear energy from the gas, providing
unlimited clean energy. The tests were carried out using a machine called the Experimental
done by German scientists, who managed 80 million C - but only for a fraction of a second.
Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) - the reactor that produces the high temperature substance at the Institute of Physical Science in Hefei, China. It reached highs of 50 million Kelvins - this is compared
to the surface of the sun, which comes in at around 15 million Kelvins. The gas was kept in the nuclear
chamber for well over a minute, helped along by creating a magnetic field to keep it suspended in the
doughnut-shaped contraption. This magnetism appears when scientists superconducted the coils
surrounding the structure at the same time as driving an electrical current through the plasma. Their goal
But even
though they didn't achieve their target, this latest feat is hugely significant in
ridding the world of fossil fuels. Earlier this month, researchers found that
burning fossils such as petrol and coal has meant the Atlantic Ocean has
soaked up 50 percent more carbon dioxide than normal in the past decade.
was to reach highs of 100 million Kelvins for 1,000 seconds, which is around 17 minutes.
Defense
in China the
major initiatives have come from the national-level party and government and have
often been blunted by conflicting interests among local officials and enterprises.
Chinas political system is highly centralized and disciplined only in certain unusual
circumstances: i.e., when all the top leaders not only agree on an issue but also agree
to give the issue overriding priority and are able to determine reasonably well
in real time whether their directives are being carried out. Very few issues in
recent years have met all these criteria. Chinas political system interacts massively
with its economic system at every political levelfrom the national to provincial, municipal, county, and
to address climate change have been made at the state and local levels and in the private sector,
township. In addition, the fundamental structure of the political system allows leading officials at each of these five levels
large latitude to act entrepreneurially to assure GDP growth in their own bailiwicks each and every year, and it rewards
contributed on the whole mightily to Chinas record of extraordinary growth over the past thirty years. They have enabled
a one-party political system to nevertheless enjoy enormous dynamism and entrepreneurial creativity, with different
these same
characteristics inhibit effective action on most types of environmental issues.
localities often competing with each other to attract foreign investment and other resources. But
capacity of the international system to manage the global issues of the 21st
century. This mix of goals makes the Chinese leadership both desirous of contributing to
progress on the climate change issue and wary about obligations that might
negatively impact Chinas own growth prospects . China positions itself as a
developing country in international relation s. As noted above, while retaining some merit, this positioning
does not nearly capture the full reality of the PRC, which both confronts the problems of developing countries and has many of the attributes
of an industrialized nation. China is now in a somewhat uncomfortable transition period, where the balance is shifting toward more explicit
acceptance of its rights and obligations as a major power but where the most comfortable and internationally acceptable posture is not yet
clear. This situation complicates Chinas role during 2009 in addressing the global economic crisis, and it also has a complicating effect on
points to provisions in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, reaffirmed in the 2007 Bali Roadmap, which obligate advanced
industrial countries to aid the transfer of pertinent technologies and to provide financial support to developing countries to meet their climate
***Cyber security***
Relations Good
in America, and within each of our allies, we seem to know nothing whatsoever
about impending extremist attacks until they occur . What in Gods name is happening?
But
The answer is certainly NOT crippling encryption. In China, encryption is controlled by the Office of State
Commercial Cryptography Administration (OSCCA). However, items such as wireless telephones, standard
computer operating systems and internet browsers are not included under their regulations. Think of how
odd this is compared to the extreme paranoia of our own government regarding encrypted
China, by
any cybersecurity measures is 20 years ahead of the US . So advanced, that
the White House voiced open frustration at our inability to stop or even slow
down Chinas increasing invasion of our cyberspace. China is not concerned about
communications between people. Yet, for the top cybersecurity experts, it's not odd at all.
encryption because it's capable of gathering all inputs prior to encryption and capturing screen shots after
data has been decrypted. They don't care what encryption techniques are used. Why should they waste
the boat. How does China achieve such dramatic results compared to the US? The answer is through a
brilliant application of the foundation upon which digital science rests - mathematics. One of the most
powerful tools of intelligence gathering in this new age of digital communications is a nearly forgotten field
of mathematics called Point Set Topology. I chose this field as my specialty in grad school because it was
trivially easy and I was lazy. At the time it had absolutely no practical use, about which I cared little. I was
simply enjoying college life for as long as possible, and it's simplicity gave me lots of free time. Topology
deals with the relations between and among sets, or collections of things. The things can be anything, fish,
buttons, shoelaces, orPeople. Let me give you an oversimplified example of how it can be used in
intelligence gathering: Imagine that I am a terrorist (not difficult for my detractors within the FBI), and I
have a set (collection) of people that I frequently or infrequent call in my phone. If China suspects me it will
first plant spyware on my phone that merely transmits the phone numbers of my contacts and the
frequency and duration of my calls. Nothing else. The spyware planting is trivial for the Chinese and they
can do it from halfway around the world. They then plant the same spyware on the phones of everyone I
contact, and then everyone that they contact, and so on down the line until upwards of 100,000 phones or
more are infected. Since the software is merely transmitting interactions, each individual phone is
minimally impacted and few, ever detect the spyware. Next? They process these hundreds of millions of
interconnections using another seldom used branch of mathematics called Boolean Algebra. It, like Point
Set Topology, is so simple that you could get PhD in the field by sleeping through every class and shooting
up heroin every night. However, the combination of the two fields is one of the most powerful tools ever
constructed for ferreting out terrorists and other secret societies, criminal organizations, etc. It does this by
identifying and isolating communication anomalies. For example: a terrorist leader may make exclusively
outgoing calls and demand no incoming calls quite common for some groups. Now who does this,
really, except possibly your drug dealer who calls you whenever he receives a shipment but threatens to
those that he called will call a subset of others and likewise on down the chain of command. The software
the
Chinese would immediately download more sophisticated software onto only
doing the Boolean analysis would identify this as anomaly and report it. If this,we're to happen,
those phones in the chain of command that would collect keystrokes and
screen shots and send them home to China. Chinese foreign agents would then collect all
involved before they could even buy the duct tape to strap on their bombs. What is fascinating about this
technique is that if any one person, or more, throws away their phone and gets a new one, the new phone
will be identified with minutes of the first few calls sent or received. Powerful stuff. But back to the stone
addresses, phone numbers or email addresses for up to 70 million individuals and the credit card
information of 40 million shoppers.4
potentially exposed contact and log-in information of eBays customers, prompting the online
retailer to ask its more than 200 million users to change their passwords.5 In September, it was revealed
cyberattackearlier in the year.7 In perhaps the most infamous cyberattack of 2014, in late November, Sony
Pictures Entertainment suffered a significant system disruption as a result of a brazen cyber attack8
that resulted in the leaking of the personal details of thousands of Sony employees.9 And in February of
2015, the health care provider Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield [end page 1] disclosed that a very
sophisticated attack obtained personal information relating to the companys customers and
experienced a data breach in the past year.14 Moreover, just as the cyberattacks
of 2013which included incidents involving companies like the New York Times, Facebook, Twitter,
Apple, and Microsoft15were eclipsed by those that occurred in 2014,16 the consensus
view is that 2015 and beyond will witness more frequent and more
sophisticated cyber incidents.17 To the extent that its expected rise outpaces
any corresponding rise in the ability to defend against such attacks, the result could
be troubling news for countless businesses that rely more and more on
computers in all aspects of their operations, as the economic losses resulting from a
single cyberattack can be extremely costly.18 And the resulting effects of a
cyberattack can have effects beyond a single companys bottom line . As nations
are becoming ever more dependent on information and information
technology,19 the threat posed by any one cyberattack [end page 2] can have devastating
collateral and cascading effects across a wide range of physical,
economic and social systems.20 With reports that foreign nationssuch as
Russia, China, Iran, and North Koreamay be using cyberspace as a new front
to wage war,21 fears abound that a cyberattack could be used to shut down
the nations electrical grid,22 hijack a commercial airliner,23 or even
According to the FireEye, the company has reviewed the activity of China's 72 groups suspected of
conducting hacking activities against targets in the United States and 25 other countries.
Cybersecurity and espionage have long been a problem between the two
rival nations at least one that simmers under the surface of diplomacy. Both countries boast
sophisticated intelligence agencies and hacking techniques. The US is renowned for
its surveillance operations under the aegis of the NSA while, on Chinese shores, PLA-affiliated hackers have
long been sanctioned by the government to single out foreign targets from whom to steal intellectual
property for economic gain. The fresh rounds of discussions was led on the US side by Christopher Painter,
coordinator for cyber issues at the State Department. Officials from the Department of Justice (DoJ),
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Defence (DoD) were also present.
Meanwhile, the Chinese delegation was led by Wang Qun, director-general of arms control at the nation's
foreign ministry alongside officials from the public security ministries as well as the Cyberspace
on assistance from its Finnish, German, Israeli and Slovenian CERT counterparts to restore normal network operations. NATO CERTs and the
EUs European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) also supported Estonia in providing technical assessments and other
cooperation, along with cooperation with private sector banks and Internet
was essential to strengthening Estonias cyber infrastructure,
providers,
for example to
incrementally increase its throughput capacity.37 Notably, the international responses to aid Estonia happened within established security
communities and strong transnational relationships. China refrained from involvement, viewing the incidents as an internal matter of Estonia
Chinas stance is
changing as evidenced by a recent high-level discourse and policy
approaches calling for renewed cooperation with the entities such as the U.S. and European Union.39
Analysts stated that this new direction is intended to boost Chinese capabilities and
hamper notions of a China threat.40 International cooperation and preparedness
are now on the Chinese cyber agenda to move its strategic interests in
technology development, global reputation, and economic growth. Proposed
and also did not take part in the international cybersecurity discussions that followed.38 However,
Infrastructure Sectors for Cooperation. The previous sections provided background information, tools, and themes for negotiating with Chinas
cybersecurity counterparts. The second area of focus drills down into tangible areas for information sharing and coordination. The following
section details three infrastructure areas where cybersecurity cooperation is most promising and beneficial to U.S.-China shared interests:
Financial Services, Commercial Port Security, and Civilian Nuclear Energy. Each sector examines five categories of research: Sector Priorities,
Cooperation
in Financial Systems Sector Priorities The soundness, efficiency and stability
of securities markets rely on the quality of information provided and the
robustness of the supporting technological infrastructure . In recent years,
cybersecurity in relation to financial markets, both domestically and
internationally, has become a top priority. The cornerstone of financial
services is the maintenance of trust. The industry is built upon trust with clients, trust between firms, and trust
Past and Potential Attack Examples, Shared Vulnerabilities, Chinese Partners and Key Actors, and Recommendations.
to ensure the proper function of markets, executions of transactions and protection of information. Any loss or integrity failure in financial
infrastructure could impact a national economy in significant ways, including the loss of credit and liquidity to the marketplace, and the loss of
confidence in the operational effectiveness of the marketplace, which would impact other critical infrastructures. Examples of Past or Potential
Attacks In recent years, cyber attacks on the financial services sector have been increasingly prevalent. In 2012, some of the largest banks in
the United States came under cyber attack.41 In 2012 alone, 53% of securities exchanges around the world experienced a cyber attack.42 In
2013, cyber attacks brought down systems and some of South Koreas major banks, paralyzing bank machines across the country.43
Operation High Roller, discovered in 2012, siphoned up to $2.5 billion from bank accounts in Europe, the U.S. and Latin America.44 Numerous
stock exchanges around the world have faced DDoS cyber attacks, which in some cases have forced trading to halt for brief periods. It is
estimated that 60% of cyber crime occurring in China is financerelated. Some Chinese banks are subject to extortion by cyber criminals,
including third party actors from Eastern Europe.45 The economic and financial interdependence between China and the U.S. is remarkable.
China owns nearly 1.3 trillion dollars of U.S. treasury bonds. The U.S. is also one of Chinas largest trading partners, with trading between the
mechanism for encouraging such cooperation has yet to be identified. The remainder of this section identifies several approaches designed to
spur cooperation.
could change the strategic balance in Asia, eclipsing the potential danger of rising tensions in the South
China Sea. That is the view of cyber security expert Greg Austin who predicts
"redefine both war and politics across East Asia". The professor of cyber security,
strategy and diplomacy in the Australian Centre for Cyber Security at the University of NSW told
news.com.au that while tensions were simmering in the South China Sea, the biggest threat to peace in
the region was yet to come. "Today, China is struggling to integrate cyber weapons and information
dominance into its military strategies," he said. "By 2030, China will have acquired a total war capability in
cyber space against Taiwan. "This
of the
critical systems will be cyber-controlled and therefore cyber vulnerable, even
if it meant simply manipulating and falsifying data inputs into various
systems." Prof Austin, who touched on the arguments in a January 2016 paper Australia Re-armed:
Future Needs for Cyber-Enabled Warfare, said China and the US had a confrontational relationship in
regards to the South China Sea, especially in regards to Taiwan. China was determined to maintain control
over the island territory but not at the risk of a massive ground or air war with huge casualties. However if
China was to attack Taiwan now in a war it would ultimately fail as it would have backing from its powerful
US ally. Prof Austin said people were looking at the wrong place in terms of the next major US China
flashpoint. "The
real issue here is cyber security," he said predicting how the future
relationship would pan out. "We're looking in the wrong place. It won't be in the South
China Sea where the strategic interests of China and the US collide. "Instead
the place were these interests will collide is in cyber space . While the US was already
heavily investing in its cyber military capabilities, Beijing appeared to be lagging, but not for long. "By
2030 China's military capabilities in cyber space will look significantly different to what they do today," Prof
Austin said. "By
terms of global and security affairs isn't the South China Sea, it's the
reunification with Taiwan."
