Annotations for Speakers: Charles Edel

Thanks so much for having me back on.

It is indeed correct.

I thought it was a terrific poem for a couple of different reasons. And so let me answer your question a bit of a roundabout way. So first of all, I loved the image of the start of a good fight because where we really are in terms of US-China competition is things have changed so rapidly in the state and trajectory of our relationships with China across almost virtually every sector of endeavor that people feel a little bit of whiplash. And it does seem like all of a sudden we went from being good friends with China or not great friends, but important relations to having a very competitive relationship. And it seems to be true under both Republican and Democrats now on the baton. So one of the things that, you know, when Zachary is talking about the start of a good fight, we really are at the dawn of something new at this point.

You can trace back to 2016, you can trace it back maybe a little bit earlier than that, but we really are competing with them in the ring. So I think he really does capture the sense of where we are right now. The second thing I would say is I love the analogy. It's what most people around the world talk about, right? That it's China and the US slugging it out and they don't want to get trampled in the fight in between them, but it's not quite accurate. Because the fight is not just between the United States and China and caging it in that way makes certain sense, but it is really a larger competition of systems that is much larger than the United States and China alone.

And so one of the things that I found myself talking about a lot over the last couple of years was when we phrase this as US versus China, that's not quite the accurate way of approaching this because most of the actions that the United States is responding to are issues of concern for many, many nations, not only in Asia, but around the world. Whether we're talking about maritime aggression, whether we're talking about human rights suppression, whether we're talking about economic coercion. So I like framing this in a little bit bigger of a sense. It's not just a fight between two players.

The final part, which I think is really worthy of a discussion because there are elements of the truth, but then I would add this to this about whether or not it's US aggression as Zachary was just talking about. And I think that it is true, exactly true as Zachary laid out, that nothing concentrates the mind as much as having an enemy or having a competitor that will focus and drive actions. And the United States in fact is better oftentimes strategically when it can focus on a singular threat as opposed to a multiplicity of them.

But I would caution that looking at this primarily and first off through a belligerent Washington underrates that what we are seeing is a much delayed response from Washington to a cumulating series of actions taken by Beijing to in some ways force a more competitive response from the United States. Sorry, that was a long winded response to a really good poem, but he's really captured a lot of what's happening here.

That is one approach to thinking about it, and I happen to think it's the correct approach. So in some ways, I'd say that the United States has a bit of a yo-yo approach here, that sometimes we do this when we think about Asia, we think about Asia first and China as a subset of Asia. And sometimes we reverse that order, that Asia is China because it's the largest nation because it now has the largest economy because it's the largest military and everything else revolves around that. So there are arguments to be made for which is the better approach. I think we are always better considering we have so many allies in the region. There are so many democracies in the region. We have an economic, no less a security architecture that's predicated around keeping a stable balance of power, keeping the region as open as possible.

So again, I said there are two approaches, but I think the United States tends to err when it predicates the entire Asia relationship around stable relations with China, as opposed to making sure that China is a very important part of our Asia policy, but getting our Asia policy right means first and foremost, working with our allies in the region.

Yeah. So I think you could boil it down to only two things, and then a lot of other kind of sub-issues flow out of them. So I think American policy in the region, American interest in the region have been actually very consistent over the long haul. And when I say long haul, I'm not even looking back to 1949, I'm looking way back to the late 18th century. And my thinking here is really informed by Michael Green's terrific book, By More Than Providence, which looks at American grand strategy in the region over its entire history. And part of his argument is that America has always worked for one positive and one negative overriding interest in Asia.

The positive agenda is to make sure that the region is as open and as free as possible so that there can be as much trade with America, so that there can be as much transmission of American values into the region as possible. That is one kind of driving set of interest that is really a positive sum that we will, as the region gets more democratic, it's likely to get more prosperous and more stable, and we're all going to benefit on that.

