Powers Jockey for Pacific Island Chain Influence

By: Christopher P. Cavas    February 1, 2016 Defense News

WASHINGTON — The extensive chains of Pacific islands ringing China have been described as a wall, a barrier to be breached by an attacker or strengthened by a defender. They are seen as springboards, potential bases for operations to attack or invade others in the region. In a territorial sense, they are benchmarks marking the extent of a country’s influence.

“It’s truly a case of where you stand. Perspective is shaped by one’s geographic and geostrategic position,” said Andrew Erickson, a professor with the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College.

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A China Strategy

CEPA

A China Strategy

Photo: The portrait of China's President Xi Jinping appears during a military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of a nation at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China on October 1, 2019. New weapons were unveiled at the largest military parade ever. ( The Yomiuri Shimbun ) Credit: REUTERS

Edward Lucas

December 7, 2020

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In an era of geopolitical competition, the West — the U.S.-led countries of the transatlantic alliance and their East Asian allies — lacks a strategy for dealing with its most formidable competitor: the People’s Republic of China (henceforth China). But the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a strategy for dealing with the West. It involves a long-term goal of “national rejuvenation”1 — making China the world’s most powerful country by 2050 — implemented with decisive leadership; a clear-eyed appreciation of Western diplomatic, economic, political, and social weaknesses; and effective means of exploiting them. These tactics, best characterized as “sharp power,”2 include censorship and manipulation of the information system, cyber operations, divide-and-rule diplomacy, leverage of trade and investment, and propaganda, plus military bluff and intimidation.

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CSBA: SEIZING ON WEAKNESS – Allied Strategy for competing with China’s globalizing military

January 4, 2021  Toshi YoshiharaJack Bianchi
Resources: Strategy & Policy

China’s military is going global. In the coming decade, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could be well-positioned to influence events and conduct a wide range of missions, including limited warfighting, beyond the Western Pacific. The United States and its close allies, who have enjoyed largely unobstructed access to the world’s oceans for the last three decades, will need to adjust to new military realities as the PLA makes its presence felt in faraway theaters.

In this study, Senior Fellow Toshi Yoshihara and Research Fellow Jack Bianchi argue that a deep study of China’s weaknesses as they relate to its worldwide ambitions is required to formulate an effective allied response. These weaknesses offer insights into the costs that Beijing will have to pay to go global. Importantly, the United States and its close allies enjoy agency over certain Chinese weaknesses, furnishing them leverage that, if exercised, could yield strategic dividends. The report concludes with a range of allied options that exploit China’s weaknesses to constrain and complicate the PLA’s global expansion.  

AUTHORS Toshi Yoshihara Senior Fellow, Jack Blanchi, Research Fellow

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How China sees the world

How China Sees the World

And how we should see China

Illustration
Karan Singh

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I. The Forbidden City

On November 8, 2017, Air Force One touched down in Beijing, marking the start of a state visit hosted by China’s president and Communist Party chairman, Xi Jinping. From my first day on the job as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, China had been a top priority. The country figured prominently in what President Barack Obama had identified for his successor as the biggest immediate problem the new administration would face—what to do about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. But many other questions about the nature and future of the relationship between China and the United States had also emerged, reflecting China’s fundamentally different perception of the world.

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Atlantic Council: Global Strategy 2021: An allied strategy for China

Atlantic Council

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This strategy was produced in collaboration with experts from ten leading democracies.

Foreword

Following World War II, the United States and its allies and partners established a rules-based international system. While never perfect, it contributed to decades without great-power war, extraordinary economic growth, and a reduction of world poverty. But this system today faces trials ranging from a global pandemic and climate change to economic disruptions and a revival of great-power competition.

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To Counter China’s Rise, the U.S. Should Focus on Xi

A proposal for a full reboot of American strategy toward China.

Xi Jinping

Ju Peng/Xinhua via AP

By ANONYMOUS, Politico

01/28/2021 08:15 AM EST

The author is a former senior government official with deep expertise and experience dealing with China.

