Page 41 - Rethinking China Policy

Rethinking China Policy

There is no economic and trade equivalent to NATO, and in particularly no equivalent to Article 5 in dealing
with Beijing when the regime target a particular OECD nation.

China routinely successfully mount retaliatory moves against key US allies. For example, punishing the UK by
diverting business to EU for meeting with the Dailai Lama knowing that no EU member or the US backed UK
on a minor issue by standing united. Or disrupting Japanese interests by singling them out for persecution.

Similarly, when US firms are targeted for a shakedown like Qualcomm for “anti-competitive” practices, there
was no action of consequence from the Obama Administration beyond verbally raising the issue, let alone
efforts to form a united front of western interests and tit-for-tat retaliation.

President Xi goal toward the Trump Administration is status quo ante.

Xi knows how to exploit the present system that makes US and allied foreign policy ineffective except for the
biggest issues between Beijing and Washington such as preventing all-out Nuclear War, or enabling
perfunctory access to the Chinese market for western interests.

In order to be effective in reform, President Trump will have to secure a consensus within OECD to develop a
common policy toward the tactics routinely used by Beijing and be willing to use the leverage.

Beyond that, China must face immediate, measurable, quantifiable consequences for their behavior targeted
at not just Beijing, but the local Chinese interests most concerned with the issue and most able to influence
behavior.

This is not statecraft in the western sense. But it is statecraft nevertheless.

THE CHALLENGE OF ADAPTING WESTERN STATECRAFT TO DO A WORK
AROUND ON BEIJING
By Danny Lam

Western Foreign policy towards China have been focused on interactions with Peking since the Jesuits found a
place in the Ming Court at the expense of understanding the dynamics of the vast civilization nominally ruled
by present day Beijing.

Extending diplomatic recognition and permitting the PRC to assume the UN security council seat continued this
pattern. For a brief period after the communist victory early in 1960s until the mid 1970s the Beijing regime
can be said to maintain a credible grip on the Chinese civilization and dealing with Beijing was both
necessary and sufficient for the problems of the time.

By the 2000s, Beijing’s monopoly on power has diminished to a more traditional arrangement whereby PRC
based in Beijing retained only a monopoly on legitimate power in China except Taiwan.

Provinces, beginning with the coastal areas, began to break loose from Beijing.

Few Western observers noticed the increasing divergence, culminating in the events of Tiananmen Square in
1989 that had modest, if little impact in the relatively prosperous southern provinces.

Within the past decade, the divergences in interests and policies between Beijing and the coastal provinces
have escalated.

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