Relations Bad
Six months after China pledged to halt cyber espionage against the United
States, Beijings hackers continue to conduct cyber attacks on government
and private networks, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command told Congress. Despite a formal
pledge made by Chinese leader Xi Jinping in September, cyber operations from China are
still targeting and exploiting U.S. government, defense industry, academic,
and private computer networks, Adm. Mike Rogers, the Cybercom chief, said in prepared
testimony to a House Armed Services subcommittee on Wednesday. Rogers echoed comments on
continued Chinese cyber attacks made by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in February.
Clapper said in Senate testimony that it
more ransomware activity, Rogers said. In his prepared testimony to the subcommittee, Rogers
said cyber attacks by a range of nations and non-state actors are intensifying.
While North Korea has not conducted a repeat of its November 2014 cyber attack against Sony Pictures
Entertainment, we have seen a wide range of malicious cyber activities aimed against American targets
and victims elsewhere around the world, and thus we are by no means sanguine about the overall trends
in cyberspace, he said. Cyber attacks are ubiquitous. Literally every American who has connected to a
network has been affected, directly or indirectly, by cyber crime, Rogers said. By this point millions of us
have had personal information stolen, or seen our accounts or credit compromised. Some 300 American
companies involved in critical infrastructure, such as electrical power, finance, communications and
transportation, are working with Cybercom to study ways to protect against major cyber attacks, Rogers
noted. We
Defense
No cyber war
No Impact Our Cyber Tech is better the Chinese
threat is all hype.
Ross, 2009
Robert S.
, is a professor of political science at Boston College, an associate of the
John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University and a fellow of the Security
Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. September 2009 - October 2009, (The
National Interest, HEADLINE: Here Be Dragons, Robert S. Ross and Aaron L. Friedberg Debate: Is China a
Military Threat?, p. Lexis)
the reciprocal effect of Washingtons cyberwarfare capability on Beijings ability to wage high- technology warfare is equally
significant. The same advanced Chinese technologies and weaponry that pessimists
argue present a major threat to U.S. security , including ASBMs, are highly dependent
on advanced communication and surveillance technologies that are particularly
vulnerable to U.S. cyber attacks. And once the United States degrades the PLAs
advanced communication technologies, China would lose its high-technology
asymmetric capability that so alarms Americas pessimists, and it would be very
susceptible to a wide range of superior U.S. sea-based forces, even if the United
States suffered from an effective Chinese cyber attack.
operations in the western Pacific. Nonetheless,
viruses that, once unleashed from the lab, will turn against all vulnerable
systems, not just their intended targets. But this metaphor is deeply flawed. As
the destructive potential of a cyberweapon grows, the likelihood that it
could do far-reaching damage across many systems shrinks. Stuxnet did
infect more than 100,000 computers -- mainly in Iran, Indonesia, and India,
though also in Europe and the United States. But it was so specifically
programmed that it didn't actually damage those machines, afflicting only
Iran's centrifuges at Natanz. The worm's aggressive infection strategy was
designed to maximize the likelihood that it would reach its intended target. Because that
final target was not networked, "all the functionality required to sabotage a system was
embedded directly in the Stuxnet executable," the security software company Symantec
observed in its analysis of the worm's code. So yes, Stuxnet was "splattered" far
and wide, but it only executed its damaging payload where it was
supposed to. Collateral infection, in short, is not necessarily collateral
damage. A sophisticated piece of malware may aggressively infect many
systems, but if there is an intended target, the infection will likely have a
distinct payload that will be harmless to most computers. Especially in the
context of more sophisticated cyberweapons, the image of inadvertent collateral
damage doesn't hold up. They're more like a flu virus that only makes one family sick.
RAIGO PAJULA/AFP/Getty Images "In Cyberspace, Offense Dominates Defense."
Wrong again. The information age has "offense-dominant attributes," Arquilla and
Ronfeldt wrote in their influential 1996 book, The Advent of Netwar. This view has spread
through the American defense establishment like, well, a virus. A 2011 Pentagon report
on cyberspace stressed "the advantage currently enjoyed by the offense in
cyberwarfare." The intelligence community stressed the same point in its annual threat
report to Congress last year, arguing that offensive tactics -- known as vulnerability
discovery and exploitation -- are evolving more rapidly than the federal government and
industry can adapt their defensive best practices. The conclusion seemed obvious:
Cyberattackers have the advantage over cyberdefenders, "with the trend likely getting
worse over the next five years." A closer examination of the record, however,
reveals three factors that put the offense at a disadvantage. First is the
high cost of developing a cyberweapon, in terms of time, talent, and target
intelligence needed. Stuxnet, experts speculate, took a superb team and a
lot of time. Second, the potential for generic offensive weapons may be far
smaller than assumed for the same reasons, and significant investments in
highly specific attack programs may be deployable only against a very
limited target set. Third, once developed, an offensive tool is likely to have
a far shorter half-life than the defensive measures put in place against it.
Even worse, a weapon may only be able to strike a single time; once the
exploits of a specialized piece of malware are discovered, the most critical systems
will likely be patched and fixed quickly. And a weapon, even a potent one,
is not much of a weapon if an attack cannot be repeated. Any political threat
relies on the credible threat to attack or to replicate a successful attack. If that were in
doubt, the coercive power of a cyberattack would be drastically reduced.
then, it seems to have arrived -- at least by the account of the U.S. military
establishment, which is busy competing over who should get what share of the fight.
Cyberspace is "a domain in which the Air Force flies and fights," Air Force Secretary
Michael Wynne claimed in 2006. By 2012, William J. Lynn III, the deputy defense
secretary at the time, was writing that cyberwar is "just as critical to military operations
as land, sea, air, and space." In January, the Defense Department vowed to equip the
U.S. armed forces for "conducting a combined arms campaign across all domains -land, air, maritime, space, and cyberspace." Meanwhile, growing piles of books and
articles explore the threats of cyberwarfare, cyberterrorism, and how to survive them.
Time for a reality check: Cyberwar is still more hype than hazard. Consider
the definition of an act of war: It has to be potentially violent, it has to be
purposeful, and it has to be political. The cyberattacks we've seen so far,
from Estonia to the Stuxnet virus, simply don't meet these criteria. Take the
dubious story of a Soviet pipeline explosion back in 1982, much cited by
cyberwar's true believers as the most destructive cyberattack ever. The account goes
like this: In June 1982, a Siberian pipeline that the CIA had virtually booby-trapped with a
so-called "logic bomb" exploded in a monumental fireball that could be seen from space.
The U.S. Air Force estimated the explosion at 3 kilotons, equivalent to a small nuclear
device. Targeting a Soviet pipeline linking gas fields in Siberia to European markets, the
operation sabotaged the pipeline's control systems with software from a Canadian firm
that the CIA had doctored with malicious code. No one died, according to Thomas Reed,
a U.S. National Security Council aide at the time who revealed the incident in his 2004
book, At the Abyss; the only harm came to the Soviet economy. But did it really
happen? After Reed's account came out, Vasily Pchelintsev, a former KGB head of
the Tyumen region, where the alleged explosion supposedly took place,
denied the story. There are also no media reports from 1982 that confirm
such an explosion, though accidents and pipeline explosions in the Soviet
Union were regularly reported in the early 1980s. Something likely did happen,
but Reed's book is the only public mention of the incident and his account relied on a
single document. Even after the CIA declassified a redacted version of
Reed's source, a note on the so-called Farewell Dossier that describes the effort to
provide the Soviet Union with defective technology, the agency did not confirm that
and the online services of Estonia's largest bank were taken down. "What's the
difference between a blockade of harbors or airports of sovereign states and the
blockade of government institutions and newspaper websites?" asked Estonian Prime
Minister Andrus Ansip. Despite his analogies, the attack was no act of war. It was
certainly a nuisance and an emotional strike on the country, but the bank's
actual network was not even penetrated; it went down for 90 minutes one
day and two hours the next. The attack was not violent, it wasn't
purposefully aimed at changing Estonia's behavior, and no political entity
took credit for it. The same is true for the vast majority of cyberattacks on
record. Indeed, there is no known cyberattack that has caused the loss of
human life. No cyberoffense has ever injured a person or damaged a
building. And if an act is not at least potentially violent, it's not an act of
war. Separating war from physical violence makes it a metaphorical notion; it would
mean that there is no way to distinguish between World War II, say, and the "wars" on
obesity and cancer. Yet those ailments, unlike past examples of cyber "war," actually do
kill people.
"A Digital Pearl Harbor Is Only a Matter of Time." Keep waiting. U.S.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta delivered a stark warning last summer: "We
could face a cyberattack that could be the equivalent of Pearl Harbor."
Such alarmist predictions have been ricocheting inside the Beltway
for the past two decades, and some scaremongers have even upped the
ante by raising the alarm about a cyber 9/11. In his 2010 book, Cyber War,
former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke invokes the specter of
nationwide power blackouts, planes falling out of the sky, trains derailing,
refineries burning, pipelines exploding, poisonous gas clouds wafting, and
satellites spinning out of orbit -- events that would make the 2001 attacks pale in
comparison. But the empirical record is less hair-raising, even by the
standards of the most drastic example available. Gen. Keith Alexander, head
of U.S. Cyber Command (established in 2010 and now boasting a budget of more than
$3 billion), shared his worst fears in an April 2011 speech at the University of Rhode
Island: "What I'm concerned about are destructive attacks," Alexander said,
vibrations had worn down the bolts that kept its cover in place, and an offline sensor
failed to detect the malfunction. Seventy-five people died in the accident, energy prices
in Russia rose, and rebuilding the plant is slated to cost $1.3 billion. Tough luck for the
Russians, but here's what the head of Cyber Command didn't say: The ill-
fated turbine had been malfunctioning for some time, and the plant's
management was notoriously poor. On top of that, the key event that
ultimately triggered the catastrophe seems to have been a fire at Bratsk
power station, about 500 miles away. Because the energy supply from Bratsk
dropped, authorities remotely increased the burden on the Sayano-Shushenskaya plant.
The sudden spike overwhelmed the turbine, which was two months shy of reaching the
end of its 30-year life cycle, sparking the catastrophe. If anything, the SayanoShushenskaya incident highlights how difficult a devastating attack would be to mount.
The plant's washout was an accident at the end of a complicated and unique chain of
events. Anticipating such vulnerabilities in advance is extraordinarily difficult
even for insiders; creating comparable coincidences from cyberspace would be a
daunting challenge at best for outsiders. If this is the most drastic incident Cyber
Command can conjure up, perhaps it's time for everyone to take a deep
breath.
"Cyberattacks Are Becoming Easier." Just the opposite. U.S. Director of
National Intelligence James R. Clapper warned last year that the volume of
malicious software on American networks had more than tripled since 2009
and that more than 60,000 pieces of malware are now discovered every day. The United
States, he said, is undergoing "a phenomenon known as 'convergence,' which amplifies
the opportunity for disruptive cyberattacks, including against physical infrastructures."
("Digital convergence" is a snazzy term for a simple thing: more and more devices able
to talk to each other, and formerly separate industries and activities able to work
together.) Just because there's more malware, however, doesn't mean that
attacks are becoming easier. In fact, potentially damaging or lifethreatening cyberattacks should be more difficult to pull off. Why? Sensitive
systems generally have built-in redundancy and safety systems, meaning
an attacker's likely objective will not be to shut down a system, since merely
forcing the shutdown of one control system, say a power plant, could trigger a
backup and cause operators to start looking for the bug. To work as an
effective weapon, malware would have to influence an active process -- but not bring it
to a screeching halt. If the malicious activity extends over a lengthy period, it has to
remain stealthy. That's a more difficult trick than hitting the virtual off-button. Take
Stuxnet, the worm that sabotaged Iran's nuclear program in 2010. It didn't just crudely
shut down the centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility; rather, the worm subtly
manipulated the system. Stuxnet stealthily infiltrated the plant's networks, then hopped
onto the protected control systems, intercepted input values from sensors, recorded
these data, and then provided the legitimate controller code with pre-recorded fake input
signals, according to researchers who have studied the worm. Its objective was not just
to fool operators in a control room, but also to circumvent digital safety and monitoring
systems so it could secretly manipulate the actual processes. Building and deploying
cyberweapons. Yes, "convergence," standardization, and sloppy defense of controlsystems software could increase the risk of generic attacks, but the same trend has
also caused defenses against the most coveted targets to improve steadily
and has made reprogramming highly specific installations on legacy
systems more complex, not less.
