This article originally appeared in the Korean daily newspaper Munhwa Ilbo on January 2, 2023. It was translated from Korean by Raymond Ha.

In an exclusive interview for the Munhwa Ilbo, Stanford University professors Gi-Wook Shin and Francis Fukuyama had a conversation on a wide range of topics including the war in Ukraine, U.S.-China competition, and North Korea policy.

The world faces a crisis of political leadership as each country pursues its own interests. Fukuyama stressed the importance of robust international institutions, instead of relying solely on great leaders. He pointed to NATO and the U.S.-Korea alliance as examples of institutions that uphold the liberal international order. In terms of the U.S.-China competition, he said without hesitation that “a democracy like Korea…has to make the decision that it is going to be on the side of democracy.” Fukuyama also noted that in the event of an armed confrontation over Taiwan, Korea would almost certainly be pulled in, given the significant U.S. military presence there. He was skeptical about prospects for progress over North Korea, pointing to the long history of failed negotiations and the lack of viable alternatives. “Not every problem has a solution,” he said.

Gi-Wook Shin, who led the interview, observed that the global decline of democracy appears to have hit a turning point, “although it’s too early to say if there will be a rapid recovery…or a more gradual shift.” As for the state of democracy in the United States, he said, “We will have to wait and see what happens in the 2024 presidential election.” Even though Trump’s political influence may be weaker, he observed, “pro-Trump forces are still part of the system.” In terms of Korea’s foreign policy, Shin emphasized that Seoul “should take [the Taiwan] problem much more seriously.” A crisis in the Taiwan Strait “could become the biggest challenge for the Yoon administration’s foreign policy, not North Korea,” and domestic polarization over China policy is one issue that could threaten to “become extremely controversial.”

The interview was held in-person for one hour at Stanford on December 8, 2022, with a follow-up interview held over the phone on December 27.  

[Gi-Wook Shin] Let’s start by looking back on 2022. How would you summarize this year?

[Francis Fukuyama] I think 2022 was a very good year, where we may have bottomed out in this global move away from democracy and toward authoritarian government. The year really started out in February with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which looked very, very threatening. China was on a roll. It looked like they were beating everybody in terms of COVID policy. Then, by the end of the year, the Russians got completely bogged down. China experienced mass protests, and there were protests also in Iran. In America’s elections on November 8, all the pro-Trump forces failed to make gains and, in fact, lost almost everywhere. I think that maybe we will look back on 2022 as the year when this democratic recession that has been going on for over 15 years finally bottomed out.

[GWS] I agree, although it’s too early to say if there will be a rapid recovery toward democracy or a more gradual shift. In the United States, we will have to wait and see what happens in the 2024 presidential election. Former President Trump may be weaker politically, but pro-Trump forces are still part of the system. As for the Ukraine war, many people thought Russia would win quite easily, but now it looks like they are struggling. It’s a big question, of course, but how do you think the war will be remembered in history?

[FF] I think that it is going to be remembered as one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by a great-power leader in a very long time. I think that the mistake is directly due to the nature of the political system. You remember that Vladimir Putin was sitting at the end of this 25-foot table with his defense minister because he was so afraid of COVID. He was extremely isolated during the whole pandemic, and he had already isolated himself in a political system where he doesn’t face checks and balances. That kind of decision-making system makes you prone to make even bigger mistakes, because you don’t have other people to test your ideas against. He was completely uninformed about the degree to which Ukraine had developed a separate national identity and that the Ukrainian people were willing to fight for it. He didn’t have any idea how incompetent his own army was. If he had been in a more democratic country that required him to share power with other people, I don’t think he could have made that kind of mistake.

[GWS] Putin is struggling, as you said. There are a lot of problems in China, but Xi Jinping secured a third term. Authoritarian leaders elsewhere still hold power. By contrast, I don’t think President Biden has shown powerful leadership at home or globally. I don’t see any strong political leaders in the U.K., France, or Germany either.

[FF] I think that although Xi Jinping may succeed in stabilizing the situation in China with the protests over COVID in the short run, he is in a lot of trouble. He was creating all this social instability with the zero-COVID policy. Now that they’ve started to relax it, I think the number of cases and deaths is going to go up very dramatically, but I don’t think they’ve got much of a choice. I think this has probably damaged the people’s sense of Xi’s authority and legitimacy, and I’m not sure he can recover from that.

The most important thing is the breakdown of the Chinese economic model. For the past decade, the Chinese model has been to pump a huge amount of money into the real estate sector. That model is collapsing. The other big problem is that they don’t have economic growth anymore. Some economists think that they’re actually in a recession, with negative growth. This is like what Japan went through in the 1990s. So much of the Chinese government’s legitimacy has been based on having extremely high growth rates, and that period is over. I don’t see how they get it back, and they certainly won’t by inserting the state into every economic decision and controlling their high-tech sector. Their population is shrinking now. I’m not sure that Xi Jinping, in the longer run, is actually going to look like a very effective leader.

[GWS] But in the short term, say the next three to five years, won’t authoritarian leaders be powerful in comparison? Just as “America First” shows, some say there is a crisis of political leadership among Western democracies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany.

[FF] I think that apart from President Zelenskyy in Ukraine, we don’t see any really inspiring leaders in Germany or France or the United States. On the other hand, the nice thing about democracy is that it’s an institutional system for managing change. Biden has turned 80, and Trump himself is in his upper 70s. The leadership in Congress and the Democratic Party are all elderly, but they’re all about to change. In the next election cycle, there is going to be a whole new generation of people that are up-and-coming. I don’t think you need a charismatic leader with great vision, necessarily, to run any of the countries you mentioned.

[GWS] Another question is if the United States can provide global leadership. When Trump was defeated, there was a strong expectation for the Biden administration to restore global order and to do much better than its predecessor. I’m not sure whether that’s happening.

[FF] Again, I think that’s why you want to have international institutions rather than being dependent simply on leaders. This gives an institutional basis for continuity in policy. There are all of these alliance structures, like NATO. People thought that NATO was obsolete and was going to go away. It has actually proved to be very durable. The United States has security ties with Korea and Japan that also are quite old, but they’re still durable. It’s interesting that the authoritarian countries have not been able to create anything comparable to that set of alliances. There is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), but all the Central Asian states don’t want to be part of this China-Russia dominated organization. We can’t just depend on great leadership.

[GWS] To add on to that, I think Korea should proactively participate in upholding and creating an international order that facilitates a resurgence of democracy. Korea has not really played this role before, but with the 10th largest economy in the world, it is now in a position to play a positive role.

[FF] There is a set of values that underpin America’s alliances, both in Asia and Europe. Throughout the whole Cold War, the Soviet Union never actually invaded a Western democracy, but that’s what Russia did. NATO has suddenly become very relevant once more. I think that both in Korea and Japan, there is also recognition of a comparable challenge from an authoritarian China. Unless all democracies work together and show solidarity with one another, they could be picked off by these two authoritarian powers.

[GWS] There is a lot of debate about whether China is going to invade Taiwan or not. I have a two-part question. First, could the situation in Ukraine reduce the possibility of China invading Taiwan? Second, if China still invades nevertheless, what should Korea do? This is a difficult question for Korea. It cannot say no to the United States as a military ally, but at the same time, it cannot antagonize China. I think this is the most difficult question for Korea at the moment.

