inconsistencies in thinking

mirror imaging or disingenuous responses?

Beijing, according to press reports, nixed a U.S.-proposed meeting between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The high visibility confab, originated in 2001 by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, welcomes roughly 600 worldwide government officials, think tankers, and high level military personnel on an invitation-only basis to exchange public speeches on security while also facilitating ‘side bar’, or intimidate discussions without the press, if arranged on a bilateral basis between attendees.

Shangri-La has evolved into a much anticipated event to evaluate both the state of bilateral Sino-U.S. relations and China’s level of confidence in meeting interlocutors among other goals. Far less comfortable engaging in relatively unscripted (thus uncontrolled) events in the earlier years, China’s gradual emergence as a more confident player in the international system coincides with PLA officials attending the sessions, much less offering remarks along with their counterparts from elsewhere.

Austin’s predecessor several times removed, the late Donald Rumsfeld, famously asked at the 2005 iteration of this meeting: ‘Since no nation threatens China, one must ask: why this growing investment [in defense modernisation and arms]?’ which engendered incredulity within China itself. The question seemed to the PRC an absurd one when considering the world from their vantage point.

Rumseld’s Defense Department was trying to remake Iraq, had been in Afghanistan for 4 years, was building ties with Central Asian states, had formal defense alliances with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, major naval facilities in Singapore, had revived diplomatic relations with Vietnam, had pretty good relations with Russia, and sought to create an Indian-American friendship never before existent. Beijing hardly saw that as a benevolent environment.

China believes that U.S. political and military actions, primarily since 1989, evidence a determination to continue preventing the PRC from its rightful position as the determinative state in Asia. The sanctions imposed following the Tian’anmen massacre, thirty four years ago Sunday, remain in place. Those sanctions affected several parts of the bilateral relationship but especially notable were prohibitions on arms sales. This symbolised a U.S. decision to terminate the cooperation begun by President Nixon, then carried forward in varying degrees, by Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Their ‘friend’, former U.S. envoy to China Geroge H.W. Bush, proved unable to convince Americans of China’s rightful decisions over its own people which Beijing justified as the reason to shutting down the protests.

We rightly saw a regime fearful of its own people, willing to massacre them to continue stability.

China does not discuss Tian’anmen, relegating it to that bin of unmentionables Xi Jinping and the CCP don’t address for fear of accountability from home and abroad. An increasing number of topics, ranging from Xi looking like Winnie the Pooh in the eyes of some to humour about the PLA, fall into that category as the allegedly strong governing party shows its brittle tolerance for anything other than Xi’s dogma about the good and glory of the CCP and its role running China.

The National Defense Authorisation Act of 2000 went further in what the PRC sees as punishment than the 1989 sanctions, still in place because we are unsatisfied the PRC ever recognised its horrible actions. The NDAA, as it is known, strongly restricted U.S. military conversations or activities which could in any manner contribute to an enhanced PLA. Military-to-military meetings continued for many years but requiring approval by senior level DoD officials.

China repeatedly and angrily points out that NDAA provisions exist only for the PLA rather than Venezuela, Iran, Russia, or any other military with whom we have poor relations at any particular juncture. (Since we have no military relations with the North Koreans, there is no need for an NDAA set of restrictions). China, in turn, began curtailing various engagements when U.S. military personnel did visit the Middle Kingdom prior to COVID and the current low point in ties.

The United States also indicted PLA officers for cyber crimes against the United States. U.S. specialists long pointed out that Beijing’s blending of military and ‘civilian’ cyber activities in their quest to penetrate business and government computer systems here made it impossible to ignore these activities and the PLA’s central part in strengthening China’s incursion capabilities. China, unsurprisingly, rebutted the accusations. It accused the United States of engaging in similar attempts to enter networks behind the Great Firewall instead. We see it as rule of law while they see it as attacking China.

General Li, named only in Marach as Defense Minister for the PRC, became a target of U.S. sanctions in 2018 for his role in buying combat aircraft from Russia in punishing the Kremlin for its activities in Ukraine as early as 2014. Like the cyber indictments, Zhongnanhai rejects any suggstion the PRC did anything wrong. With the long-deteriorating relationship between the two states and their armed forces, little chance ever existed that Li or the cyber officers would come under U.S. jurisdiction.

