Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

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NOTE: THIS EVENT IS CLOSED TO THE MEDIA 

UPDATE: We will provide a live video stream of the conference on this link: https://youtu.be/5D5QSZi6u2w  Please check back at 2:25 PM on October 2 for the livestream.

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Please arrive 30 minutes early to check-in.  There will be no late seating.  

Sponsored by Freeman Spogli Institute for International StudiesShorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford China Program, and Center for East Asian Studies.

Prompted by the government’s introduction of the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019, Hong Kong has been rocked by intense unrest, its most volatile since the handover in 1997. Millions have taken to the streets and violence has escalated on both sides. Beijing has likened Hong Kong’s demonstrations to the “color revolutions,” and has also condemned the disruptions as “near-terrorist acts.”

In this critical time, our conference will explore questions such as: What are the root causes of Hong Kong’s unremitting protests? Why has this extradition bill generated such intense and widespread reactions? Facing massive governance challenges, what will be the future of Hong Kong? Is there a viable future for “one country, two systems”? How should the U.S. and the international community best respond?

 

Speakers

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The Honorable Anson Chan retired as the Chief Secretary for Administration of the Hong Kong Government in 2001, after nearly forty years of service.  As Chief Secretary, she headed the 190,000-strong civil service.  She was the first woman and the first Chinese to hold the second-highest governmental position in Hong Kong.  During her career in the public service, she was responsible, amongst other things, for development of Hong Kong's economic infrastructure including the planning and construction of Hong Kong's new international airport, which opened in July 1998; port expansion and deregulation of the telecommunications market. Mrs. Chan is Convenor of Hong Kong 2020 - a think tank concerned with transparent and accountable Government, universal suffrage and protection of rights and freedoms enshrined in the "one country, two systems" concept that applies to Hong Kong.

Honors & Awards: 
-  Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (1992) 
-  Grand Bauhinia Medal (1999): the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s highest honor 
-  Honorary Dame Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (GCMG) conferred by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain (2002) 
-  Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award, Tufts University (2005) 
-  Chevalier of the National Order of the Legion d’Honneur conferred by the President of France (2008) 
-  American Chamber’s Women of Influence Lifetime Achievement Award (2016) 
-  O’Connor Justice Prize Honoree (2018) 
-  Justice of the Peace

 

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Harry Harding is University Professor and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Virginia, where he was the founding dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.  He is also Distinguished Adjunct Professor at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Professor Harding has previously held appointments at Swarthmore College, Stanford University, The Brookings Institution, as Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, and visiting appointments at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong.  A specialist on U.S.-China relations, his major publications on that topic include “Has U.S. China Policy Failed?” and A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China Since 1972. He is now writing a sequel, A Fraught Relationship: The United States and China from Partners to Competitors.

 

 

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David M. Lampton is Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Research Scholar at FSI and affiliated with Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC).  He also is the Hyman Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Emeritus.  Professor Lampton's current book project is focused on the development of high-speed railways from southern China to Singapore.  He is the author of a dozen books and monographs, including Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping  (University of California Press, 2014, and second edition 2019) and The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (University of California Press, 2008).  He has testified at multiple congressional and commission sessions and published numerous articles, essays, book reviews, and opinion pieces in many venues, popular and academic, in both the western world and in Chinese-speaking societies, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. 

 

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Jean Oi

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.  She directs the China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in FSI and is the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University.  Professor Oi has published extensively on political economy and the process of reform in China.  Recent books include Zouping Revisited:  Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, co-edited with Steven Goldstein (2018); and Challenges in the Process of China's Urbanization, co-edited with Karen Eggleston and Yiming Wang (2017).  Professor Oi also has an edited volume with Tom Fingar, Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China's Future, Stanford University Press, forthcoming.  Recent articles include "Unpacking the Patterns of Corporate Restructuring during China's SOE Reform," co-authored with Xiaojun Li, Economic and Political Studies (2018); and “Reflections on Forty Years of Rural Reform,” in Jacques deLisle and Avery Goldstein, eds., To Get Rich is Glorious: Challenges Facing China’s Economic Reform and Opening at Forty, Brookings, 2019.  Current research is on fiscal reform and local government debt, continuing SOE reforms, and China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