[FF] This is a difficult question for the United States because it’s not clear that Congress or the American people actually want to go to war with China in order to save Taiwan. I think if you ask them a polling question stated like that, probably a majority would say, “No, we’re not going to send our troops to die.” But I think it’s likely that the United States will get dragged into such a conflict one way or the other. Among other things, the Chinese would probably have to preempt some of the American forces that are in the theater. American military personnel will get killed as the Chinese attack unfolds, and I think there will be a lot of political pressure to help Taiwan.

[GWS] How much can the United States be involved? Some in Korea are skeptical that Washington will step in.

[FF] This is really the problem. During the Cold War, we had a good idea of what a war would like look like if it actually happened. The military planning was very concretely designed against certain types of escalation. With China, we don’t have a clear set of expectations for what escalation would look like. It could just start with a Chinese invasion. It could start with a blockade. It could start with something in the South China Sea. It could actually start on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea doing something. If it happens, it’s going to be much more devastating than the war in Ukraine. So much of global production comes out of Asia, and there’s a strong incentive not to let things get out of hand. Whether we have the wisdom to do that is not clear. I also think that people’s expectations and opinions will change once the conflict begins. The moment people see cities being bombed, they will change their minds.

[GWS] I also think that a conflict over Taiwan would affect the American people more directly than what is happening in Ukraine. What’s your view on how seriously Korea should be taking this possibility?

[FF] It is likely enough that it is absolutely important for everyone to take it seriously and plan against it. What you want to do is deter China from taking any military action against Taiwan. They’re not going to be deterred unless they see that there’s a response on the other side that is going to raise the cost for them. That’s not going to happen unless people take the scenarios seriously and start thinking about concrete ways that they could help Taiwan or stymie any kind of Chinese attack. I think it is very important for Korea to think this through and think about ways they could support Taiwan and be part of a larger alliance that can push back against China.

[GWS] I keep telling my friends and colleagues in Korea that they should take this problem much more seriously. Taiwan could become the biggest challenge for the Yoon administration’s foreign policy, not North Korea. China policy has become an extremely divisive partisan issue in South Korea, and it could tear the country apart. What advice would you have for President Yoon?

[FF] There’s two things. First is the rhetorical position. Korea should make its position clear in advance that it would oppose Chinese military action and would support the United States, for example. Korea is going to get dragged into this because so much U.S. military equipment is in Korea, and that is going to be moved in closer to the theater. I think making that position clear in advance is important.

The other thing that’s been very clear from the Ukraine war is that democracies are not prepared for an extended conflict. Everybody is running out of ammunition in Europe and the United States is running low on certain types of ammunition. The Ukrainians have used so much of it just in the 10 months they have been fighting. I think that any high-intensity conflict in East Asia is also going to be very costly in terms of supplies. South Korea is in a better position than other countries because it has been preparing for a North Korean attack for decades. Everybody needs to be prepared for an extended conflict. It may not be over in 48 hours.

[GWS] Koreans are quite nervously watching the ongoing escalation of tensions between the United States and China. In the past, the paradigm was “United States for security, China for the economy” (an-mi-gyeong-joong). Now, security and the economy are linked together. The Yoon government is promoting the strengthening of the alliance with the United States, but South Korea faces the fundamental problem of how to position itself as U.S.-China tensions escalate. Do you have any wisdom for Korea?

[FF] I don’t know if it’s wisdom, but I think Korea needs to take a clearer position. Under the previous government, there was a belief that Korea could somehow be halfway between China and the United States. That’s just not a tenable position. The tension between the United States and China has really been driven by China ever since 2013, when Xi Jinping took power. China has become a much more severe dictatorship internally, and it has become much more aggressive externally. You see the influence of the Belt and Road Initiative and the militarization of the South China Sea. In the last 10 or 15 years, China has been picking fights with India, Japan, Korea, and all of Southeast Asia over territorial issues. They built the size of their military much more rapidly than any other great power in that period of time. As a result, the United States and other countries have simply reacted to this. I think that a democracy like Korea cannot pretend that it is somehow in between the United States and China. It has to make the decision that it is going to be on the side of democracy.

[GWS] I agree that an-mi-gyeong-joong is now obsolete, but I think that South Korea must be more sophisticated in its response. As they say, the devil is in the details. On the economy, Seoul can actively work with Washington on areas closely related to security, but it can still partner with Beijing on sectors that are not. There can be a fine-tuned policy.

I now want to ask about North Korea and U.S. policy. I have been saying that the Biden administration policy is one of “strategic neglect,” not the “strategic patience” of the Obama administration. Kim Jong-un keeps testing missiles and provoking, and South Koreans are puzzled by the lack of response from Washington. Why is that? Is it because all the attention is on Ukraine and China?

[FF] Not every problem has a solution, and I don’t think this problem has a solution. You could use diplomacy. You could use military force. You could use deterrence. There are a limited number of possible approaches, and I think none of them are going to work. There has been a long history of negotiation. That has not worked. I think confrontation is not going to work. I think preemption is certainly not going to work. I just don’t think there’s a good solution, so we’ve ended up with trying to ignore the problem by default. Part of the reason North Korea is launching all of these missiles is that they want people to pay attention to them. Ignoring the problem is not much of a solution either, but it’s not as if there is a better solution.

[GWS] I agree with you that for many people in government, North Korea has been a hot potato. You don’t want to touch it because there is no clear solution, and it won’t help your career. But if we just ignore the problem, then five years later it’s going to be worse. What kind of North Korea are we going to face in five or ten years?

[FF] Everybody has been hoping that something would happen internally. It’s fine to think that, but it’s also not taking place. That said, Kim Jong-un is obese and unhealthy. Who knows what might happen?

[GWS] Let’s now turn to domestic politics here in the United States. I think many Americans were relieved by what happened in the midterm elections last month. Trump’s influence was much more limited than what people thought. But he’s still there, and he’s likely to run again. I think he is still a strong candidate for the Republicans.

[FF] He declared his candidacy, but I think that he is declining very rapidly in influence. We have had four elections now where he was playing a major role in the Republican Party. In three of those elections, he really hurt his own party. He can stir up a third of the electorate that loves him, but it’s never enough to win an election, especially in a swing state. I think he’s gotten crazier in recent months. He is doing so many self-destructive things, having dinner with neo-Nazis and repeating all these conspiracy theories. These are things that no rational candidate would do. The Republicans are going to want somebody that can actually beat the Democrats, and I don’t think it’s going to be him.

[GWS] You don’t expect a rematch between Biden and Trump in 2024?

[FF] This gets into a technical issue, but the Republican primaries are mostly winner-take-all primaries. Any candidate that can get 30% of the vote is likely to be nominated. If you have a Republican field that has several people competing, they may split the alternative vote and Trump may end up winning. I think he still has a good chance of being the Republican nominee. If you’re a Democrat, that’s not the worst thing in the world. It is probably easier to run against Trump than a more normal Republican candidate.

