The Biden Administration’s China Policy: The First Six Months | Stephen Orlins, Jerome Cohen

[Music] good afternoon to those in north america good evening to those of you who are joining us from europe and good morning to any intrepid souls in asia who are up very early indeed welcome to all my name is margo landman deputy vice president for programs at the national committee on u.s china relations and just before we get to the program i would like to express our sorrow for the people in hunan and other parts of china that have seen such terrible flooding in recent days as those of you who join us frequently know steve orleans is usually the interviewer at national committee programs today by contrast he is the speaker and interviewee we are very fortunate that professor jerome cohen renowned law professor scholar and activist has agreed to moderate today's program with that jerry over to you thank you margo i hope i can be heard uh having a chance to participate with you and steve uh is highly appropriate at this time as we reconsider the progress that has been made since the 1979 normalization uh i was in close touch with both of you at that time and i'm glad that we're all still making an effort to deal with what has now been almost universally recognized as the world's most important uh political diplomatic military economic problem in 60 years of watching china i feel that this is undoubtedly the most serious moment some people predict it's likely to last five years it could go much longer the future is not clear inevitably but with many high hopes the biden administration has come into office and uh we've seen some significant changes and some improvements in our china policy and yet are of course many understandable uh disagreements impatience has been shown in many quarters and we're here today to do a critique after six months of biden in office what has been done what should be done what can we expect there's nobody better qualified to hold forth on this than steve orleans as a student as a scholar as a young lawyer in the state department helping to negotiate normalization of relations with china in the late 70s as a business lawyer who worked in china among the very first in the period 79 to 81 and later not much later as the business person with the high responsibility based in hong kong for dealing not only with mainland china but also with taiwan steve had a superb background for finally becoming the president of the national committee on u.s china relations he's done that for over a dozen years he's had the closest contacts americans have with chinese leaders scholars intellectuals and he keeps up a constant effort to promote constructive engagement despite the problems that have been created problems that i think of course have been created to varying extents on different problems by both sides i'm eager to hear what steve has to say i'll make some brief comments afterward and i'd like then for us to take on uh the comments of what is a very uh well-informed audience steve it's all yours uh jerry thank you happy belated 95th 91st birthday um glad we got to celebrate it over zoom hope to see you soon um today let me first make one thing clear which is today i speak for myself not the national committee on u.s china relations in fact some of my board members some of the committee membership hold different views than i do so i am speaking for myself and please bear that in mind as jerry said it's been about six months since inauguration and almost nine months since the election and even before that president biden and his team had spent many years thinking about what our china policies should be so today i want to address where we are i want to propose some actions the administration should take now to craft a policy that benefits all americans especially working americans i'm not going to spend time rehashing the litany of bad sometimes reprehensible chinese government decisions policies and behaviors relating to its treatment of dissidents people in xinjiang and hong kong it's taiwan policies or it's unfair economic policies i'm already on the record clearly and forcefully criticizing those policies and attributing blame to the chinese government for the state of the relationship from far before the trump era but today i want to talk about the other side of the equation how u.s actions have also contributed to the dangerous deterioration of u.s china relationship and how that affects us as a country and people i believe that over the past four years america's china policy has been a disaster for average americans and for u.s china relations and has often been based on fallacies rather than facts the bad administration needs to forcefully refute some of those foundational fictions such as china interfered in the 2020 elections it didn't chinese pay the tariffs on imported goods they don't or the bilateral trade deficit reflects the unfair trading relationship between china and the united states it doesn't these are only a few of the assertions that formed the flawed foundation for our current policy that the biden administration inherited and should address i must admit i believed president biden would overturn president trump's china policies during the election campaign i had heard a candidate biden strike what i thought was an appropriate confident tone when he said the united states is better positioned than any nation in the world to own the 21st century don't tell me china's going to own america it's not possible instead of demonizing china he called for america to strengthen itself by addressing domestic issues he seemed committed to striking a more measured path one that