China, as discussed over the past couple of months, is expanding its threats against businessmen and women it claims are engaging in national security threats. Work in the People’s Republic is a far riskier proposition than when Xi became General Secretary in late 2012. Perceptions, real or imaginery, of threats against the Party, the people, and China as a whole seem to grow daily as China interprets virtually any U.S. actions (which they assume are a state-driven activity since the Party/state drives everything in China) as driven by a desire to retard China’s position as a respected global member. Questions from U.S. leaders in Congress, the Executive, and what China assumes is a most influential think tank community, where think tanks are extensions of the Party, about China’s motives bother Beijing which sees its actions of all types as perfectly legitimate in response to perceived anti-Chinese moves.

If we believe the CCP is as hard core and authoritarian as we say, why do we think we can alter their behaviour? I hear people say we want to deter China but that seems inconsistent to me with the assumptions they are making about the PRC: is it deterable?

Similarly, the CCP appears absolutely convinced we want to overthrow their regime and return China to a position of weakness such as the period between 1842 and 1949 (or maybe even later) when China was subjected to outside pressures rather than sovereign over all its affairs. Do they believe we are deterable in this absolute goal? The CCP has convinced itself our actions herald a new Century of Humiliation.

I don’t know that talking with each other would change these views but I certainly know that not talking allows each side to harden its assuptions—right or wrong—about the other side.

In short, we are in an action-reaction cycle that is not improving in the least. Each side is justifying its actions by proclaiming the other side surely understands each step purely defensive in nature. Instead, the other side sees every action as yet another in a long-running campaign to possible war.

Sending former Ambassador to Russia, now Central Intelligence Director, William Burns to Beijing apparently occurred last month without success, according to press reports out this morning. Burns and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimundo have met with CCP officials over the past month but neither the current top U.S. diplomat, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, nor Secretary Austin have had such luck. I don’t know what we thought would occur but I suspect both capitals interpreted these visits as opportunities to reinforce their positions in case the other side had not heard them.

Various chats around the Beltway ask whether these attempts to engage China represent anything other than weakness on the U.S. part in the face of an increasingly recalcitrant China. Beijing, I suspect, sees an America seeking to expand its ally/partnership ties with Asian, build submarines with Australia and Britain, deepen links with India, and further actions in other fora to criticise and isolate Beijing. Would Beijing see us as really weak in looking for talks when they see our other panoply of actions in the region? I doubt it.

In short, I am not convinced either side sees the foreign policy moves of its competitor as anything other than aggressive at this point.

Is this mirror-imaging? Neither country seems able or willing to look at the competitor’s context. I do not say that to justify Chinese actions nor to criticise our own. I say it because it’s dangerous to assume the other side is reading our intentions as benevolently as we think they should and I am pretty sure China suffers from the same thought processes.

States believe they are protecting their interests. I cannot find a plethora of examples of states seeking to do stupid, weak things to undermine those interests. That’s not how governments work, whether they are democratic or authoritarian. They believe they are acting to protect their interests and everyone will see that if they simply look hard enough. That does not preclude massive miscalculation or war, sadly, when this continues between states where those interests collide.

If the PLA is as strong as we fear, a war between the United States and the PRC would be a devastating one. And it would not likely result in a single battle where China returned to its 1911 weakness. They would view their actions as ‘teaching us a lesson’ before they rebuilt to go at it again. That is how it works when a military is protecting its interests.

Secretary Austin did shake hands with Minister Li as their passed during the first day in Singapore. Each side can take from that what they will but in most other aspects of the current environment, mirror imaging appears to be reinforcing existing views of the other nation’s malign intentions rather than leading to hearing anything more benign. No wonder militaries on each side hear from their populations that the future looks bleak.FIN

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Mark Mazzetti, ‘China’s Arms Threaten Asia, Rumsfeld Says’, LATimes.com, 4 June 2005, retrieved at https://archive.globalpolicy.org/empire/challenges/competitors/2005/0604chinabuildup.htm