Change in Negotiators Shakes Up U.S.-China Trade Policy

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: November 18, 2012 

BEIJING — The rare congruity of the political calendars in the United States and China, with both countries choosing leaders this month, is about to produce an equally rare replacement of most of each side’s senior trade negotiators, with unpredictable results for bilateral economic relations.

The U.S.-China Reset

By MINXIN PEI. Published: November 13, 2012 

Daniel Haskett

THE political calendars of the United States and China follow different cycles, but once every two decades China’s leadership transition occurs simultaneously with the U.S. presidential election. So now, with President Obama’s re-election and Xi Jinping’s anointing as chief of the Chinese Communist Party, both countries have an opportunity to take stock of the bilateral relationship.

These two leaders may not want to say it out loud, but they would privately admit that U.S.-China relations are in trouble. While the value of the Chinese currency and trade disputes dominate headlines, the real cause of deteriorating ties is more profound and potentially dangerous. Mutual strategic distrust has escalated in the last two years and is creating a vicious cycle that, if not stopped quickly, could lead to a fierce rivalry harmful to both countries.  

Washington and Beijing blame each other for the growing tensions. The Obama administration believes that China’s assertiveness on territorial disputes and its military modernization must be met with countermeasures. Chinese leaders have grown increasingly antagonistic to U.S. diplomatic support for Vietnam, the Philippines and Japan in their territorial disputes with China. Most important, Beijing resents the so-called Asia pivot, Washington’s plan to beef up U.S. naval assets in the Western Pacific. 

Thus the top foreign-policy priority for both leaders is to reset the tenor of Sino-American relations. Of course, given the near-collapse in Sino-Japanese relations, Xi will have to devote considerable energy to defusing tensions with Tokyo. But he must be aware of two interlocking realities: that U.S.-China relations are far more critical to China’s long-term interests, and that repairing ties with Tokyo will be only the first, but vital, step in that direction.  

There is little doubt that top Chinese leaders are acutely aware of the intrinsic importance of a stable relationship with the United States; such awareness has prevented crises in the past three decades from totally destroying relations. It is also highly likely that China’s new leaders will continue to pursue a pragmatic foreign policy and try to avoid confrontations with the United States.

However, maintaining a fragile status quo is becoming increasingly difficult. Several trends — changes in relative power in China’s favor, the one-sided focus on the military aspect of America’s Asia pivot, escalating territorial disputes that could drag in the United States and China’s military modernization — are exacerbating mutual distrust. Xi and his colleagues need to initiate a policy reset to signal to the second Obama administration that Beijing seeks to put ties on a more solid footing.

A reset could start with concrete measures to resolve territorial disputes with China’s neighbors, particularly Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. Should Xi succeed, he would be able to demonstrate that China will abide by international law in resolving such issues. Success would remove the most dangerous underlying dynamic in the Sino-American strategic competition in East Asia. 

A reset also needs to stabilize the deteriorating security relationship with the United States. This will be difficult because of the strategic distrust caused by the fundamental differences in the political systems of the two countries. Yet, China can still take substantive measures to reverse the adversarial dynamics. Making Sino-American military-to-military exchanges more meaningful and substantive is one. Agreeing on rules to avoid naval accidents is another. Initiating a bilateral dialogue on cybersecurity is absolutely critical in avoiding potentially calamitous incidents.

Granted, Beijing will continue to encounter skepticism from Washington. But if Xi takes the initiative, with concrete proposals, he should find the Obama administration receptive.

To shift American perceptions of his leadership, the third component of Xi’s reset is domestic reform, especially political reform. The conservative backsliding in China over the past decade is the deeper cause of the worsening U.S.-China relationship. Xi can reverse this dynamic, beginning with a more symbolic step, such as releasing Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate, under medical parole.

To be sure, this policy reset would not quickly alter the nature of Sino-American relations, but it would go a long way toward establishing Xi’s credentials as a decisive and forward-looking leader intent upon nurturing a more durable bilateral relationship with Washington.

Minxin Pei is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States..

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Red Balloon Is Congress inflating the China threat?

BY TOM Z. COLLINA | NOVEMBER 13, 2012

You have to be pretty paranoid to see China as a direct nuclear threat to the United States, but that doesn't stop some from trying. 