The second one is a negative aim, which is we are going to work to prevent a hegemon from taking hold in the region that subsumes the rest of the region, that creates a sphere of influence. Because whenever that has happened, we have seen that it ultimately ends up threatening American interests and American territory. So obviously we're talking about China in this relationship, but if we think before that, we can go to Japan. Sorry, we think before that, we think about the Soviet Union. So I think it is a constant of American strategy that has been an American interest to prevent as much as we are able to the emergence of a single country that is able to create a closed sphere of influence in Asia.

It does matter, because the direction that China has gone, particularly under Xi Jinping, is there are communists of different stripes, and there are those like Deng Xiaoping, who argued, it doesn't matter if the mouse is black or white, as long as we all get rich together. I've now just kind of elided, unfortunately, two of his great sayings.

But the point was, as long as we had a China that was working with others in the region, that was trying to keep the region open and integrating themselves into it, that was fine. The fact of the matter is that under Xi Jinping, from his ascension to power, we have seen an increasingly domestically repressive China and externally aggressive China. And you had asked about the focus of the communism within this.

Xi Jinping is an ideologue. We could debate whether or not he actually believes it himself, but he is forcing his ideological vision of the country onto the country. Xi Jinping thought has now been added to the canon. People are required to learn it. It is being exported around the region. So, yes, it does make a difference. We are not beyond this. This is not something that the leaders of China don't take seriously internally.

Well, they should fit in greatly because if one side offers a lot or seemingly offers a lot and the other side doesn't offer a lot, we don't put ourselves in a particularly advantageous position, which is where I think we've been over the last couple of years. However, we need to think very carefully, countries do think carefully, about what it is exactly that China is offering.

So Belt and Road Initiative is a good example of this. That if it is just an infrastructure build, it's just an infusion of cash or of yen into your country, that's good. But if it is something that comes with strings attached, with collateralized debt that has convertibility onto sovereignty issues, that's a problem. If it's something where the Chinese are building out the entire technological infrastructure of the place that they then have the ability to turn on, that's a problem. And frankly, even if the Chinese don't own it, but if they are creating technological ecosystems that are much more easily controllable and repressive, frankly, that's a problem for the United States of America.

So all these issues need to play a really big role. And frankly, over the last four years, during the Trump administration, there was much talk about competition, but there wasn't a lot of resourcing put towards this, Zachary, and exactly your question, right, about what about in these other countries, where were we going to actually be competing? So I think this is an area where it of course varies greatly when we talk country by country and what they're looking for and what they're willing to do. But what happens in these other countries, seeding the field is not one that's likely to result in a happy strategy for the United States.

With great delicacy, part one, part two, by challenging Chinese external aggression. So the fact is, as you raised, I think really nicely in that question, we have a much closer overlap of values and interests with our allies, particularly our democratic allies, than we do with others. But there's never a perfect alignment, nor frankly should there be.

And this becomes more acute when some of those trade differences point in different ways. But a great example of this, Zachary, is Australia, right? I just moved back from three and a half wonderful years of living in Australia. Australia has a very different type of relationship with China than the United States does, particularly because about 5% to 6% of US trade goes to China, up to 40% of Australian external commerce goes to Beijing, right? So that's a very different type of relationship.

And yet, if you think about the type of aggression that we've seen, not only, say, in the South China Sea in some obvious places, not only on some of the Pacific islands that are actually very close to Australia, but if we think about some of the influence operations, right? Where the Chinese Communist Party has been bribing Australian parliamentarians, where they have worked itself into the Chinese-Australian community in order to make sure that fair conversations, open conversations can't happen in Australia, in Australia, not in China. So frankly, on that, the response by Australia, even with 40% of trade going there, has been quite robust

So Australia is a different case, say, than Germany. But I think the answer to your question is, there is really an impetus for pushback against the more destabilizing practices that Beijing has, but we have to see which countries are willing to do what on which particular issues. That's a vague answer, but I also think it's the correct one.

