The Republican and Democrat leaders of the US Senate Intelligence Committee have issued a joint statement of intense hostility towards China. This posture is a threat to Australia’s national security… and the world. An attempt to tear China down will be unsuccessful. To follow paths to antagonise China will eventually reap hostile responses and darken global affairs at a time when global cooperation is essential.
As I write on 7 December, there seems to have been no mention in Australian media of a joint statement by the acting chairman Rubio and deputy chairman Warner (Republican and Democrat) of the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate on 4 December, attacking China. It is couched in terms of support for an opinion piece in the (Murdoch) Wall Street Journal on 3 Decemberby the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe was nominated to that position in 2019 and his nomination was swiftly withdrawn because as a little known rural Texas Trumpist congressman his slender bio was padded and because even among many Republicans he was seen as too conservative. Trump nominated him again and secured approval in May 2020. Ratcliffe’s opinion piece was accompanied by an anticommunist video. The WSJ article is partly paywalled. A summary was published by The Hill. Ratcliffe’s opinion piece reads like a personal opinion. He will not be intelligence chief after Biden is sworn in.
The statement by Senators Rubio and Warner is remarkable in several ways. There is no acknowledgment that there is an incoming Democrat Administration. There is no divergence between the Republican and the Democrat. Is Warner talking for Biden or shaping confrontation in the Democratic Party? Is it a price for nominations to new cabinet posts to be approved by the Senate. The language is extravagant, and religious in its fervid hostility to communism and China. Ideological is hardly an adequate attribute.
This is the joint statement as released by Senator Rubio. Because it is important I quote in full.
“Dec 04 2020
“Washington, D.C.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Acting Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) released the following joint statement regarding the challenge posed to the United States by the Chinese government and Communist Party:
“We agree with DNI Ratcliffe that China poses the greatest national security threat to the United States. Our intelligence is clear: the Chinese Communist Party will stop at nothing to exert its global dominance.
“Beijing’s infiltration of U.S. society has been deliberate and insidious as they use every instrument of influence available to accelerate their rise at America’s expense.
“Our democratic values are threatened by China’s attempts to supplant American leadership and remake the international community in their image. The Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian leaders seek to threaten our free speech, politics, technology, economy, military, and even our drive to counter the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Unfortunately, the United States’ challenge with China is not unique as Beijing seeks to infiltrate and subvert other nations around the world, including our allies.
“This is our watershed moment and we must stand our ground. The United States must not and cannot accept Beijing’s quest to exert dominance, while dismissing international legal norms and committing egregious human rights abuses to further their goals.
“We have made considerable progress in rebalancing the U.S.-China relationship and laying a clear marker for U.S. policy going forward, and we will not stand idly by as the Chinese Communist Party attempts to undermine our economic and national security.
“The message to Beijing and the world is that China’s behavior will not be tolerated and will be contested by democratic values, in close partnership with our allies and partners.”
China could probably write a declaration reading much the same, about the United States, should it wish to do so. But there is no sign that China wants war with the United States. What do these American gentlemen mean when they bluster: “This is our watershed moment and we must stand our ground.” Australia must make clear, especially to those two Senators, that we will not support aggressive activity directed at China. (To which the reader here might reasonably comment “aren’t we already doing that ourselves?”)
It would be normal for the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade now to be drafting, in collaboration with the Washington embassy, a high level message to the incoming US Administration, a message of warmth and support, also expressing the view that Australia has its views to advance especially on regional affairs. This is an opportunity to influence not just agree with US policy… The role of a really helpful ally.
Australia cannot support a view of us-or-them as regards China. Nor can we deny the reality of China’s growth and power. We see that in parity purchasing power China is now the biggest economy. China (or Japan, or India) will be different in character and power expression and expectations. These are realities to recognise. An attempt to tear China down will be unsuccessful. To follow paths to antagonise China will eventually reap hostile responses and darken global affairs at a time when global cooperation is essential.
It is important that we restore ruptured multilateralism. It is particularly important that the US and China collaborate on public health, environment, climate, arms control and war avoidance. That is the only way in which the United States might regain leadership—by engagement and collaboration. Without the US and China working together there will be no solutions to the global climate crisis. Without US-China collaboration, the COVID-19 pandemic will not only continue to kill and kill, it will destabilise developed and developing countries and create more wars.
We need to end wars that have ceased to have strategic value and are not being won. We have to avoid ‘waiting for the right moment’.
Australia has entered into a quadrilateral understanding for security consultation with the US, Japan, and India. It is not clear how this will proceed given the diverse views and interests of the participants. As framed it appears to be anti-China. It would be sensible also to engage with China. Japan and South Korea will inevitably and separately lean towards China. So should Australia… and there is nothing to be gained from military clashes between China and India.