[GWS] Two years is still a long time in politics. You said that Trump is likely to be nominated. Would Biden also run again?

[FF] I think that Biden is going to run again. Part of the problem is in the Democratic Party. It’s not clear who the successor would be. There are a lot of potential new-generation politicians, but I don’t think any of them has enough presence and attention that they can clearly take over the mantle to run as the Democratic candidate. If there is a rematch, I think Biden will win.

[GWS] Now to South Korea. Last June, I did some interviews advocating a parliamentary system, and they received good attention. There is still a lot of hesitancy among Koreans, though. I think there are a few reasons. The first is that we need a strong presidential system to deal with North Korea. There’s no stability if the prime minister keeps changing. Second is that it may drive politicians closer to big business (chaebol) because there’s less direct accountability. What would you suggest for South Korea in terms of institutional reform?

[FF] There are several possibilities even short of a parliamentary system. You can coordinate the presidential and parliamentary terms. It’s still the case that the president has a five-year term, but the legislature is on an even-year term. If you want to have strong government, you need a president that has majority support in the legislature. If they get elected simultaneously on a regular basis, you’re more likely to see strong leadership emerge. In a presidential system, the legislature itself is a check against the president. If you don’t have a strong majority in the legislature, you can’t do anything.

[GWS] That is what is happening right now in Korea.

[FF] In a parliamentary system like the British one, if you have a majority in parliament, you can do what you want. I think the presumption that somehow a presidential system is inevitably stronger than a parliamentary system is not historically correct.

[GWS] Is a parliamentary system maybe one solution to political polarization?

[FF] Sometimes a parliamentary system will have that effect, but the kind of plurality voting system that we have in the United States and in Britain tends to promote polarization. To the extent that you make it possible for third parties to run, that’s probably a better system. If you have more parties and it becomes harder to get a majority in the legislature, that forces coalitions and some degree of power sharing.

After U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping recently met face-to-face for the first time since Biden took office on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, Biden said he absolutely believed “there need not be a new Cold War” between the two powers. International politics scholar and expert on U.S.-China relations Jia Qingguo, however, is not as certain about this assessment. “If a Cold War between the two countries has not arrived quite yet, it no longer appears far away,” said Jia, a professor at the School of International Studies at Peking University.

Jia, the Fall 2022 Payne Distinguished Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a visiting scholar at APARC, headlined this quarter’s Payne Lecture, speaking to a packed audience that gathered on December 6 for a timely discussion titled Avoiding Disaster in U.S.-China Relations, co-hosted by APARC and FSI.

The Payne Lectureship at FSI, named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, aims to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community and advance international cooperation. The lectureship brings to Stanford internationally esteemed leaders from academia and the policy world who combine visionary thinking and a broad, practical grasp of their fields with the capacity to provide insights into pressing challenges of global concern. Throughout the 2022-23 academic year, the Payne Lectureship hosts experts from Asia who examine crucial questions in U.S.-China relations.

Professor Jia is uniquely qualified to assess the prospects of U.S.-China relations and offer perspectives from both inside and outside of China, said Jean Oi, director of APARC’s China Program and a senior fellow at FSI. Jia has published widely in both Chinese and English, taught at multiple international institutions, and earned a doctorate from Cornell University. He is engaged both with China’s academic and policymaking circles in his roles as vice president of the China American Studies Association, vice president of the Chinese Association for International Studies, and a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Consultative Conference.

Jia’s address was followed by a panel discussion with Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar, an expert on China and U.S. foreign policy, and FSI Director Michael McFaul, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies at Stanford’s Department of Political Science.

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Intensifying Rivalry

The use of the Cold War analogy in the context of the U.S.-China competition has gained currency in recent years among politicians and policymakers. Until recently, however, explained Jia, the U.S.-China relationship did not manifest the three prominent features that characterized the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union: ideological competition, military confrontation, and economic separation. This reality is changing. “Now, between the two countries, ideological competition is taking shape, military confrontation is emerging, and although economic relations remain close, efforts to delink the two economies, especially in the hi-tech sectors, are increasing,” Jia said, noting the Biden administration’s ban on semiconductor exports to China, China’s increasing efforts to develop indigenous technologies, and the intensifying military tensions over Taiwan.

Why has the relationship frayed in this way? Jia enumerated several factors of particular relevance. The first is the influence of the Thucydides Trap argument, popularized by Harvard political scientist Graham T. Allison to describe a potential conflict between the United States and China. The idea draws from the Greek historian’s metaphor of the concomitant dangers when a rising power challenges a ruling power, as when Athens challenged Sparta. Under the influence of this line of argument, said Jia, almost any action by the United States and China is perceived and interpreted as an effort to prepare for an eventual showdown.

For example, Americans who subscribe to the Thucydides Trap argument interpret China's growing defense spending as military buildup aimed at challenging American military supremacy, and its Belt and Road Initiative and aid programs as schemes designed to facilitate its grand geopolitical ambitions. Similarly, for Chinese who subscribe to this line of argument, the central objective of U.S. diplomacy is to contain China, Freedom of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea are designed to undermine China's territorial sovereignty, and U.S. criticism of China's human rights practices is intended to create political instability in the country. “People who subscribe to the Thucydides Trap argument in both countries cite each other’s views to support their argument and push for more confrontational policies in both countries,” argued Jia. “Such efforts have a significant impact on the bilateral relationship.”

The second factor elevating tensions between the two world powers is their different political value systems, Jia explained. For a long time, China’s Communist system was no hindrance to the development of the U.S. China policy framework of engagement. Perhaps this was the case because China was weaker and many U.S. policymakers believed that political liberalization in the country would follow its integration into the international system, Jia theorized. In recent years, however, Americans have come to recognize that China did not change in the direction they had anticipated. Now, said Jia, former supporters of engagement as the foundation of U.S. China policy feel disappointed and see China as a threat to the U.S.-led liberal international order. Against this backdrop, the Chinese leadership also feels the need to elevate ideology at home. The emphasis on the contrasting ideologies between the two countries “is bad news for the bilateral relationship," Jia stated. “If the relationship is about interests, then we can always negotiate and compromise, but if it’s about values, then it becomes a conflict of good versus evil” which leaves no room for pragmatic solutions.

Jia sees the role of Donald Trump as a third significant factor in leading U.S.-China relations to a collision course. Unlike previous U.S. presidents, he noted, Trump was willing to get tough on China and push the limit of the bilateral relationship regardless of the cost to the United States. Jia enumerated Trump administration policies and actions such as setting tariffs and other trade barriers on China, restricting people-too-people exchanges between the two countries, launching what some perceive as technological warfare against China, blaming China for the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and raising suspicions against Chinese nationals in the United States. With this approach, said Jia, the Trump administration “pushed the relationship between the two countries to the brink of total breakdown.”

But the U.S.-China relationship is no better under President Joe Biden than it was under his predecessor, largely due to domestic politics, Jia said. Legislation aimed at countering China's growing influence is one of the rare topics that gets bipartisan support in the polarized U.S. Congress, he noted. On the Chinese side, many people are frustrated by what they perceive as negatively skewed China coverage in U.S. news media. Chinese officials have become increasingly confident to adopt a more strident, assertive approach, a turn in Chinese foreign policy that has been branded “wolf warrior diplomacy.”