***Science diplomacy***
Relations Good
the two nations could form a truly unique strategic win-win partnership:
American compa- nies operating in China could further enhance the rate of
return on their investments, while China could continue to energize its S&T
development and accelerate its industrial upgrading. More im- portantly,
enhanced S&T cooperation between the two nations could help both
countries reach a use- ful consensus on a series of critical global issues
including renewable energy, food security, climate change and healthcare
thus fostering a more pos- itive sum, collaborative approach to international
agenda setting. Clearly, there continue to be many problems and hurdles that
plague U.S.-China S&T cooperation, including disputes over intellectual property rights,
export control restrictions, trade barriers and most recently, information security. Amelioration of
these problems will require noth- ing less than continuous bilateral
engagement, ne- gotiation and dialogue at the highest levels of both
governments.
tion,
Dr. Leong Chee Chiew, Deputy CEO, National Parks in Singapore highlighted that the
ASEAN region, with its combined coastline of about 173,000 kilometers and rich coastal and marine biodiversity, faces enormous
challenges to sustainability in coastal and shared ocean regions. Unless a
scientific ecosystem approach is adopted, trans-boundary marine areas
conflicts will only become worse. The problems are disturbing. Nearly 80 percent of the SCSs
coral reefs have been degraded and are under serious threat in places from sediment, overfishing, destructive fishing practices,
pollution and climate change. Challenges around food security and renewable fish resources
are fast becoming a hardscrabble reality for more than just fishermen. With dwindling fisheries
in the regions coastal areas, fishing state subsidies, overlapping EEZ claims,
and mega-commercial fishing trawlers competing in a multi-billion dollar
industry, fish are now the backbone in this sea of troubles. An ecological catastrophe is unfolding in
held last month in Singapore,
the regions once fertile fishing grounds, as repeated reclamations destroy reefs, agricultural and industrial run-off poison coastal waters, and overfishing depletes fish
continuous coastal development, escalating reclamation and increased maritime traffic is now regularly placed in front of an increasing number of marine scientists and
policy strategists. Marine biologists, who share a common language that cuts across political, economic and social differences, recognize that the structure of a coral reef is
strewn with the detritus of perpetual conflict and represents one of natures cruelest battlefields, pitting species against species. At the same time, the coral reef, often
referred to as a jewel of the sea, offers a sanctuary to many of the seas life forms like the mollusk, which in turn provides lodging to a mantis shrimp and a miniature eel in
exchange for food and cleaning services. While traditional diplomatic and military tactics are not completely exhausted in the latest round of diplomatic salvos between
example, the build-up of maritime biology, maritime mapping and geology, deep-sea explorations, and systematic knowledge production was absent only 20 years ago.
However, these scientific advancements fail to support a Chinese position with the UN Seabed Commission, and in other legal battles in the context of international law of
the seas. On the contrary, the Commission fosters and provides the framework for the expansion of cooperative research in scientific marine study on deep-sea
ecosystems. In an amplification of sciences vaulted role, the International Seabed Authority is involved in the vast effort of collecting, analyzing, rationalizing, and
disseminating results of marine scientific research and data. Their one hundred and sixty seven members, including China, recently met at the United Nations to develop
and to discuss the exploitation code. The scientific community does not refute the overwhelming evidence that Chinas continued reclamation of atolls and rocks through
the dredging of sand in the Spratlys disrupts the fragile marine ecosystem. The area has been recognized as a treasure trove of biological resources and is host to parts of
Southeast Asias most productive coral reef ecosystems. With coral reefs threatened around the world, reef specialist, Dr. McManus in his CSIS presentation, expressed
concern for the plight of the regions hard and soft corals, parrotfish, spinner dolphins, sea turtles, groupers, and black-tipped reef sharks. Recent biological surveys in the
region and even off Mainland China reveal that the losses of living coral reefs present a grim picture of decline, degradation, and destruction. More specifically, reef fish
species in the contested region have declined precipitously to around 261 from 460 species. While science provides as many answers as questions, the evidence is
as 1992, McManus was one of several marine scientists who wrote scientific articles advocating for an international peace park or marine protected area. While the
geopolitical intractable SCS impediments remain, the Spratlys might be seen as a resource savings bank, where fish, as trans-boundary residents, spawn in the coral
reefs and encircle almost all of the South China Sea waters, before returning home. In an e-mail, McManus acknowledged that others have added international gravitas in
the call for a marine protected area in the Spratlys. They include, Dr. Liana Talaue-McManus, his wife and an expert on resource management, Dr. Porfirio Alio, a coral reef
ecologist, and Dr. Mike Fortes, a seagrass ecologist, and Dr. Alan White, a senior scientist at the Nature Conservancy, now responsible for the Coral Triangle Program,
representing a coordinated conservation policy driven effort on the part of six countries including, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, the Philippines, Timor
Leste and Malaysia. Additional marine protected area endorsements have come from conservationist Tony Claparols, former Philippine President Fidel Ramos, Vietnams Dr.
Vo Si Tuan and Taiwans, Dr. Kwan-Tsao-Y Shao. The Nature Conservancy report Natures Investment Bank points to improved fish catches outside MPA boundaries,
increased protein intake and even poverty alleviation through ecotourism. Because of earlier scientific work and published articles, the Taiwanese government recognized
Dongsha atolls prominence as a model for the sustainability of fishery resources in the SCS and the Taiwan Strait and was designated as the first marine protected area in
in its simplest
explanation, trans boundary conservation (TBC) implies working across
boundaries to achieve conservation objectives, writes Maja Vasilijevic, chair of the IUCN World Commission on
Protected Areas. Scholars or scientists should provide the interpretations and guidelines for the establishment of trans-boundary-protected areas. The classic
example of science diplomacy was the original Antarctic Treaty, which most
consider to have been a direct and natural extension of the multinational
research in Antarctica associated with the International Geophysical Year
studies in 1957-1958. Marine scientists have disclosed that a similar wellfunded project in the South China Sea would be the natural lead-in to a
Spratly Island agreement. There have been several international projects in the region. However, the ones that had a serious emphasis on
March 2004. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) provides a generous definition of trans-boundary conservation:
the Spratly Islands have been minor because of the regional tensions. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is a committee of the International Council
for Science (ICSU) charged with the initiation, promotion, and co-ordination of scientific research in Antarctica. SCAR is an international, interdisciplinary, non-governmental
organization that can draw on the experience and expertise of international scientists. Another function of SCAR is to provide expert scientific advice to the Antarctic Treaty
System. Science Councils and Treaties Offer Diplomatic Solutions Antarctica is the one place that arguably is the archetype for what can be accomplished by science
diplomacy. Under the Antarctic Treaty, no country actually owns all or part of Antarctica, and no country can exploit the resources of the continent while the Treaty is in
effect. Over time, the Antarctic Treaty has developed into the Antarctic Treaty System, which includes the protection of seals and marine organisms and offers guidelines
for the gathering of minerals and other resources. Additionally, the Arctic Council has been able to effectively steer the passage of domestic legislation, international
regulations, and, most importantly, international cooperation among the Arctic States. Eight nationsCanada, Denmark (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia,
Sweden, and the United Stateshave territories (claims) in the Artic, and the domestic laws of these nations govern actions taken within their territorial waters. Many of
the adopted Arctic Council key recommendations could be adopted for the South China Sea: create a South China Sea Maritime Council or SCS Oceanographic Council; the
United States should ratify UNCLOS to enhance U.S. authority on SCS issues; develop improved communications, standardized procedures and multilateral training for
search and rescue, military movements, natural disasters, maritime awareness, oil spill management, shipping infrastructure, and oil, gas and mineral development;
identify priorities for scientific study; develop more small-scale and renewable energy projects to improve the economic future of small communities; improve individual
and community health and food security; and improve early-warning systems for environmental change. Unfortunately, none of these recommendations are operative in
the political currents of the South China Sea. Dr. Michael P. Crosby, President and CEO of Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida weighs in on benefits of using this
paradigm for interactions between scientists and resource managers through international marine science partnerships. He has even extolled the merits of the Red Sea
Marine Peace Cooperative Research, Monitoring, and Resource Management Program (RSMPP). Crosby states that RSMPP may serve as a model for improving
international relations and building capacity through marine science cooperation. Asia has the worlds largest fishing fleets, representing nearly three million of the
worlds four million fishing vessels. And most estimates show that the numbers are increasing. Chinas fleet of 70,000 fishing boats, the largest in the world, is increasingly
flaunting the few international rules that exist around fishing. With other coastal claimants like the Philippines and Vietnam increasing their fishing fleets, its not surprising
that China is rolling out a blue economy plan. Professor Kathleen Walshs scholarship on Chinas rising blue economy reveals that some Middle Kingdom marine scientists
are concerned about conservation and sustainability issues. After all, coral reefs once found off Chinas own shores have shrunk by an astonishing 80 percent over the last
20 years. Pollution, overfishing and coastal development are blamed for this environmental collapse. In her examination of Chinas blue economy, which includes marine,
maritime, and naval sector ambitions, Walsh argues that Chinas new maritime development programs could have a big impact on the United States and other nations.
According to her (disclaimer: these are her personal views and not the U.S. Department of Defense, US Navy or US Naval War College), Chinese leaders are looking at
water resourcesincluding coastal areas, rivers, lakes, and oceansas the nations next economic development frontier. Perhaps at the first sight, these observations and
practices seem unconnected. But they operate together, and this notion of a Blue Economy reflects all of the elements of a broader strategic planning in Beijing. But the
crucial point here is that the assemblage of the South China Sea is increasingly shaped in scientific terms. Nevertheless, its painfully clear that todays ecological policy
issues face formidable challenges to inform policy deliberations. In other words, as the disposition of regional maritime space becomes greater, adding seabed research,
geology and mapping, deep-sea biology, underwater archeology, cultural registers, environmental symposia, marine protected areas and art history, there are more
avenues for the creation of common ground for all claimants. In this unfolding maritime drama, science offers all claimants the ability to monitor and to intervene. Science
diplomacy reveals at its core an ontological redefinition of this region. Knowledge sharing rather than naval vessels, commercial trawlers, advanced weaponry, and
the two countries set a record of US$555.1 billion, and investment stocks surpassed US$120 billion.
urbanization, aging process, and development of the middle class, market demands on the medical service
industry are increasing rapidly. In the past decade, China's compound average growth rate of total health
consumption has stayed at 17 percent. The U.S. public health industry and institutions have become the
backbone which meets the needs of the Chinese market. Meanwhile, exchange and cooperation between
Health and
medicine are the priority for technological development in all countries,
including China. The U.S. has the world's most advanced technology and
innovation in medical information, precision medicine, chronic disease
prevention and control, and in many other fields. Bilateral cooperation
between the U.S. and China, such as exchange of visits, talent
communication and project co-construction, has become an effective way to
promote Chinese medical professional training. In January 2011, during the Summit
the two sides has also promoted technological development in China's healthcare industry.
between then Chinese President Hu Jintao and the U.S. President Barack Obama, China's National Health
and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), the Ministry of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS), the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), and the U.S. Department of
Commerce (DOC) issued a joint communiqu on the China-U.S. Public and Private Partnership on
Healthcare (PPPH), in order to promote healthcare cooperation between the two countries. Under the
framework of the joint statement, both countries supported the establishment of the U.S.-China Healthcare
Cooperation Program (HCP). The program is aimed at building closer working relations between Chinese
and the U.S. governments while leveraging healthcare industry strengths in order to foster long-term
cooperation in the areas of public health, policy research, training, R&D and technology. During the past
four and half years since the HCP was established, exchange and communication between the two sides
has become more frequent and thorough. Each year, medical and healthcare seminars are held in both
countries, hundreds of doctors pay exchange visits, and training programs are held for health care
attend summits marking the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Healthcare is one of the main
in future, China
and the U.S. will strengthen and widen their communication and cooperation
in medical treatment and the healthcare industry to support the world's
elements of the UN's sustainable development goals after 2015. We believe that
Defense
innovations bring inevitably lead to turbulence and upheaval. In such a context, viewing science as a
driver for peace may be wishful thinking. Conflicting ethos Perhaps the most contentious area discussed at the meeting
was how science diplomacy can frame developed countries' efforts to help build scientific capacity in the developing world. There is
little to quarrel with in collaborative efforts that are put forward with a genuine desire for partnership. Indeed, partnership
whether between individuals, institutions or countries is the new buzzword in the "science for development"
community. But true partnership requires transparent relations between partners who are prepared to meet
as equals. And that goes against diplomats' implicit role: to promote and defend their own countries'
interests. John Beddington, the British government's chief scientific adviser, may have been a bit harsh when he told the meeting
that a diplomat is someone who is "sent abroad to lie for his country". But he touched a raw nerve. Worlds apart yet co-dependent
The truth is that science and politics make an uneasy alliance. Both need the other. Politicians need science to achieve
their goals, whether social, economic or unfortunately military; scientists need political support to fund their research. But
they also occupy different universes. Politics is, at root, about exercising power by one means or another. Science is or
should be about pursuing robust knowledge that can be put to useful purposes. A strategy for promoting science diplomacy that
respects these differences deserves support. Particularly so if it focuses on ways to leverage political and financial backing for
science's more humanitarian goals, such as tackling climate change or reducing world poverty. But a commitment to science
diplomacy that ignores the differences acting for example as if science can substitute politics (or perhaps more worryingly,
vice versa), is dangerous.