 

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Ming Sing is associate professor, Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.  His research interests include the comparative study of democracy and democratization, political culture, civil society, quality of life, and Hong Kong politics. He obtained his D.Phil from Oxford University in sociology and has been the author or editor of four books and over thirty articles. His refereed publications can be found in the Journal of Politics, Journal of Democracy, Democratization, Government and Opposition, and Social Indicators Research, among others. He has been working on a book comparing Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement and Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.  He has also been an active commentator on Hong Kong politics, whose comments have been solicited by local and international media including BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, Financial Times, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. He was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship for visiting the University of California, San Diego in 2007, and the POSCO Visiting Fellowship by the East-West Center, University of Hawaii in 2010.

Attendees should enter the campus via Galvez Street and park at the Galvez Lot or other designated, paid visitor parking. See also Stanford’s parking mapNo parking at the Stanford Oval is allowed.

For a summary, video, audio, photos and transcripts of the event, please see the following webpage:

https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news/hong-kong-turmoil-former-chief-secretary-and-scholars-discuss-causes-implications-and-potential

The Honorable Anson Chan <br><i> GBM, GCMG, CBE, JP; Former Chief Secretary of Hong Kong SAR (1993-2001); member of Legislative Council of Hong Kong (2007-2008) </i><br><br>
Harry Harding <br><i>University Professor and Professor of Public Policy, Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia</i><br><br>
David M. Lampton <br><i>Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Stanford University</i><br><br>
Jean C. Oi (Moderator) <br><i>Director, Stanford China Program; William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, Stanford University</i><br><br>
Ming Sing <br><i>Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology</i><br><br>
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A group of more than 100 leading American Asia specialists, former U.S. officials and military officers, and foreign policy experts has signed an open letter calling on President Trump and Congress to develop a U.S. approach to China that is focused on creating enduring coalitions with other countries in support of economic and security objectives rather than on efforts to contain China’s engagement with the world.

The signatories include five FSI scholars: Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow David M. Lampton, FSI Senior Fellow and APARC’s China Program Director Jean C. Oi, CISAC Senior Fellow Scott D. Sagan, and FSI Senior Fellow Andrew G. Walder.

In the letter, published in the Washington Post, the signatories express their concern about the growing deterioration in U.S.-China relations and outline several elements of what they describe as a more effective U.S. policy toward China.

China’s troubling behavior in recent years, the signatories write, presents serious challenges that require a firm U.S. response. The best American strategy “is to work with our allies and partners to create a more open and prosperous world in which China is offered the opportunity to participate.”

China’s engagement in the international system is essential to the system’s survival, argue the signatories, and “efforts to isolate China will simply weaken those Chinese intent on developing a more humane and tolerant society.”

Read the full letter in the Washington Post.


The views expressed by the signatories to the open letter are their own and are not opinion or information of Stanford University or of FSI.

 

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Journalists watch a live broadcast of China's President Xi Jinping speaking during the first session of the G20 summit on June 28, 2019 in Osaka, Japan.
Journalists watch a live broadcast of China's President Xi Jinping speaking during the first session of the G20 summit on June 28, 2019 in Osaka, Japan. President Trump and Xi met at the G20 for the first time in seven months to discuss deteriorating ties between the world's two largest economies.
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Forty years after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, the two superpowers are competing and contesting every arena, from trade to AI research and from space exploration to maritime rights. Instead of what Americans referred to as engagement and Chinese called reform and opening, many experts and analysts now characterize the relations between the two countries as dangerously brittle. Some see a new kind of Cold War in the making. Such assertions, however, argues Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar, “both ignore history and impute a level of fragility that has not existed for many years.”

Fingar reflects on the U.S.-China bilateral relationship in a new article, “Forty years of formal—but not yet normal—relations,” published in the China International Strategy Review. He claims that the relationship is resilient and not destined for conflict, albeit it is beset by a host of aspirational, perceptual, and structural differences.