emphasized working together with china were possible to address global issues such as climate change and non-proliferation however since his election president biden's good instincts on china policy have been deflected in the context of paying immediate attention to battling covet restoring domestic economic health and social tranquility rebuilding our infrastructure and standing with allies and like-minded nations the bad administration has reversed too few of trump's china policies i understand that biden needs all the capital he can get for his domestic agenda and i realize that there is broad agreement on china policy between the two parties nevertheless we should not let those constraints force us into international economic and security directions that are unsound looking back at history parties and administrations that pursued enlightened domestic policies did not always do so with respect to foreign policy particularly in asia as jerry well remembers because it's when we met the same administration that championed civil rights sent my classmates to their deaths in southeast asia the administration points out that sequencing pali's policies in coordination with allies is critical i agree but leaving these policies in place punishes working families promotes racial antagonism and will sap resources from revitalizing the american economy it's easy to criticize from the sidelines so let me instead give you my positive agenda for u.s policy towards china that will strengthen ties and benefit american families first on the economic front the administration should immediately revoke trump's tariffs china has already indicated it will end its reciprocal tariffs america has already lost 300 000 jobs and a family of four is still paying 2 300 annually in extra expenses as a result of those tariffs with inflation potentially on the horizon it is time to act the ongoing delisting of chinese companies from u.s stock exchange and the expansion of the previous administration prohibition on investment in 49 chinese companies also needs to be revisited while the biden administration has correctly emphasized working closely with allies we are going it alone when it comes to de-listening and sanctioning chinese companies where are our european partners and allies if these companies listings in hong kong london singapore and tokyo remain unchanged these actions do not harm them they do however have an impact on people's livelihoods especially here in new york the second area for action is people to people and academic exchanges the administration should restore the peace corps and fulbright programs and reverse the executive order that ends congressional staff trips under the mutual education and cultural exchange act the administration should also speed issuance of student visas and restart issuing visas to ccp members and their families we can facilitate this by allowing the chinese government to reopen its consulate in houston as we reopen our consulate in chengdu it should also quickly rebuild the cdc and national science foundation presence in our beijing embassy the administration should also end the restriction on chinese state media in the united states this media reports on america to chinese audiences and does not influence discussions of china in america before relaxing this restriction the administration should secure prc government agreement to allow american journalists back into china under acceptable working conditions as for the academic exchanges attorney general garland should end the china initiative created by the trump administration to address a china threat the initiative at a minimum undermines the justice department's own guidelines that prosecutors should not be influenced by a person's race or national origin in addition to serious issues of bias the initiative's chilling effect dissuades top scholars and researchers from coming to and staying in the united states the weak prosecutions that have thus far resulted from the china initiative show the costs far exceed the benefit the third area for actions is on human rights and international norms labeling china a strategic competitor and focusing on destructive confrontation rather than constructive engagement does not help one citizen in hong kong one uyghur in xinjiang or one dissident in china while we should continue to vehemently criticize prc actions and sanction where necessary a cooperative relationship will allow us to have more influence affecting policies that are inconsistent with our values additionally our criticism of china's violation of international law in the south china sea would be enhanced by our long overdue ratification of the united nations convention of the law of the sea fourth u.s policy on taiwan is the root of much of our strategic conflict with china while the bible administration has reversed some of the previous administration's actions and jake sullivan and kurt campbell's reaffirmation of the one china policy has helped the visit to taiwan by the u.s ambassador to palau meetings of charges affairs in tokyo two visits by military u.s military aircraft to taiwan and failure to return the official contact protocol to the pre-pompeo era undermined those ate those statements we can and should strengthen our relations with taiwan without making it more official with the visit to taipei of chris dodd jim steinberg and richard armitage armitage and negotiating additional trade agreements as great examples fifth the united states should be careful to distinguish between russia and china in 2018 then citizen biden pointed out that a long-term partnership alliance between moscow and beijing in the near term isn't in