Countering China.

• Author: Sobolik, Michael

The relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) changed more in 2020 than in the past forty years. Cooperation and "win-win outcomes" rapidly devolved into confrontation and "wolf warrior diplomacy." Preexisting disputes over human rights and escalating tariffs were already eroding Washington's decades-long China policy before the outbreak of the pandemic, but the bilateral relationship worsened appreciably last year with China's crackdown on Hong Kong and America's decertification of the city's autonomy, not to mention the COVID-19 pandemic. As former National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien put it, "The days of American passivity and naivety regarding the People's Republic of China are over."

Initially, the Trump administration pushed a policy of reciprocity with the PRC, singling out unequal trade terms and China's theft of intellectual property. What came next, however, was a redefining of the relationship. Beginning in 2019, Washington's critique of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fundamentally shifted from a question of fairness to an accusation of malevolence. As then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo put it in October of that year, "Today, we're finally realizing the degree to which the Chinese Communist Party is truly hostile to the United States and our values, and its worse deeds and words and how they impact us." Indeed, Pompeo's subsequent remarks at the Nixon Presidential Library heralded what could be a new era in U.S.-China relations--one animated by deep distrust. The onset of COVID-19 in 2020 accelerated this strategic shift. China's initial concealing of the virus' existence and subsequent stonewalling information-sharing, its attempts to profit off stockpiled personal protective equipment, and its blatant disinformation campaigns about the virus' origin fed a retributive Zeitgeist to "make China pay" for its coronavirus culpability.

This impulse prompted policymakers to fixate on China's past behavior at the expense of shaping the CCP'S future choices. The result: bad policy ideas defined the debate and hamstrung America's new approach to China right out of the gate. As President Joe Biden and his advisors craft a new China policy, heeding these warnings is critical to building a truly competitive strategy vis-a-vis the CCP.

Consider last year's push to strip China of sovereign immunity in U.S. courts. Allowing Americans to sue the PRC for pandemic damages is quintessentially populist, but woefully unserious. Doing so would have required new legislation from Congress--which several members enthusiastically introduced--and would almost certainly have been challenged in the Supreme Court for a simple reason: it would upend centuries of international law, and quite possibly the concepts of foreign direct investment and multinational corporations.

In some cases, these bad ideas also sabotaged good efforts. Take "decoupling," the 2020 buzzword among China hands. While Washington tried to reorient supply chains away from China, some members of Congress also called for the United States to leave the World Trade Organization--a move which President Donald Trump supported. These initiatives worked at cross purposes with each other. The former sought to decouple the international trading system from China, while the latter policy would have decoupled the United States from global commercial institutions. Taken in isolation, reshaping supply chains has a great deal of merit, and several members of Congress introduced legislation that would extricate critical industries like rare earth minerals and pharmaceuticals from Beijing's influence. But walking away from the rules and institutions that underpin global commerce would send mixed messages to Beijing and America's partners.

This reactive posture predated COVID-19--from threatening to delist PRC companies on U.S. securities exchanges and targeting Confucius Institutes to prosecuting intellectual property theft and sanctioning human rights violators. To be sure, these initiatives are worthy endeavors, even necessary ones. And the political leaders pushing them deserve credit for rejecting...