The US General Remains Confined Despite China’s Progress in the U.S., Russia, and the West: The Sliding-Doors Moment in History
The most senior US general has issued a stark warning about China’s military intentions toward the US and allies in the region, saying Beijing has become more aggressive and the number of Chinese intercepts at sea and in the air have “increased significantly” in recent years.
Before the October sanctions, the US government had already banned sales of certain tech products to specific Chinese companies, such as Huawei. It ordered the two chipmakers to stop making chips in China.
Mr. Fleming also described China’s moves to build “a powerful antisatellite capability, with a doctrine of denying other nations access to space in the event of a conflict.” He accused China of attempting to change standards to make it easier for individuals to be tracked, as part of its effort to make it hard for Chinese citizens to speak out.
But Mr. Fleming’s warning is another reminder of the speed at which the Western allies have come to view themselves as in direct competition, and sometimes in conflict, with both of the world’s other major nuclear superpowers. Of the two, he clearly regards Russia as the more manageable.
But his biggest warning surrounded dependence on Chinese companies that are closely linked to the state, or that would have no choice but to turn over data on individuals upon demand by the Chinese authorities. He said in the interview that the Huawei experience exposed the extent to which businesses in China are ultimately wrapped up with the Chinese state, because of how the Communist Party works and the national security laws operate.
Beneath Mr. Xi’s efforts to project confidence lie undercurrents of domestic dissatisfaction with how doggedly he has stuck with “zero Covid” policies, mismanaged the economy and alienated the West. As long as Mr.Xi is able to point to U.S.-led efforts to contain China’s development, he will continue to win these domestic debates and sideline dissent. Many Chinese feel that U.S. pressure and sanctions are not good for China because they undermine the country’s development.
Mr. Fleming said that in the case of China, this could be “the sliding-doors moment in history,” in which the United States and its allies may soon discover that they are too far behind in a series of critical technologies to maintain a military or technological edge over Beijing.
He described China’s move to develop central bank digital currencies that could be used to track transactions as a shift that could also “enable China to partially evade the sort of international sanctions currently being applied to Putin’s regime in Russia.” He said that was one example of how China was “learning the lessons” from the war in Ukraine, presumably to apply them if it decided to move against Taiwan and prompted further efforts by the U.S. and its allies to isolate it economically.
CNN reported last week that Milley ordered a comprehensive review of US military interactions with Chinese forces over the last five years as concerns about Beijing’s assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region increases, according to three Defense officials.
“The volume, the number of Chinese intercepts at sea and in the air have increased significantly over five years,” Milley said, though he offered no further details on the figure.
The visit by Pelosi and the ensuing furor from China highlighted concerns within Biden’s administration about Beijing’s designs on Taiwan. Before the speaker arrived in Taiwan, Beijing sent warplanes into Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone multiple times, intensifying its rhetoric towards the island.
President Joe Biden has suggested the US military believes a potential trip by Pelosi and other lawmakers would pose security risks. The Pentagon isn’t saying if officials have briefed the California Democrat directly, but officials say there are other worries including China establishing a no-fly zone and unsafe intercepts of US and allied ships.
The aim is to make sure there are no changes in the patterns of Chinese military activity. The two militaries are sensitive to each other and can rarely make public incidents. In June, a C-130 transport plane operated by the US special forces came into close contact with Chinese aircraft, but the Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged the incident.
In one of the most serious recent incidents, the Australian government said in February that a Chinese warship allegedly used a laser to “illuminate” an Australian Air Force jet in what Canberra called a “serious safety incident.”
“Acts like this have the potential to endanger lives,” the Australian Defence Force said in a statement at the time, adding it strongly condemns the “unprofessional and unsafe military conduct.” Pilots targeted by laser attacks in the past have reported disorienting flashes, pain, spasms and spots in their vision and even temporary blindness.