Altogether, these elements have exacerbated negative interactions and heated exchanges between the two countries. To avoid a disastrous conflict, the two countries should focus on shared interests and remember that international stability is one such common interest, Jia believes. “We are all stakeholders of the existing international system,” he said, “so we need to take a more balanced view of the nature of our relationship.” Areas of potential cooperation, such as climate change or non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, offer a glimpse of hope for improved bilateral engagement.

Additionally, he noted, the two countries should build consultation mechanisms to manage conflicts of interest in areas such as trade disputes, the right to conduct military and reconnaissance activities along the coasts of other countries, human rights issues, and more.

Yet Jia admitted that the United States and China should build guardrails for the relationship to avoid military accidents and confrontations. Here, however, a potential conflict over Taiwan is a thorn in the side of both countries. “To China, the issue of Taiwan is like a way of life,” Jia noted, “so no leader can compromise on it and stay in power.” Guardrails in U.S.-China relations should therefore go beyond agreement on protocols to encompass U.S. assurance on Taiwan, he said.

Alienated Constituencies

In his comments, Thomas Fingar pointed out that Jia’s main argument ultimately means that blame for the difficulties in the U.S.-China relationship rests more or less entirely with the United States and that “everything that China does, and has done recently, is in response to American actions.” In reality, however, the relationship is affected by a complicated mix in which both countries respond to each other’s actions and changes in the global environment, he said.

Fingar also challenged the importance Jia assigned to the role of the Trump administration in deteriorating the bilateral relationship. “By the time the Trump administration took office,” Fingar said, “virtually every constituency that had been built over previous decades had been alienated by Chinese actions.” These actions, he stated, include, among others, imposing intellectual property pressures to transfer technology; refusing to open segments of the Chinese economy as had been committed in advance of its WTO membership; restrictions on American journalists and access to American news media; and passing the Overseas Non-Governmental Organization law, which aims primarily at reducing the influence of foreign actors on Chinese domestic affairs by requiring foreign organizations to register with the Ministry of Public Security and have an official Chinese sponsor.

As a result, by 2016, said Fingar, “every constituency that had been thought of as a pillar of maintaining stability in the relationship had been alienated.” Thus, although one can debate Trump's approach to China, the approach was not simply a matter of his personality and the underlying issues it set out to address were real. According to Fingar, this dynamic also explains why the Biden administration has kept a tough stance on China.

On one point Fingar agreed with Jia: the strains in the U.S.-China relationship are here to stay in the near term. There is currently not much pressure in the United States to improve the relationship, Fingar said, and it is probably easier for the United States to get along with the strained relationship than for China. “For domestic economic and stability reasons, China needs improvement in the relationship more than the United States does,” he concluded. “China should, therefore, have more incentive than Washington to try and improve the relationship.”

Misperceptions and Non-Events

Michael McFaul reminded the audience of the limits to framing the U.S.-China relationship through a Cold War lens. The most fundamental difference between the present situation and the Cold War era, he noted, is the U.S.-China economic interdependence and China's integration into the global economy. Most Americans now see China’s stake in the global economy as a threat, McFaul said, but the situation may also hold opportunities for relationship management that we did not have with the Soviet Union. Certainly, there are opportunities to learn from significant mistakes both the United States and the Soviets made during the Cold War era.

The three biggest mistakes of the United States during that period, according to McFaul, were overestimating the Soviet ideological threat globally, and therefore overreacting to it; at times, overestimating Soviet military power; and partnering with autocratic entities that, in retrospect, "we did not need to do to win the Cold War." These offer important lessons for the United States, said McFaul, as we think about competing with China in ways that protect U.S. interests, values, and well-being. “We don't have to do another round of McCarthyism. We don't have to fight another Vietnam war to be successful in managing the competition with China today.”

The Soviets, too, made several big mistakes, McFaul explained. First, they feared Communist reformers so much that they launched three invasions: of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1981. Moreover, in the late Cold War period, the Soviets gave up on reform at home to focus on investing resources in projecting power abroad. “I see this mistake happening right now,” McFaul said, “when I look at China’s 20th Party Congress.” Finally, Brezhnev’s overreach in Afghanistan was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. Overreach, McFaul noted, is an important lesson for China’s current leaders.

McFaul closed his remarks with reflections on perceptions and misperceptions. The Thucydides Trap in U.S.-China relations is real, he said, and so is the ideological competition between the two powers. To argue otherwise would be naïveté and misperception. The challenge for academics and policymakers is twofold, he stated. First, there is the daunting question of what can be done to stabilize the relationship and what evidence or signaling either side could use to determine whether the other’s actions pose a real threat or are merely being misperceived as an ideological threat. “We can never allow a disagreement based on bad information and misperceptions. And I worry that there's too much of that going on in U.S.-China relations,” he said.

Another compounding question is whether China is indeed a status quo power that has a shared interest in the international order. Either side should be worried about the revisionist actions the other is initiating in the international system, McFaul noted. “There is, however, one issue on which both sides must be status quo powers, namely, Taiwan — and I think this is the challenge to avoiding disaster.” The greatest achievement of American and Chinese diplomacy today, in McFaul’s view, is the absence of war over Taiwan. “We should think more about the conditions that lead to non-events,” he said. “You cannot be a status quo power and invade Taiwan. That's a contradiction. I want to believe that we both have an interest in avoiding war in Taiwan. I want to know how we can make, on both sides, a more credible commitment to that non-event,” he concluded.

It remains to be seen whether a sufficient sense of urgency and high stakes can avert the downward spiral in U.S.-China relations. Jia’s somber assessment is that tensions will continue to define the bilateral relationship in the coming years. A potential conflict over Taiwan in particular remains a stumbling block, and if the current trend continues, he said, then “there is a chance that the two countries may have to downgrade diplomatic relations.”

The Payne Lectureship will return in 2023, continuing with the theme of Asian perspectives on the U.S.-China relationship. In the winter quarter, we will host Shin Jung-Seung, former ambassador for the Republic of Korea to China and currently chair professor and managing director of the East Asia Institute at Dongseo University. And in the spring, we will be joined by Kokubun Ryosei, professor emeritus at Keio University and adjunct adviser at the Fujitsu Future Studies Center. We invite you to join us at the next installments of the Payne Lecture series featuring these two distinguished Payne fellows.

In 2004, when Stanford sociologist Xueguang Zhou deliberated on his next research project, he realized he had grown out of touch with China as radical reforms were enacted and massive economic growth transformed the nation. So he immersed himself in fieldwork in a northern Chinese rural township to see the changes firsthand.

That fieldwork led Zhou to delve into the workings of China’s massive bureaucracy in an attempt to answer the question: How is China governed? The empirically-informed theoretical framework Zhou developed to address this question is the subject of his new book, The Logic of Governance in China: An Organizational Approach (Cambridge University Press). We spoke with Zhou, the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and APARC faculty, about the book and some of the insights it offers into the institutions and mechanisms in the governance of China. Watch the conversation:

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How does policy formulated in Beijing translate to and get executed at local levels? The problem of how to govern China from a centralized seat of power has been, as Zhou says, “a fundamental tension” for thousands of years. Beijing tends to move “decision rights and resources” to the center, although these are exactly what is needed for effective governance at the local level.