the stars at all yet by continuing to pursue policies that group them together as joint threats the united states is only pushing them closer together finally we should not understate the benefits constructive engagement brought to the american people i do not agree that the era of constructive engagement was misguided or is over this view ignores that engagement with china not only improves the lives of the chinese people it also helped bind china to the international system leading to its remarkable economic growth that has directly benefited working americans it ignores that china has become the largest contributor to global economic growth it ignores china's accession to the wto u.n sanctions on north korea and iran the iran accords the paris accords ending the genocide in darfur controlling the ebola epidemic leading the global recovery from the 2018 financial crisis reducing piracy in the gulf of aden and cooperating on joint research by our cdcs in pandemics past most importantly when i first arrived in asia 50 years ago we were fighting the last of three wars that led to the deaths of more than 250 000 american soldiers on the battlefields of asia since the era of constructive engagement not a single soldier has died on those battlefields in 1953 president eisenhower gave his chance for peace speech he warned that every gun that is made every worship warship launched every rocket fire signifies in the final sense of theft from those who hunger and are not fed those who are cold and are not clothed we should temper what is a normal level of competition with engagement not exaggerate competition and produce dangerous confrontation otherwise we risk spending hundreds of billions of dollars inflicting enormous human sacrifice and foregoing the chance to pursue economic policies that will better serve the needs of american working family families the moment calls for great leadership if president nixon had polled whether or not he should go to china or if president carter had polled whether or not he should establish diplomatic relations with china neither would have acted now is the time for bold and brave actions it's late but it's not too late thanks well steve that was a terrific speech you've made many excellent suggestions i hope the biden administration will go through your list very very carefully i certainly agree with most of the recommendations you made i have a few questions on specifics but my broadest concern is can we really carry out a meaningful balanced policy with china we need cooperation in many respects we should have as you say enlightened competition i was very glad to hear you mention the role of continuing criticism and i endorse chinese criticism of the failings in our own society i don't like what about ism as they say because it loses the focus on what china needs to do but we can't be unilateral and ignore our own failings it's true china has an easy access to our media they have no trouble reading all our great papers uh and watching our television programs whereas we have to confront a society that's impenetrable and one that shapes its own people's opinions uh by often distorting uh external and even internal reality and of course uh we need as i think you imply to keep up what used to be called containment deterrence perhaps sounds better and perhaps it's got to be mutual but can you carry out a balanced policy will china cooperate uh on what has to be done on climate or even the restoration of our consulate etc in china and the access for our media to china again at the same time that we give them well-warranted necessary condemnation for xinjiang tibet hong kong and repression throughout the country which tends to get overlooked because of our concern for these specific places that you and i have mentioned and of course the human rights lawyers and their associated human rights advocates they're repressed throughout the country but can we keep up the necessary criticism and even find more effective ways of putting the pressure on for human rights and at the same time get the benefits that we all see would come from cooperation so this is the problem of trying to have a balanced policy but i agree we shouldn't allow concern for immediate domestic benefit for the biden administration despite its precarious position in domestic politics to overcome our foreign policy needs because as you just ended talk by rightfully pointing out the danger is great we've had bad relations with china under mao but mao couldn't harm us the way xi jinping could and we all fear an accident and a tense environment that could recreate the kind of dangerous situation that led to world war one so these are these are not uh simple questions but let me ask you with respect to economic matters i agree we should get rid of these trump tariffs but what about d-listing of chinese companies on our stock exchanges that continue to refuse to provide the same accounting data that is expected of all companies that list uh is there an explanation for uh yeah i i think yes listening on that what what's your view on that because i'm trying we're trying to keep the talk into a reasonably it was already very long um there the d-listing to the extent that a company is not providing its investors with access to the books and records that companies normally do whether it's a dutch company or french company or a chinese company they should have a period of time to comply and then they should be de-listed that's an issue of protecting the investors and i'm complete agreement and we now are going to have a law in place which is going to require that de-listing that is different from de-listing for all sorts of