More ev
David Dickson, SciDev.net, June 2, 2009.
http://scidevnet.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/science-diplomacy-the-case-forcaution/
One of the frustrations of meetings at which scientists gather to discuss policy-related issues is the speed
with which the requirements for evidence-based discussion they would expect in a professional context
can go out of the window. Such has been the issue over the past two days in the meeting jointly organised in London by the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Royal Society on the topic New Frontiers in Science
Diplomacy. There has been much lively discussion on the value of international collaboration in achieving scientific goals, on the
need for researchers to work together on the scientific aspects of global challenges such as climate change and food security, and on
the importance of science capacity building in developing countries in order to make this possible. But there remained little
evidence at the end of the meeting on how useful it was to lump all these activities together under the umbrella term of science
diplomacy. More significantly, although numerous claims were made during the conference about the broader
social and political value of scientific collaboration for example, in establishing a framework for
collaboration in other areas, and in particular reducing tensions between rival countries little was
produced to demonstrate whether this hypothesis is true. If it is not, then some of the arguments made on
behalf of science diplomacy, and in particular its value as a mechanism for exercising soft power in
foreign policy, do not stand up to close scrutiny.
given by Obama in Cairo in the summer of 2009, in which he publicly advocated the use of closer scientific contacts between the
United States and Muslim countries as a form of "soft diplomacy". But science diplomacy can be invaluable when it provides the
basis for a genuine scientific partnership between two (or more) countries and especially when such partnerships allow the
sharing of skills and experience, for example through joint teaching or research projects . The danger of this approach, of
course, is that the stronger partner may come to dominate, for example in planning or implementing a
research project.
the
employing a paid scientist to do it. The article titled An Advocate for Science Diplomacy is a feeble
attempt by the New York Times to slide in the back door using an interview with Nina Fedoroff as an
introduction to what we've been swallowing. As the press stayed silent, pretending it's nothing different from any other
food, the problem with the cover up grew. Now, it seems the time has come to open discussion and what better way
to begin than with a deceptive bit of propaganda from the industry that has been hidden from view?
Federoff has all the superficial credentials one would look to for a legitimate scientific view but as with most people
who support biotech there's more than meets the eye. By some measure tracing the decade of Nina's career and
associations is like a microcosm of the covert industry growth itself. Since this deception took a decade to grow it
takes a little patience and back story to unravel. It is after all a web of deception so hang in there through the tangles. We'll take it
piece by piece and get to the ties that keep the hands of Monsanto and the other Biotech Brigade
profiteers, hidden with a few degrees of separation from their supporters. August 19, 2008 A CONVERSATION
WITH NINA V. FEDOROFF An Advocate for Science Diplomacy By CLAUDIA DREIFUS When she was a single mother in the
early 1960s, Nina V. Fedoroff, 66, defied odds and conventionality by working her way through college, graduate school and
postdoctoral studies. Dr. Fedoroff, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, did fundamental research on plant transposons,
or jumping genes, and was among the first to clone plant DNA. She is science adviser to the secretary of state and administrator of
the Agency for International Development. We spoke last month in Washington and later on the telephone. An edited version of the
conversations follows. Unless being a hand picked Ambassador, by the most industry friendly Administration in
US history, raises a red flag, one would need to look to Federofff's biotech pedigree to explain the untenable science she
offers in the interview. Let's start with the CV details provided and move on to the missing ones. Like so many programs with
benevolent aims, USAID has been influenced by an agenda of promoting the profit objectives of industry. Few have benefitted
biotech more than USAID which donates food in the name of addressing global hunger, but forces Nations who don't accept gmo
technology to allow gmo as aid. Nations who refuse to accept the gmo grains, either based on concerns for health or fears that the
patented seeds will be planted and grow their indebtedness have been targeted for reprisals. Examples of USAID shipments as a
mechanism to dump biotech on the poor are plentiful. Here is one that reflects the essence of the benevolent policy feeding the poor
of India. The USDA has instructed US Aid Agencies to act as international policemen on behalf of US biotech corporations. In the
minutes of its meeting with aid agencies it is made clear that US Aid Agencies are expected to immediately report any opposition to
GM food imports by recipient nations to USAID, that they are to make investigations to enable USAID to classify objections as
either 'political' or 'trade' related and that USAID will then take the necessary 'diplomatic action' (sanctions?, WTO prosecutions?,
aid cancellations/, IMF action?) to ensure that the shipments are accepted. http://www.mindfully.org/GE/2003/USAID-ReportAntiGM14jan03.htm Now for the details of Nina's career history that missed the interview introduction, taken
from the biography posted at Penn State's Huck Institute where she was a founding member of the biotech
Consortium that became a biotech education program. Much of the picture comes from associations and
there'd be a book if we detailed them all.
***Economy***
Relations Good
Zeguang stated. In 2015, trade volumes between China and the US exceeded $550b and bilateral
investment was above over $440b, highlighting potential for stronger ties, Zeguang added. In recent
weeks, the US has announced plans to sanctions on 'cheap' steel exports from China while China describes
the move as an act of 'protectionism'. Around the same time, China and the US have had close encounters
in the South China Sea, an area claimed by China, subject to overlapping claims by her neighbours. The US
accuses China of militarizing the sea by reclaiming and erecting outposts on it, while China blames the
Guangyao,
Chinas vice finance minister said the dialogue targets to cultivate good
relations between China and the US, push for more open markets and enable
entrepreneurs make business. Last year, the global economy grew at slower 1.2% while
international trade grew at 2.1%. The minister predicts global trade grow 3.2% , although
the World Trade Organization predicts 2.8%. The global market faces downward pressure.
China and Us biggest economies and their relations can produce positive
impact on economy, Guangyao said. The minister said the meeting was expected
to help ease anxiety in financial markets, share experience on structural
reform and policy measures needed to stabilize global growth . The economic
dialogue mechanism is important and constructive way to contribute to
mutual trust and understanding, and preventing misjudgmen t, he explained.
According to Hao Ping, Chinas vice education minister, US-China relations are improving in
education and culture, with a growing number of people-to-people exchanges .
China will support 50,000 Chinese and American students to study in both
countries while Obama has pledged to have one million American students to
study mandarin by 2020 - See more at:
US for interfering in a regional dispute and deploying military vessels to there. Zhu
http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1426167/china-us-set-talks-economy-maritimedifferences#sthash.jRpp8SBv.dpuf
the Korean peninsula to the East and South China Seas. Despite covering
Asian power politics from different geographical lenses, all the speakers
agreed on the importance of U.S. commitment to maintaining a stable
balance of power in Asia, especially in light of Chinas reemergence as a
major player. Chisako Masuo, an associate professor at the Graduate School
of Social and Cultural Studies at Kyushu University, warned that the Asian
power balance is more vulnerable than Americans believe. Because of
concerns about U.S. withdrawal, Asian countries are preparing fo r the worse
case scenario: An Asian regional order without U.S. leadership would not be a
rules-based order, but a China-based order . Other Asian countries wouldnt
be happy with that development, but they would have no choice but to go
along if the United States will not help provide balance , Masuo explained. In this sense, the U.S.Japan alliance is an important pillar to maintain an open, liberal, rules-based order in Asia. This is not containment of China, Masuo was
quick to point out. If the game board is transparent and fair, China can play a mutually beneficial game with other Asian countries. One
example Masuo highlights is how the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) spurred the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to
do better. But, she adds, such friendly competition requires a quiet U.S. military presence in the background. And despite a much-touted
rebalance to Asia, experts on the panel remain unconvinced of U.S. commitment to the region. In dealing with China not only Japan, but
Vietnam and the Philippines, in a way, were all disappointed about Obamas actions towards [China] reclaiming islands [in the South China
Sea]. He sent naval vessels only three times so far, and its just too weak, Masuo lamented. And if Trump was going to succeed him, maybe
countrys placement in a particular geographic circumstance will shape their assessment of potential threats and other countries intentions.
Kimura expanded on this concept to explain why Japan and South Korea have such different perceptions of the tenor of U.S.-China relations.
As a maritime power, the United States has expected more from Japan,
demanding that Japan play a larger role in recent disputes in the East and
South China Seas. Because of this, Japan has seen the more hard-line
elements of U.S. China policy, leading to expectations that the United States
will be around to stand up to China for decades. Meanwhile, as a land power, South Korea has not had
to deal with the same sort of U.S. expectations and has mostly sat out the disputes in the East and South China Seas. Not having seen the
hard-line elements that Japan interacts with, South Korea expects the United States to take a softer policy tack, and believes Washington will
give them a hall pass when it comes to leaning on China. The challenge for the United States, Kimura concluded, is to send a clearer
message to Asian countries. Its a typical Goldilocks dilemma: while Japan overestimates how hard-line U.S. China policy will be, South Korea
underestimates it. There is some strength to the argument that ambiguity serves U.S. interests, however. As Kimura noted, from the U.S.
perspective, a clear commitment could raise concerns about moral hazard; countries such as the Philippines might be willing to take
unnecessary risks if they believe Washington will have their back. Amid all this concern about the strength of U.S. commitment, there is a
bright spot, as Tuong Vu, a political science professor at University of Oregon, points out: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a good example
Asian observers are much more comfortable when the United States understands that it should be engaged with Asia for its own narrow
economic interests. The only interest a country can reliably be expected to defend is its own. In the long-term, [including Vietnam in the TPP]
will pay off for the U.S., Vu predicts. The Obama administration knows of these concerns and has been trying to assiduously address them.
And his preferred successor, the presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, is also known for her lucid understanding of the important
role that American leadership plays in the Asia-Pacific region. But with Trumps candidacy, all bets are off, and Asian leaders are scrambling to
plan for a future where the United States is no longer interested in being the preeminent balancer in Asia.
imports, and the largest foreign holder of American debt, with $1.24 trillion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds in December
act as a deterrent for both the United States and China, so the United States should not consider reducing economic
Beyond economic
ties between the United States and China, the United States should
encourage Chinas further integration into the world economic system . The
United States should not oppose Chinese efforts to join, or create, multilateral
economic institutions, such as the new Chinese led Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank. In addition, the
dependence on China as a way to increase its own security, as some pundits have suggested.
United States should not attempt to persuade allies from increasing economic ties with China, as it will reduce the chance
of an ally dragging the United States into a war with China .
the entire international economic system. Because of this, there exists a state
of mutually assured economic destruction between the two countries . Despite this,
as John Mearsheimer point out, states value security over economic prosperity, because without security they cannot
ensure their survival. This is not to say that the United States should break its economic ties with China, or try to slow
Chinas economic growth. That would hurt the United States economically and would have little utility for increasing
and Josh Barro. (Source: This is what Jim Chanos says hes telling his clients about China right now,
and sectors. Most importantly, we cannot, ex ante, know the impact of a slowdown in China on risk aversion and market
sentiment. There is no question that China matters to the rest of the world. The question is how much it matters and
whether the volatility in global financial markets has been commensurate with the direct and indirect economic impact of
ore, nickel, thermal coal and aluminum, and a significant share of copper, tin, zinc, steel, cotton and soybeans (see
corrosion-resistant steel from China, due to what the US steel industry has called illegal and unfair practices.30
and emerging market countries. As shown in Exhibit 5, exports to China account for 2.3% of developed markets GDP; in
Australia, exports to China are much higher, at 5.1% of GDP. Of Australias total merchandise exports, over onethird are
exported to China. In the US, exports to China account for just 0.7% of GDP. Merchandise exports to China also account for
2.3% of emerging markets GDP, reaching as high as 10.3% in South Korea. Of South Koreas total exports, one-quarter
are exported to China. We note that exports to China as a share of GDP are even higher in countries such as Oman and
Angola, but their combined GDP is less than 0.3% of world GDP. Hence, the share of GDP affected by a China slowdown is
not large in either developed or emerging market economies, at 2.3% in each case. Furthermore, these trade linkages
overstate the true economic exposure because many exports to China are reprocessed and exported outside China. In
their report Chinas Changing Growth: Trade Spillovers to the Rest of Asia, our colleagues in GIR use value-added
exports to China as a more effective measure of true economic exposure.32 For example, while exports to China account
for 5.1% of Australias GDP, about one-third of this exposure is to final demand outside China, i.e., China is reprocessing
those Australian goods and re-exporting them to other countries. As shown in Exhibit 6, value-added exposure to China is
often less than the gross trade exposure. In addition to direct exposure through exports and commodity prices, global
economies are exposed to a slowdown in China through their banking sectors loans to China. This exposure is limited, as
shown in Exhibit 7. Exposure in the developed economies ranges from a low of 0.1% of bank assets in Italy to a high of
3.0% in the UK (primarily driven by HSBC Holdings PLC and Standard Chartered PLC), with a modest 0.8% in the US. To put
these numbers in context, US and German banks exposure to mortgages and to European sovereign debt, respectively,
conditions. Our colleagues in GIR have estimated the sales exposure of companies represented by major equity
market indexes. As shown in Exhibit 9, this exposure ranges from 2% in the US to as much as 10% in Germany and
Australia. We must note, however, that it is very difficult to quantify the exposure of major markets corporate sectors to
China with much precision. Many major
multinational companies aggregate their AsiaPacific sales and do not break out China separately. Therefore, estimates of
sales to China, in all likelihood, understate actual sales. Moreover, earnings, which are most relevant,
are not attributed to specific regions, so we have to turn to the national income accounts for a gauge of profit exposure to
direct
and indirect economic and banking sector exposures to China are not of a
scale to have significant impact on major economies and financial markets.