Nothing in the business of building friendship, understanding and commerce need diminish national security. In all our countries there are piles of angry people ready to shout at China, shout about China. We should not be pushed by the loudest and most angry.
Dennis Argall’s degrees were in anthropology and defence studies. his governmental work in foreign, defence and domestic departments and for the Australian parliament. His overseas postings included Beijing as ambassador, and Washington. He regrets the extent of his personal experience with disability but it has perhaps sharpened his desire that the future be a better country.
Comments
30 responses to “The approaching crunch in US policy towards China”
To this end the USA Gov and armament manufacturer funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute must be destroyed for it is the seed of much of the anticommunist hatred of China. And the ABC has become its taxpayer funded mouthpiece.
Relax, Trump is almost gone.
Biden who is a war hawk has appointed war hawks as key advisors and security agency heads. For those in Syria, Yemen Afghanistan Libya Iraq… in the face of US led violence there will never be a time to relax.
Bush did that. Not Biden.
America’s economy is for a significant extent dependent on conducting wars. That’s why it has such massive armament factories. The domestic use is further supported by massive weapons exports, seeming to every part of the world where a war could be fought.
If you add to this America’s continuing decline in social and health terms compared to the rest of the developed world and its hugely inflated ego than you have the perfect mix for a real war with China.
Let’s hope our government has the nous and common sense to stay away from this as far as possible, in spite of the continuous lobbying and fear mongering by think tanks and media outlets.
A fascinating view on the shortcomings of Western political thinking relevant to this conversation comes from Pankaj Mishra, author of The Age of Anger. His essay in the New York Review of Books is called “Grand Illusions.” P&I sometimes organises a link to the New York Review. I think Dennis and commentators would find the Mishra piece interesting.
Can you provide a link?
Sorry Dennis, It came to me via a third party. I let my subscription to the Review go a couple of elections ago. We get so much local stuff on American politics that I didn’t feel the need to import any more. I liked the magazine which I thought was good on history and the arts, especially the visual arts.
Mr Argall,
Sometimes, I think that the jingoism of the US is a reflection of their own insecurity. Their position as the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world is now being challenged by a newcomer from East at a pace that will leave them far behind. This generates fear, a fear of the unknown which they can’t seem to be able to find a solution. There seem to be only two options open to them: beat China in economic terms or stop them militarily. The first is reflected by Trump’s attempt to bring manufacturing back to the US and to look inwards economically – which does not seem to have worked. Neither did starting a trade war with China. The other alternative is to engage them in a conflict to hamper their progress. This is getting progressively impossible with the rapid militarisation of the Chinese at a level of technological sophistication that confounds them. It has now become a dilemma for the US that verges on despondency. What I hear is a cry of frustration – a very dangerous position of very rich and powerful people who have always had their way.
There is however a third way out, and that is to cooperate with China without having to be always the top gun. This seems impossible because of their self hypnosis into responding hysterically to anything that suggests socialism, worst of all Marxism or Communism. Notwithstanding the fact that the Chinese form of government has morphed from a Marxist/Leninist one to one they call “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics”. The Chinese still call themselves communist perhaps because it was their seed and root that allowed the rest (stem, foliage and all) to flourish. It is very ill informed, unimaginative or deliberately dishonest to would think of them in purely communist terms.
In a way, the US has itself to blame for finding itself in this state. After the British who initiated international trade at the time when they ruled a quarter of the world, the US followed it up with globalisation that saw the rise of multinationals. These companies exploited the cheap labour in the east to establish an unending cycle of massive production and consumption. I was working in the beautiful island of Penang in the 1970s where many of the earliest American factories were operating. The unexpected consequence of this highly profitable strategy was that many other countries emulated them, the earliest ones being European, followed by Japan and soon afterwards China. The growing gap between the rich (many owners of the multinationals) and the poor in the US began to widen and more jobs were needed in the US to satisfy a growing number of unemployed. Trump then turned against globalisation which the US initiated in the first place. It was too late. Competition has intensified. Globalisation has become a good thing for the rising economies and a bad thing for the mature ones – the chicken has come back to roost. Hence the dilemma, the externalisation of blame and the aggressive behaviour.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
As usual Mr Teow you enrich discussion with perspectives, information, history, context.
