A NEW Look at U.S.-China Relations |
|
In our competition with the Chinese Communist Party, we find ourselves at the beginning of a generational struggle that will define American politics for decades to come. While Congress will need to pass bills that require pharmaceutical supply chains to be moved out of China,and sanction companies like Huawei that threaten the future of the internet, we will have to do much more to address the challenges this competition poses. But what are the long-term actions Congress should take, and who will play an important role in passing them? How have U.S.-China relations evolved in the past 20 years, and what lessons can we learn from this relationship?
To explore these questions, Rep. Gallagher is joined by Mike Green on a special joint podcast (check his podcast, The Asia Chessboard, here). Mike Green is the senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), director of Asian Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and someone who previously served on the National Security Council from 2001-2005. In less than an hour, these two cover a lot of ground on both their backgrounds, the future of U.S.-China relations, and of course, why Green Bay is Titletown, USA. Read highlights of the conversation below, or watch the full interview HERE.
|
|
Why China Matters to Northeast Wisconsin |
|
Rep. Gallagher: "From the perspective of Northeast Wisconsin, I think it was easy for us here to understand the importance of fighting terrorist groups in the Middle East, because we had domestic terrorist incidents. Obviously we had 9/11, we had all this visible carnage in the Middle East. But the threat from China is obviously much more long-term, it's more insidious...How would you explain to someone who maybe doesn't feel it yet in their gut why we need to take this competition seriously?
Mike Green: "...China's immediate steps to steal intellectual property rights, to engage in massive espionage, not just spy on spy, but spying on Americans online who were involved with human rights, China's interference in universities around the world and China's bullying of allies, imposing embargoes, boycotts on countries like Korea, and Japan. Pretty much every country in the world has been embargoed and punished by China except the United States actually. I mean, yes, there was some trade retaliation, but it was very proportional. Smaller and medium sized countries get kicked around by China. So that's our future if we don't stand up to them. Right now they impose some tariffs on exports of ag to punish us, but it was pretty small compared to what they did to the Koreans or the Philippines when they were mad at them. Or Australia now, they're threatening to cut off all trade with Australia. So if we don't stand up to them now, these little coercive moves are going to become bigger and bigger and bigger. It's like any bully in the neighborhood, if they get away with it, they'll keep doing it. Then over the longer term, if China succeeds in its current strategy, which is to weaken U.S. alliances, to try to demonstrate American impotence, to try to neutralize American leadership in institutions like the United Nations or the World Health Organization. If China succeeds at that, the entire system that we bled and fought to build after World War II will start to unravel."
|
|
Decoupling our Economy from China's |
|
Mike Green: "Yeah, we definitely will decouple. Someone in the Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Chamber, told me they're tracking over 200 pieces of legislation in Congress right now that would in one way or another, cause decoupling. Either moving supply chains back to the U.S. or some kind of restrictions on imports. And they said it's exhausting. So there's definitely an appetite in the Congress for decoupling, but in large parts of the business community, especially tech or certain parts of tech, depends on whether you provide content or make things. I think there will be decoupling and I think we already have decoupling with China in space. We don't sell them satellites, we strictly control that. But data from China can go over satellites that we've built. And I suspect that's where we're going to end up with 5G. Maybe to some extent with medical after this crisis, where we'll have separate, secure, trusted supply chains and investors which will not be Chinese for the most part. But it has to be interoperable, whether it's 5G or medical, so that China, which is the second largest economy in the world and which will be providing 5G infrastructure and medical and bio to Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South Asia, we have to find a way to have a separate but compatible economic system like we have with satellites. I think that's where we're heading no matter who wins the election."
|
|
On Strengthening Alliances (Particularly with Japan) |
|
Mike Green: "If we can get NATO and our Asian allies more aligned on China...that's a pretty imposing front for China to try to take on...The Japanese, and I'm the Japan guy, they're the key because they're in the G7 with Italy and France and Canada and Britain. The Japanese are just dying, Abe is just dying to try to get something going between the U.S. and Europe on China. He's not getting traction in Washington...What would the Japanese like to do? They have started a trilateral trade ministers meeting to put out declaratory policy statements, basically saying we believe in data reciprocity, the Chinese do not. Part of it is just showing we're on the same side, that was a Japanese initiative. The Japanese would love for us to come back to TPP, but we probably won't come back to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It'd be awesome for dairy farmers in Wisconsin if we did. But I think the politics are hard, you tell me. But bilaterally, the U.S. and Japan signed an agreement, which was a small bilateral version of TPP, but it had one cool new thing TPP didn't have, which is a digital trade agreement. For example, if we took that digital trade agreement, which is also I think, replicated in the North America replacement for NAFTA with Canada and Mexico, if we start putting that into transatlantic agreement, maybe we're not doing big trade agreements anymore. Maybe it's all about technology now."
|
|
Advice for Northeast Wisconsin Students |
|
Rep. Gallagher: "If a student came to you now and said I really am interested in foreign policy and I want a career in academia and to serve at the highest levels of government, would you as an Asia specialist tell them to choose a field that isn't as crowded, seeing your field now become the hot new thing?"
Mike Green: "...you kind of have to really base that answer on what you have a passion for. And if you are passionate about Arabic studies, go for it...whatever it is, if you are passionate, and you're really good at a language -- so I always tell my students, make sure you're really good at language if you want to go into international affairs -- and really good at a functional issue -- defense policy, energy, climate, change gender -- that'll get you your first job. And you will be doing cool stuff early on because you have those skills. And then in five or ten years, maybe you'll learn another language. Or maybe you start out working on energy, but you get really good at nuclear proliferation then you get interested in nuclear weapons and you go into security policy The important thing is to have a language or a region that you know really well and a functional skill that you're really good at. And you know, you can shift one or the other those as you move up your career."
|
|
SUBSCRIBE and give a FIVE STAR RATING to the NEW Look podcast on your platform of choice below:
|
|
De Pere
1702 Scheuring Rd., Ste. B
De Pere, WI 54115
www.gallagher.house.gov
|
|
Washington, DC
1230 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
www.gallagher.house.gov
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