The substantially greater risk from a slowdown in China emanates from its
impact on financial markets and investor risk aversion . In their report The Drag from
China. Such exposure is much smaller, measuring 0.7% in the US and about 3% in Japan. We conclude that the
China: Many Channels, Limited Impact, our colleagues in GIR break down the impact of a slowdown in China on the US
importantly, the impact of financial conditions may be as big asif not bigger thanthe direct impact. The confidence
interval around the impact of financial conditions is wide: if the impact is negligible, a 1% reduction in Chinese GDP lowers
US GDP by 0.11% by the end of this year; if the impact is significant, US GDP declines by 0.47%. In such a scenario, the
impact of financial conditions will dwarf the direct and indirect impact of economic and banking sector factors. The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Developments (OECDs)
theme highlighted by the Goldman Sachs S&P 500 Beige Book report was earnings at risk from Chinese slowdown.37
The report highlighted companies such as General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Caterpillar, Inc., United Technologies Corp.,
Johnson & Johnson Inc. and others in the industrial and commodity-linked sectors. The third-quarter S&P 500 Beige Book
report highlighted examples of companies with exposure to China in the information technology and consumer
discretionary sectors, such as Apple Inc., McDonalds Corp. and Starbucks Corp., with very favorable commentary on their
sales to China. Since these names readily come to mind when we think of China, it is likely that the US equity market
would overreact to news of an economic slowdown in China relative to the countrys 2% (or slightly higher) share of S&P
antagonism would be a real burden. The importance of regional relations for a major power's
global standing is easily shown by two extreme scenarios for China's future. In the first, China's
development provides it with the strength and the identity to
become the central hub of Asia, in the process largely displacing the
U.S.. It projects an acceptable political and economic image, and its
neighbours bandwagon with it out of some combination of fear,
prudence, admiration and hope for economic advantage. Its economy
becomes the regional locomotive, and in political and military terms it is
acknowledged as primus inter pares by Japan, Korea and the ASEAN states.
Japan takes up a similar subordinate relationship with China to that it now has with the U.S., and China is
able to use the regional institutions created by ASEAN rather as the U.S. uses the Organization of American
and ask how they might support or block a move in either of these directions. Is it likely that China will
acquire hegemony in East Asia, or is its rise to power more likely to produce U.S.-backed regional balancing
against it? I will examine the factors playing into this question on three levels: China's capabilities and the
trajectory of its internal development; China's relations with its Asian neighbours; and its relationships with
the U.S. and the other great powers. China's capabilities and the trajectory of its internal development
Debates about China's capability and prospects for development can be placed within a matrix formed by
two variables: Does China get stronger (because its economic development continues successfully) or
weaker (because its development runs into obstacles, or triggers socio-political instability)? Does China
become a malign, aggressive, threatening force in international society (because it becomes
hypernationalist or fascist), or does it become more benign and cooperative (because economic
If China's development
falters and it becomes weak, then it will neither dominate its region
nor project itself on to the global stage. Whether it is then politically benign or
development brings internal democratization and liberalization)?
malign will be a much less pressing issue in terms of how others respond to it in the traditional politico-
malign or benign question matters a great deal. The benign and malign options could be alternative paths,
or could occur in sequence, with a malign phase giving way to a benign one, as happened with Germany
and Japan during their comparable phases of industrialization. The likelihood of just such a sequence was
what underpinned Gerry's concern to promote constrainment.
markets suffered the worst stock market crash since 2007 when the Shanghai
Composite index tanked by more than 8% in late August 2015 . The declining
demand for Chinese goods from international markets has resulted
in falling exports in recent months. The imports have also declined
due to lower consumer demand in domestic markets. The Chinese
growth rate is suspected to hit its lowest levels in last 25 years,
amid the falling industrial production and a sharp decline in the realestate market. High debt levels, multiple yet ineffective rounds of monetary
easing, and rumors about a further rate cut, are some more indications that
the worlds most populous economy may not be in the right shape. (For more, see
The Origins of the Chinese Stock Market Collapse.)
the global economy -- hasn't been recognized in another way, and that is inter-dependence. Let me just
give you a fact that I think is just demonstrative of a larger reality. Eighty-seven percent of the
Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) have an insignificant share in China, where the Chinese versions of these
social networks like Renren and Weibo are the most popular. The instant messenger services like WeChat
remain dominant in China compared to those like WhatsApp and Viber, which are more popular globally.
Mobile cash payment services like Alipay (a division of Alibaba) dominate in China, where other global
foreign direct investment, or FDI, projects provide their first opportunity to directly engage in and benefit
from the U.S.-China economic partnership. A recent survey conducted by the Rhodium Group reveals that
340 of the 435 American congressional districts have at least one China FDI project.9 Many of those
projects are providing jobs for American workers: More than 80,000 Americans are now directly employed
Economic competitiveness
has always been an issue in the relationship, including U.S. concern
that American jobs will migrate to China. Now the reverse is
happening: Chinese companies are finally creating jobs in this nation
a trend that leaders in both countries should support . On the other side of
the Pacific, if Chinese leaders successfully rebalance their economy, it
should, in theory, create new overseas commercial opportunities for
American businesses. China is already the United States fastest
through a Chinese investment project in the United States.10
growing export market: U.S. exports to China have grown nearly 300 percent over the past
decade.11 Beijings new reform program aims to boost consumer buying power
and expand the nations dependence on high-tech products, two trends that
should boost Chinese consumption of U.S. goods and services.
Defense
A weaker
Counterfeiting impacts
Piracy is tanking innovation and growth in China.
Rapoza 12 (Kenneth, In China, Why Piracy Is Here To Stay, Forbes, 22
July 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/07/22/in-china-whypiracy-is-here-to-stay/#82e0e696b9b9)
In China, said Tom Doctoroff, author of the book What Chinese Want and a China marketing guru at J.
Walter Thompson, managing a fake Apple store, or any kind of fake this or that, is heralded as
good ole fashion entrepreneurship. When it comes to innovation, the Chinese
wont deliver, he told me in a phone interview back in mid-May. China is the total flip-side
of the U.S. Piracy goes back to the China world view that individual rights
dont matter. The courts have never evolved to protect innovative individuals.
There is still very much the ethos that economic growth has to be managed,
so individual and intellectual property, where the spoils go to one entity or
one person, is not a cultural value, he said. IP protection will always be an uphill
struggle in China and for companies doing business there. And thats mainly
because of the fact that individual rights remain a theoretical notion at best.
Chinese civilization exists courtesy of a top down structure. Even the
education system mitigates against broad-based embrace of IP protection.
Until IP infringement is seen as an immediate threat to economic success, or
advanced as a vital state interest, few will really care whether Windows 8 is a knockoff, or if the X Box 360 sold in Shanghai is being hacked to allow for a pirated version of 2K Sports NBA
Basketball. Microsoft ran its anti-piracy ad in China when it launched Windows 7 to counter the bad habit.
In the ad, two young Chinese techies are seated at a desk. The guy who paid full price is being heralded by
his thumbs-up boss as a good worker. His bamboo plant is growing tall and green in a pot on his desk. His
trash can is clean, save for maybe one piece of paper. Behind him is the guy using the pirated version of
the software. And man does he look down. A big X on his screen, head in his hands. Boss pointing a finger
at him, trash can full of paper, power cords tangled up all over the place, and wilted flowers on his desk to
group in China, told Doctoroff in his book that the company was trying to create a new religion, a new
preliminary efforts
not enough to make a serious dent in
the pirated versions of the same goods. The government of China knows that
current copyright infringements cannot be legally justified under the World
Trade Organization, but it is unable or maybe even unwilling to confront the
problem. Thats software. It gets even more flagrant with filmed
entertainment. Pirated Hollywood (and Chinese) films are sold on the cheap
on street corners across the country, not to mention inside smaller, private
shopping centers. Government censorship polices further complicate matters
because they increase the demand for contraband content. Even if the
Communist Party liberalizes distribution restrictions, per WTO regulations,
censors will sanction only a narrow range of content in legal channels, both
online and in actual stores. This begs the question of Chinese censorship and
what is and is not allowed, Doctoroff said. In his book, he writes: As in dynastic times,
standard of civility in China. It will take a long time. Research suggests that
have helped increase preference for the genuine, but
intellectual property crimes, and there may be a trend developing for local gang involvement
in counterfeiting (Congressional Hearing, 5/25/05).
expansion in the South China Sea, and crackdown on dissidents and journalists have created significant
concern elsewhere in Asia and increased doubts about Chinas intentions as it asserts itself on the world
stage.
good example of this. Chinas two stock exchanges, the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, are
the worlds third- and fifth-largest stock exchanges, respectively, based on domestic capitalization as of mid-June. Only
domestic Chinese firms are these exchanges, many of which are SOEs. Both stock exchanges have experienced significant
volatility. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, this
were
buy stocks). The bubble began to burst in early June. From June 12, 2015, to July 7, 2015, Chinas two stock indexes
fell by 32% and 40%, respectively, resulting in capitalization losses of $3.6 trillion ($1.9 billion and $1.7 trillion), nearly the
brokerages in order to purchase equities. 68 According to one estimate, the Chinese government
may have spent $235 billion to stabilize the markets. Chinese authorities also reportedly have launched investigations,
arrested a number of individuals for market manipulation, blamed foreign speculators for the crisis, and pressured one
Chinese journalist to confess to causing panic and chaos in Chinas stock markets.69 Both the SSE and the SZSE
regained some stability in the wake of the government intervention, but begun to experience sharp losses again
beginning around mid-August. From August 14 to August 25, 2015, the SEE and SZSE declined by 25.2% and 24.2%,
respectively (see Figure 19). From June 12 to August 25, 2015, combined market capitalization losses by the SEE and SZSE
totaled approximately $5 trillion, essentially wiping out most of the gains made in the first half of 2015. According to a
Brookings Institution report, Chinas stock markets are more heavily affected by speculative investment than markets in
Western countries. This situation exists in part because shareholders in Chinese markets generally have less influence
over companies than their Western counterparts and so focus more on short-term movements in stock prices.70 Chinese
stock exchanges are also dominated by individuals (retail investors), who total 200 million and account for an estimated
85% of market trades. Reportedly, more than 30 million new trading accounts were added during the first five months of
2015. Many of these investors reportedly bought stocks on margin (i.e., using borrowed money), betting that stock prices
would continue to rise. While many economists saw the decline in Chinas stock markets to be a normal correction,
many raised concerns over how the Chinese government handled the crisis
and over its commitment to enhancing free market reform.
U.S.-China commercial relations in recent years, tensions have arisen over a wide
variety of issues, including the growth and size of the U.S. trade deficit with
China (which many Members contend is an indicator that the trade relationship is unfair), concerns over
unsafe Chinese food and consumer products , Chinas currency policy (which many
Members blame for the size of the U.S. trade deficit with China and the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs), Chinas
mixed record on implementing its obligations in the WTO , including its, failure to
provide adequate protection of U.S. intellectual property rights (IPR), and Chinese industrial policies
used to promote and protect domestic industries. Legislation has been introduced to respond
to several of these issues (see U.S.-China Trade Legislation in the 111th Congress). Reports throughout 2007 of tainted
or unsafe food and consumer products (including seafood, pet food, toys, and tires) from China raised concerns in the
China
maintains a poor regulatory framework for enforcing its health and safety
regulations and standards, and that this is proving to be a growing problem
for U.S. consumers. Many U.S. policymakers have raised concern over how to
press China to improve enforcement of its health and safety standards of its
exports as well as the ability of U.S. regulatory agencies to ensure the health
and safety of imports from China (and other countries). In 2007 and 2008, there were numerous recalls,
United States over the health, safety, and quality of imports from China. Some analysts contend that
warnings, and safety concerns involving Chinese products, as the following instances illustrate.
to be doing
business in or with China, it behooves you to figure out how best to protect
your intangible assets.
Your China Trademark? Ask Tesla. There is IP protection in China and if you are going
***Trade***
Relations Good
PEACEBRIEF 15
(PEACEBRIEF, United States Institute of Peace, August 15, Overcoming
Barriers to U.S.-China Cooperation, pg. 3, HY)
Lack of strategic trust between the United States and China prevents
productive cooperation. Both sides have largely continued to act as if their
relationship is a zero-sum game. These tensions have only intensified over
recent security concerns in the East China Sea and the South China Sea.
Moreover, Washington has cited concerns about Beijings steady increase in
military spending, from $10 billion in 1997 to $145 billion in 2015, and sees China as a direct threat
to its allies and interests in the Asia-Pacific.2 Beijing sees the U.S. military
presence in the region and across Asia as its greatest security threat. It is
also keenly aware that Washington maintains the worlds highest military
spending, up from $560 billion in 2015 to a requested $585 billion in 2016.3 Washington also routinely
accuses Beijing of cyber attacks on government agencies most recently in June 2015 when
both the Office of Personnel Managements systems and corporate computer systems were breached. Both sides lack
strategic trust in trade, despite China being Washingtons second largest trade partner ($592 billion in 2014).4 A
sense of competition is constant. As Washington pushes forward with the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, Beijing pursues the Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership. Each framework tacitly excludes the other country,
underscoring the mistrust. Further, the two nations continue to compete for
influence in Myanmar, a nascent democracy still threatened by conflict.
Points of tension should not prevent the United States and China from
overcoming their challenges, enhancing cooperation, and fostering deeper
mutual understanding and strategic trust. The private sectors and nongovernmental organizations on both
sides could launch this process by enhancing their own cooperation. Ultimately, Washington and Beijing need to compartmentalize early on
and hope that positivity on some endssuch as cooperation in Myanmarwill spill over to otherssuch as cyber security and the South China
Sea. Both sides will need to commit to greater transparency so that in a moment of crisis, chances are minimal for misunderstanding to lead to
a major conflict.
***Military Modernization***
Relations Bad
These used kick motors, another technology on which Lockheed provided assistance. Meanwhile, a RAND
Corporation report found that U.S. air power in the Pacific would be inadequate to stop a hypothetical
Chinese attack on Taiwan in 2020, with U.S. stealth fighters being unable to evade Chinas CETC Y-27
Yet, while some in the Pentagon and a few others point to the
growing threat of China, the liberal establishment seems to be
gearing up for another thaw with Beijing, which inevitably makes
China even stronger. During President Obamas state visit to Beijing
in November 2009, he promised comprehensive relations with China.
radars.
