A Review of the Events and Trends of China-U.S. Relations in 2019
January 17, 2020
Introduction: In 2019, the development of China-U.S. relations in the course of historical transformation has gone through ups and downs. This report identifies six aspects of issues, including China-U.S. trade war, the Taiwan issue, the South China Sea issue, the North Korea nuclear issue, U.S. internal affairs, China-U.S. relations, and debates on U.S. policy on China, which altogether can preeminently reflect the tendency of the U.S. policy on China. In order to grasp the whole picture of the evolution of China-U.S. relations over the past year and the future tendency of its development, we hereby provide a comparatively pragmatic reference, analyzed and summarized by the method of a review of major events and trends.
I. U.S.-China trade war
The U.S.-China trade war is the highlight of China-U.S. relations in 2019 and poses as the main battleground of U.S.-China strategic competition. Over the past year, the United States took an offensive role in the trade war, while China adopted a defensive strategy and counterattacked. Since the commencement of the trade war negotiation, the two sides have experienced several stages, involving negotiation breakdown, all-round trade war, coexistence of trade war and negotiations, and temporary mitigation. We can draw the following points of preliminary assessments by analyzing the basic situations of the U.S.-China trade war in 2019.
First, the U.S.-China trade war remains as an intensive embodiment of the strategic competition between China and the United States in the economic field, its scale is unprecedented, and it is an important reflection of the qualitative transformation in China-U.S. relations.
Second, the coexistence of trade war and negotiations still retains between China and the United States even at the height of the trade war and the two sides finally reached agreement on the phase one economic and trade agreement, which indicates that the strategic competition between China and the United States will not easily move towards all-round confrontation. Under the backdrop of globalization, the deep interdependence between China and the United States makes it difficult for both sides to completely "decouple".
Third, the characteristic of the coexistence of trade war and negotiations shows that the game between China and the U.S. in the economic and trade field has shifted from the situations of unilateral pressure exerted from the U.S. side along with compromising from China to a state of relative balance of power, and the strength and chips of China's resistance to the unilateral pressure from the U.S. have been greatly enhanced.
Fourth, in 2020, China and the United States will continue to engage in fierce confrontations around the implementation of the phase one economic and trade agreement and other deeper economic and trade issues. China needs to be fully prepared for this.
II. The Taiwan issue
In 2019, the situation in the Taiwan Strait was complicated and austere. On the one hand, with the DPP's successive victories in the Taiwan leaders and representatives election campaigns, it is afraid that the DPP authorities will further intensify their efforts in manipulating the issue of "unification and independence", continuing to promote "de-sinicization", deliberately creating hostile confrontation between Taiwan and the Mainland, and continuing to collude with the U.S. in interfering with the Hong Kong affairs. On the other hand, under the backdrop of the strategic game between China and the United States, the United States has constantly promoted the U.S.-Taiwan relations by stepping up its utilizing of "Taiwan issue", and its policy towards Taiwan has continued to develop in a dangerous direction, which poses a severe challenge to the future development of China-U.S. relations, cross-Strait relations and the Taiwan Strait situation.
In 2019, the main features of the U.S. policy towards Taiwan are: first, continuously increased domestic legislation involving Taiwan; second, gave Taiwan a special role in the "India-Pacific Strategy"; third, substantially upgraded the number and quality of arms sold to Taiwan; fourth, intended to break level limits of the U.S.-Taiwan official exchanges; fifth, acted as a spoiler and stirred up the situation jointly with Taiwan by using Hong Kong's "disturbance of regulation revision". The main reasons for the continuously enhanced U.S.-Taiwan relations over the past year are as follows: first, the manipulation of the Taiwan issue is an important part of the U.S.'s strategic competition with China; second, the "pro-Taiwan" American politicians have contributed a lot to the continued warming of the U.S.-Taiwan relations; third, Trump possesses a very strong "anti-establishment color", and his attitudes towards Taiwan are very complicated along with great uncertainties; fourth, the Taiwan authorities have constantly strengthened their lobbying efforts against the United States.
Since Trump took office, the relations between the United States and Taiwan have progressively been improved and have a tendency to be further "institutionalized", which has contributed to the strength of Tsai Ing-wen administration of the DPP to continue its plot of "Taiwan independence". With the intensification of strategic competition between China and the United States, the previous factors that helped to ease tensions across the Taiwan Strait have been severely weakened, making it increasingly difficult to manage risks and crises. In addition, high vigilance should be given to the U.S. policy adjustment to Taiwan, which may cause negative exemplary influence to the international community.
III. The South China Sea issue
With the Trump administration's launch of "strategic competition" against China since 2017, the United States has pursued a fully competitive South China Sea policy. In 2019, the importance of the South China Sea issue in the U.S.-China game became even more prominent, and the situation in the South China Sea continued to develop in a "bi-polar" manner, with the following tendency characteristics.
First, the Trump administration has become increasingly assertive in its South China Sea policy, and the South China Sea issue has become the primary vehicle for the United States to maintain its dominance in the Asia-Pacific region and address China's challenges.
Second, the United States has increasingly exerted military pressure on China in the South China Sea area, and the "freedom of navigation operation" is more concentrated on the Asian region, especially in the South China Sea area. The military game between the United States and China in the South China Sea shows a spiral upward trend.
Third, the United States has further strengthened its efforts to draw ASEAN countries and neighboring countries in the South China Sea over to its side. Its cooperation with relevant countries has escalated from bilateral to multilateral. U.S. allies have followed suit as well, and their military involvement in the South China Sea has become a normal state.