other uh reasons which we're which we have been doing um when those de-listings occur and they continue to have to be listed in london or in hong kong mostly or in singapore or in tokyo what we're doing is basically taking the jobs and the fees that were payable to american companies and we're shipping them outside of the united states so i didn't have time in the speech to distinguish between investor protection and de-listing for other purposes so it's the d-listing for other purposes where we're not doing anything to protect investors we're doing i think what what the the biden folks is we're protecting our interests and values well yes but if it's your job that it's lost and you're not harming the company because they're listing remains in hong kong or they move to hong kong or they move to london or they move elsewhere they basically are not suffering anything the only folks who are suffering are americans but the so it's a very good question the the protecting investors is one thing which we should do uh harming folks who work in the united states the nasdaq and the nyse um is not a good policy of course the most dangerous question involves taiwan i agree that some of our demonstrated support for taiwan under biden looks increasingly official governmental and we have to be careful in hewing to the one china line while still doing many things to support taiwan i would support your admonition about the need for caution there's no need to unnecessarily provoke beijing on this question on the other hand there are some things that i don't think biden has yet done that i have long advocated i'd love to see for example no restrictions on access to american audiences by uh the leaders of taiwan uh it would be good if in person or by it by zoo either but of course i would prefer in person i don't know about virus restrictions the question you have to ask jerry is the consequence of those actions if you go back to the lee dunkway visit um you can trace part of china's military modernization to that visit so was the visit uh really worth it it called into question america's commitment to a one china policy we had told the chinese uh repeatedly and up till the day the weekend before li donghue came that he would not come and then the congress put enormous pressure on president clinton and he relented which then led the chinese to lobbying missiles over taiwan which then led our fleet to going um into the taiwan straits so the question that you need to ask is is this really doing is this really a benefit to the people of taiwan i would argue uh it's not that there may be a minor political kind of benefit but ultimately um it just will create a situation where the chinese will be will be viewing the us as in and the taiwan government as in violation of the basis for the establishment of diplomatic relations and they it will make a bit more difficult not less difficult well of course uh matt do you think do you think that saying when the call between trump and cyan was good was a good thing you see that's a very official arrangement i'm not suggesting that psy be in contact with the president or that her representative have access to the u.s government officials i'm suggesting that the american people not in washington but in chicago boston new york california whatever be allowed to hear the views in person of taiwan's leadership that's got nothing to do with the one china to china policy and if beijing exaggerates its reaction to that and throws a tantrum well i think we should tell them to grow up i understand they get upset at any show of u.s military contact with taiwan we're sending people who are in the cabinet to taiwan giving american people who have a right to free speech and who have to decide presumably or at least tolerate any ultimate decision about whether we go to the defense of taiwan no opportunity to hear from the leaders of taiwan in person i don't know if you make a distinction i've at the council on foreign relations i've interviewed president maying zhou president chun shui bien vice president uh and that lou via zoom it isn't as good as in person but i'd settle for that what do you think about that oh zoom i think is fine it's no problem i think for a sitting taiwan president to go to washington it would it would likely be be problematic i mean i asked the question when you're a student when as you said you was president of taiwan um we saw taiwan granted um representation in the w.h.o you know the world health agency uh which was really important i advocate you know i believe it's in china's interest actually to give taiwan access to allow taiwan to be part of these international organizations because it's health it's safety it's a good thing for china as well as for taiwan and during mine joe's period uh as president we were moving in that direction i believe that when the you know wha invited taiwan that was just the first step but what happened is it's all been reversed that we're not seeing this so the question you need to ask yourself which is very tough that we we talk about it all the time is this because of you know china is so frustrated that you know with these increasing official contact contacts with um violations in their view of the basis for the establishment of diplomatic relations or is it just china's plan it's just china's just determined to kind of put a put put taiwan in a tighter vice it's very hard to answer that question and if you can answer that question you then can answer a lot of the questions about what we should and shouldn't do well you and i could go on for a long time but we only have a limited amount of time today and i know we have a lot of questions