Talking Points: Trump's China Strategy and Our Holiday Wishes, Dec. 22, 2017

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U.S. National Security Strategy

This week the Trump administration released a new U.S. National Security Strategy report. These reports are mandated by Congress. Pres. Donald Trump introduced the report and argued it was a significant break from the past.

Trump began by complaining his predecessors negotiated trade deals that cost American jobs and benefited other countries, hadn’t made allies pay their fair share for defense, had neglected North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, had permitted the rise of ISIS, had hemmed in U.S. energy producers, and had permitted illegal immigration. Trump said his administration was reversing course, spending a record amount on defense and slashing regulations that stifled economic growth. He pledged to rebuild American infrastructure and to defend American innovation from cybertheft and other threats.
The president described China as a rival, but noted that he hoped to build a great partnership with it, with Russia, and with other countries.

In the document itself, the U.S. administration made explicit where it sees China as a rival. It wrote that China:

“expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others”
“Its efforts to build and militarize outposts in the South China Sea endanger the free flow of trade, threaten the sovereignty of other nations, and undermine regional stability”
“spreads features of its authoritarian system, including corruption and the use of surveillance”
“steal[s] U.S. intellectual property valued at hundreds of billions of dollars”
“is building the most capable and well-funded military in the world” [after the U.S.’s]
aided by “its access to the U.S. innovation economy, including America’s world-class universities”

In 2015, the Obama administration’s NSS also highlighted concerns regarding China’s military modernization and tensions created by its actions in the East and the South China Seas. The administration pledged to combat Chinese cybersecurity and to hold it accountable on human rights issues. But it emphasized that the U.S. welcomed “the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China” and highlighted cooperation with China in combating climate change and in realms such as public health and nuclear non-proliferation.

While previous administrations have expressed concern over Chinese actions in Asia, the Trump NSS is the first to describe China as competing with the U.S. for influence in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. This reflects both China’s greater engagement in those areas and rising American concerns that Chinese investment and assistance may foster detrimental dependence and may work against greater governmental transparency and accountability.

By far the Trump’s biggest break with its predecessors, however, is to insist that those leaders mistakenly thought that supporting “China’s rise and for its integration into the post-war international order would liberalize China.” In fact, it seems that previous administrations were all too aware that Chinese practices and interests were not always aligned with those of the U.S., but in every instance, U.S. administrations since Nixon’s, have sought to find instances where the U.S. and China might find common ground and reduce tensions. At the same time, those administrations aided allies potentially threatened by China and sought to have China live up to international standards. It appears that, despite its protests, the Trump administration is also implementing a strategy of working with China where it thinks it can and pushing back where it sees Chinese actions as threatening American interests.

We have excerpted the China and Taiwan-relevant passages from strategy reports going back to 1987. Click here to read these excerpts in the documents section of our website.

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