Fourth, the unilateral action momentum of countries who claim to request for the sovereignty of the South China Sea is still robust in the fields of the construction of islands and reefs, waters control and resource development. The substantive negotiations of the "South China Sea Code of Conduct" has entered a key period, with maritime security cooperation into a most crucial stage.
Fifth, strengthening communication with other claimants in the South China Sea and deepening strategic cooperation with ASEAN countries remain the main ways for China to effectively manage and control divergence and maintain the peace and stability in the South China Sea area.
IV. The North Korean nuclear issue
The coordination and game between the United States and China on the North Korean nuclear issue is an important part of the complicated pattern of China-U.S. relations. In 2019, the U.S.-DPRK dialogue has gone through the breakdown in Hanoi, the resumption in Panmunjom and the failure of coordination in Stockholm, although the dialogue has not been able to break the deadlock due to the restrictions from the American domestic hard-liners, the two sides have retained a window to continue the dialogue. China-North Korea relations have continued to elevate since the transition in 2018, with frequent high-level meetings between the two countries. China has repeatedly expressed its firm support for the constructive dialogue between the two Koreas and the United States, and played an important role in easing the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Despite the growing strategic competition between the United States and China in 2019, China and the United States have maintained cooperation and relatively high-frequency communication on North Korea issue, thanks to their mutual interests in the objective of denuclearizing the peninsula. At the same time, the United States has concerns regarding the rising ties between China and North Korea, arguing that China's support has fueled North Korea's intransigence with the United States. The U.S. side insists that the DPRK should take a substantive nuclear disarmament action in the first place, while the Chinese side believes that the U.S.-DPRK dialogue should be two-way interaction and the U.S. side should give appropriate rewards to DPRK’s positive measures.
At present, the door to dialogue between the United States and North Korea has not been closed, but still face a lot of uncertainties. In particular, while Trump personally looks forward to a further breakthrough in negotiations with North Korea, the United States has remained tough on North Korea as a whole. The foremost goal of Trump in 2020 is to run for re-election, and changes in the presidential election will have an significant impact on the Trump administration's policy towards North Korea. Given the lack of resolution for the structural contradictions between the United States and North Korea on denuclearization, it is expected that the two sides will hardly make great progress in dialogues in 2020.
V. Internal affairs of the United States and China-U.S. Relations
The Trump administration has made "America First" the primary principle of its foreign policy, making the domestic political agenda an unprecedented influence on America's handling of important diplomatic issues. In 2019, the link between the internal affairs of the United States and the Trump administration's China policy is mainly reflected in the following three aspects.
First, Trump's re-election agenda has affected his trade negotiations with China. In June 2019, Trump formally announced that he would seek for re-election in the 2020 Presidential Election, while Trump's voter base, including lower-middle-level workers and farmers, was destabilized by the impact of the trade war between China and the United States. In the run-up to the election, campaign-related political needs will have a more direct impact on Trump-related diplomatic issues, of which the trade war with China remains as the top issue.
Second, Trump's political alliance has played important roles and exerted considerable influence on his China policy. Trump's political allies are unique, including the Republican Establishment as well as right-wing Conservatives and Christian evangelicals. Despite there were disagreements between the Republican Establishment and Trump in 2019, the party has overall opted for a coherent approach to the foreign affairs in a bid to safeguard its partisan interests. Influenced by right-wing Conservatives and Christian evangelicals, the United States has stepped up its ideological crusade against China, with the participation of Democratic Liberal radicals. But at the same time, the "hawkish" officials in the Trump administration left office successively in the second half of 2019, which eases America's assertiveness towards China to some extent.
Third, the most compelling political event in the United States' domestic affairs in 2019 was the Democratic Party's assault on Trump's abuse of power, which was developed into an impeachment agenda propelled by the "Russiagate". The impeachment is estimated to be difficult to pass in the Republican-controlled Senate, while the Democrats has delayed the move in an effort to adversely affect Trump's election. Although the impeachment case itself does not directly affect China, its influence on Trump's political status and election will inevitably have an indirect impact on Trump's China policy, which deserves further observation.
Predictably, apart from the traditionally dominant issues, including domestic economy, ethnicity, immigration, and health care, the China-U.S. trade and economic issue will become an important topic for discussion as well in the 2020 American Presidential Election campaign. The domestic political ecology of the United States and the presidential election course will certainly have a more blatant impact on China-U.S. relations.
VI. The U.S. Policy Debate on China
In 2019, the U.S. policy debate on China, marked by two "open letters" (Michael Shiwen's Open Letter on "China is not an enemy" and James E. Fanell's "Letter to President Donald Trump on Countering China") attracted wide public attention. This debate is not only an open debate between the "Shiwen camp" and "Fanell camp", but also a competition between the "Establishment" and "Hawks" of the United States. Meanwhile, the debate is a continuation of the 2015 U.S. policy debate on China (regarding "whether the U.S. policy towards China fails"), focusing on whether to pursue a hostile policy against China.
By comparing the two U.S. policy debates on China in 2019 and 2015, we can make the following predictions and assessments: First, the U.S. policy debate on China in 2020 will continue, and more people will be involved in the debate, but this will certainly arouse reflection from the U.S. side; Second, there is little consensus in the U.S. policy debate on China in the short term, but the U.S. policy on China will become tougher as a whole. Third, the biggest challenge for China-U.S. relations in 2020 lies in how to "control strategic competition". Fourth, China-U.S. relations will enter a critical period in the next 1-2 years, which also presents as a window for reflection, dialogue and redefinition of China-U.S. relations as well as discussion for a new paradigm of coexistence between China and the United States.
ON TIMES WE FOCUS.
Should you have any questions, please contact us at public@taiheglobal.
