From partner to provocateur: How China turned U.S. support into strategic threat

OPINION:

The trade war with China is intensifying and could lead to conflict. President Trump paused tariffs for 90 days on about 80 countries but kept his tariff of 145% on China. Chinese President Xi Jinping responded with a 125% levy on all U.S. goods. After many initial years of goodwill and cooperation, how have relations deteriorated to this level?

Initial years

Threatened by an imposing Soviet Union, China’s Mao Zedong reached out to President Nixon for the historic 1972 meetings in Beijing, which led to the normalization of relations between our countries in 1979. With normalization, China was given intelligence on Soviet movements in the east and permitted the U.S. to install equipment in Western China to monitor Soviet strategic forces while assisting with defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Starting in 1978, when China’s Deng Xiaoping took over as China’s supreme leader, China moved quickly to a market economy, with Deng’s economic and political reform policy. Central planning and communes were replaced by a market economy and a political system that implemented collective leadership and term limits, with a strong Communist Party in the lead. China went from one of the poorest countries in East Asia to the second-largest economy in the world. Much of the credit also must go to the U.S., which was there for China, with significant foreign direct investments and opening U.S. colleges to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students.

The Shanghai Communique of 1972 clearly stated that the U.S. “acknowledged” that there was “one China” and Taiwan was part of China, calling for a peaceful resolution of issues between China and Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 was emphatic in stating that the U.S. would accept only a peaceful resolution of issues between China and Taiwan.

Beginning of a new era

Ironically, bilateral cooperation in the 1980s and 1990s — counterproliferation, counternarcotics, counterterrorism and international crime, etc. — became more tense after China was admitted into the World Trade Organization in 2001, with the help of the U.S.

There were, however, indicators in 1989 with the Tiananmen Square slaughter of peaceful protesting students and civilians; with the 1999 Belgrade embassy bombing and China’s continued refusal to accept a U.S. apology for accidentally bombing its embassy and in 2001, when Chinese President Jiang Zemin refused to take calls from President George W. Bush seeking to resolve the accidental crash of a U.S. reconnaissance plane with a Chinese Air Force J-8 interceptor flying in international airspace.

An assertive China

Chinese President Xi Jinping took over in March 2013 as supreme leader. Mr. Xi’s vision for “making China great again” and calling for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” depended heavily on geoeconomics, using China’s economic tools, backed by a strong military, to accomplish its regional and global objectives. This strategy is to reclaim China’s greatness. As the “Middle Kingdom” with 5,000 years of history and culture, China was the world’s dominant power. Mr. Xi’s approach was to secure economic relationships with more than 140 nations by using the “Belt and Road” initiative and establishing alliances with the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperative Organization, and now with Russia, North Korea and Iran.

Irritants in the relationship

An assertive Mr. Xi has taken a provocative approach toward the South China Sea, establishing military bases and developing several islands despite the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal’s 2016 ruling that China’s nine-dash line and land reclamation claims were not legally valid. The U.S. has pushed back aggressively against China’s unlawful activities in the South China Sea, most recently by supporting the Philippines in its confrontation with China on Second Thomas Shoal.

China’s recent military exercises around Taiwan have intensified since the election of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te. China deployed air, sea and land assets to demonstrate to Taiwan and the U.S. that this exercise could quickly develop into a blockade of Taiwan or, if necessary, a military assault. Mr. Xi has publicly indicated that by 2027, China will have the military capabilities necessary to secure unification with Taiwan. This may not be Mr. Xi’s preference, but, based on his pronouncements and rhetoric, this is a likelihood that cannot be dismissed.

Intellectual property theft is another significant issue in the bilateral Chinese relationship.

China’s goal

There should be no surprise that China, by 2049, the centennial of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, aspires to be the dominant global power. Many in China have read “Destined for War,” where a rising power overtakes an established power. Unfortunately, many in China, especially in the Chinese Communist Party, think this is inevitable. This thinking has contributed to China’s reckless behavior in the South and East China seas and with Taiwan.

Diplomacy

This is not a time for the U.S. to withdraw from world leadership. Many countries are looking to the U.S. for economic and security assurances, as we deter China, Russia, North Korea and Iran from their territorial ambitions.

Given the major role the U.S. played in helping China become the second-largest economy in the world, it would make sense that our countries worked jointly to combat pandemics, narcotics trafficking and nuclear proliferation while using our diplomats to help resolve these irritants and ensure that we do not slide into conflict.

• The author is a former director of East Asia operations at the CIA and a former director of the National Counterproliferation Center and special envoy for Six Party Talks with North Korea. The views are the author’s and not those of any government agency or department.