A political scientist and China specialist who served over two decades in senior government positions, Fingar urges readers to remember that assertions of fragility of the U.S.-China relationship undervalue the strength, scope, and significance of interdependence, shared interests, and constituencies in both countries. These, he says, have a substantial stake in the maintenance of at least minimally cooperative relations.

U.S.-China relations are indeed highly asymmetrical: Chinese citizens and organizations have far greater access to the United States than Americans do to China, notes Fingar. He also recognizes that the troubles that have soured the relationship are more intricate and often more sensitive than those of the past. Decades ago, most of the issues that arose were handled at the governmental level. But now “the number and variety of players with stakes in the relationship and disputes with counterpart actors are much greater.” Furthermore, explains Fingar, the U.S. business community is expressing a stronger voice for government action to change Chinese behavior and is not as consistent an advocate of stability in U.S. policy toward China as it used to be. “This is an extremely important development,” he says, “because it reverses a key dynamic in the U.S.-China relationship.”

Ultimately, however, the two countries and our institutions and people are linked by myriad ties that bring mutual benefits as well as the constraints of interdependence. “I remain confident that we will continue to be able to manage the relationship,” concludes Fingar. He expresses disappointment, though, that normalization of U.S.-China relations remains a work in progress and cautions that merely managing the relationship to prevent it from deteriorating is an unsatisfactory goal that should be unacceptable to both sides. Not only does such a low bar limit what each counterpart can achieve, but it also inhibits the kind of cooperation required to address transnational challenges like climate change, infectious disease, and proliferation of dangerous technologies.

 

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A display for facial recognition and artificial intelligence is seen on monitors at Huawei's Bantian campus on April 26, 2019 in Shenzhen, China.
A display for facial recognition and artificial intelligence is seen on monitors at Huawei's Bantian campus in Shenzhen, China. The U.S. government battle with the Chinese telecom giant represents multiple concerns about China's technological prowess.
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“But as I read what the communist party, what President Xi says, I don't see the same fervor to the ideological dimension of what China is doing around the world...[compared to what] the Soviets were doing.”

It was during the 2019 Oksenberg Conference that FSI Director Michael McFaul made the preceding assessment. Titled On the Brink: A New Cold War with China, the conference sought to explore the causes underlying today’s intensified conflict between the United States and China. McFaul was joined on stage by APARC's Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow David M. Lampton and China Program Director Jean Oi. Their panel followed an earlier fireside chat featuring keynote speaker Dr. Condoleezza Rice.

Rice, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, opened the program with a wide-ranging conversation with Oi regarding our rapidly deteriorating trade relations with China. Among other topics, Secretary Rice drew contrasts between our current tensions with China and the Soviet-era Cold War; the potential sources of China’s increasing nationalism; and what the appropriate U.S. policy responses could be.

Condoleezza Rice (right) listens on as Jean Oi addresses the audience

Dr. Jean Oi (left) and Dr. Condoleezza Rice

Audio recordings and transcripts of the formal remarks by McFaul and Lampton are available below.

The annual Oksenberg Conference honors the legacy of Professor Michel Oksenberg. A renowned China scholar and senior fellow at Shorenstein APARC, Professor Oksenberg served as a key member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council, guiding the United States towards normalized relations with China and consistently urging that the U.S. engage with Asia in a more considered manner.

 

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Jean Oi and Mike McFaul listening to David Lampton speak at Oksenberg Conference
Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow David M. Lampton (right) responds to an audience question, as China Program Director Jean Oi (left) and FSI Director Mike McFaul listen on.
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We are delighted to announce that APARC’s Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow David M. Lampton is the recipient of the 2019 John and Vivian Sabel Award for best article published in the Journal of Contemporary China (JCC), for his article “Xi Jinping and the National Security Commission: Policy Coordination and Political Power.”

Lampton’s article discusses the rationale for, and progress to date of, creating a National Security Commission in China. First announced in late 2013, the commission was part of Xi Jinping's drive to consolidate his personal power over the internal and external coercive and diplomatic arms of the governing structure. Lampton argues that it remains to be seen whether the institutional attempt to achieve coordination will improve, or further complicate, China's long-standing coordination problem.