The Defense White Paper of China: A Strategic Challenge for the United States of America during the Presidency of Vice President Donald J. Biden
Last month, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin similarly called out Beijing, with the secretary criticizing a series of coercive, aggressive and dangerous actions that threaten stability around Asia and vowing the US would stand by partners to resist any pressure.
“Indo-Pacific countries shouldn’t face political intimidation, economic coercion, or harassment by maritime militias,” Austin said in a keynote speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense conference.
The defense white paper of China states that the national defense aims to meet its rightful security needs and contributes to the growth of the world’s peaceful forces. “China will never threaten any other country or seek any sphere of influence.”
Earlier this month, a US Navy warship challenged Chinese claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea, the US 7th Fleet said in a statement – the second operation of its kind this week.
China is identified as America’s most consequential strategic challenge by the president in his first formal national security strategy.
The document, required by Congress, arrives 21 months into Biden’s term. The broad contours of the strategy have been in evidence over the course of the President’s tenure, including a focus on rebuilding global partnerships and countering China and Russia.
“Around the world, the need for American leadership is as great as it has ever been. We are in the midst of a strategic competition to shape the future of the international order,” Biden writes in the introduction to the strategy.
He said that they would not leave their future vulnerable to the whims of those who did not share their vision of a free, open and prosperous world. There is no nation that is better placed to lead with strength and purpose than the United States of America.
“Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown,” the document reads. “(China), by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.”
He said that this decade was critical for defining the terms of competition, particularly with the People’s Republic of China, and for being ahead of massive challenges that would endanger our ability to keep pace.
It needs to be understood. The view of globalization that had dominated the policy of western societies has been undermined by recent events. There are still bad actors out there despite global integration. But it also gives good actors ways to limit bad actors’ ability to do harm. And the Biden administration is evidently taking these lessons to heart.
It wasn’t supposed to go this way. The postwar world trade system, which had its limits on protection of trade and reduced tariffs, emerged partly out of the view that trade promoted peace. This was the firm belief of Cordell Hull, F.D.R.’s secretary of state, arguably the father of that system. The European Union grew out of the 1951 Coal and Steel Community, established with the explicit goal of making war impossible by binding European industry together.
The Taiwan Question: What China Can Do to Address Its Core Interests, Why We Are Trying to Avoid It, and How to Empower It
Concrete evidence of Mr. Xi’s claimed “patience” and willingness to engage constructively would reduce the urgency of growing calls in the United States for a new policy framework that would assert a clearer American commitment to defending Taiwan.
The long-term risk is that uncontrolled competition will fuel overextension abroad, where the impulse to counter every potential threat or challenge by the other makes it difficult to focus resources and attention on achieving positive priorities and outcomes. Competition can cause domestic divisions in the U.S. and undermine democracy. Already, increased xenophobia and anti-Asian violence in America, along with ramped-up efforts to protect research security, have led more than 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists working in the United States — including naturalized citizens and permanent residents — to consider leaving the country.
President Biden and the leader of the People’s Republic of China discussed Taiwan during their time at the G20 summit. He reiterated that the Taiwan question was the “very core of China’s core interests” and the “first red line” in bilateral ties.
Xi Jinping is expected to break longstanding tradition in the coming days and secure a third term as China’s president, putting the country on a new course that could increase tensions with the U.S.
“He’s able to focus even more on implementing his foreign strategy and operationalizing his vision of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Sun said. “That inevitably will lead to more contests for influence and for leadership, and for superiority with the United States.”
Sun said she expects the “political confidants” and “political loyalists” of Xi to be appointed to key positions involving national security and foreign policy to help enact his vision.
There are people within the government who don’t think that China’s policies towards the U.S. are the best.
According to Chris Li, the director of research at the Asia- Pacific Initiative at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Taiwan and technology are two key issues China and the U.S. will probably clash over in the coming years.
But that perception — and the resulting actions from the U.S., such as high-level congressional visits from the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — has led to something of a catch-22 situation, Li said.