In 1946, the American diplomat George Kennan wrote a lengthy cable to Washington—since dubbed the “Long Telegram”—laying out the basis for the next several decades of U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union. He published his work as an article under the simple pseudonym “X.” In that spirit, a former senior government official with deep expertise and experience dealing with China has published with the Atlantic Council a bold and ambitious new U.S. strategy toward its next great global rival. It is similarly delivered anonymously, which the author requested, and POLITICO granted. Here the author describes the broad outlines of the strategy. The full memo is available here.

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THE LONGER TELEGRAM – Toward a new American China strategy

by Anonymous

Atlantic Council

Key points

  • The single most important challenge facing the United States and the democratic world in the twenty-first century is the rise of an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping. China has long had an integrated, operational strategy for dealing with the United States. The United States has so far had no such strategy with regard to China. This is a dereliction of national responsibility.
  • US strategy and policy toward China must be laser-focused on the fault lines among Xi and his inner circle–aimed at changing their objectives and behavior and thus their strategic course. Communist Party elites are much more divided about Xi’s leadership and vast ambitions than is widely appreciated.
  • The foremost goal of US strategy should be to cause China’s ruling elites to conclude that it is in China’s best interests to continue operating within the US-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order, and that it is in the Chinese Communist Party’s best interests to not attempt to expand China’s borders or export its political model beyond China’s shores.

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Table of contents

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These three Pacific military flashpoints could shape Biden’s China strategy

Analysis by CNN Staff

Updated 0327 GMT (1127 HKT) January 29, 2021 CNN

(CNN)Any suggestion that the departure of former US President Donald Trump from Washington would provide a temporary pause in US-China tensions has been swiftly dispelled.In the short time since President Joe Biden was sworn into office, China has flown more than two dozen combat aircraft near to the self-ruled island of Taiwan and passed a law allowing its coast guard to fire on foreign vessels. Meanwhile, the US Navy has sent an aircraft carrier strike group into the South China Sea.Analysts say such moves are likely only the beginning of what is expected to be a potentially uneasy initial relationship between the new Biden administration and Beijing.

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The Future of the U.S. and China

The Future of the U.S. and China Opening Session: The Global Chessboard

January 14, 2021 — Asia Society Northern California Executive Director Margaret Conley gives welcome remarks to the center’s signature one-day conference, The Future of the U.S. and. and China: Seeking Truth Through Facts, followed by opening remarks from Ambassador Eleni Kounalakis, lieutenant governor of California. Asia Society President and CEO Kevin Rudd then delivers a keynote address on the necessary frameworks for China and the United States to co-exist and continue collaboration, maintain competition, and prevent conflict. (31 min., 22 sec.)

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US Congress stings China with new Tibet law on the next Dalai Lama

The Hindustan Times

The Central Tibetan Administration welcomed the Tibetan Policy and Support Act passed by the US Congress, calling it a historic move and a clear message to China

WORLD Updated: Dec 22, 2020, 15:20 IST The Hindustan Times

Shishir Gupta

Shishir Gupta
Hindustan Times, New Delhi

The US Congress has passed a law that reaffirms the right of Tibetans to select the successor to His Holiness Dalai Lama.
The US Congress has passed a law that reaffirms the right of Tibetans to select the successor to His Holiness Dalai Lama.(Sonu Mehta/HT PHOTO)

The US Congress has passed a bill that reaffirms the right of Tibetans to choose a successor to their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The law has been described by Dharamshala, the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile, as a historic move and a clear message to China.

The Tibetan Policy and Support Act of 2020 (TPSA), which was passed by the US Senate, calls for the establishment of a US consulate in Tibet’s main city of Lhasa and underlines the absolute right of Tibetans to choose a successor to the Dalai Lama.