The John and Vivian Sabel Award was launched in 2016 to celebrate publication of the 100th issue and the 25th anniversary of the JCC. Dr. Lampton’s article was published in Volume 24, Issue 95, 2015.

An award reception and dinner will be held at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver on April 30, 2019.

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U.S.-China relations has reached a watershed moment.  Even as both nations reassess the trajectory of their bilateral relationship, James Green, who recently served as Minister Counselor for Trade Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, takes a close look at critical points in the history of U.S.-China negotiations: from anti-Soviet coordination to nonproliferation, from the Tiananmen crackdown to cyber theft, from China's WTO accession to G20 summits.  James Green is the creator of Georgetown University’s new initiative, the U.S.-China Dialogue Podcast and has conducted in-depth interviews with two dozen former U.S. cabinet secretaries, ambassadors and senior officials regarding pivotal events in U.S.-China relations.  Mr. Green will explore how U.S. Administrations from Carter to Trump have dealt with a rising China; what motivated them, and what the lessons are for future administrations.  Based on his time as the senior official in China from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), furthermore, Mr. Green will also speak about the prospects for future trade friction with China.

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James Green has worked for over two decades on U.S.-Asia relations. For the last five years, Mr. Green was the Minister Counselor for Trade Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.  As the senior official in China from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Mr. Green was deeply involved in all aspects of trade negotiations, trade enforcement, and in reducing market access barriers for American entities.  In prior government service, Mr. Green worked on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff and at the State Department’s China Desk on bilateral affairs. He also served as the China Director of the White House’s National Security Council.  In the private sector, Mr. Green was a senior vice president at the global strategy firm founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and was the founding government relations manager at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, Asia’s largest AmCham.  Currently, Mr. Green is a Senior Research Fellow at Georgetown University's Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues and hosts a U.S.-China Dialogue Podcast.   

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James Green <i>Georgetown University</i><br><br>
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In her acclaimed book The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State, Chinese domestic and foreign policy expert Elizabeth Economy argues that Xi Jinping’s dual-reform trajectories—a more authoritarian system at home and a more ambitious foreign policy abroad—provide Beijing with new levers of influence that the United States must learn to use to protect its own interests.
 
Economy, the C. V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, kicked off the China Program’s 2019 winter colloquia with a discussion of the transformations underway in China today and the future of U.S.-China relations.
 
Speaking to a packed audience, Economy described how, in the process of pursuing his vision of the rejuvenation of the Chinese dream, Xi Jinping has upended much of Deng Xiaoping’s "second revolution" and has put in motion four significant strategic shifts in Chinese domestic and foreign policy.
 
The first shift is a move away from Deng’s consensus- and collective-based decision-making process back toward a more single-man, authoritarian role. The second is a reassertion of the Chinese Communist Party more deeply into the everyday political and economic lives of the Chinese people. The third is a creation of a virtual wall of restrictions and regulations that allows Xi and the rest of the Chinese leadership to control more closely what comes into the country and what goes out. The fourth shift, the most visible one to people outside China, is the move from Deng’s low-profile foreign policy to a far more ambitious foreign policy.
 
This foreign policy shift, said Economy, is especially noteworthy in three areas: first, in Xi’s move from staking claims around Chinese sovereignty to realizing them; second, in his Belt and Road Initiative; and third, in his effort to reform institutions of global governance so that they reflect Chinese values and norms.
 
How should the United States address these changes in China’s domestic and foreign policy? Economy listed four ways of response: first, cooperation, namely, collaborating with China on global problems such as those concerning public health or the environment; second, coordination with U.S. allies; third, countering China by pushing back on, for example, its South China Sea claims and incidents of intellectual property infringement; and finally, competing with China by investing domestically in areas including education and research and technological development.
 
Listen to Economy’s discussion. A transcript is also available below.
 

