Credit:  commons.wikimedia.org/ White House photo Public Domain /  U.S. President Donald Trump (left) and Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping (right) meet in Hamburg, Germany in July 2017.

By Gary Raynaldo   DIPLOMATIC TIMES

CHINA is the most populous nation on the face of the earth with 1.4 billion people. The Asian country has the second largest economy in the world behind the United States and is increasingly asserting itself in multiple spheres around the  world. The U.S.-China relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, one that will help and shape and define the 21^st century, declared Richard N. Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, at the beginning of the CFR’s annual lecture on China Tuesday Feb. 19, 2019  in New York City. Titled ‘The Future of U.S.-China Relations’, the lecture sought to shed new light on one of the most complex subjects in contemporary foreign policy.

President Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China Was Major Diplomatic Breakthrough

Credit: wikipedia public domain /  President Nixon meets with China’s Communist Party Leader, Mao Tse- Tung, Feb. 29, 1972 in the People’s Republic of China.  The historic visit is remembered as an important strategic and diplomatic opening that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration’s resumption of harmonious relations between the United States and China after years of diplomatic isolation. The seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC; Nixon’s arrival in Beijing ended 25 years of no communication or diplomatic ties between the two countries and was the key step in normalizing relations between the U.S. and China. TODAY,  China’s efforts to militarize outposts in the South China Sea, its growing economic power, and influence in Africa and other regions of the world are concerns. The Trump Administration is also deeply entrenched in a nasty Trade War with China.

Photo by Gary Raynaldo  / The Inaugural C.V. Starr & Co. Annual Lecture on China: The Future of U.S.-China Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York Feb. 19, 2019.

Photo by Gary Raynaldo / Robert Haas, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, making introductory remarks at The Future of U.S.-China Relations lecture Feb. 19, 2019.

Photo by Gary Raynaldo / The Future of U.S.-China Relations Panel from left to right: Elizabeth C. Economy, director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, Stephen A. Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Ely Ratner, executive vice president and  director at the Center for a New American Security, and Nicholas D. Kristof, columnist for the New York Times, and former Times correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo.

Economy kicked off the  lecture by referencing Wang Jisi, who she said is one of China’s most renowned scholars of U.S.-China relations.

“And in an interview not too long ago, he said that the reason that U.S. policy has changed toward China is because China’s policy has changed. And I think the point that he’s making is that Xi Jinping really has upended our understanding of sort of the Deng thirty years of reform and opening up and has created a new model of Chinese politics both at home and in terms of Chinese foreign policy that really has necessitated a rethink and a reset in U.S. policy. So I think that, you know, a good half of it—responsibility rests with both countries for where we’re at, but I do think there’s been a fundamental shift in the way that China is conducting itself at home and abroad, both in terms of it being much more repressive at home.”

Photo by: Gary Raynaldo /  Ely Ratner, (left) executive vice president and  director at the Center for a New American Security, and Nicholas D. Kristof, columnist for the New York Times.

Regarding President Trump’s China policy, Economy said, “I think you’ve got a foreign policy bureaucracy in this administration that is probably the toughest on China that I’ve seen across the board—you know, through the NSC, Defense, et cetera—and a Congress that’s also.”

Orlins said there were what he described as “exaggerations” coming from the Trump Administration’s analysis of  China as an economic threat to the United States.  Orlins noted a headline in the NY Times last Friday that  stated that ‘Trump’s claims were misleading, exaggerated, or false’.

“Now, of course, it was referring to the border wall. It could have been referring to kind of what they’re talking about on China, that what we’re seeing is a serious of false, exaggerating, and misleading claims. But when we brand them a strategic competitor, when we have a National Defense Strategy which says: We need to spend what it takes to defeat and deter this, quote, “revisionist” power—I can talk about the absurdity of branding China a revisionist power here—that diverts spending from what we really need to compete with China to the strategic side. It rewards what President Eisenhower would call the military-industrial complex for this and punishes social programs, education, infrastructure investment. So what we’re seeing is an exaggeration which has terrible policy consequences for America.”

Stephen A. Orlins

The U.S-China Competition Is about American Competitiveness:  Ely Ratner 

“What I like to say, American—the U.S.-China competition is about us. It’s about American competitiveness. It’s no longer about changing China. That’s what the old policy was about. This is about getting our own economics, our own technological, and innovation, and social system, and immigration in place to be our best selves. So I think there’s a big difference between talking about a competitive strategy in sort of a militant, confrontational strategy, versus one that’s seeking to make American strong again,”   Ratner  stated .

However Orlins disagreed with Ratner’s thesis  of American competitiveness with China:

“And the increase of the Defense budget to 700 billion…  Part of it justified based upon confronting China? Is that good for America? Does that make us strong? Does that rebuild our educational system? Does that rebuild our infrastructure?”  Orlins.

Economy responded:   “I think we often do ourselves and our understanding of China a disservice by framing everything as this U.S.-China, you know, bilateral competition or the Thucydides trap, or however you want to put it, because when you look around the world you find out that many other countries are facing similar challenges and adopting similar policy responses in terms of their relationship with China. So whether you’re talking about European countries looking at revising some of their investment laws—I mean, if you—one of the things that I think is so striking about this administration is if you put aside the president and you look at what the foreign policy bureaucracy is doing, it’s far more multilateral in its orientation than it’s often given credit for. I mean, it really is out there working very hard to establish relationships and partnerships with countries in Asia, and in Europe, and beyond, across the board,” Economy stated.