“You get this tit-for-tat retaliation where there’s not a lot of trust … and sort of a back and forth where the U.S. views its actions as responsive to China’s actions, [and] China views its actions as a response to the U.S.’s actions,” Li said.
Meanwhile, the tech industry has become a larger priority for China, especially as the country moves toward the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the centennial of the People’s Republic of China in 2049, in which Xi aims to make China a modern socialist country.
Li said that China is bolstering its domestic research and innovation capacity as more of a focus, causing those in the U.S. to talk about being less dependent on China when it comes to technology.
That’s led to what Li said is essentially an impasse. Achieving it will test both countries in the years to come, but progress doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
The Status of Taiwan Relations in the 21st Century: How Should We Address Taiwan’s War with the United States? A QCD Observation
Senior US administration officials said Biden would be honest when discussing his views on Taiwan with his counterpart in China, a signal that the discussion wouldn’t ignore the differences between the two men.
In July, as Nancy Pelosi was planning to visit Taiwan with other congressional delegations, the US president received a telephone message from Xi that warned Biden not to play with fire.
“It will require us following through on the commitments of the Taiwan Relations Act, which for 40 years now has said we will provide defensive articles to Taiwan. And it will require direct diplomacy with the [People’s Republic of China],” he said. We need to make this a priority so there is no war over Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan is not very far off the coast of China. The Communist Party of China has been claiming the island as its own despite not having ever held sway over it.
“We agree with what we signed on to a long time ago. And that there’s ‘one China’ policy, and Taiwan makes their own judgments about their independence. We are not moving – we’re not encouraging their being independent. … That’s their decision,” he said.
TSMC is considered a national treasure in Taiwan and supplies tech giants including Apple
(AAPL) and Qualcomm
(QCOM). It mass produces the most advanced parts that are vital to the smooth running of everything from phones to washers.
But back home in Taiwan, there is deep unease over the growing political and commercial pressure being applied to the world’s most important chipmaker to expand internationally. The company is building a facility in Japan and considering investing in Europe.
“They’re like the Hope Diamond of semiconductors. Hutcheson is the vice chair of TechInsights and he said that everybody wants them. The world’s largest blue diamond, the Hope Diamond, is housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington.
Taiwan’s largest semiconductor production powerhouse is headed for a strategic move abroad, and the need for an advanced semiconductor factory in the U.S.
national security concerns are motivating TSMC expansion according to Chen of CL Securities. He believes the company will continue to make its most advanced technology at home.
Hutcheson says that if Taiwan becomes a powerhouse in semiconductors, then America would have to support and defend it. The strategy has worked out well.
The foreign minister of Taiwan was grilled on whether there was a secret deal with the United States that would disadvantage the Taiwanese chip industry.
It is like what happened in the US in the 70s and 80s as manufacturing jobs were being moved from the States to other countries. Many local jobs were lost and cities bankrupted,” he said.
It would serve all the customers all over the world, it was previously said by its CEO.
Semiconductors are an indispensable part of just about every electronic device. Due to the high cost of development and the high level of knowledge required, they are hard to make.
“TSMC’s decision to expand its Arizona investment is evidence that politics and geopolitical risks will play a bigger role than previously in supply chain decisions,” said Chris Miller, author of “Chip War: the Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology”.
“This would make economic sense given [the] lower salaries [and] higher quality of Taiwanese engineers,” he said, adding that the company needs the approval of the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs to move its most advanced technologies abroad, which it was unlikely to give.
Many experts believe that by the time 3-nanometer chips are being made in Arizona, TSMC’s Taiwan operations would be producing even smaller, more advanced chips.
High-Tech Manufacturing: China vs. the United States in a High-Relevance Trade Dialogue with the World Wide Intellectual Property Organization
“Once you have a team of people doing development work, they work very closely together. You don’t want to disrupt that. It’s not an easy thing to do,” he said.
The country’s commerce ministry filed a formal complaint against the United States with the WTO on Monday, according to a statement. Both of the countries are members of the trade body and can resolve disputes.