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Elizabeth Economy speaking at a podium Thom Holme
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President Trump’s trade war has infected every domain of Sino-American relations. For better or ill, Washington appears poised to dismantle China’s interdependence with the American economy, limit its role in global governance, counter its investments, and block its technological advances. How and on what terms will this end?  The answer will depend on the capacity of the United States and China for statecraft and the effectiveness of each in raising its competitiveness. What challenges might hostile Sino-American coexistence entail for each nation?  Which country is best positioned to develop the steadiest strategies, most purposive economic policies, and the most supportive relations with other states? 

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Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. He is the former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs (1993–1994), ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1989–1992), principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs (1986–1989), and chargé d'affaires at Bangkok (1984–1986) and Beijing (1981–1984). He served as vice chair of the Atlantic Council (1996-2008); co-chair of the United States China Policy Foundation (1996–2009); and president of the Middle East Policy Council (1997–2009). He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's path-breaking 1972 visit to Beijing, the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica article on diplomacy, and the author of America’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East; Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige; America’s Misadventures in the Middle East; The Diplomat’s Dictionary; and Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. A compendium of his speeches is available at chasfreeman.net

This event is part of the China Program’s Colloquia Series entitled "A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations " sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program.

A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

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Trade conflict has exploded. The media is rife with stories of China’s unfair trade practices, cyber theft, IP theft and forced technology transfers. Who will first scale the commanding heights of technological supremacy? Who will be the first mover in AI, robotics and biotechnology? What are the implications of Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure projects, including its Belt and Road Initiative? How is China’s “sharp power” deployed, and what are its implications for political and civic life in the U.S.? Can the Trump administration and Beijing’s leadership reach agreement on our trade disputes? Are these just the beginning salvos of an increasingly turbulent future? As U.S. policy towards China sharply veers away from “constructive engagement” to “strategic competition,” the Stanford China Program will host a series of talks by leading experts to explore the current state of our bilateral relations, its potential future, and their implications for the world order.

https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/china/research/new-cold-war-sharp-power-strategic-competition-and-future-us-china-relations

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr.
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On November 29, 2018, a working group, co-chaired by Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Hoover Institution, and Orville Schell, Arthur Ross director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, released the report “Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance," which documents the extent of China’s influence-seeking activities in American society. The report details a range of assertive and opaque “sharp power” efforts that China has stepped up within the United States in multiple sectors. These, argue members of the working group, penetrate deeply the social and political fabric of our democratic society and exploit its openness. 

APARC’s Donald K. Emmerson and Thomas Fingar provided the Chinese international affairs website Dunjiaodu with their own commentaries on the report. English language versions of both pieces were published by IPP Review (here and here), and are provided below.

APARC also hosted a special roundtable discussion of the report's findings and recommendations, featuring Diamond and Schell. You can listen to the event's audio recording on our website.


Comment on "Chinese Influence and American Interests"
By Donald K. Emmerson
December 24, 2018

Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance is an important and timely report. It deserves translation into Chinese and wide circulation inside the PRC. It should be made available on-line for free downloading by people in China from all walks of life, including scholars, teachers, authors, entrepreneurs, and officials from Beijing down to the lowest levels of administration throughout the country. Relations between the US and China are far too important to the citizenries of our two countries to restrict access to the report to a miniscule proportion of China’s population—the elite English-reading few who enjoy privileged (uncensored) exposure to critical facts and comments regarding the Chinese government’s behavior abroad.

I willingly attended a meeting of the Working Group on Chinese Influence Activities in the United States. My academic specialty is Southeast Asia, including its relations with China, so I chose not contribute text to the report. Understandably, not every sentence in its the 199 pages exactly matches what I might have preferred to read or decided to write. (Relevant is my “Singapore and Goliath?” in the April 2018 Journal of Democracy.) But I supported the Working Group’s work and I agree with its outcome.

Included in the report is a dissenting opinion by Susan Shirk. I respect her view. But I am less concerned than she that the report risks “putting all ethnic Chinese under a cloud of suspicion.” The word “constructive” in the report’s subtitle explicitly conveys the Working Group’s desire neither to stereotype nor denigrate people of Chinese descent. At the meeting I attended, this wish was repeatedly expressed. I endorse and appreciate the editors’ caution that, alongside our critique, we “must be mindful to do no harm,” and that the report should not be misused to disparage ethnically Chinese people, who have indeed, as the editors state, made “enormous” contributions to American progress. I would merely enlarge that gratitude to include the economic, political, and cultural benefits attributable to ethnic Chinese individuals, historically and now, throughout the world—my own specialty, Southeast Asia, notably included.