Through his years of fieldwork, Zhou was able to develop a “bottom-up kind of approach to understanding how China has been governed by macro policies [...]  implemented through local bureaucrats.” This approach, he says, is largely missing from studies of contemporary Chinese society, which tend to focus on Beijing’s top-down decision-making. Zhou’s framework explains how — given the fundamental tension between Beijing’s “all-encompassing role” and local governance — domestic policy gets effectively carried out at the municipal or even village levels.

A Paved Road to Every Village

One phenomenon through which Zhou looks at how national policy translates to the local level is the case of the “Paved Road to Every Village” (PREV) project. When this project was launched by the provincial government in 2004, there were ample large highways in the region, but villagers were still forced to traverse rutted dirt roads that were prone to flooding in the rainy season, a clear obstacle to growing the agricultural economy. 

Project funding, however, was complicated. Beijing was supplying 70,000 renminbi (RMB) per kilometer of road, but the actual cost was RMB 240,000/km, so villages had to come up with the rest (for context, the average per capita annual income in the region was 3,000 RMB). Facing such a deficit, many villages simply refused to take part in PREV. Zhou’s fascinating case study looks at two village leaders — one entrepreneurial, one reluctant — who decided to take up the challenge.

To explain how projects like this get funded in China, Zhou expands on Hungarian economist Janos Kornai’s concept of “soft budget constraints.” Kornai saw that in a socialist economy, state ownership of enterprise meant that factories or companies experiencing financial difficulties had to be rescued by the state. As Zhou explains, the “concept is upward, demanding new resources” from the state. In the Chinese context, however, local authorities move downward to, for example, the companies in their region. That’s why Zhou calls the phenomenon inverted soft budget constraints: at the local level, officials attempt to enlist private enterprises to underwrite government projects. Why would they be willing to do that? Businesses understand that if they do fund such projects, then the officials will later provide “privileged access” to the resources for other government projects.

This reliance on local enterprises to accomplish national programs illustrates another important lesson for Zhou, who says that the growth and energy of the Chinese economy have not been a result of direct government activity, but rather the government has made use of “private entrepreneurs [...] to participate in this kind of public project, financing, and development.”

This process, however, does not always work as expected. Officials can end up compelled to rely on informal social ties to purchase required items like cement, sand, and equipment on credit, which can incur huge collective debts that the village is unable to repay. In the end, these debts can do great harm to the financial viability of small villages. This sort of ad hoc funding is problematic, Zhou observes, because both entrepreneurs and villagers “want to live in a more certain environment,” where necessary projects are well-financed, rather than resorting to a desperate attempt to gather resources by any means possible.

The Distribution of Authority in the Bureaucratic State

In another case study, one that looks at environmental regulation, a doctoral student Zhou had been directing was embedded in a municipal environmental protection bureau during the implementation of a five-year plan by the central government’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) to control sulfur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand (an indicator of water pollution level). 

Such plans translate to thousands of projects nationwide, making the task load impossibly large for the central government to handle alone. To explain how authority rights are distributed among levels of government Zhou developed a “control rights” theory. In this case, that means the central government (principal) would retain the right to set pollution goals, the provincial bureau (supervisor) might retain the right of inspection, while the local governments (agents) might have the right to performance appraisal and incentive provision. Zhou holds that these control rights are distributed according to the different modes of Chinese governance, ranging from “tightly controlled,” where the central government retains all rights, to a federalism mode, where all rights are given away to the supervisor level.

Bargaining and Collusion

Zhou uses this and ancillary models to understand bureaucratic coping behaviors. One of those is bargaining. He offers examples of how municipal or county officials reacted to poor pollution inspections by bargaining with the provincial levels and redirecting blame to others, often successfully changing report results in their favor. 

Another strategy is collusion, which he argues “has become an informal but highly institutionalized practice,” one that is “common knowledge.” This was witnessed, for example, during provincial family-planning inspections. To prevent possible fraud or manipulation of data, provincial inspectors would have teams conduct unannounced “sudden attack” inspections. But local officials used “guerrilla tactics” to surveil and disrupt the provincial team’s efforts. Upon discovering that a provincial inspection team has arrived, local officials might record the team’s license plate numbers and share those with other officials elsewhere, and then begin shadowing them, providing mobile phone updates on their routes and possible next destinations.

Other collusive strategies might include the manipulation of data, or even ranking counties with good performance at the bottom of a list so that they are more likely to be the ones inspected, with the result being a glowing report

Zhou’s goal is not to expose these behaviors but to understand them. If we look closely at apparently contradictory bureaucratic patterns and cases, he says, then “we can theorize about the rationales behind why they behave this way, and under different circumstances, they behave differently.”

Protest in the Chinese Context

In the last part of his book, Zhou looks at how individuals and social groups respond to authoritarian rule. How can large-scale collective action arise in China, where organizing outside of state-sponsored collective actions is forbidden? Zhou answers that the state — by imposing similar conditions across the country and reducing the majority of Chinese citizens to the same level — fosters the cultivation of similar grievances. At some point, this erupts into open protests, or alternatively, what Zhou calls “collective inaction,” like noncompliance with official campaigns. 

The recent protests in China against COVID measures are a perfect example of this phenomenon. After years under the strict zero-COVID policy, masses of Chinese citizens have similar grievances, leading to open protests. Zhou observes that “China’s zero-COVID policy is an example of campaign-style mobilization, a political instrument that Beijing has routinely deployed to achieve policy objectives and to reassert control at the local level.” But with this approach, there is a danger that local officials can become overzealous. In the case of the COVID pandemic, officials have been highly motivated to avoid responsibility for outbreaks.

A Threat to China’s Charismatic Leaders

Another idea in Zhou’s book is that of charismatic leadership, which he asserts is “essential to the legitimacy of the Chinese state.” The Chinese Communist Party must continue to persuade citizens that they must “put all [their] power into the hands of one person or one ruling party.” As the deification of Xi Jinping in recent years shows, this is accomplished by depicting the leader and party as all-knowing and possessing “a mighty power to do all the right things.”

​​"Every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret," political economist and sociologist Max Weber wrote in his treatise Economy and Society. The 'official secret' is the source of power and the specific invention of bureaucracy, he said, “and nothing is so fanatically defended by the bureaucracy as this attitude.”

Zhou’s empirically-informed findings and unified theory, however, shed light precisely on the secretive workings of the Chinese bureaucracy. This may explain why the original Chinese version of Zhou’s book, published in 2017, was “unshelved” after its initial print run, a euphemism for withdrawing a book from circulation and essentially making it disappear. When asked what he thought was the reason for the book’s disappearance from the Chinese market, Zhou invokes Weber’s idea of disenchantment, and suggests that by revealing the logic behind China’s governance, his book was “probably a threat to China’s charismatic leaders, and also to the Leninist party, the very foundation of that party governance.”

This essay originally appeared in Korean on October 27 in Sindonga (New East Asia), Korea’s oldest monthly magazine (established 1931), as part of a monthly column, "Shin’s Reflections on Korea." Translated by Raymond Ha. A PDF version of this essay is also available to download.

