U.S. POLICY OPTIONS TOWARD CHINA: AN APPRAISAL.

• Author: Lester, Simon

Most Americans will agree that the Chinese government has behaved badly in a number of ways, although they may not agree on exactly which Chinese government behavior is a problem. Perhaps it's the treatment of ethnic or religious minorities, such as the Uighurs or Tibetans or Christians; maybe it's the crackdown on protests in Hong Kong and failure to uphold the "one country, two systems" principle; or assertiveness in territorial disputes; or censorship; or protectionist trade practices; or intellectual property theft; or cyber-hacking; or spying; or most recently, being slow to disclose the emergence of the coronavirus and engaging in a propaganda war regarding who is at fault. It's a long list, and everyone has their own priorities.

But while there is loose agreement on the existence of a problem, there is great difficulty in coming up with an appropriate response. What can or should the United States government do about any of this? Is it possible to change the behavior of other governments? Is the U.S. government in a position to do it? Is it appropriate to do so?

The average American probably doesn't put a lot of thought into the issue. Foreign policy is low on the list of people's concerns (Hrynowsld 2020). As a result, if the general sentiment in the United States is becoming anti-China due to Chinese government behavior (with a big assist from prodding by certain politicians and assorted China hawks in Washington), as it has been (Devlin, Silver, and Huang 2020), the small community of foreign policy experts who have influence over these issues will have a good deal of power to push an aggressive response toward the Chinese government. The American voting public is not likely to be checking the details of the various options carefully.

This lack of scrutiny is a problem, because finding the right approach to responding to the behavior of the Chinese government is one of the most important foreign policy choices of our time. We may or may not be moving into a "great power competition," but regardless, the state of the U.S.-China relationship will be a crucial factor in international relations and governance for decades to come. How the U.S. government responds to the Chinese government's actions is a key element affecting that relationship.

China's Recent Moves Toward Greater Authoritarianism and Foreign Policy Assertiveness

Over the years, optimism about the prospects for a Chinese shift toward democracy and protection of rights has waxed and waned. The Tiananmen crackdown was a low point; China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) was a high point.

In support of the vote on granting China permanent normal trade relations as part of its accession to the WTO, President Clinton and several high-ranking officials in his administration talked up the possibility of democratic progress in China, although their comments were vague, and more hopeful than certain. Clinton himself said:

By joining the WTO, China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products; it is agreeing to import one of democracy's most cherished values: economic freedom. The more China liberalizes its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people--their initiative, their imagination, their remarkable spirit of enterprise. And when individuals have the power, not just to dream but to realize their dreams, they will demand a greater say [Clinton 2000].

In recent years, though, the Chinese government has taken a number of steps backward. Beijing has tightened controls over freedom of thought and freedom of speech. The Unirule Institute, China's leading market-liberal think tank, was forced to close (Kuo 2019). And Fudan University had to remove "freedom of thought" from its charter. In its place, there is now a phrase about following the Communist Party's leadership, casting doubts on how much academic freedom exists in China (Reuters 2019).

On the geopolitical front, Beijing has been taking a more assertive approach all around the world, with its own region seeing the strongest moves. It has increased military activities near the Taiwan Strait (Thim 2018) and been more aggressive in the South China Sea and East China Sea (Council on Foreign Relations 2020a, 2020b). Moreover, the Chinese leadership seems intent on destroying the "one country, two systems" principle that it agreed to for the governance of Hong Kong. A new national security law to be imposed on Hong Kong would make secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference a criminal act, and give the mainland government unprecedented power to operate on the island. This will further undermine Hong Kong's self-governance, and Western-style rule of law and freedoms could virtually disappear under the new policy (Wong and Kahn 2020; Mahtani et al. 2020; Wong, Cheung, and Cheng 2020).

In addition, during the COVID-19 pandemic, China has launched an extensive propaganda campaign to boost its public image, among other things by engaging in "Mask Diplomacy" (Wen and Hinshaw 2020) and pledging millions of dollars in donations to the World Health Organization (Reuters 2020). These efforts have backfired, though, and Americans' views of China have continued their decline as two in three Americans now have a negative view of China (Devlin, Silver, and Huang 2020). Overall, anyone hoping for China to move toward economic and political freedom will be disappointed by the developments of the last few years.

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