The editors of the Washington Post, urge President Trump to heed a task force study report on China:
Mr. Trump has made no secret of his unhappiness with China over trade. But the task force suggests the larger recalibration must be done with care and should focus on six urgent priorities: restraining North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, reassuring U.S. allies in Asia, righting an imbalance in trade and business relations with China, seeking a rules-based approach to settling maritime disputes, pushing back at China’s repression of civil society and sustaining cooperation on global warming. This is a serious and laudable to-do list.
and lurch uncontrollably into an important word—reciprocity:
The task force usefully points out that while Chinese think tanks, academic institutions and media are allowed to operate freely in the United States, American nongovernmental organizations are being put under tighter police and government control inside China. Beijing is also curtailing U.S. media and Internet companies. This kind of imbalance should lead the United States to demand more reciprocity from China, the task force says.
The key problem in dealing with China and in the U. S.-China relationship is that China’s leaders view the relationship strictly as zero sum. For them to win, we must lose. They want China to assume what they see as its rightful place in the world. For that to happen the U. S. must be diminished.
What would a U. S. policy of reciprocity with respect to China look like?
I think the US needs to tread carefully. I think of the pre WWII era with the Japanese. I’m not sure we really know where China’s red lines are.
I think “treading lightly” is pragmatic advice. But, as a bookend, there should be cautionary advice to also avoid a “do nothing” strategy. Doing nothing, called a “leading from behind” type of foreign policy chosen by the Obama Administration to follow, has resulted in the simmering problems with N Korea, China, Russia, and the ME only becoming hotter and more virulent in their possibilies of future aggression. For instance, Brad Sherman, a Californian congressman, is wondering if CA shouldn’t be preparing for a nuclear strike from N Korea, given the growing military miniaturization of it’s nuclear capability, in de!ivering a hit to the west coast – augmented by the increased frequency of it’s missile testing.
Andy:
I’m gonna say the Yalu river is one. They became somewhat upset with us when we got close that one time.
We’ve been treading lightly for 40 years, Andy, and matters have actually deteriorated. Just about everything that Michael accuses Russia of doing China has actually done and much, much more.
IMO the better course of action is brinksmanship with an emphasis on reciprocity. We need to press China either to join the world community or stay out of it rather than the predatory attitude they’ve assumed.
China also compromised our electoral process and elected an imbecile? They threatened NATO member states?
Do you really want Donald Trump, Mike Flynn and Steve Bannon engaging in brinksmanship?
So far the Great Dealmaker Businessman Genius opened with a jab at the one-China policy, riled everyone up, then meekly surrendered. We love NATO, we hate NATO. We love settlements, no we don’t. We’re moving the embassy to Jerusalem or not. Mexico is buying us a wall, no it turns out taxpayers are. We’ve angered one of our best friends in the world, Australia, scared hell out of the Baltics and Poland, handed the Ayatollahs and jihadis a propaganda coup they couldn’t have come up with in their wet dreams and given Putin a daily handjob even as he blithely murders opponents and executes the FSB agents who presumably revealed the plot to elect Zippy. And Yemen has invited us to f-ck right off with our war on terror.
So, I’m happy to wait four years to take on China in hopes that we elect someone sane. Trump will need a war to validate his fragile ego, let’s hope it’s a Grenada or Panama-level event, not World War 3.
They interfered with U. S. elections (by making illegal campaign contributions). Isn’t interference one of your main complaints?
As Buchanan said NATO should have been dismantled at the fall of the Iron Curtian, so appeals in that regard leave me unmoved.
Then we have the neocon Russophobe Nuland/Obama/Power conspiracy to steal Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence for global liberal capitalism (which in comparison thereto, Putin’s state capitalism seems healthy.)
However, if Trump believes his team can extract Russia from the Chinese/Iranian orbit they are fooling themselves.
Dave:
Yes, it is one of my main complaints, along with incompetence, personality disorders, ignorance, vulgarity, treason. . .
I had not heard about Chinese donations. If that happened then yes I object strongly. But no cash donation touches what the Russians/Assange/Comey did. They didn’t just interfere, they rendered the election largely invalid in my opinion.
Yep. Not unless they can create an ‘alternative geography.’
I disagree strongly on NATO. Russian moves against the Baltic 3 or Poland would be extremely destabilizing, might crash the economy and risk a real, serious shooting war in Europe. I agree that the Europeans have been underperforming in their role, but that’s a matter for adult diplomacy not sudden, random shifts in policy dictated by Trump in a 2 AM tweet.