I found this piece by Kuni Miyake at Japan Times on how Sec. of State Mike Pompeo’s July 23 speech about China played in Japan pretty interesting:
Tokyo’s reaction to the July 23 speech by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on “Communist China†seems to be ambivalent at best. The editorials of Japan’s major newspapers were divided, reflecting a lack of consensus among pundits and people at large in Japan on how to deal with the inevitable rise of China.
The liberal newspapers neither endorsed what Pompeo said nor criticized what Beijing has done, pretending to be as neutral as possible between the two great powers. Most conservative dailies, while agreeing with what Pompeo had proposed, only urged both China and the United States to stop further retaliation.
People in Tokyo seem to be puzzled. After the tit-for-tat closures of the consulate-generals in Houston and Chengdu, my phone kept ringing with questions such as: “Is the United States really serious?â€; “How long will this last?â€; “What would happen to the global economy?â€; and “What should Japan do?â€
While as readers of this blog must surely know, I have no objection to a tougher attitude towards China or trying to enlist Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines in our efforts regarding China, I have little interest in changing China’s behavior. The reason for that is simple: I prefer achievable foreign policy goals and changing China’s behavior is not only beyond our ability it’s beyond the ability of any alliance of countries we might cobble together.
I’m a lot more interested in changing our behavior since not only do I think that is achievable, I think it would have broad political support in the U. S.
Agreed.
When Trump’s goal was to rebalance the trading relationship — its hard but achievable (due to the US having such a huge trading deficit).
When Pompeo speaks in euphemism about the Chinese people changing the Chinese government’s behavior — where can that go but the end of diplomatic relations or worse?
I think he makes the same error that Americans have been making with respect to China for decades. China is incredibly big. We can’t push China. We can’t even push the Chinese people to push China. We’re more likely to push the Chinese people into doubling down on the Xi view of things than we are to get them to push for liberal democracy.
Maybe the FAANG s can jigger their social score system to lean communism Woke.
Most likely they imagine they can.
“When Trump’s goal was to rebalance the trading relationship ”
Last time I looked our deficit with China had decreased some but our overall deficit increased. Thought our real goal should have been to have good jobs here in the US. That doesnt happen without fixing our policies. It is a lot easier and more popular to just blame China.
Steve
“our deficit with China had decreased some” — implies Trump had success.
On the real goal — the US cannot get there without rebalancing the trading relationship with China. It is a necessary but not sufficient step.
It gets overlooked; but Trump is reworking almost every trading relationship. There is the USMCA, the threatened EU tariffs. The work to reform the WTO.
Anyway, re: China. One hard aspect is the Chinese government is not an NPC. The CPC wants to push American society / government to change behavior as much as Pompeo wants to change China’s behavior.
‘The CPC wants to push American society / government to change behavior as much as Pompeo wants to change China’s behavior.’
Hence the continual push from various sectors for the surveillance state, whereby the kindly bureaucrats of government are able to guide their subjects towards proper behavior and outcomes. Nobody wants to denied access to food, utilities, and funds, do they, for disobeying the right and honorable dictates of your betters, do you?
Examples abound. Among them are former Presidential candidate Yang praising China’s social credit scheme, the frequent articles pushing a cashless society (criminals use high denomination bills, you know!), threats to deny the use of utilities for failure to properly lock down, etc. etc.
“implies Trump had success.”
If your goal was to reduce our trade deficit with them. If we do that but our jobs dont come back I think that is a failure. If you set up policy correctly, then our deficit probably goes down anyway. Going after China without doing the hard part of changing ur policy is a great way to win votes, not a great way to actually help the US.
Steve