How should Korea navigate this turbulent landscape? For some time, experts and policymakers called for relying on the United States for security while partnering with China for the economy (an-mi-gyeong-joong). This paradigm is now obsolete.[4] The Yoon administration has proclaimed a values-based foreign policy to strengthen solidarity between liberal democracies. In his opening statement at the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh on November 11, President Yoon reiterated Korea’s support for “strengthening a rule-based international order built on universal values” to foster “freedom, peace, and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific.[5]

Will this approach be sufficient, however? Conflicting trends in Korea’s domestic public opinion complicate the picture. On the one hand, anti-China sentiment is worsening by the day, even surpassing anti-Japan sentiment. At the same time, there are also growing complaints about the United States, especially after the exclusion of consumer tax credits for Korea’s electric vehicles in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Taking these developments into account, this essay seeks to explore the path ahead for Korea by analyzing the nature of U.S.-China tensions and assessing the durability of Pax Americana.

Heading into Thucydides Trap?

U.S.-China relations are widely characterized as “Thucydides Trap.” The Peloponnesian War is regarded as one of the main reasons behind the decline of ancient Greek civilization. Thucydides, an Athenian general and historian, famously wrote that the fundamental cause of this war was due to Spartan fears over the growth of Athenian power. Drawing from Thucydides, international relations theorists have used the concept of a Thucydides Trap to explain tensions between a rising power and a status quo hegemon. Graham Allison, a professor of political science at Harvard, popularized this concept by applying it to Sino-U.S. relations in Destined for War. Beginning from the clash between Portugal and Spain in the late 15th century, Allison notes that there have been 16 instances where an emerging power challenged the hegemonic power. There was a war in all but four cases. When an emerging power is strong enough to challenge the hegemon, this creates structural stresses that frequently lead to a violent conflict.

Based on his analysis of the historical record, Allison warns that the rift between the United States (America First) and China (the Chinese dream) is much wider and deeper than most people perceive it to be. There is now a heightened risk of an armed confrontation between the two countries over Taiwan. Nevertheless, the likelihood of a catastrophic hegemonic war still remains low. Instead, there is likely to be a prolonged conflict and competition between Washington and Beijing centered on advanced technologies.

Made in China 2025 and the Chinese Dream

The U.S.-China trade war began under the Trump administration. Made in China 2025 (MIC 2025), a policy roadmap published by the Chinese government in 2015, drew the attention of the United States and other Western countries. In its opening paragraph, it states that “building an internationally competitive manufacturing industry is the only way China can enhance its comprehensive national strength, ensure national security, and build itself into a world power.”[6]

From the emphasis on “the only way,” it is clear that MIC 2025 is not just an industrial policy. It is an integral element of China’s national security strategy. Under this plan, China seeks to achieve progress in advanced manufacturing technologies such as big data, information technology, aerospace, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology. The goal is to become the world’s leading manufacturing power by surpassing the United States.

After MIC 2025 sparked controversy in the West, the Chinese government has refrained from referring to it in public. Nonetheless, it has continued to implement this policy in practice. At the 2021 Lianghui, the concurrent annual meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Conference, the Chinese government strengthened its resolve to reduce its dependence on U.S.-led global value chains as it sought to develop advanced technologies. Specifically, it emphasized the economic policy of dual circulation, which aims to raise domestic consumption while expanding exports of high value-added goods to foreign markets.

The advanced technologies that China is focusing on have potential military applications. For example, drones, artificial intelligence, and facial recognition technology can be used for reconnaissance satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles. China is pursuing military-civil fusion through the Military-Civil Fusion Development Committee, chaired by President Xi. This indicates that Xi intends to personally oversee China’s ambitious efforts to challenge the United States. At this year’s Lianghui, Xi stressed that China is in a strategically advantageous position in its deepening competition with the United States. Furthermore, he unveiled a plan to achieve his “dream of a strong military” by modernizing China’s armed forces through mechanization and the use of advanced information technology. Despite a slowdown in China’s economy, Xi increased defense spending by 7.1 percent.[7]

Those who analyze Xi Jinping’s character classify him as an ideological purist, a true believer of socialism. He sees a historic opportunity for China to become a global superpower, and believes that it is his calling to realize socialism in the 21st century. Unlike his predecessors, he does not shy away from conflict with the United States. In a September 30, 2022, essay in Qiushi, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leading theoretical journal, Xi stated that “today, we have never been so close to achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and we have never been more confident in our faith and ability to achieve this goal.”[8] Only two weeks before the CCP’s 20th party congress, where he would secure a third term as general secretary, Xi stressed the need for strong leadership to prepare for the intensifying competition with the United States.

Under Xi’s leadership, the CCP is driven by the zeitgeist of the Chinese dream, of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The goal is to make the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the most powerful economic and military power in the world. The emphasis on achieving this goal by 2049 is no coincidence, as it will mark the centennial of the CCP’s victory in the Chinese Civil War, where it defeated the Kuomintang and established the PRC. This timeline also aligns with Xi’s vision of building an advanced socialist country by 2050, which he proclaimed at the 19th National Congress of the CCP. China has a truly ambitious vision, one that leaves the United States no choice but to respond.

From America First to Made in America

When Donald Trump proclaimed “America First” as his slogan in his bid for the White House, his primary target was China. He blamed China for the loss of American jobs, claiming that the United States was suffering greatly from China’s unfair trade practices and interference in markets. This message bolstered his support among white blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt, as they had witnessed a dramatic decline in manufacturing jobs. This enabled him to win key swing states in the Midwest, leading to his victory in the 2016 election.

Upon entering office, Trump consistently maintained a hardline policy against China. For example, the “Secure 5G and Beyond Act of 2020” passed the House 413–3 and cleared the Senate on March 6, 2020. The intent of this law was to create a “whole-of-government approach” to protect America’s telecommunications networks from national security threats posed by Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE, which played a major role in the rollout of 5G networks across the world.[9] His administration increased government oversight of Chinese investment in or acquisition of U.S. tech companies and scrutinized partnerships between American universities and Chinese entities. It tightened visa review procedures for students and visiting scholars from the PRC. It also designated Confucius Institutes in the United States as a “foreign mission” that “[advances] Beijing’s global propaganda and malign influence campaign on U.S. campuses and K-12 classrooms.”[10] All of these measures stemmed from a recognition that China was rapidly closing in on the United States. The National Intelligence Council estimates that if current trends continue, China will surpass the United States to become the world’s largest economy between 2030 and 2035.

The American public’s view of China has continued to deteriorate after Trump left office. According to Pew Research, 47% of respondents held a negative view of China in 2018. This surged to 60% in 2019 and 82% in 2022.[11] Despite a transfer of power to the Democrats in 2020, the overall orientation of U.S. policy toward China has remained unchanged. Under the banner of “Made in America,” the Biden administration has carefully crafted a dense web of policies aimed at China.