so i hope margot will start the question process off and we can most make the most of the remaining hour thank you jerry we do indeed have a lot of questions let's start with one from andrew joe he asks what is the us long term strategic goal why did biden say he will not let china surpass america under his watch what's driving the fear can you talk about yellow peril as one of the main drivers of the u.s china relationship at first the administration is still considering you know its options on china the review even though clearly six months has gone by not almost nine since the uh election it's still considering what its ultimate strategy is uh right now it's you know if they look at the long-term goal it's to see china conform more with international norms and rules whether it's wto violations uh unfair economic practices uh human rights in xinjiang living up to the joint declaration uh on hong kong cross-strait relations it's very much to have china become much more of the responsible stakeholder that bob zellick talked about now almost 15 years ago that it is you know it has failed that exam and biden blinken and sullivan's hope is we can see a more uh cooperative china in terms of the international um rules and policies at the same time you know i think when he says they're not going to become a larger economy than the united states that's very much about domestic political consumption um there is not a ton we can do the united states can do to either allow or stop china from becoming a larger economy you know its population is four and a half times that of the united states which rate of economic growth is a lot faster and we don't want to take actions that will derail and destabilize china that wouldn't be good for american workers it wouldn't be good for americans of course it should be possible to reach some kind of modis vivendi in the south china sea as you point out the u.s while insisting that others abide by unclose hasn't ratified it on the other hand china has openly thumbed its nose at its obligations under on close but what we have to see on the horizon now is china is going to want to change the rules by isolating the us and other liberal democracies and out voting us in the u.n whether in the human rights council or in any other u.n forum and certainly in other international organizations they're not against international law if they can make sure it conforms to china's needs so this is going to be quite a challenge what what the bind administration has done well though is is is re-engaged with these international organizations re-engaged with these standard setting bodies that during the previous administration we saw a withdrawal not only from the paris courts and in a lot of other international institutions but from a lot of these standard settings and it absolutely is important that we can go in and play a major role in setting those standards so that american suppliers both hardware and software are not disadvantaged from rules which they can't comply with the next question the next question comes from laura lehrman i hope i've pronounced your name correctly she's a professor at wright state university how do the two of you believe the upcoming transitions in diplomatic representation with the new u.s ambassador to china and chinese ambassador to the united states will impact the bilateral relationship any ideas on ambassador tsui's successor tough two tough jobs um and and you know the policy towards uh the united states is not formed in the embassy in washington and the policy towards china is not formed in the embassy in beijing that the uh each ambassador needs to articulate you know their government's position to uh the people and the leadership of both countries in the case of every chinese ambassador you have to go way way back they are extremely well versed in the united states extremely well-versed in english they make regular appearances on cnn on you know beat the press on you name it and they articulate those views very effectively to the american people when they talk to the congress when they talk to the president they do it with a real knowledge of the united states and a real fluency in english we still haven't seen the biden appointment um i strongly urge uh the bad administration to appoint someone who is completely fluent in chinese who knows china who can speak directly to xi jinping the chinese media and the chinese people in chinese it's really important those of us who have watched you know those of us who've built relationships with chinese over a lifetime i find it hard to imagine that those relationships could have been built if i didn't speak chinese that they have been it's not that's it's not it's not sufficient but it is necessary so it's one of the traits that that we need and no matter how great a diplomat the person is um it's really important to be able to speak direct in the consolidation of power into one person's hand in china the u.s ambassador will at times have a unique chance to speak directly to the president a unique chance to speak to the standing committee to the polit bureau and it would be really really really helpful if he or she spoke chinese uh has the uh new ambassador not been announced yet it's been leaked but i i i'm not aware of it being submitted to this the administration to my knowledge has not submitted it to the senate maybe people on the call could correct me i mean nick burns has been it's no secret has been talked about who's a fabulous diplomat he's a fabulous fabulous diplomat who speaks many languages but not chinese i noticed that just yesterday they announced three ambassadorships and i suppose there's a