To get a perspective on our complex region I read the South China Morning Post, a serious global paper now owned by Alibaba, as well as China Daily for closer to government news from China. It seems forgotten that the founding editorial and production chiefs of the China Daily got their basic training in English language newspaper production at The Age in Melbourne, with support of the Australia China Council. The Japan Times, in English, gives some Japanese perspective. For South Korean perspectives I go to Hankyoreh
http://english.hani.co.kr/
for slightly radical and more reflective reporting. For mainstream roundup, Yonhap
https://en.yna.co.kr/
… it’s very important that we not forget Korea and not think it just like Japan. The future of supply chain is between South Korea, Japan, and China including Taiwan, with some elements in Singapore and other ASEAN countries.
I get the daily email from Jakarta Post and CNA in Singapore. Occasionally Malay Mail.
So many socioeconomic issues we deal with here are also dealt with in the region… but mainly we just see pieces in war games or, as at home here, examples of failures. To understand how to deal with and be part of our region … we just have to try to understand. As you know, Mr Teow.
Not the Philippines? Is there a reason? Manila Times provides a centrist view.
https://www.manilatimes.net/
You’re right, I should be looking at Manila papers. The Philippines has always suffered even among Australian students of Southeast Asia for being just out of sight. In the mid 60s I was in Manila for two years and immersed in the newspapers every day. Manila Times the most solid then. I’ve just had a look and it is worth reading, just as also the role of Manila in ASEAN-China needs following.
You should be writing an essay for Menadue, as also others in this thread. 🙂
Mr Argall,
Can I call you Dennis?
There is something interesting that I would like to share with you. Have you seen a U-tube Video called “Bowing out the Dollar” by Dr Tan Kee Wei. It is freely available in the internet. From that lecture, I gained a lot of insights into why the Americans feel so threatened by the Chinese. It revolves around the status of the American dollar as a “petrol” dollar and a reserve currency. If it loses out to the Yuan or any crypto-currency generated by the Chinese, the American people will suffer enormous economic problems.
Thanks for the tips on the various new media.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Yes of course you may call me Dennis but please tell me how I should address you.
I don’t know when I will be able to listen to that long lecture but I wrote about some of that subject here.
https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/dennis-argall-the-inevitability-of-fundamental-change-in-the-world-and-what-china-wants/
Dennis
Dennis,
Most of my friends call me Ti. My personal names are Teow Loon. The two words must go together. I hope that I do not embarrass by saying that addressing me as “Teow” sounds like an expletive in the Hakka dialect of the four letter word “f…” I often derive a perverse pleasure of seeing people embarrassed when I explain what Teow means in the Hakka dialect.
By the way, I read some articles in the Hankyoreh and Yonhap this morning. They are indeed interesting news from another perspective. Thanks.
I usually read CNN, Deutsche News, Al Jazeera, CNA and CGTN to get an idea of what is happening in the US, Europe, Middle East, SEA and China respectively. I used to subscribe to SMH but I don’t read Australia newspapers anymore because one ends up having a distorted and narrow view of important issues which is not healthy for anyone.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
Thank you Ti!
I do look at the ABC online and The Guardian. Reading the Guardian Weekly from the 1960s until recently. The Guardian recently is telling me I’m about four generations out of date… important for many revelations however.
Its actually called Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. The Communist Party of China has, since 1978, reached the conclusion that the liberation and development of the productive forces is the key to building the foundations for a transition to socialism. . Deng Xiaoping wrote,
“The fundamental task for the socialist stage is to develop the productive forces. The superiority of the socialist system is demonstrated, in the final analysis, by faster and greater development of those forces than under the capitalist system.” (Selected Works, vol. 3, p. 73)
Xi Jinping has made a major theoretical contribution with his “Staying True to Our Original Aspiration and Founding Mission” published in the Communist Party of China theoretical Qiushi Journal in January 2020. It is an extremely important statement of Marxist analysis.
http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-11/09/c_562838.htm
This is the anglo American neo-liberal worst nightmare. The trifecta of fear. An Asian, communist led and socialist economic powerhouse.
Because saying socialist capitalist society would be an oxymoron?
Hope China remains patient and focus on its own developmental goals. Be open to external criticism while also retaining confidence in its own projects like the BRI, sustainability & poverty reduction.
I like to recall something Deng Xiaoping apparently told a World Bank economist: “We would appreciate your help; but if you do not help us, we will still achieve our goals; it will just take longer”.
It’s perfectly OK to take longer.
In December 2017, Donald Trump declared war on China (and Russia as well). He said at the time that the war on terror was being put on the back burner, and a war of great power rivalry had begun. It is through this lens that the subsequent tsunami of anti-Chinese propaganda that began to flow though our media should be viewed.