Yes, I do. Look, when Biden was campaigning for office, we know that China was a volatile issue for a number of reasons. But one of the critiques was not in terms of the racist card being waived by Trump himself a lot of the time, but the real critique was not, in my mind, was not that the Trump administration wasn't competing, it's that they weren't doing so effectually. And the nub of that critique was, it's great to say that you're in competition, but how the heck do you plan on doing it if you're not bringing our allies and partners on board? And how can you possibly do that if you're going after them with trade wars as well?

And so, because we know that one of the very few things that Beijing responds to is concerted counterpressure. The most important thing that the Biden administration could do was to make sure that it was working with its allies, not at cross purposes, and that it was supporting democracy as opposed to undercutting it by its own actions internally within the US. So, it strikes me as both on the campaign trail, and frankly, in the not quite state of the union that Joe Biden gave last week, his address to Congress, he talked about this explicitly, that democracy versus authoritarianism was the number one challenge that we faced.

China was a challenge that was really going to put the United States to the test about how competitive we would be in the 21st century, and that we had to do this working alongside partners and allies. So, yes, I've seen a ton of effort if you look at initiatives that have rolled out, everything from the quadrilateral security grouping, right? That's Japan, Australia, the United States, and India, kind of working together with a really substantive set of do outs.

If you look at Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, was just working with both Japan and South Korea and the US, right? That's a relationship, that trilateral configuration that's gone by the wayside. If you look about the fact that President Biden called for a summit of democracies to happen before his first year of office is out, yes, it strikes me as the number one issue is how we can work with allies together to harness and leverage our collective strengths.

Yes. However, I would argue that we're already in an adversarial bifurcated world. And what we saw over the last four years, what we're continuing to see over the first couple of months of the Biden administration, is a belated response by the United States.

So the question becomes, if the free world really is under pressure, really is under assault, and has seen its wins ebb over the last couple of years, what is the appropriate strategy for that? And this strikes me as the most likely strategy that we could pursue to make sure that the world is as free and open as possible. That said, right, as we kind of put on our historian's hat and look back, there are big dangers here. And they're not only dangers on the competition spectrum, but there are real dangers on what happens at home when you are talking about rivalry with China and Asian Americans get caught in the crossfire.

This is not something that we're not going to do, compete with China, but we have to be really careful about our language, right? That's something that we have to be much better at doing than we have been doing. You know, one of the things that the China Watcher community talks about a lot of the time is, let's be really clear, right? What we are talking is the harmful effects of the Chinese Communist Party, not of Chinese people, not of China, not of Asians by any stretch of the imagination.

You know, another thing to be careful about, and Jeremi, I know I'm talking to the expert here, is, look, when we do reach back for that analogy of the Cold War, which both does not work at all and also works in some ways, is during the Cold War, we have to be careful about areas of competition that are unhelpful for the United States, chasing our tail into some areas, right? So yeah, you know, it is both a driver, it's one that will focus the mind, but it's also one that we are in and we have to be very careful about as well.

So one, I think I mentioned before, and look, I wish I had the comprehensive answer on this, because it's so important, right, that we do this so that we are protecting ourselves and our citizens, right, not taking aim at each other. So number one, we need to be really careful. And by we, I simply mean our leaders who talk about this, about what language they use. Don't get loose with the language. Don't say Chinese. You say Chinese Communist Party, right? You say Beijing's actions. We don't say China's actions, right? Because of course, you know, the Chinese people is not what we're taking aim at. No less people of Asian ancestry who reside in this country, no less are productive and valuable members of our society. So number one language, I think is really important.

The second thing which I watched play out in the Australian context, and I think is equally true here, is because we have to be very sensitive of this, that should not shy away from aggressive actions that we need to take to protect our own citizens. And by that, I mean, look, there are racial elements about this because the Chinese Communist Party is trying to use racial elements of this to wedge us, right? To make sure that we don't address this. And one issue that I saw playing out in Australia was if you don't do this, if you don't take care of your own citizens with oftentimes the Chinese Communist Party working inside of constituent communities in Australia, you are relegating your own citizens to second class status, right? Because they're not as worthy of your protection. And that makes for sometimes very uncomfortable conversations, but you need to make sure that you are protecting your own citizens against people who are working within the community but are coming from outside of the country.