process required including checking at various sources but it seems odd that it's taken them so long to name an ambassador to china although i don't want to exaggerate the importance that an ambassador has in the total policy-making context but it is an important role in speaking to the chinese people and speaking to the chinese leadership um you know i think back to you know the way stake roy had conversations with john zimmer um the question that i i don't know if stape is on this call but but did he help form john zeming's views of the united states you know that was again a time of pretty good u.s china relations of course to use a phrase known in american politics i knew jung zamen and xi jinping is no jungle can we expect the same degree of access for anybody who represents the american point of view uh with respect to the chinese audience it's it's a interesting yes i mean the days when we were first in china our ability to go into jonah you know was was you know we used to joke you just give him your license plate number and you could go in it was pretty it was a pretty relaxed time you certainly well you still have to do it but you have to have a serious betting and lots of uh uh you have to have an absolute appointment with somebody who vouches for you to be able to go in um but the answer is we don't know but there certainly are moments when the president does the president of china does see the american ambassador just as there are moments when the chinese ambassador sees the president of the united states we saw you know spain and kai interacting with president trump uh president obama um you know and and his ability to express himself in absolute perfect english was extremely useful if there had been a translator uh kind of intermediating that i wonder what the result would be margot go ahead sorry we have another diplomacy question actually submitted by two people so there's considerable interest in this matter mojo and robert delaney both ask about deputy secretary of state wendy sherman's visit to china next week in your view what could she do what is on her agenda can her visit somehow break the ice with beijing will it move the two sides closer to a biden she summit or will it look more like the acrimonious meeting in anchorage wendy is a well tony and jake are great diplomats but that you know wendy is the deputy secretary she is a fabulous professional she will she will move the ball towards another meeting between lincoln and wangee at some point with a view to having biden and she meet on the sidelines of the g20 in the order i believe that's what her charge is i believe the chinese want that to happen i believe we want that to happen not having contacts at senior levels is not healthy um it's especially with the deterioration in the relationship i you know i think because she will be in beijing um she obviously will be covered by news she won't have to make the same uh kinds of statements that that secretary blinken and national security adviser sullivan had to make and to some degree they had to kind of clear the table they had to set the stage for having serious negotiations on economic issues on on climate change on taiwan on um you know the human rights issues you know where in a quiet atmosphere in xinjiang they'd be able to maybe may be able to make more progress sometimes foreign minister wang e loses his temper in public as he did in canada and i'm wondering whether we can expect him to show any wolf warrior diplomacy or whether the very able and calm ambassador tsway's successor is expected to be a wolf warrior i think to some degree it's going to depend on on what we do and to some degree you know the wolf warrior uh diplomacy plays well to their to the chinese domestic audience that it seems to me that when i'm talking to professionals in diplomacy uh they are disturbed by the success of the wolf warrior diplomats and they're disturbed with the support that they get in the chinese population but you know the the demonization of china in the u.s political environment is strengthening those in china who support the wolf warriors that the folks who are our friends the folks who believe in economic reform the folks many of the folks who were schooled in graduate school in the united states are being undermined by the approaches that we've taken now having said that the bind administration is a ton better than the previous administration you know we're not calling it the china virus the wuhan virus we're saying we need an investigation of of origins and stuff now again that's a great example of if we had a a relationship that was focused much more on cooperation would there be such a harsh standoff in terms of scientific cooperation i spent tuesday morning and wednesday night on six hours of zoom with senior people in the chinese medical establishment and senior people in the american medical establishment including two former fda heads and many others and what was clear in these discussions uh or from both sides is they want the scientific cooperation to be a polit to be not political and they wanted it to increase they want to help you know deal with covet they want to help cure cancer they want to help deal with diabetes they want to deal with cardiovascular issues that affect chinese and americans that they want to do this together there's this overwhelming desire of experts not politicians on both sides to work together and that was the overwhelming feeling i got from these six hours same could be said of course with respect to legal experts there are even in the chinese security ministries people who would like to enhance legal protections and certainly in the court