USA, China Edge closer to a cold war
USA, China Edge closer to a cold war
WASHINGTON. The Trump government is deliberately moving to counter what the White House sees as years of unbridled Chinese aggression, targeting military, political and economic objectives in Beijing and signaling a new and potentially colder era in US relations. UU And China.
In the first 18 months of the administration, ties between the world's two largest powers were defined through negotiations on how to restrict North Korea and how to rebalance trade. Those high profile efforts masked the White House's preparations for a tougher stance with Beijing, a strategy that is now emerging as China's aid with Pyongyang fades and trade talks stall.
Interviews with senior White House officials and others in the government make it clear that recent discharges in what looks like a new Cold War are no exception to President Trump's policy in China. They are exactly what the administration wants: to focus on a meeting between Mr. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a multilateral summit planned for November.
Vice President Mike Pence, last week, gave a speech on US-China relations and said that "the United States adopted a new approach to China" with the message to China: "This president is not going to back down."
On Wednesday, the Treasury Department announced new rules aimed at China that restrict national security reviews of foreign investment. On the same day, the Department of Justice said that there brought a Chinese intelligence agent arrested in Belgium to the United States to face charges conspired to steal trade secrets from GE Aviation and others. It was the first time that prosecutors publicly identified someone in custody as a Chinese intelligence officer.
The Department of Energy announced Thursday. Increased controls on exports of nuclear technology to China. The administration also recently signed on Department of Justice directives that require a couple of Chinese state media to register as foreign agents.
The speed of the United States' shift to a more controversial China strategy has surprised many Chinese officials and has sent Beijing struggling to stabilize the relationship, with Washington as a factor of disorganization, analysts said.
"The United States is getting tougher and tougher, confronting China on all fronts," said Zhu Feng, an expert in China-USA. UU International relations and security at Nanjing University. "Beijing must be very sensible because a new Cold War serves the interests of China? No."
The movements of the United States represent an emphatic change of a strategy of "constructive engagement" that goes back to the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979. It was based on the hope that China would liberalize economically and politically.
Chinese President, Xi Jinping, at the center, at a banquet on April 6, 2017, presented by President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
Photo:
Lan Hongguang / Xinhua / Getty Images
The change is based on the view that China has changed course since Xi took over in 2012 and began to recalculate political and economic controls, pledging to turn his nation into a great world power.
The United States' most aggressive approach was predicted last December in the National Security Strategy that put China on par with North Korea, Iran and jihadist terrorist groups as the biggest threats from the United States. At that time, the strategy contrasted with Mr. Trump's personal diplomacy.
At the beginning of his term, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Xi, talking about a Christmas card he received before taking office and sharing "the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake" at his Mar-a-Lago dinner in the spring of 2017. A campaign promise to label China as a currency manipulator was scared off, saying he did not want to endanger a potential ally against the threat from North Korea.
Since then, White House aides have changed to a more hawkish crew. And Mr. Trump has seen that his personal and controversial tactics ...extending a lifeline to ZTE Corp of China., for example, have not yielded enough in return. After a dozen phone calls with Mr. Xi, an exchange of letters and several face-to-face meetings, China's lukewarm response has irritated the president, a senior administration official described, as the death of a thousand courts.
Beijing was infuriated by the decision of the USA. UU Last month of imposing sanctions on a Chinese military agency, and its boss, for buying Russian SU-35 fighter jets and equipment related to its S-400 anti-aircraft missile system, US officials said. UU
China responded to the sanctions by filing a formal complaint with the US ambassador. UU., Ordering the return of his Navy chief to Washington, and denying permission for a US Navy ship. UU I went out to port in Hong Kong.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who recently spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the growing fears of the United States of China seeking global hegemony was a serious strategic error.
"Where this ends is a commercial agreement," said a senior administration official. "Xi is starting to see this and says, 'Wow, Trump is doing the things he said he was going to do,' and he realizes he has to go to work."
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at an information session of the United Nations Security Council on the United States General Assembly last month in New York City.
Photo:
Evan Vucci / Associated Press
Hard lessons
The November meeting between Messrs. Trump and Xi can help ease tensions in trade, but it seems unlikely that the new US stance will be softened. There is a bitterness in China throughout Washington, even in groups that have long promoted stronger relations between the United States and China.
Many in the business community, for example, have favored a policy of "joint growth" with China, in the hope that it would open the second largest economy in the world for US companies. That optimism has turned into distrust, in large part over China's aggressive approach to acquiring US technology.
The US Chamber of Commerce has criticized China's stealing of intellectual property from US companies, including a biting report on China's 2025 Beijing policy, a plan to make China a world leader in manufacturing.
At the Pentagon, the military has historically sought a relationship with their Chinese counterparts who would survive political mood swings. Even there, senior officials say they have reached their limit.
Efforts to build the military relationship between the United States and China by demonstrating American capabilities have been exploited by the Chinese. General Joe Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, became even clearer about it after a trip to Beijing last year to establish a formal military communication mechanism: an assistant's tablet, left in a hotel room, had been manipulated, embittering the military establishment of the United States to do business with China.
US General Joe Dunford, center right, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joins the head of the General Staff of the People's Liberation Army of China, General Fang Fenghui, to the left, during the ceremonies last year in Beijing.