Wouldnt you know that the one promise the President keeps would be approved by Beijing.
Secretary Work put it: our adversaries are pursuing enhanced human operation and it scares the crap out
of us, frankly. An AI arms race would be unlikely to be as stable as the Cold War stand-off involving
mutually-assured destruction. A common concern among AI researchers in the recent TechEmergence
survey was the difficulty of predicting what happens when artificial intelligences engage with each other. In
contrast to the Cold War paradigm of military-sponsored cutting-edge research eventually spawning
private sector applications, militaries are not necessarily at the cutting edge. Potentially weaponizable,
happens
it are likely to be buggy and prone to misfiring. But another implication of the brain drain from the military
to private sector is a reduction in capacity to test and verify the effectiveness of technology, to a degree
that would instil confidence in battle situations. Legitimate actors may not want to send a technology that
is considered only 80 percent ready into the battlefield. Rogue actors, though, are unlikely to care about
compliance or a bit of collateral damage. A terrorist organisation such as ISIS might be only too willing to
use an 80 percent-ready AI weapon, with devastating results.
If
they became skilled at computer research, the recursive self
improvement could generate what is sometime called a
singularity, 482 but is perhaps better described as an
intelligence explosion, 483 with the AIs intelligence increasing
very rapidly.484 Such extreme intelligences could not easily be
controlled (either by the groups creating them, or by some
international regulatory regime),485 and would probably act in a
way to boost their own intelligence and acquire maximal resources
quickly become extremely intelligent in one or more domains (research, planning, social skills...).
some pretty impressive AIs recently, like IBMs Watson, which tromped the human competition on the TV
Right now,
computer scientists can build very smart AIs, but for very specific tasks . IBMs
game show Jeopardy! But how smart have AIs really gotten? Eliza Strickland:
Watson won Jeopardy! because it can understand conversational English and look up information, but
thats all it can do. Watson cant write you an e-mail describing what its data center looks like, or explain
why its programmers are moving slowly after a big lunch. Were still a long way from creating an AI that
can match a humans level of general intelligence, although Bostrom says we dont know exactly how long.
Bostrom: Well, at the moment, its computer scientists who are doing AI research, and to some extent
neuroscientists and other folk. If and when machines begin to surpass humans in general intelligence, the
research would increasingly be done by machines. And as they got better, they would also get better at
doing the research to make themselves even better. Eliza Strickland: With this feedback loop, Bostrom
says, an AI could go from human-level intelligence to superintelligence before were really prepared for it.
that humans cause animal extinctions, he said. Nick Bostrom: If we think about
what we are doing to various animal species, its not so much that we hate them. For the most part, its
just that we have other uses for their habitats, and they get wiped out as a side effect. Stephen Cass: So
what motivates an AI? What would it be trying to accomplish? Eliza Strickland: It would have some goal
that had been programmed into it by scientists. And Bostrom explains that even simple goals can have
disastrous consequences. Nick Bostrom:
Chinese involvement in the export control process was not solicited historically. Indeed, the United States
believes that the Chinese have made destabilizing transfers in the past and they could do so again.
Because of its previous lack of involvement in this process, China is tied to few binding international norms
with respect to export control and nonproliferation, and its adherence to different international agreements
The
world is entering an era where the challenges of technology transfer and
technology control are becoming much more complicated. Technology
transfer activities will rely less on delivery of finished military systems, and
an increasing number of suppliers will be involved in these processes. Now
and in the future, technology transfer will often require delivery of
is mixed at best. U.S. policymakers also face growing problems in controlling technology flows.
Defense
A2: Militarization
Relations dont solve militarization-Chinese sovereignty
claims, power acquisition, deterrence against US
Bergerson 3-15
(Kristien Bergerson, Senior Policy Analyst, Security and Foreign Affairs,
March 15, 2016, Chinas Efforts to Counter U.S. Forward Presence in the Asia
Pacific, pg. 3-4, HY)
While China benefits from the security and stability the United States and
U.S. allies bring to Asia, China is seeking to reduce the Peoples Liberation Armys (PLA)
vulnerability to U.S. forces in the region should a conflict occur. China continues to build antiaccess/area denial (A2/AD)* capabilities to deter or delay a U.S. military response to a
conflict. Beijing also appears to be pursuing other optionsincluding nonmilitary options prior to a conflict likely intended to erode the
United States strategic position, freedom of action, and operational space. These other options are engagement, coercion, and alliance
Beijing considers instrumental to supporting U.S. presence and force projection capability within the U.S. Pacific Commands area of
in his 2014 foreign policy directive, which calls for a mix of soft and hard power to achieve Beijings foreign policy goals and address security
challenges. 3 Chinas Security Challenges and Concerns: The most salient challenge to Chinese interests perceived by leaders in Beijing
States.4 Oriana Mastro, a professor at Georgetown University, argues that Chinese official statements, white papers, and semi-official writings
China ... sees U.S. military presence [and its proximity to the Mainland] as a destabilizing
factor in the region that threatens Chinas ability to return to its rightful place
of regional preeminence.5 To illustrate Professor Mastros point, Chinas 2015 defense white paper states that the United
suggest
States is enhancing military alliances and presence in this region, meddling in South China Sea affairs, and maintaining constant close-in air
and sea surveillance and reconnaissance, all of which negatively impact Chinas perceived security.6 The reality of the situation is that
because of its own assertive and aggressive actions, China has been the primary driver of instability in the region. One recent example of this
is Beijings island-building campaign in the South China Sea, which has been widely criticized by the United States, the region, and the wider
community. 7 Another example is the stationing of batteries of long-range surface to air missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel Island chain.8
The perceived threat to China from the U.S. and its allies is perhaps best summed up by Senior Captain Xu Qi, a PLA naval officer writing in an
authoritative PLA military journal, stating that Chinas heartland faces the sea ... [and the] United States has deployed strong forces in the
Western Pacific and has formed a system of military bases [in] the First and Second Island Chains* with a strategic posture involving Japan and
South Korea as the northern anchors, Australia and the Philippines as the southern anchors, and with Guam positioned as the forward base.9
He continues, some maritime powers may employ long-range strike weapons to attack into the depths of China ... [and] precision attacks ...
[from] beyond the first island chain ... threaten important political, economic, and military targets.... 10
Chinese media reporting that Obama had agreed to jointly establish such a relationship while the White House could show
that Obama had never mentioned the term. At least five bundles of issues may be identified that
illustrate U.S.
reservations:
First, almost as soon as China and the United States began to discuss how to manage their relations,
U.S. allies expressed concern over the prospect of power sharing between Beijing and Washington at their expense
captured in the term G2 (Group of 2). The Obama Administration preferred to give emphasis to a new model of relations
by dropping the term major power/major country. In other words, the Chinese formulation was perceived excluding other
powers from the new model. Second, and related to the first issue, the Obama Administration became increasingly
frustrated by Chinese constant efforts to persuade the US to publicly reaffirm support for the NTGPR [New Type of Great
Washington has already agreed to what the United States sees as an aspiration that requires hard work on both
sides to achieve. US
differing attitudes
United States on the new type of major country relations were starkly apparent at the Beijing summit in November
a result of irreconcilable differences of interpretation over key terms and issues.16 According to a Japanese scholar, the
the
2014, with Chinese media reporting that Obama had agreed to jointly establish such a relationship while the White House could show that Obama had never mentioned
the term. At least five bundles of issues may be identified that
United States began to discuss how to manage their relations, U.S. allies expressed concern over the prospect of power sharing between Beijing and Washington at their
expense captured in the term G2 (Group of 2). The Obama Administration preferred to give emphasis to a new model of relations by dropping the term major
persuade the US to publicly reaffirm support for the NTGPR [New Type of Great Power Relations] label. Further, according to Glaser and Douglas:
US patience
has been stretched to the breaking point by Chinese state media repeatedly spinning Americas
acceptance of the framework in ways it does not support . Frustration builds every time Beijing says
Washington has already agreed to what the United States sees as an aspiration that requires hard work on both sides to achieve. US officials privately
complain about the Chinese misrepresenting Washingtons position to ASEAN
countries, suggesting the United States is privileging Chinese interests at
their expense.18 Third, the United States objected to Chinas unilateral actions in defining the new
power relations framework to include an expanding list of core interests and the exclusion of
the United States and its alliance system from the Asia-Pacific . As noted by Glaser and Douglas,
China expanded its three initial core interests Taiwan, Tibet and Chinas development path
to include sovereignty and territorial integrity (Xinjiang, the South China Sea and the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands).19
Statements by Chinese officials that the Pacific Ocean was big enough for both countries,20 and Xi Jinpings May 2014 advocacy of Asia for the Asians security concept
Fourth,
strategic trust between Washington and Beijing was severely undermined by
allegations of Chinese state involvement in increasing cyber-espionage directed not
only against the U.S. defense security community but also the U.S. business community and its commercial secrets and intellectual property. Fifth, Chinas
aggressive program of building artificial islands in the South China Sea and militarizing the
infrastructure on them has emerged as the major point of contention between Beijing
were widely viewed by the Obama Administration as aimed at undermining the U.S. alliance system and excluding the U.S. from the western Pacific.21
and Washington. The United States views Chinas actions as a threat to freedom of navigation and over-flight. Admiral Harry Harris, the Commander of the U.S. Pacific
Command, has stated bluntly that China was seeking hegemony over East Asia.22
Chinas spending on
new armaments is equivalent to that of a nation that spends only
$10 billion to $20 billion per year on defense. In contrast, the United
States spends well over $100 billion per year to acquire new
weapons. Even without U.S. assistance, Taiwans modern military
could probably dissuade China from attacking. Taiwan does not have
to be able to win a conflict; it needs only to make the costs of any
attack unacceptable to China. The informal U.S. security guarantee
is unneeded. Both the Pentagon and a congressionally mandated commission recently issued
is soaked up by expenses not related to acquiring new weapons. Thus,
studies on the Chinese military that overstated the threat to the United States posed by that force. The
pessimism of both studies was understandable. The Department of Defenses studythe Annual Report on
the Military Power of the Peoples Republic of China1 was issued by a federal bureaucracy that has an
inherent conflict of interest in developing assessments of foreign military threats. Because the department
that is creating the threat assessments is the same one that is lobbying Congress for money for weapons,
personnel, fuel, and training to combat threats, its threat projections tend to be inflated. Because China,
with an economy that is seemingly growing rapidly, is the rising great power on the horizon that should
shape the future posture of American conventional forces (the brushfire wars needed to combat terrorism
are likely to require only limited forces), the threat from Chinas armed forces is critical for bringing
additional money into the Pentagon. The U.S.-China Security Review Commissions workThe National
Security Implications of the Economic Relationship between the United States and Chinadrew at least
partially on the Pentagons effort and was written by antiChina hawks and those with a desire to restrict
modernizing Chinese
military in the context of a more balanced and limited view of U.S. strategic
interests in East Asia. In addition, when the distorting perspectives of both
studies are removedthat is, their focus on recent improvements in Chinese
commerce with China.2 In contrast, this paper attempts to place the
military capabilities rather than on the overall state of the Chinese military
the threat from the Chinese armed forces is shown to be modest. The bonecrushing dominance of the U.S. military remains intact. In fact, the Chinese
military does not look all that impressive when compared even to the
Taiwanese armed forces. Putting the Modernizing Chinese Military in Context Frequently,
improvements in the Chinese military are reported in the world
press without any attention to context. That is, those flows are highlighted but the
stockthe overall state of the Chinese militaryis ignored. The state of the Chinese military and how
rapidly it is likely to improve will be examined in the second half of this paper. But first, additional context
is needed. Pockets of the Chinese military are now modernizing more rapidly than in the past, but
compared to what? Both the modernization and the actual state of the Chinese military must be compared
with those of the U.S. military and other militaries in the East Asian region (especially Taiwans armed
forces). In addition, the geopolitical and strategic environment in which Chinese military modernization is
A2 Dual-use tech
US companies inevitably produce dual use tech with China
regardless of relations which makes their impacts
inevitable- PWC proves
UNZ News 16 [UNZ&CO, Provides Training for International Trade Experts,
Enforcement of U.S. Government Export Control Regulations, 6-20-2016,
https://www.unzco.com/export-enforcement/]-DD
(PWC) pleaded guilty to violating the Arms
Export Control Act and making false statements in connection with its illegal
export to China of U.S.-origin military software used in the development of
Chinas new Z-10 military attack helicopter. PWC, its U.S. parent company United
On June 28, 2012, Pratt Whitney Canada
Technologies Corporation (UTC), and UTCs U.S. subsidiary Hamilton Sundstrand (HSC) agreed to pay $75
million as part of a global settlement with the departments of Justice ($20.7 million) and State ($55 million)
in relation to the violations. $20 million of the penalty can be suspended if UTC applies it to enhance its
compliance program. The high-dollar penalty and the debarment are a direct result of various aggravating
article, the key issue is how does the debarment of PWC impact your ability to do business with PWC
involving defense articles controlled by the ITAR? These examples are just a few of the relatively serious
cases that have occurred recently. As you can see from these cases, the violations were not immediately
severe penalties as a result of enforcement action by federal law enforcement agencies acting both
individually and jointly.