If you don't mind, I'll just give an example of this in the Australian context. So many, of course, not all, but many people of Chinese ancestry who reside in Australia permanently read Chinese language media. That makes sense. There's been terrific investigative work that basically all of the Chinese language press is owned by CCP interests except for one. All but one. Which means that they are simply reprinting stuff that comes right out of Xinhua or China Daily.

Second point, when we're text messaging, Weibo, which is one of the apps that is used widely in China and also by Chinese communities overseas, is controlled in Beijing oftentimes. So we saw during some of the elections in Australia that when anything critical was said about the CCP, those messages got shut down in Australia. So again, it's really important when we think about how free societies operate, right? One of them is a free press. But what happens if one particular group isn't getting enough funding, right? Because it's all been sucked up. How do you support a free press in different languages, too, within your countries? I mean, I think this is a really interesting point, and we're just beginning to put our heads around it.

Great question, Jeremi. So I tend to think in order to avoid actual confrontation, we have to show that we are more willing to push back against Chinese aggression than we have been in the past, one. Two, we have to be willing to resource a real competition, right? If we think that, for instance, the commanding heights of the 21st century economy is going to be built around future technologies, AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, we have to be willing to invest in those industries. And that actually means that we're going to be spending a lot more.

You've seen some of this already coming out of the Biden administration. We're seeing calls, I mean, this is, the funny thing is, if you watch Washington at this point, right, we know that there is no bipartisanship whatsoever, except on China. And if you look at some of the major legislation that's been put forth, we have the oddest of bedfellows possible, right? You have the Endless Frontier Act, which is co-sponsored by Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton. You have some of the stuff coming out of the House would see similar alignments of the right and the left. And we're seeing major dollars, I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars that we need behind us. So I would say that if we actually want to be competitive, we have to be willing to spend in these areas, which we haven't been willing to do before.

And so part of that is going to see, and it aligns very nicely where I think the Biden administration is driving for both this reason and others. We're going to see an industrial policy. We are already seeing the beginnings of it, the likes of which we have not seen for two to three decades at this point.

Yes, but. So I do agree that that's a strength, but this takes kind of both ends playing from this. So let me kind of zoom us back into the distant history of like a year and a half ago, two and a half years ago. So look, there are times in our history, and Jeremi, I know you started with this thinking all the way back to 49, there are times when our governments enter more contentious periods with a lot more friction, with a lot more competition. That is undoubtedly what we have entered, and I think it's going to persist for a long time.

So when you enter a period like that, I think wise policy says, look, things are going to get a lot more heated, but let's make sure that this doesn't become the all-out crisis where we can never look at each other again, nor are each other citizens. I.e., let's make sure that people-to-people relations are really firmly connected. Because if the government relations are going off the rails, let's make sure that we have some good seed for the future.

And I think that's really important, some of the points which Zachary raised on that. However, and I think this is a really challenging thing to think about, the CCP's actions have made that much harder to date. Because if you think about this, they have started taking hostages, right? I mean, if we think about the case of the two Canadian Michaels, right? I mean, researchers working in China with long Chinese history, who the Chinese government decided to gain leverage against the Canadian government because they didn't like that Meng had been detained on a Huawei case, and potentially to be extradited to the United States. They just threw them into jail without any charges, and they've now languished in jail for something like 850 days.

This has also happened to Australian researchers. And what we're beginning to see, and Jeremy, I'm sure you could speak to this, is that the risk assessment for universities and think tanks about whether or not they can have relationships in China for the safety of researchers, of academics, and frankly, of students is really just going way up on this point. So I think that people-to-people relations are something that we should be investing and doubling down on right now. But because of the actions that the Chinese government has taken, that has become so much harder at this point

Well, thanks so much for having me on, guys, for a really important conversation. That, look, as China becomes the main thing that we talk about, the most important thing to talk about is why are we talking about it, right? Otherwise, how do we expect people to be willing to compete to make sure that the United States and the values that it stands for are actually protected? So, thank you, guys.