system and in the ministry of justice and yet they are all restricted by the dominant party policy that uh law has to be the servant of the party and we would love to continue this cooperation and some cooperation continues but there's always politics just as china today accuses us of having politics corrupt our science and we think of course politics has corrupted their science so we have to struggle with these problems on both sides but you're quite right we've got to work harder to maintain and expand our cooperation in many professional fields and we've got to rebuild we need to rebuild the embassy you know the cds as i said in the speech the cdc and the national science foundation representation in beijing was if my numbers were reduced from 41 to 14 and that needs to be rebuilt because that's part of our scientific cooperation margo i see ira has a question and and apparently i wasn't clear in something can you ask ira's question i reckon i am happy to ask ira's question we are running close to our time though so i hope that you will answer succinctly so we can fit in more questions there are a whole bunch of really good questions so here's from ira steve if we take your recommended steps unilaterally you mentioned rest reciprocity in a couple of instances but seem to indicate that these are all steps the u.s should take won't that diminish our leverage and with the current mood in the u.s wouldn't a perception of being quote unquote soft on china hurt biden's ability to push his domestic agenda yeah on the unilat yes and and ira you're right and it's on the tariffs uh what i say is is we need to just negotiate back to the status quo and so back to december of 2016. not just reduce all of our say art the chinese will reduce all of theirs but that's actually i mean it's easy for me to say i'm not catherine ty that's actually quite easily done um you know we can benchmark that to a time and it immediately is a tax cut for working families so i think that should be done not unilaterally but quickly on a bilateral basis the journalists similarly we should not relax the restrictions on state media in the united states until china agrees to reinvite american journalists back under acceptable conditions but these are things i've talked about with the chinese and they're they're willing they have said again this was now early in the administration the chinese have said they're willing to do that and these are things that are really good for american people we have two questions related to human rights miling sway of human rights in china asks in your view how should the biden administration engage china on the issue of china's actions in xinjiang and what policy should it pursue andrew collier in a related question says how much of a role should hong kong play in u.s china relations is it a political football a sideshow or a key issue you want to take xinjiang jerry you're [Music] well the frustration we have of course is that there seems to be very little uh that can be done because china is so insistent on pursuing its policy and although they are aware that their soft power abroad is suffering and that world public opinion at least in the liberal world is turning against them their domestic needs having decided to change from the original communist policy of cultivating the ethnic minorities now they want to use forcible assimilation and i think we have to keep up the drum breed of criticism we have to try to mobilize uh international organizations and foreign governments uh increasingly to condemn what's being done and that is gradually happening it's raising the cost to china but i don't see an end to the policy until xi jinping is no longer in power unless he suffers some radical change and i don't see that happening he doesn't have what deng xiaoping had which is the appreciation of the desirability of working out compromises uh with the world on foreign policy matters she is always emphasizing there can be no compromise uh china must achieve what he deems to be its sovereign rights so we're facing a very depressing situation i wish the muslim world would escape from under the prc's influence and denounce what's happening to their brethren in china and perhaps uh this gradually will change but i don't see uh much optimism in immediate sight i think we continue the criticism we have to continue the criticism but i i like jerry i'm not optimistic that we're gonna see change and i'm not optimistic we're gonna you know for a time i was hopeful that that in on hong kong they would put the chinese government would put in place these laws and kind of have very gentle enforcement that is clearly not the case um and i'm not you know they made a decision after in the summer before last that this was a threat to beijing and they were going to crack down hard and and they have and they've put in place a process and plan that is is uh in the end not good for hong kong not good for the people of hong kong and in the end not good for china either but that's not a view that people in the leadership accept or are even willing to express i see every day new repressive actions in hong kong and what i worry about now is on august 1st the hong kong government will have the power to restrict exit by anyone in hong kong foreign or local person and i wonder how long they will refrain from exercising that it will be hideously embarrassing if hundreds of thousands of people leave hong kong and the mainland hasn't tolerated that among the mainland residents and citizens and it would be i think embarrassing so i worry about exit control as the next area for uh monopolization of power by beijing exit controls wow somebody who's