A report to be released Wednesday by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, created by Congress, is just the latest in a line of studies that hype the China threat. This report, like others before it, raises concerns that China may be hiding hundreds of nuclear weapons in underground tunnels. This might be scary but for the fact that the Pentagon says it's not true -- and that even if it was, it would not directly affect U.S. national security.

Seemingly wringing its hands, the commission -- chaired by Republican appointee Dennis Shea, and vice-chaired by Democratic appointee William Reinsch -- worries that "numerous uncertainties remain about China's nuclear warhead holdings" and that Beijing could have a larger nuclear stockpile than currently believed or could "obtain additional warheads, if so inclined." Citing unsubstantiated claims from Taiwan, Russia, and elsewhere, the commission recommends that Congress "assess disparities in estimates of the size and disposition of China's nuclear forces."

The report goes so far as to question "the desirability of further cuts" to U.S. and Russian nuclear forces "without clearer information on China's nuclear forces." President Obama has called for another round of U.S.-Russian reductions beyond those called for in the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START.

But the U.S. Defense Department, for one, seems quite confident about how many bombs are in Beijing's basement. In its 2012 annual report to Congress on China's military, DOD said that China has "about 50-75" intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), "may" have an operational submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) in two years, and is upgrading its small bomber fleet.

Moreover, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) has rejected previous claims that China's nuclear arsenal is much larger than commonly thought. "I do not believe that China has hundreds or thousands more nuclear weapons than what the intelligence community has been saying," Gen. Robert Kehler said in August. "The Chinese arsenal is in the range of several hundred" nuclear warheads, he said.

Gen. Kelher is in accord with independent estimates that China has about 240 nuclear warheads.

For comparison, according to the Pentagon, the United States has about 5,000 nuclear warheads in its active stockpile -- about 1,700 of which are deployed on missiles and bombers that can reach China. Of China's 240 warheads, only 50-75 could be deployed on its single-warhead missiles that could reach the United States. 

So, if the United States has a 20-to-1 advantage in nuclear weapons that can reach across the Pacific, why should Congress worry about China when thinking about arms reductions with Russia? It should not.

In fact, what we do know about the Chinese arsenal should make Congress more confident about U.S. arms reductions with Russia, not less.

First, although the U.S. military and the intelligence community do not believe that China's arsenal is being undercounted, even if it was, the difference would not threaten the United States. The U.S. arsenal is survivable regardless of how many weapons China -- or Russia -- has. According to a May Defense Department report, the ability of U.S. weapons to survive an attack is more important than the number of weapons on either side. For example, the report said that Russian deployment of forces in numbers significantly above New START limits "would have little to no effect on the U.S. assured second-strike capabilities that underwrite our strategic deterrence posture."

Moscow -- and by extension, Beijing -- would not be able to achieve military advantage by "any plausible expansion of its strategic nuclear forces," the report says, because sufficient U.S. forces would survive and be able to retaliate. This second-strike survivability comes primarily from Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, "a number of which are at sea at any given time." The report says that a nuclear first strike by Russia "will most likely not occur."

Second, although it may sound paradoxical, the United States should want China to have a survivable arsenal, too. China's nuclear force is too small to pose a first strike threat to the United States. Instead, Beijing's strategy is to field a nuclear force that could survive a U.S. first strike and respond to "inflict unacceptable damage to the enemy," as the Pentagon puts it. Thus, by being survivable, China does not need to match U.S. or Russian forces bomb-for-bomb, but needs just enough to make its adversaries think that a few missiles would be left after a first strike. So it is not necessarily a problem if China is fielding mobile missiles or SLBMs on submarines or hiding weapons in tunnels. In fact, the more survivable Beijing's arsenal is, the smaller it can be.

What the commission fails to mention, oddly, is the role U.S. missile defenses play in motivating China's modernization efforts. The 2012 Pentagon annual report says that China is developing a new generation of mobile missiles to ensure its strategic deterrent remains viable "in the face of continued missile defense advances in the United States." Ultimately, if the United States is really concerned about a Chinese nuclear arms build-up, then it needs to rethink its missile defense policy in Asia.

Yes, it would be nice if Beijing were more transparent about its arsenal, and from a nonproliferation perspective an expanding Chinese nuclear force is a concern. But from a strategic perspective, China's nuclear force is no reason to complicate or delay the next round of U.S.-Russia arms reductions. Consultations with China are a great idea, but Washington and Moscow need to draw down their forces significantly before formally involving others in such negotiations.

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