Last year (2019) a seemingly young ABC journalist noted the sudden rise of anti-Chinese stories in our local media. Rather naively she concluded this was probably the result of greater scrutiny on internal Chinese affairs. The idea that this wave of sinophobia was propaganda seemed not to have crossed her mind. And it seems not to have crossed the minds of many in this country. Nowadays it is common to refer to raft of Chinese offences, from Uighurs, Sth China Sea, interference in Hong Kong’s governance, along with the usual characterisations of being autocratic, expansionistic, aggressive, oppressive and of course ‘communist’. They haven’t quite succeeded in labelling the Chinese as anti-semitic, but I have seen some attempts to do so.
So the grounds for war against China have already been laid. Only in the columns of John Menadue’s blog has this wave met serious resistance, but this resistance is presently being labelled, by the likes of Peter Jennings of ASPIC, as the work of ‘useful idiots for Beijing.’
The future looks none to rosy, and 2021 is shaping up to be another year of living dangerously. Expect the worst. Hope for the best.
What about the Philippines? The Phiippines was a colony and a ne0-clony of the US. The Duterte administration has evicted the US Navy, signed a number of B&R projects with PRC and is preparing to innoculate its people with Sinovac. Putin will visit next year. Duterte has endured an extraordinary “human rights” propaganda campaign from the US for his independent foreign policy and the Catholic Church since implementing the first contraceptive policy. But has maintained an independent approach with the PRC and the US. This is despite the US inspired arbitration in favour of the Philippines in the West Philippines Sea. Duterte faces a serious threat of a coup from pro-US elements in the Philippines military, fighting with the only communist insurgency left in Asia and an ever present threat of Islamic terrorism from Saudi paid ISIS affiliates. Dutertes latest popularity rating is 92%. Now if an independent foreign policy can be forged in these adverse circumstances why not Australia?
War Of terror in Philippines…
2002
US FAKING TERROR IN PHILIPPINES
Meiring case unmasks covert campaign to justify intervention
http://www.declarepeace.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/site/gladio/030309Fake.html
I can tell you from experience that duterte has limited appeal in the provinces, high amongst the Manila socialites, but low in the heavily populated regions.
This is so wrong its hilarious. I have never discussed anything with Manila ‘socialites” so i wouldnt know about Manila. Do you mean socialists? Duterte is from Mindanao. Speaks Cebuano and is extremely popular in Mindanao and the Visayas. The latest Pulse poll has his popularity rating at 91%.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-duterte-idUSKBN26Q0Y
With respect in regard to your “experience” i will pass on it. You sound like your “experience” is confined to shuttling between the City of Angeles in Pampanga and 6819 Ayala Avenue, Makati City champ?
Plenty of time in Pampanga, AC is a pretty ordinary place that resembles any mid level city anywhere on planet, only needs one visit. Didn’t get to Makati, do you recommend?
As for Mindanao, too many bullets in the air during my last visit, so no didn’t bother with that area.
We live in the most barbaric of ages. Between 1740 and 1897, there were 230 wars and revolutions in Europe. The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was around 40 million. Some 75 million people died in World War II. the nuclear bomb has so far delayed the next war by some 75 years. Now there are those are talking about, even promoting, a war – which would inevitably become a nuclear war. It is not clear what will prevent H. “sapiens” from global suicide? The criminal insanity of such ideas has been conveyed by Albert Einstein “The splitting of the atom has changed everything bar man’s way of thinking and thus we drift into unparalleled catastrophes”.
On China’s foreign policy initiatives: https://indianpunchline.com/indias-gulf-strategy-is-chasing-chinese-phantoms/
There is nothing available to stop the US-China Cold War2. The Rubio statement issue is not completely true either but the intention to stop China from rising is true. You cannot stop China from rising and neither can you stop the US for their reaction towards China rising. Wars are too ugly and painful to endure; and when you ask any Asean nations whether they want to go to war, they will tell you the painful experience they had in WW2 and they are not interested, and the only willing ally left is Australia.To comtemplate war with nuclear weapons is unthinkable and only the gungho and those who glorify killing love it! There is enough nuclear bombs to wipe the whole planet off the map twice with guarantee of little or no survival of homo sapiens. The second reason for not going to war is because it will cost too much to buy the weapons and feed the troops. If US goes to war, how much more mony can it print? These guys make me feel insecure!!!
China is so very convenient. We blame China. We fear China. And by doing so we avoid the growing necessity of taking a good hard look at ourselves.
Were we to look inwards, what would we see? A military in disarray engaged in unnecessary and illegal wars, an export oriented economy in danger of collapse, a shambles in our care for our elderly, an implosion in our middle class, homelessness and increasingly dire poverty among the poorest among us, a media fewer and fewer trust, politicians and business leaders simply out of touch with most of us, and weaving thru all this weather events that seems to be shifting the ground under our feet that no one seems able to understand, let alone explain.
And we blame China? How convenient.
The march of Folly continues!