“China’s filing of a lawsuit at the WTO is to resolve China’s concerns through legal means and is a necessary way to defend its legitimate rights and interests,” the ministry said.
Beijing has tried to fight against the sanctions. The leaders from South Korea and the Netherlands met with the Chinese president at the G20 summit in Indonesia last month. He called for the two countries to intensify cooperation in high-tech manufacturing.
The Chinese government set up an industry alliance of companies and research institutions after it was hit with an export ban from the US over its dealings with Iran. The group’s focus is on developing Risc-V, an open-source chip design architecture that has increasingly become a rival to Softbank
(SFTBF)’s Arm, the current global leader. Members of the consortium include the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Alibaba
(BABA), Tencent
(TCEHY), and Baidu
(BIDU).
Jake Sullivan: Avoiding a Military Contingency in the Presence of a Threat to the United States and the China Red Line
Tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan have raised the prospect of a potential military conflict, but national security adviser Jake Sullivan believes such a scenario can be avoided.
With responsible stewardship, we can make sure that this contingency never comes to pass, despite the risk of conflict with Taiwan. In an exclusive interview with Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep, he told them that it was their responsibility.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement the US must stop containing and suppressing China’s development and stop using “malle tactics” to challenge China’s red line.
Sullivan’s comments about Taiwan are part of an interview that touched on a number of other national security concerns, including semiconductors, Ukraine and the Middle East.
I don’t want to get into hypotheticals about what a particular military contingency would look like. But I will say this. When we entered office, more than 90% of the most advanced semiconductors were produced in Taiwan. Republic of Korea produced the remaining percentage. In the US, there was zero percent produced.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/06/1147113733/jake-sullivan-taiwan-china-diplomacy
What will the United States and China do next in the fight against the Pan-American Revolutionary Republic? An overview of the Bali meeting between the two presidents
I believe that the meeting between the two presidents in Bali did in fact place a floor under the relationship. It provided some greater stability and a direction to teams both in Beijing and in Washington to work on issues where it is in our common interest to make progress. For example, there is no reason that the United States and China, as the world’s two largest emitters of carbon, that we cannot find a way to work together to reduce overall carbon emissions in the world and contribute to solving the climate crisis.
There is no reason why the United States and China cannot work together to reduce the flow of precursor chemicals that go into fentanyl that is killing tens of thousands of Americans.
That doesn’t mean that we won’t discuss the differences with the PRC, whether they’re human rights, whether they’re the way in which the PRC handles Taiwan or whether it’s pushing back against provocative actions around the island.
The United States has done two things in the last two years. First, we’ve said we are going to invest once again in the United States of America being a manufacturing powerhouse for semiconductors. The most advanced chips that are designed in the United States will no longer be used in the weapons systems of countries that are strategic competitors like the PRC.
The essential thrust of American policy is […] to provide Ukraine the means to put themselves in the best possible position on the battlefield, to make the most gains possible. And eventually, if there comes to be a negotiating table that they choose, because it’s up to them, that they are in the best possible position at the negotiating table. Predicting exactly what the course of the war will be, how it will unfold, over what time period it will unfold, I will leave that to others.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/06/1147113733/jake-sullivan-taiwan-china-diplomacy
The United States is Committed to Israel’s Security, and the Middle East is a Strongly Resolving Puzzle for the Israeli-Arab System
I want to convey the fact that the United States is committed to Israel’s security and that’s not going to change. President Biden has been a fundamental and stalwart supporter of the state of Israel for as long as he’s been in public service. Second, we’re going to talk through the challenges and opportunities in the Middle East region. The threat posed by Iran is a significant challenge. On the other hand, there are real opportunities, including what we’ve seen in the deepening normalization between Israel and some of the Arab states.
The two state solution is supported by us, and we oppose policies and practices that undermine the viability of the solution, or that cut against the historic status quo. And I will be clear and direct on those points.