A2 AI
It takes way too long to even develop AI with the
intelligence of a lizard- no existential threat, the most
dangerous AI we have come up with for a long time to
come just has the capability to clean dirt off of floors
which means no risk of a threat
Brooks 14 [Rodney, PhD in Computer Science from Stanford, artificial
intelligence is a tool, not a threat, 11-10-2014,
http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/blog/artificial-intelligence-tool-threat/]-DD
Recently there has been a spate of articles in the mainstream press, and a spate of high profile people who
movies for a long time, from 2001: A Space Odyssey, in 1968, Colossus: The Forbin Project in 1970,
through many others, and then I, Robot in 2004. In all cases a computer decided that humans couldnt
be trusted to run things and started murdering them. The computer knew better than the people who built
them, so it started killing them. (Fortunately that doesnt happen with most teenagers, who always know
better than the parents who built them.) I think it is a mistake to be worrying about us developing
malevolent AI anytime in the next few hundred years. I think the worry stems from a fundamental error in
not distinguishing the difference between the very real recent advances in a particular aspect of AI, and
the enormity and complexity of building sentient volitional intelligence. Recent advances in deep machine
learning let us teach our machines things like how to distinguish classes of inputs and to fit curves to time
data. This lets our machines know whether an image is that of a cat or not, or to know what is about to
fail as the temperature increases in a particular sensor inside a jet engine. But this is only part of being
intelligent, and Moores Law applied to this very real technical advance will not by itself bring about human
level or super human level intelligence. While deep learning may come up with a category of things
appearing in videos that correlates with cats, it doesnt help very much at all in knowing what catness is,
as distinct from dogness, nor that those concepts are much more similar to each other than to
salamanderness. And deep learning does not help in giving a machine intent, or any overarching goals or
Spectrum, where he said some very reasonable, but somewhat dry, academic, things about big data. He
very clearly and carefully laid out why even within the limited domain of machine learning, just one aspect
of intelligence, there are pitfalls as we dont yet have solid science on understanding exactly when and
what classifications are accurate. And he very politely throws cold water on claims of near term full brain
emulation and talks about us being decades or centuries from fully understanding the deep principles of
volition for what they should do next. When a Roomba has been scheduled to
come out on a daily or weekly basis it operates as an autonomous machine
(except that all models still require a person to empty their bin). It comes out
and cleans the floor on its schedule. The house might have its furniture rearranged since last time, but the Roomba finds its way around, slowing down
when it gets close to obstacles, it senses them before contact, and then
heading away from them, and it detects drops in the floor, such as from a
step or stair with triply redundant methods and avoids falling down. Furthermore
it has a rudimentary understanding of dirt. When its acoustic sensors in its suction system hear dirt
banging around in the air flow, it stops exploring and circles in that area over and over again until the dirt
is gone, or at least until the banging around drops below a pre-defined threshold. But the Roomba does not
connect its sense of understanding to the bigger world. It doesnt know that humans existif it is about to
run into one it makes no distinction between a human and any other obstacle; by contrast dogs and even
sheep understand the special category of humans and have some expectations about them when they
detect them. The Roomba does not. And it certainly has no understanding that humans are related to the
dirt that triggers its acoustic sensor, nor that its real mission is to clean the houses of those humans. It
doesnt know that houses exist. At Rethink Robotics our robot Baxter is a little less intentional than a
Roomba, but more dexterous and more aware of people. A person trains Baxter to do a task, and then that
is what Baxter keeps doing, over and over. But it knows a little bit about the world with just a little
common sense. For instance it knows that if it is moving its arm towards a box to place a part there and for
whatever reason there is no longer something in its hand then there is no point continuing the motion. And
it knows what forces it should feel on its arms as it moves them and is able to react if the forces are
different. It uses that awareness to seat parts in fixtures, and it is aware when it has collided with a person
and knows that it should immediately stop forward motion and back off. But it doesnt have any semantic
connection between a person who is in its way, and a person who trains itthey dont share the same
category in its very limited ontology. OK, so what about connecting an IBM Watson like understanding of
the world to a Roomba or a Baxter? No one is really trying as the technical difficulties are enormous, poorly
understood, and the benefits are not yet known. There is some good work happening on cloud robotics,
connecting the semantic knowledge learned by many robots into a common shared representation. This
means that anything that is learned is quickly shared and becomes useful to all, but while it provides larger
data sets for machine learning it does not lead directly to connecting to the other parts of intelligence
beyond machine learning. It is not like this lack of connection is a new problem. Weve known about it for
decades, and it has long been referred to as the symbol grounding problem. We just havent made much
progress on it, and really there has not been much application demand for it. Doug Lenat has been working
on his Cyc project for twenty years. He and his team have been collecting millions, really, of carefully
crafted logical sentences to describe the world, to describe how concepts in the world are connected, and
to provide an encoding of common sense knowledge that all of us humans pick up during our childhoods.
While it has been a heroic effort it has not led to an AI system being able to master even a simple
understanding of the world. Trying to scale up collection of detailed knowledge a few years ago Pushpinder
Singh, at MIT, decided to try to use the wisdom of the crowds and set up the Open Mind Common Sense
web site, which involved a number of interfaces that ordinary people could use to contribute common
sense knowledge. The interfaces ranged from typing in simple declarative sentences in plain English, to
categorizing shapes of objects. Push developed ways for the system to automatically mine millions of
relationships from this raw data. The knowledge represented by both Cyc and Open Mind has been very
useful for many research projects but researchers are still struggling to use it in game changing ways by AI
systems. Why so many years? As a comparison, consider that we have had winged flying machines for well
over 100 years. But it is only very recently that people like Russ Tedrake at MIT CSAIL have been able to
get them to land on a branch, something that is done by a bird somewhere in the world at least every
microsecond. Was it just Moores law that allowed this to start happening? Not really. It was figuring out the
equations and the problems and the regimes of stall, etc., through mathematical understanding of the
equations. Moores law has helped with MATLAB and other tools, but it has not simply been a matter of
pouring more computation onto flying and having it magically transform. And it has taken a long, long
time. Expecting more computation to just magically get to intentional intelligences, who understand the
world is similarly unlikely. And, there is a further category error that we may be making here. That is the
intellectual shortcut that says computation and brains are the same thing. Maybe, but perhaps not. In the
1930s Turing was inspired by how human computers, the people who did computations for physicists
and ballistics experts alike, followed simple sets of rules while calculating to produce the first models of
abstract computation. In the 1940s McCullough and Pitts at MIT used what was known about neurons and
their axons and dendrites to come up with models of how computation could be implemented in hardware,
with very, very abstract models of those neurons. Brains were the metaphors used to figure out how to do
computation. Over the last 65 years those models have now gotten flipped around and people use
computers as the metaphor for brains. So much so that enormous resources are being devoted to whole
brain simulations. I say show me a simulation of the brain of a simple worm that produces all its
behaviors, and then I might start to believe that jumping to the big kahuna of simulating the cerebral
the world being round, evolution, climate change, and on the safety of vaccinations. The science on AI has
hardly yet been started, and even its time scale is completely an open question. Just how open the
question of time scale for when we will have human level AI is highlighted by a recent report by Stuart
Armstrong and Kaj Sotala, of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, an organization that itself has
researchers worrying about evil AI. But in this more sober report, the authors analyze 95 predictions made
between 1950 and the present on when human level AI will come about. They show that there is no
difference between predictions made by experts and non-experts. And they also show that over that 60
year time frame there is a strong bias towards predicting the arrival of human level AI as between 15 and
25 years from the time the prediction was made. To me that says that no one knows, they just guess, and
If we are
spectacularly lucky well have AI over the next thirty years with the
intentionality of a lizard, and robots using that AI will be useful
tools. And they probably wont really be aware of us in any serious
way. Worrying about AI that will be intentionally evil to us is pure
fear mongering. And an immense waste of time. Lets get on with
inventing better and smarter AI. It is going to take a long time, but
there will be rewards at every step along the way. Robots will
become abundant in our homes, stores, farms, offices, hospitals, and
all our work places. Like our current day hand-held devices we wont
know how we lived without them.
historically so far most predictions have been outright wrong! I say relax everybody.
***U.S.China war***
Relations Good
are deep, multifaceted, and not well understood by either side. The above narratives seek to make these
sources and the related mindsets clearer. We make the following recommendations to illustrate the types
controversial in either or both countries, and even we do not necessarily agree with each other on the
details of each of them. We therefore do not put them forward as a specific action program. Rather, we are
providing these ideas in the spirit of illustrating the types of actions in various spheres that may be
necessary to move thinking in both countries beyond the narratives of strategic distrust laid out above.
Defense
Today, our
bilateral cooperation is more extensive and comprehensive than what is
usually reported in the media. The relationship is stronger and more resilient
than many people have realized. At the same time, this relationship now seems to be more difficult to manage than
ever before. While our cooperation is expanding and deepening, our differences
stand out more and more. While there is growing evidence that our two countries are
increasingly connected to each other, there are also mounting worries that
we might eventually clash. This is, I believe, partly because of the inherent
complexities of the relationship, and partly because fundamental changes in the
global political and economic structure have made these complexities even
more complicated and have magnified their impact.
last three years has withstood one test after another and has by and large moved forward on a positive and stable track.
***Russia***
Relations Good
suggested that fortunately, there is scant evidence to support the idea of a global Chinese effort to upend
the international order. But this should provide little comfort. Historically, most revisionism has begun
regionally including Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries, and even Nazi Germany and imperial Japan in
the 1930s. Global consequences came later. Rising powers usually care more about their neighborhoods
pursuing bad grand strategies: The costs of their mistakes will reverberate well beyond their borders, just
as the world often paid a price for the follies of revisionists past. The good news is that, unlike Putins
Russia, China is not committed or destined to a revisionist path. President Obamas trip to Beijing this
narrowly focused on battling insurgents and refereeing sectarian and tribal feuds in the Muslim world.
provocations in the South and East China seas, providing assistance to non-allied governments such as
Ukraine and Vietnam if they are excessively coerced, and shoring up U.S. alliances for tests that are surely
coming, including deploying NATO troops to the Baltic states and repositioning forces in the Pacific.
Complementing these military relationships, Washington should regard conclusion of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership and its sister trade agreement in Europe as top priorities in order to renew U.S. economic
leadership. Finally, rising to the revisionist challenge will require a degree of national strength that can be
sustained only through a thriving economy, a powerful military, and a government and society that are
admired by much of the world. This places a premium on improving domestic governance; leveraging
Americas advantages in technology, immigration and energy; and enacting sustainable fiscal policies on
***Regional stability***
Relations Good
in the
worst-case scenario ASEAN breaks apart, among the biggest losers will be Australia. Australia
actually should have been living in an uncomfortable geopolitical neighbourhood but the success of ASEAN
and the calm that ASEAN has created has been a geopolitical gift to Australia.
Relations Bad
here. If it did, Vietnam would not be so willing to accept John Kerry, a purple-heart winning Vietnam War
veteran and current U.S. Secretary of State, back into the country with open arms. (Johnson 2013) (U.S.
out as family-run businesses with capital coming from mainland China, Hong Kong or Taiwan, and are built
As one observer put it, while overseas Chinese may be well endowed financially, their considerable wealth
often evokes unwanted attention and jealousy. As it is, overseas Chinese are frequently the target of envy
process of nation-building that overseas Chinese are integrated with the local community. (Beng 2002)
If events in the South China Sea lead to war, the US can probably rely on
some of the ASEAN states, as well as possibly Japan. [and] Australia may also
support the US over a wide range of potential circumstances. China faces a less
complicated situation with respect to allies. Beijing could probably expect benevolent neutrality, including shipments of
arms and spares, from Russia, but little more. The primary challenge for Chinese diplomats would be establishing and
maintaining the neutrality of potential US allies. This would involve an exceedingly complex dance, including reassurances
about Chinese long-term intentions, as well as displays of confidence about the prospects of Chinese victory (which would
carry the implicit threat of retribution for support of the United States). North Korea presents an even more difficult
problem. Any intervention on the part of the DPRK runs the risk of triggering Japanese and South Korean counterintervention, and that math doesnt work out for China. Unless Beijing is certain that Seoul and Tokyo will both throw in for
the United States (a doubtful prospect given their hostility to one another), it may spend more time restraining Pyongyang
than pushing it into the conflict. The PLA will pursue these ends: 1. Achieve the affirmative expeditionary purpose. 2.
Destroy as much of the expeditionary capability of the USAF and USN as possible. 3. Hurt America badly enough that
future US governments will not contemplate intervention. 4. Disrupt the US-led alliance system in East Asia. The first task
requires the deployment of PLAN surface forces, possibly in combination with PLAAF airborne forces, to seize an
objective. The second involves the use of submarines, aircraft, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles to destroy US and
allied installations and warships across East Asia. The third and fourth tasks rest upon the second. The PLA will attempt to
inflict sufficient casualties on US forces that future US decision-makers will hesitate to use force against the PRC.