In the past three months alone, there have been a raft of legislative and executive measures that encompass semiconductors, electric cars and batteries, and biotechnology. This includes the CHIPS and Science Act (August 9), the IRA (August 16), and an Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation (September 12). These steps are intended to check China’s rise and promote the growth of America’s advanced technology and clean energy sectors. The CHIPS and Science Act sets aside $52.7 billion dollars for America’s semiconductor industry.[12] Companies that receive subsidies under this law are barred from expanding operations or otherwise investing in China for the purpose of manufacturing advanced semiconductors.[13] As noted below, certain provisions of the IRA will also have significant ramifications for Korea’s exports of electric cars to the U.S. market.

As it undertakes a series of legislative steps at home, the Biden administration has pursued multilateralism abroad. This is a key difference from Trump, who preferred bilateral arrangements. The Biden administration is seeking to institutionalize economic and technological alliances through initiatives such as IPEF and the Chip 4 alliance, and it is encouraging Korea and other allies to participate. By stressing intellectual property rights and China’s unfair economic practices, strengthening its own technological capabilities, and reinforcing relevant international norms, Washington is compelling Beijing to operate within a U.S.-led international order. Even in Silicon Valley, where anti-China sentiment is not as deeply rooted as it is in Washington, there are serious concerns about the risk of Chinese industrial espionage and intellectual property theft. There is a palpable hesitation among start-ups to accept funding from Chinese investors. Chinese investment in America increased throughout the 2000s until reaching a peak of $46 billion in 2016. This plummeted by almost 90% to $5 billion in 2018, due in part to political tensions.[14]

Will Pax Americana Endure?

Since the beginning of Pax Americana in 1945, there have been three challenges to America’s status as a global hegemon: by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Japan in the 1980s, and China in the present day. The Soviet Union engaged in a tense military confrontation with the United States for decades, but collapsed in the late 1980s due to the limitations and internal contradictions of its communist system. Japan once threatened to displace America from the apex of the global capitalist order, but lapsed into the “Lost Two Decades” after its economic bubble burst in the early 1990s. What can we say about the future of China, which is engaging in fierce competition against the United States? In short, I believe that China will not surpass the United States in our time.

Those who predict that China will eclipse the United States point to economic trends. China surpassed Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second-largest economy. It also became the world’s largest exporter in 2014, when its gross domestic product exceeded 60% of U.S. GDP. In purchasing power parity terms, China has already leapfrogged the United States. Both present-day statistics and long-term economic trends point in one direction. If the Chinese government makes a concerted effort to invest in key strategic industries, as outlined in MIC 2025, it is certainly feasible for China to surpass the United States to become the world’s leading manufacturing power by 2049.

However, China still lags far behind the United States in many areas, including military power. In absolute terms, for example, its defense spending is only one-third of what the United States spends on its military. There are also a host of political, social, demographic, and economic challenges that hamper China in its campaign to attain global supremacy.[15] Xi’s aggressive anti-corruption campaign is an indication of widespread corruption in Chinese society. There are also serious human rights issues in Tibet and Xinjiang, and the three Ts of Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen cannot be openly discussed. China’s problems extend beyond its borders. With a land border of nearly 14,000 miles with 14 countries, managing territorial disputes is a tall order. There are also tensions with its maritime neighbors in the South China Sea. China’s efforts at public diplomacy have been unsuccessful, as can be seen from the widespread rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea and other countries.

Amidst these challenges, Xi Jinping secured a third term as president at the 20th party congress on October 16. Since Deng Xiaoping, China has managed leadership transitions in a relatively stable fashion. Under a system of collective leadership, the leader served two five-year terms and appointed his successor in advance. These practices created a certain degree of predictability, stability, and transparency, thereby facilitating  China’s dramatic economic growth and making it powerful enough to compete with the United States. Xi Jinping has sharply broken from this tradition as he seeks to become a 21st-century emperor.

Some argue that China is destined to become an imperial power. However, it will be difficult for a fast follower such as China to build an empire. In general, a country must be a first mover or trendsetter to become a hegemonic power. For example, in the corporate sector, Xiaomi may catch up to Samsung, but can it replace Apple? Tech companies such as Alibaba and Baidu have achieved rapid growth thanks to a sizable domestic market, but they have emulated the business models of Amazon and Google. They have not created a new, transformative platform. China’s growth was enabled in no small part by talented individuals who studied abroad and then returned home to apply their experiences and insights. As China closes its doors to the outside world, it is also limiting its potential to become a leader in innovation.

Furthermore, China is failing to serve as a role model for other countries. Except for a few countries in Africa and Asia, the Belt and Road Initiative has yet to yield meaningful results. If anything, anti-China sentiment is deepening across Europe, North America, and Asia. While the Soviet Union had the communist bloc, China lacks a reliable group of allies. China has indeed achieved remarkable growth in the past 30 years, presenting lucrative economic opportunities for individuals and companies in China and abroad. However, talented individuals across the world would arguably prefer to study, work, and live in the United States than in China. Japan’s postwar growth inspired a “Japan boom,” a desire to study and emulate Japan. There is no comparable “China boom” to speak of.

Rich Mandarins

The Palo Alto area, where I have lived and worked for over two decades, has some of the highest housing prices in the United States. A small condo, which is equivalent to an apartment unit in Korea, costs over $1 million. Since I moved to Stanford in 2001, the Bay Area has seen three significant surges in housing prices. The first two waves resulted from a sudden increase in wealth among young tech workers when Google and Facebook went public. On the other hand, the third surge is said to be related to Chinese residents. Locals call these individuals, who purchase high-end housing in cash, “rich mandarins.”

This group includes company founders and investment professionals, as well as entrepreneurs who have listed their companies on New York’s Stock Exchange. They are mostly in their 50s, and they played a critical role in China’s economic growth through their contributions to the IT sector. Although they have amassed an enormous amount of wealth, they are anxious about China’s prospects and the country’s uncertain political future. They are also worried that the government could seize their companies or their individual property. Their families have already moved to America, and they conduct business by shuttling between China and the United States. Some have left China in search of a new life and career.

As long as those who have attained success in China eventually end up in the United States, China cannot become the world’s leading superpower. These individuals are voting with their feet. Professor Wang Jisi of Peking University has said that “the day the U.S. truly declines is when visa lines in front of its consulates are no longer crowded.”[16] There is pessimism even among China’s economic elite about the country’s future, especially as Xi Jinping further tightens political control under a one-man dictatorship.

For China to surpass the United States and lead the international order, we should see the opposite. Instead of China’s elites rushing toward the United States, there should be an outflow of American elites to China. Only then can we truly speak of a Pax Sinica. In addition, countries across the world should seek to emulate the Chinese model, not the American model. Based on my own knowledge and experience, I am convinced that the likelihood of such trends emerging in the next 20 or 30 years is vanishingly small. It is thus realistic and reasonable to expect Pax Americana to continue into the next generation, with clear implications for Korea’s foreign policy going forward.

An Empire of Liberty

The United States is a hegemonic power that wields unparalleled influence across the world. It exercises its economic and military power to uphold its political, military, and cultural dominance. Institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF are critical elements of Pax Americana, as are programs such as the Peace Corps and Fulbright Scholarships. During the War on Terror, the United States sacrificed many lives and trillions of dollars in prolonged conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over the past 100 years, the United States took part in 35 wars, large and small.It will likely be recorded as the country that has participated in the most armed conflicts. Pax Americana appears to be much more robust than Pax Romana or Pax Britannica.

