Our strategy is to push back against China in every domain: US official

Asserting that Beijing has been picking up fights right now virtually on every front of its interest, a top American diplomat on Monday said the United States’ strategy to counter it is to push back against China in every domain.

“Our strategy is to push back against China in virtually every domain. We’re doing it in the security area. We’re doing it in terms of outsized demands to claim sovereign territory, whether it’s in the Galwan Valley of India on the India-Chinese border, or in the South Pacific,” said Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun during third India US Leadership Summit.

The summit was organised by US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF).

The Trump Administration is also doing it economically, he said.

Predatory practices

The President has led the charge against the predatory practices from the Chinese economy, and the Phase One trade deal is just a first step in that (direction) to be followed by many others in the years ahead to equalise and balance the US-China economic relationship, he said, during a conversation with Richard Verma, former US Ambassador to India.

Underpinning all of that is a demand for basic reciprocity, he said.

“For a very long time, there had been a desire to extend to China special privileges and benefits, and even the benefit of the doubt among them, to bring China into a more modern and prosperous future,” he noted.

“Twenty years ago when that initiative was launched in earnest with China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, the bet by most policymakers was that eventually, the weight of the institutions that China was joining would slowly redirect the Chinese political system and Chinese interests to a point where China would become much more invested in a rules-based order...,” Biegun said.

He added that these rule based-orders would at least moderate the tendencies of the Chinese government to make it a better partner for many around the world, even if they do not make China a true democracy.

Unfortunately, this (US) administration has reached the conclusion that the experiment has failed across all the domains that I mentioned and we’re pushing back against China, Biegun said.

Exploited every opportunity

Instead of finding some reasonable balance and shared interests, the US has found that the Chinese have exploited every opportunity that they can – from technology theft to assertion of national sovereignty over the territory and territorial waters of other countries, he said.

“The United States is in a concerted effort to push back on all fronts,” he added.

“But perhaps the biggest failed assumption was that the institutions that China joined would ultimately change China. What the US has found that China grew so quickly at the beginning of this century that its outsized influence in those institutions is seeking instead to transform those institutions to China’s interests,” said Biegun.

That’s unacceptable from our point of view and we are pushing back in the institutions like the World Health Organisation or like the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

“We are pushing back hard to ensure that organisations either adhere to their core principles or we make clear we are not going to be a party to those efforts. There is a lot of concern about China, but there is an all-of-government effort here to turn it back, the diplomat said.

According to Biegun, there is real concern inside Beijing as to what they are confronting.

COMMENT NOW