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US strikes at the heart of China’s bid to become a tech superpower

Analysis by Laura HeCNN Business

Updated 0947 GMT (1747 HKT) December 22, 2020

Trump administration dials up US-China tech tensions
Trump administration dials up US-China tech tensions

Hong Kong (<a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/22/tech/smic-us-sanctions-intl-hnk/index.html&quot; target="_blank" CNN Business)

China had been counting on its biggest chipmaker to help the country eventually reduce its reliance on the likes of Intel (INTC) and Samsung (SSNLF). The United States just put those ambitions in jeopardy. Washington announced Friday that it will require US exporters to apply for a license before they can sell to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). The US government claims that the chipmaker can use its tech to help China modernize its armed forces. SMIC (SIUIF) says it has no relationship with the Chinese military. But in a statement on Sunday, the company acknowledged that while the restrictions are unlikely to hurt its short-term operations, its loftier goals are in doubt. The new US rules will have “a material adverse effect” on its ability to develop highly advanced chips, it said.

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U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION: 2020 Annual Report to Congress

2020 Annual Report to Congress

Topics this year include China’s view of strategic competition with the United States; China’s promotion of alternative global norms and standards; China’s strategic aims in Africa; vulnerabilities in China’s financial system and risks for the United States; U.S.-China links in healthcare and biotechnology; China’s growing power projection and expeditionary capabilities; Taiwan; Hong Kong; and a review of economics, trade, security, political, and foreign affairs developments in 2020.

Opening Statement of Chairman Robin Cleveland

Opening Statement of Vice Chairman Carolyn Bartholomew

Report PDFs

Annual Report to Congress

Executive SummaryRecommendations to Congress

U.S.-China Global Competition

Chapter 1 Section 1 – A Global Contest for Power and Influence: China’s View of Strategic Competition with the United States

Chapter 1 Section 2 – The China Model: Return of the Middle Kingdom

Chapter 1 Section 3 – China’s Strategic Aims in Africa

U.S.-China Economic and Trade Relations

Chapter 2 Section 1 – Year in Review: Economics and Trade

Chapter 2 Section 2 – Vulnerabilities in China’s Financial System and Risks for the United States

Chapter 2 Section 3 – U.S.-China Links in Healthcare and Biotechnology

U.S.-China Security, Politics, and Foreign Affairs

Chapter 3 Section 1 – Year in Review: Security, Politics, and Foreign Affairs

Chapter 3 Section 2 – China’s Growing Power Projection and Expeditionary Capabilities

Taiwan

Chapter 4 – Taiwan

Hong Kong

Chapter 5 – Hong Kong

2019 Annual Report To Congress

Annual Report To Congress

Executive Summary

Recommendations

2018 Annual Report To Congress

Annual Report To Congress

Executive SummaryRec

ommendations2017 Annual Report To Congress

Annual Report To Congress

Executive Summary

Recommendations

2016 Annual Report To Congress

Annual Report To CongressE

xecutive SummaryRecomm

endations

Chinese dams under US scrutiny in Mekong rivalry

A tourist walks on the Mekong river bank outside Loei, Thailand, on Jan 10, 2020. (Photo: REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun)

14 Dec 2020 01:27AM(Updated: 14 Dec 2020 06:46AM) CNA

BANGKOK: A US-funded project using satellites to track and publish water levels at Chinese dams on the Mekong river was launched on Monday (Dec 13), adding to the superpowers’ rivalry in Southeast Asia.

The 4,350km waterway – known as the Lancang in China and flowing south through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam – has become a focus of competition.Advertisement

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The Next Stage of the Ideological Struggle Between the U.S. and China

By Isaac Chotiner December 9, 2020 The New Yorker

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden sitting at tables across from each other with American and Chinese flags in the background
The journalist John Pomfret describes how Joe Biden’s approach to China may differ from that of the Trump Administration.Photograph by Lintao Zhang / Reuters

In September, the House passed a bill that would ban imports produced by Uighur forced laborers in Xinjiang. Companies such as Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola have mounted a lobbying campaign against the bill, which passed the House by an overwhelming margin of four hundred and six to three, and is likely to pass the Senate. If the bill does become law, it will be the latest sign that the relationship between the United States and China is as contentious as it has been in decades. The Chinese Communist Party’s use of forced labor, its authoritarian activity in Hong Kong, and its obfuscation about the coronavirus have raised bipartisan concerns about the future of the relationship between the U.S. and China.

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