Similarly, the survival of the US-led alliance system requires that the United States successfully defeat Chinese
aggression; if it cannot, the alliance system could deteriorate and collapse. The United States hasnt lost a fighter in action
since the 1999 Kosovo War, and hasnt lost a major warship since World War II. The sinking of a warship would likely also
result in the greatest loss of life of any single action for the US military in action since the Vietnam War. However, both US
and Chinese strategists may overestimate US casualty aversion. The loss of a major warship and its crew might serve to
solidify US commitment (at least in the short term) rather than undermine it. The Hold Your Breath Moments The
biggest moment will come when
Foreign
intervention of any kind, even benevolent advice, is thus generally
considered an inappropriate intrusion into anothers domestic affairs,
something democracy promoters often overlook, as they are seduced
by a notion of unity of goodness, according to which responsible institutions and all
other desirable things flow from democracy.18 In addition, excluding non-democratic
regimes, e.g. by launching the idea of a League of Democracies,
creates an insider vs. outsider dynamic that sows mistrust and
possibly even conflict, reducing the space for dialogue. Concerns about the
internal character of regimes may provoke resistance and endanger world order.19 Accordingly, US
foreign policy during the Cold War reflected American policy makers
out that it invariably violates another countrys sovereignty and self-determination.17
conviction that it was safer to ally oneself with elites one could trust
rather than the masses whom one could not.
addition to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's internal reforms to Japan's national security infrastructure, such as
establishing a National Security Council to coordinate responses to threats, his government recently
implemented an initiative that expands Japan's ability to cooperate with the U.S. and other allies on
defense issues. In 2014, Japan overturned a ban on defense exports, which makes available one more tool
to cement relations between Japan and countries that share a similar outlook on security issues.
expand economic ties to mainland China, and made history by meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in
it comes to relations with the mainland, marking an opportunity for the U.S.
to expand its ties with Taipei. Expanding military-to-military cooperation with Taiwan will better
deter China from launching an attack against the island, which the U.S. is bound by treaty to defend .
Allies in other parts of Asia are also increasingly willing to work together and
with the U.S. to curtail the Chinese threat. The Philippines recently agreed to
allow U.S. troops to position there on a rotational basis, for example, and the
recent souring of relations between South Korea and China, coupled with the
rapprochement between Seoul and Tokyo on the "comfort women" issue, signals an opportunity
for enhanced trilateral cooperation between Japan, South Korea and the
United States. As evidenced by the recent lifting of a decades-old weapons embargo, the U.S. is in the
process of turning Vietnam, a prior enemy, into a security partner, and further to the south, America's
staunch ally, Singapore, is increasing its cooperation with another U.S. ally, Australia.
core American allies, American friends, non-aligned countries and Chinese partners. Each group of states
takes a different approach towards the power transition between the US and China. On the future of the
models of the future security order in the Asia-Pacific: 1) continued US hegemony despite a relative
decline; 2) a US-China strategic condominium; 3) power-balancing between multiple actors in a concert of
as middle
powers, South Korea and Australia needed to readjust their strategies for the
emerging strategic dynamics which includes building up their capabilities,
expanding defence ties with the US and/or other powers bilaterally or
trilaterally, bilateral engagement with China, and multilateral regional
security 7 26 August 2014 Mr. Brigadier Peter Clay, Mr. John Langtry and Dr. Benjamin Schreer (Left to
powers; and 4) power-dilution through increased multilateralism. Dr. Schreer suggested that
Right) engagement. As US allies, South Korea and Australia needed to assume greater responsibility for
their own security and wider maritime security. In turn, this could provide opportunities to enhance South
Korea-Australia security and defence cooperation. In the proceeding discussion, the effectiveness of
***Prolif***
Relations Good
Chinas plans to export nuclear power plants based on Westinghouse technology have raised a
number of concerns. A key question is the level of U.S. control that would continue to be exercised
over the export of reactors based on U.S. designs and the use of nuclear
materials produced by those reactors. The potential for Chinese dominance of
the world nuclear power market with U.S. help is also an issue . A related area of concern is
the extent to which U.S. nuclear power technology could be transferred to the Chinese naval reactor program, particularly the unique sealed
pumps used by the AP1000. According to Baker Donelson, the Westinghouse technology transfer agreement for the AP1000 reactor grants the
Chinese only a nonexclusive license to use that technology in China, with Westinghouse retaining all its intellectual property rights. The
agreement allows the Chinese to modify the AP1000 design but they cannot export such variants unless they do so with Westinghouse under
except the United States and Japan, subject to U.S. export control laws, according to Baker Donelson. Westinghouse would have the right to
participate in such export projects to the extent that they incorporated AP1000 technology. If China did not include Westinghouse in such
China is currently
developing a large passive plant, as envisioned by the Westinghouse
agreement. The first of these reactors, called the CAP1400, is to begin construction in China in 2015, with exports planned to
follow.20 Aggressive Chinese exports of nuclear technology, particularly to
countries that do not currently have nuclear power, could pose proliferation
risks, as noted above. Chinas policies for ensuring that countries that import its
reactors are fully compliant with international safeguards will be of particular
concern. Moreover, even fully safeguarded nuclear power programs could raise
U.S. concerns if they create a perceived need to develop fuel cycle facilities
such as uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing plants, which can be
used to produce nuclear weapons material. Without Westinghouses
advanced reactor technology, China was not generally believed to have a
reactor that could compete in world markets. Therefore, the AP1000 technology transfer appears to be
exports, then Westinghouse would have to be compensated for any of its technology that was used.19
crucial to Chinas planned nuclear export program.21 Transfers of nuclear technology to a foreign country require authorization by the
Secretary of Energy under 10 C.F.R. Part 810. Such Part 810 authorizations must be based on assurances from the recipient government that
the technology will be used for peaceful purposes only and will not be retransferred without approval of the supplying country, as explained by
this statement from Export.gov website: Government-to-government assurances obtained by either the Department of State or the
Department of Energy are required for the 810 approval and 110 licensing process. The assurances for 810 approvals affirm that the recipient
government pledges to use the acquired technology exclusively for peaceful purposes and will not re-transfer it to another country without the
consent of the supplier-country government.22 As discussed above, the Agreed Minute to the 123 Agreement prohibits China or the United
States from retransferring any technology received from the other country to a third country without the agreement of the country that
originally provided the technology. It goes on to specify: Prior to any such transfer of items, technology, or information subject to this
Agreement, the Parties shall by mutual agreement define the conditions (transfer conditions) in accordance with which such items,
technology, or information may be transferred to the jurisdiction of a third country or destination beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the
transferring Party. Any transfer to which the non-transferring Party consents in writing shall be subject to the transfer conditions agreed to by
the Parties.23 Increased
reasons to
The U.S. and China have a wide-ranging, deep and relatively mature
relationship. The presidents of both countries have repeatedly indicated the
value of developing a cooperative relationship for the future. Both sides have
a pragmatic awareness of the issues on which they disagree, and both
appreciate the importance of not permitting those specific disagreements to
prevent cooperation on major issues where cooperation can be mutually
beneficial. In addition, the leaders and top working-level officials on both
sides have gained substantial experience in dealing with each other and, in
many cases, have come to know each other fairly well.1 The above are
promising dimensions of U.S.-China relations and should bode well for the
future. There is no more important bilateral relationship, and thus its future
direction is of enormous importance to each country, the region, and the
world. For regional and global issues such as nonproliferation and
climate change, active U.S.-China cooperation or at least parallel
actions makes issues more manageable; having the U.S. and China
work at cross purposes makes those issues more difficult, or even
impossible, to manage. Despite both sides tacit agreement on the above,
there are grounds for deep concern about the future. As of early 2012 the
U.S. has withdrawn its forces from Iraq and is on schedule to draw down its
involvement in the Afghan conflict, and Washington is rebalancing its policy in
the direction of Asia and the Pacific. This shift reflects President Obamas
basic perspective, as Americas self-described first Pacific president, that
because Asia is the most important region of the world for the future
of the United States, it is vitally important that America maintain and
enhance its leadership role there. In November 2011 the Obama
Administration publically committed to devote the necessary resources to
sustain this leadership role in Asia, even as its domestic fiscal challenges
threaten substantial cuts in the overall defense budget and make funding of
major overseas commitments potentially more controversial at home.2 China
is expanding its roles in the Asia-Pacific region. Since 2000, virtually
every Asian country, as well as Australia, has shifted from having the U.S. as
its largest trade partner to having China as its largest trade partner. Most of
these countries have also invested directly in Chinas economy. In short,
almost every Asian country now builds continued participation in Chinas
economic growth into its own strategy for future prosperity. Although Chinas
economic and political interests are increasingly reaching around the world,
its geoeconomic and geopolitical center of gravity remains in Asia, or what
the leaders of China refer to as its periphery. In addition, Chinas military
capabilities are improving substantially as a result of double-digit annual
growth in its defense expenditures nearly every year since the mid-1990s. A
significant portion of that growth has been in force projection capabilities,
especially in the navy and also in the air and missile forces. The Peoples
Liberation Army (PLA) is still many years away from being a global military
power, but its capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region have expanded markedly
over the past fifteen years.
better understanding of their common interests and their major differences, and understand how to expand their common
specific issues such as nuclear doctrines and policies, nuclear security, ballistic missile defense, outer space, cyber
regular exchanges of visits and restore their lab to lab projects. Greater efforts should be made to remove the three major
obstacles, the concerned provisions of US National Defense Authorization Act of 2000 in particular, which hinder further
improvement of military to military exchanges between the two countries. Conclusion Over the past years, China and the
United States have had good cooperation and major differences in the fields of arms control and nonproliferation. These
the
development of the overall China-US relations also affects
cooperation of the two countries in handling arms control and
proliferation issues. It is important for both sides to expand their
cooperation and differences have played an important role in shaping China-US relations. At the same time,
Defense
sensitive moment: The Obama administration has been trying to rally support among lawmakers and the
public for a deal that would restrict Irans nuclear program a deal negotiated with Chinas support.
Administration officials are using arguments similar to those deployed in the debate over Iran. They say
the negotiations over the 123 agreement persuaded China to go a long way and agree to controls on
technology and materials that are tighter than those in the current accord. Congress can vote to block the
agreement, but if it takes no action during a review period, the agreement goes into effect. If Congress
rejects the deal, that would allow another country with lower levels of proliferation controls to step in and
fill that void, said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could
talk more freely. We go into it with eyes wide open, he added. Without it, we would be less able to press
the Chinese to do better on this front. Although the current nuclear agreement with China does not expire
until the end of the year, the administration had to give Congress notice with 90 legislative days left on the
clock. Obama also hopes to seal a global climate deal in December featuring China less than three
weeks before the current nuclear accord expires. Congress isnt convinced yet. We are just beginning
what will be a robust review process, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)
said in an e-mail. These agreements can be valuable tools for furthering U.S. interests, but they must
support, not undermine, our nations critical nonproliferation objectives. A quieter submarine? Henry
Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, has been urging lawmakers to
insist on requiring advance consent for the reprocessing of spent fuel from U.S.-designed reactors into
plutonium suitable for weapons. He also is concerned about the sale of certain nuclear energy
technologies, especially coolant pumps with possible naval use. Charlotte-based Curtiss-Wright developed
advanced coolant pumps for the U.S. Navys submarines. The same plant produces a scaled-up version for
AP1000 series reactors, each of which uses four big pumps. These pumps
reduce noises that would make a submarine easier to detect . That has become a bigger
concern since China occupied and started building what looks like a military base on strategic
(and disputed) reefs in the South China Sea . An Obama administration official said the reactor
coolant pumps are much too big to fit into a submarine. However, a 2008 paper by two former
nuclear submarine officers working on threat reduction said that the reverse
engineering would likely be difficult but added that certainly, the Chinese have already
reversed engineered very complex imported technology in the aerospace and
nuclear fields. Sokolski thinks the choice between reactor sales and tighter controls is a clear one.
the Westinghouse
Since when does employment trump national security? he asked rhetorically. The United States has
bilateral 123 agreements with 22 countries, plus Taiwan, for the peaceful use of nuclear power. Some
countries that do not have such agreements, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Malaysia, have expressed
imposed new restrictions after the Chinese governments June 1989 crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen
hopes to sell 30 others, according to an April report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS). When
it comes to nuclear weapons proliferation, China is in a different category from other 123 agreement
nations. It first tested a nuclear weapon in 1964 and now has an arsenal of about 250 nuclear warheads.
So U.S. concerns have focused more on whether China has transferred technology to other countries.
according to Frank von Hippel, a Princeton University physics professor who specializes in nuclear arms
control. There is not even any fencing between the sites, he says. Thats been one of the hang-ups of the
[reprocessing] deal that China has been trying to negotiate with France for several years, von Hippel said.
Sokolski said the agreement proposed by Obama lacks a requirement for explicit, case-by-case U.S.
permission for a reprocessing project using American technology or material from U.S. reactors. It gives
China might
want to compete with Russian and U.S. arsenals and make more bombs, for
which plutonium is the optimal material. Other weapons experts note that China
already has enough surplus highly enriched uranium and plutonium to make
hundreds of new bombs. China has indicated that it is interested in
reprocessing so it can use plutonium as part of the fuel mix in civilian nuclear
power plants. And it must offer the IAEA access. Von Hippel is still concerned. So if China right
now is the great hope for the future of nuclear energy, soon it will be a major
reactor exporter to the extent theres a market, he said. So its a proliferation
concern, and its also a nuclear terrorism concern. The more plutonium there
is lying around, the more likely it is that someone will steal it. But the most
politically sensitive issue in Congress might turn out to be dual-use
applications of nuclear reactor parts . The latest appropriations bill issued by House Armed
consent in advance. And he fears that over the 30-year life of the new 123 agreement,
Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) last month would require an intelligence
assessment of whether there was minimal risk that civilian nuclear technology would be diverted to any
foreign states nuclear naval propulsion program. Economy & Business Alerts Breaking news about
economic and business issues. Sign up Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said that the bill doesnt mention
China by name, though I cant think of another country for which it would be more applicable.