"Flies and Barriers": On the China-U.S. Relationship
By Thomas Fingar
December 20, 2018

The recent report of the Working Group on Chinese Influence Activities in the United States was not timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Reform and Opening and the restoration of US-China diplomatic relations but it provides “teaching moment” opportunities for reflection on the ways in which China and the United States have managed the challenges of deeper engagement. I hope that the full report will be available in China and urge readers of this commentary to read it and to think about the issues it raises. I had no role in the preparation of the report but concur with the views expressed by Susan Shirk in her dissenting opinion.

One cluster of issues centers on important asymmetries in the US-China relationship. The report describes numerous ways in which Chinese entities interact with institutions and individuals in the United States and correctly notes the almost complete absence of legal and procedural impediments to such interaction. One cannot say the same about China. Four decades into the era of reform and opening, China remains far less open to foreign ideas, interaction, and influence than is the United States. I encourage readers to ask why that is the case and to consider the consequences and implications for China’s future development. To paraphrase Deng Xiaoping, the concerns raised in the Working Group report represent “flies” that entered the United States through the window of extensive engagement with China. The report calls for dealing with the flies, not closing the window. China seems increasingly determined to prevent the intrusion of foreign “flies” by erecting (or failing to lower) barriers.

Asymmetries in access are not limited to the dimensions of US-China relations discussed in this report. The US economy remains far more open to goods, investment, and ownership from China than China is to comparable forms of engagement by Americans. For decades, US laws, policy, and citizens accepted — even fostered — such asymmetries to strengthen our allies and partners. China has benefitted from this asymmetry, as have dozens of other countries. Policies to make our partners and allies stronger and more prosperous were designed to — and did — enhance American security and prosperity, but almost three decades after the end of the Cold War, many Americans understandably ask why we continue to accept such a high degree of inequality. What made sense during the Cold War and before our partners became stronger and more prosperous now seems unfair and unwise. As a result, American thinking about the ways we interact with other nations is shifting from acceptance of asymmetries to demands for reciprocity and equal treatment.

Some Chinese commentaries on the Working Group report have asserted that it reflects waning self-confidence and fear of China’s rise. Such assessments are wrong. Belief that we should receive essentially the same treatment from other countries as they accord to the United States and American citizens, firms, NGOs, and other entities reflects the strength of our commitment to fairness, not fear of competition. The long-held consensus that US policy should treat all countries (except explicit enemies, which China was from 1950 until the late 1960s) equally regardless of how they treated the United States has eroded significantly. That consensus is being replaced by calls for stricter reciprocity and treating other countries in the same way that they treat us. This sentiment is not limited to engagement with China but the Working Group report captures the emerging consensus by noting that Chinese media have far greater access to the United States than American reporters, newspapers, and broadcasts have to Chinese audiences. That is a fact, not an expression of paranoia or lack of confidence. Indeed, readers of this commentary might reflect upon why it is that China seems to lack confidence in the ability of its people to make their own judgments about foreign ideas and compete with foreign firms.

I was in China when the report was published and many Chinese interlocutors depicted its findings and recommendations as “proof” that the United States had abandoned engagement and reverted to containment policies designed to thwart China’s rise. Both their characterization of the report and their assertions about American policy are wrong. None of these interlocutors had read the report (their opinions were based on negative commentary), and I suspect that many would change their assessment if they had a chance to do so. I also suspect that many in China would change their minds about whether the United States is attempting to “contain” China if they had access to more — and more accurate — information about American willingness to acknowledge and manage the “flies” of engagement and Chinese efforts to erect barriers to Western ideas.

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Thomas Fingar and Donald Emmerson, aong with cover of Chinese Influence Report Rod Searcey
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