Photo:
Andrew Harnik / Associated Press
This month, a trip to Beijing by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, already stalled for not having been able to agree on the meeting's objectives, was canceled after a Chinese destroyer almost cut a ship of the United States Navy in the Sea of South China
Mr. Trump showed for the first time an antagonistic stance towards China in the presidential campaign, referring to this as the enemy.
"I defeated the people of China: I win against China," Trump said at a campaign rally in 2015 in Bluffton, S.C. "You can win against China if you're smart, but our people have no idea, we give state dinners to the Chinese bosses." I said, "Why are you doing state dinners for them? They are tearing us from left to right. Just take them to
and go back to the negotiating table. "Seriously, it's true."
The sight reached its voters. Among Republicans who identify themselves as Trump supporters, only 4% agreed that China was an ally, while 86% said it was an adversary, according to a Wall Street Journal / NBC News poll in April.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis canceled a trip to China, and President Trump accused China of electoral interference. Gerald F. Seib of the WSJ explains how tensions between the United States and China are increasing. Stock Photo: Getty
Plans for a hard-line approach to China were contemplated by the Trump administration shortly after the inauguration. Then came the deviations: North Korea launched missiles and tested rocket engines five times in the first 100 days. The commercial disputes arose not only with China, but also with the European Union, Canada and Mexico.
There were also calls for a more conciliatory approach to Beijing in those early days. The then governor of Iowa, Terry Branstad, asked Mr. Trump to temper the heated rhetoric due to the important trade between China and the farmers of his state. Mr. Branstad was selected to be the ambassador of the United States in China.
Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state, met with Mr. Xi after the presidential election and returned saying that Mr. Trump should not live up to his campaign promises. Mr. Kissinger conveyed a heartfelt message from the leader of China to the president-elect.
Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and principal advisor, helped organize Trump's trip to Beijing last year, and emphasized the importance of the relationship between the two countries. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appeared before the president and the Chinese as someone who could save the division. Gary Cohn, the main national economic adviser, argued against the imposition of tariffs on China.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, left, and Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang last year in Washington, D.C.
Photo:
brendan smialowski / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
'Released'
Mr. Mnuchin's efforts to act as mediator have yielded few results, reducing his influence on China's policy and showing that negotiations with Beijing would be more difficult than expected, said people familiar with the matter. Mr. Cohn has left, and Mr. Kushner has focused his attention elsewhere.
That has given way to more hawkish assistants, including the White House chief of staff, John Kelly, a military veteran. His opinion of China, like that of General Dunford, was hardened by experience, according to a person familiar with the matter.
During Mr. Trump's visit to Beijing last fall, Mr. Kelly had a physical altercation with a Chinese officer seeking access to nuclear football, the briefcase that includes the president's nuclear missile command center. Mr. Kelly told his colleagues that he refused to accept an apology, and would only accept one if a high-ranking Chinese official came to Washington and offered him repentance while standing under a United States flag.
The White House chief of staff, John Kelly, center, Terry Branstad, US ambassador to China, right, and President Trump during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, last year in Beijing.
Photo:
jonathan ernst / Reuters
Peter Navarro, the president's business adviser, is a Chinese veteran and compiled a report this summer for Mr. Trump that showed how China's economic aggression threatens the US technology sector. He has been distributing a book to administration officials entitled "The One Hundred Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace the United States as the World's Superpower."
John Bolton, the new national security adviser, has long advocated a tough approach to China. According to a senior administration official, Mr. Bolton has "unleashed" Matthew Pottinger, White House chief Asia adviser, to push for China's stronger policies.
The views of Mr. Pottinger, a former US Marine and former journalist for The Wall Street Journal, were reflected in the National Security Strategy that last year put China in the same threat category as North Korea and Iran. He helped oversee a research project that details the ways in which Beijing uses the money to influence think tanks in the US. UU., Universities and local governments.
Mr. Pottinger said at an event last month at the Chinese embassy in Washington that the White House had updated its China policy to clearly recognize the rivalry between the two nations. "For us in the United States," he said, "competition is not a four-letter word."
Looking ahead, US officials expect the pressure on China to continue. A plan to punish private companies that help Beijing's expansion in the South China Sea was discussed at the beginning of the administration, but it was shelved. That type of sanction is being reviewed again.
White House officials said they expected more information to be declassified from the intelligence community's study of China's influence on US elections and cyberspace. And the Department of Commerce is ready to reinforce export controls, with the goal of preventing United States surveillance technology from being used to suppress China's Muslim minority.
The White House also hopes to publish a report in about a month reviewing foreign assistance from the United States. It will target China and, at least indirectly, the so-called infrastructure development program of the country's belt and road, said a senior administration official.
Mr. Pence has criticized some of the related projects in the program, saying they leave the nations buried in debt. "We look for a relationship based on equity, reciprocity and respect for sovereignty," he said in his speech last week. "And we have taken firm and fast steps to achieve that goal."
-Vivian Salama contributed to this article.
Write to Michael C. Bender in Mike.Bender@wsj.comGordon Lubold in Gordon.Lubold@wsj.com, Kate O'Keeffe in kathryn.okeeffe@wsj.com and Jeremy Page in jeremy.page@wsj.com
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