not indicted just don't let them leave boy that would be a a serious deterioration that would people would start running for the exits before that went into effect margo go ahead next question okay i think this will probably be our last and it comes from mike lampton who's at sice would professor cohen agree that overall engagement with china over the last four plus decades has been a very large net plus for human rights almost no matter how calculated would he agree that the issue now is not so much the past engagement policy as what to do in light of changed circumstances absolutely anybody who recalls what china was like when it first opened up to us in 1972-73 knows what a low base that is for measuring human rights progress uh after the cultural revolution which was still going on then they had nowhere to go but up and there has been enormous progress in china through the efforts of the chinese people especially after communist repression was lightened up with the deng xiaoping era so people's lives are better of course we see some severe restrictions on political and civil rights but there's no doubt people are better off economically and socially in terms of their life prospects pretty generally although there are still areas and people in china who haven't benefited but it's these restrictions uh of a political nature that are obviously reaching the younger generation in china now at the so-called lying down movement the frustration over careers the inability of people the unwillingness to reproduce enough to solve the population problem dissatisfaction with the vast pollution problems china has there are many reasons for dissatisfaction if people were more satisfied you wouldn't have this horrendous repression that denies people the freedom to express their complaints about the government if the government were really confident about the future and mike is right we have to be concentrating on the future they wouldn't take these extreme measures to stifle any adverse comment one more question if for the moment we say that a new cold war with china is brewing or has perhaps already started do you see a growing coalition of people opposed to focusing on confrontation rather than on competition or on constructive engagement does constructive engagement include competition constructive engagement includes competition absolutely includes competition i always think of what harry harding used to say which was you know economic competition fine uh diplomatic competition no problem we have that with the brits with the french with the italians with the japanese strategic competition bad because it leads to to budget allocations that are seriously impact domestic priorities i see a growing coalition in opposition to this this policy i see it from the progressive wing of the democratic party uh senator sanders had a piece in foreign affairs last month which talked about his opposition to the growing uh cold war we saw 40 environmental ngos uh who talked about the existential threat of climate change and you know we may not like it we certainly object to china's human rights policies but if it's existential we need to find uh a way to work with the chinese i see it in some members of the house especially the progressive wing of the democratic house members who are also beginning to object because they they not only see climate change as an existential threat they see kind of what i the reference i made to the eisenhower uh quote uh where if we have this cold war with china we ain't gonna be able to spend money on poverty alleviation in the united states on social programs on education because it's all going to have to go to the impending military conflict a confrontation with china so there is a building coalition and there's of course many china scholars who are in opposition to this growing cold war and believe we need to temper uh our words temper when we talk about confrontation uh to talk more about cooperation so yes there is a growing coalition um so my speech i think i hope uh gets traction with some uh i'm certainly will get traction with progressives in the democratic party jerry do you have any last thoughts you would like to share well congress is the battleground now of course not only with respect to china the first draft of eisenhower's famous uh warning about military industrial complex referred to the congressional military industrial complex and then he was advised it's better not to hit congress between the eyes but congress is still the battleground and it reflects the american people and we're divided on so many questions domestic as well as international it requires ever greater effort on our part and the kind of talk steve gave us today to try to improve the level of american education and increase the pressure on congress so that we will have a less provocative but more cooperative and yet an equally deterring policy against further chinese encroachments even though it's very difficult to do much more than is being done to condemn the human rights violations thanks this was a good program i thought thanks marco and steve and to your group for putting it on thank you very much thanks to jerry thanks to steve thank you very much to our audience for joining us and thank you for the national committee team behind the scenes who did everything that actually made it come off thank you and enjoy the rest of the day or night or whatever time zone you are in bye you

Channel: National Committee on U.S.-China Relations

Views: 16,063

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Id: jwebrxBRB7c

Length: 66min 21sec (3981 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 26 2021