For these reasons, Korea’s progressives criticize American imperialism and advocate for cultivating closer ties with China. We should ask, however, whether a Pax Sinica would be preferable to Pax Americana.

Compared to that of the Soviet Union or present-day China, America’s empire is far more sophisticated. History also tells us so. Although the United States is criticized at times for failing to live up to its proclaimed values, it has shown the strongest commitment to democracy and human rights of any superpower. In an ideal world, the international order would be built solely on sovereign equality. However, any superpower will seek to construct its preferred international order and defend it using various levers of power, including the use of force. To maintain its global hegemony, the United States has effectively deployed a mixture of hard power, soft power, and smart power.

Based on historical experience and a critical analysis of the current state of the world, it would be dangerous to presuppose that Pax Sinica will displace Pax Americana anytime soon. From Korea’s standpoint, it would be unwise to call for strategic ambiguity or for maintaining an equidistant posture between the United States and China. As previously noted, the paradigm of an-mi-gyeong-joong is no longer viable.[17] The Yoon administration’s clear articulation of its intent to build a values-based alliance with the United States and other liberal democracies is commendable. In fact, there are only a handful of countries other than Korea—Israel, Canada, and Australia—that have both a defense treaty and a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States. Korea must foster relationships with these countries, which are a valuable diplomatic asset.

At the same time, it would be imprudent to focus only on abstract values and neglect vital economic or security interests. Let us consider a recent example. Korea’s leading conglomerates—including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor Group, and SK—have pledged to invest $26 billion in the United States this year alone. However, the recently passed IRA only provides consumer tax credits to electric vehicles manufactured in North America. There is deep disappointment and anger in Korea, as this creates a significant disadvantage for Korea’s auto companies. To put it bluntly, Korea’s companies are paying the cost of the Korean government’s failure to address stark economic realities.

If the Yoon administration indeed seeks to reduce Korea’s economic dependence on China, it should have a roadmap to strengthen economic ties with the United States while protecting Korea’s own interests. As the United States brings economic security to the forefront, Korea should devise a strategy to avoid repeating the same mistake. Furthermore, even if Korea partners with the United States in advanced technologies that affect national security, it can still maintain economic relations with China in other sectors, including retail, consumer goods, and manufacturing. For values-based diplomacy to be successful, it must be upheld by interest-based diplomacy.

In Search of a Non-Partisan Foreign Policy

In this context, it is worth closely examining two recently published columns regarding the IRA controversy. The first is an op-ed entitled “Yoon Has Been Played by the United States” (September 20) by Park Hyeon, a senior columnist at the progressive Hankyoreh. The second is an op-ed entitled “The IRA Undermines Trust in the Alliance” (September 26) by Lee Mi-Sook, a well-known conservative commentator, in the Munhwa Ilbo.[18] As former Washington correspondents, Park and Lee both have firsthand knowledge of America’s inner workings. Park’s column focuses on criticizing the Yoon administration, while Lee’s piece expresses concern about a weakened U.S.-Korea alliance. Nevertheless, they both show that U.S. policies aimed at China could spark anti-American sentiment in Korea.

Park writes that “the United States, under the banner of economic security, is tying its allies and friendly countries into a U.S.-led economic bloc, weakening China—the hegemonic challenger—while seeking a revival of its domestic manufacturing industry.” He begins from the premise that “this kind of protectionism is harmful for open, export-driven economies such as Korea.” With full knowledge of this state of affairs, Hyundai Motor Group pledged to invest more than $10 billion in the United States, expecting its cars to be granted subsidies in return. Instead, it was given the cold shoulder. Park adds that “the Presidential Office fell into disarray” and missed a golden opportunity to raise these concerns with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who visited Korea shortly after the final text of the IRA was released on July 27. This failure is characteristic of Yoon’s foreign policy, Park concludes.

In her column, Lee writes that “the IRA could once again imperil the U.S.-Korea alliance, which faced a serious crisis under the Trump administration.” She goes on to say that “the exclusion of Korean electric vehicles from subsidies, despite the ‘national treatment’ clause in the Korea-U.S. FTA, is raising suspicions about an underlying lack of concern for Korea in the United States.” Moreover, she adds that “there are signs this dispute over subsidies could turn into something far worse—a question of hurt national pride.” She warns that “if America fails to show flexibility and sticks to the original provision of the IRA, this will not only erode Koreans’ trust in the alliance, but also provide political fodder for progressives (former pro-democracy activists) to stoke anti-Americanism.” In closing, Lee calls upon the United States “to consider Korea’s view of the situation and act in a way that honors the spirit of the U.S.-Korea alliance.”

As these op-eds indicate, both progressives and conservatives are openly expressing their concern about the United States’ failure to show adequate concern for Korea. It is commendable for the Yoon administration to focus on strengthening the U.S.-Korea alliance and building solidarity around shared values, but it must also call on Washington to reciprocate Seoul’s efforts. For instance, as Lee Mi-Sook notes in her column, Korea could suggest an amendment to the IRA to apply subsidies to electric vehicles produced in countries that have an FTA with the United States. Policy missteps could lead to a resurgence of anti-American sentiment in Korea, putting the Yoon administration in a political quagmire. The controversy over the IRA may be the first of many such issues, especially if the Biden administration intensifies its “Made in America” policy.

To overcome the unforgiving realities of Korea’s foreign policy environment, the Yoon administration must be able to rely on a robust domestic consensus and strong popular support. Foreign policy requires a high level of expertise. Some issues have to be resolved behind the scenes, with experts and government officials playing a leading role. That said, foreign policy should not be left entirely in the hands of policy elites, and it should not be a partisan political football. On several occasions, minor incidents during President Yoon’s recent overseas visits received undue attention in the press and became the subject of ridicule back home. This is entirely unnecessary. For example, take the controversy surrounding a hot mic moment during a visit to New York in September.[19] Looking from the outside in, it is difficult to understand why the whole country became engulfed in a bitter partisan debate about a trivial gaffe. Little attention was paid to the substance of the visit.

It is vital to establish a norm whereby important foreign policy issues are addressed in a non-ideological, non-partisan manner that garners broad public support. To do so, the Korean government must increase transparency in its decision-making process when it comes to major issues. It must also endeavor to gather and incorporate public opinion in foreign policy, so that the public does not feel unduly detached from the policymaking process. Governments across the world now recognize domestic public opinion as a critical element of their foreign policy strategy. Diplomacy cannot be effective without public support. Korea’s diplomats, who are in the trenches of international diplomacy, need all the support they can get.

There is no telling when Korea might be battered by a perfect storm in its foreign policy, given the current state of U.S.-China relations. As Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warn in Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, the race between the United States and China may end up being a sprint, not a marathon. This decade may be the most dangerous period in U.S.-China relations. In the early 20th century, Korea lost its sovereignty after failing to establish a coherent foreign policy, with different factions supporting China, Russia, and Japan. Upon liberation in 1945, extreme ideological confrontation split the peninsula in two. Korea cannot afford to make the same mistake again.