Working closely with like-minded countries remains the most effective strategy to counter an increasingly powerful China – in marked contrast to the policies of US President Donald Trump – said a former senior US official, while admitting that the Joe Biden administration made some key mistakes that undercut its own effectiveness.
“Given the size and the immensity of the China challenge, the only way that the United States is going to be effective to meet that challenge is if we work with other partners and allies,” said Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of state, criticising Trump’s policy of selling high-end chips to Beijing. “This open door policy on technology in some circumstances has been misguided and not attentive to American strategic interests.”
Campbell, now chairman of the Asia Group consultancy, said Trump’s approach to China has inherent contradictions. At times he seems keen to craft an entirely new US-China relationship built on business deals that benefit “him and the United States”. At other times he seems to want a pause to build US reserves of critical minerals and bolster the US military.
“In many respects, this ambiguity is designed not just to keep China off balance, but frankly, to keep elements in American society guessing what President Trump’s ultimate outcomes and desires are,” he said at an event sponsored by Foreign Policy magazine.
The US president’s lukewarm stance towards Taiwan and focus on large nation spheres of influence has left many Asian allies and partners concerned, said Campbell, a key architect of Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy and driver of the Quad grouping of the US, Japan, India and Australia as well as the Australia-United Kingdom-US, or Aukus, security partnership.
Strategic ambiguity – the idea that Washington will not say whether it will defend Taiwan if the mainland launches an attack – has been a cornerstone of US policy.
“This larger strategic ambiguity really comes down to, what would President Trump do if the chips were down in a larger framework in the Indo-Pacific, would he side with China?” said Campbell, rumoured to have been in line for secretary of state if the Democrats had won in 2024. He cited the president’s tilt towards Russia over Ukraine.
“I think many of our allies in the Indo-Pacific want to be reassured that the United States continues to support the traditional alliance structures,” he added. “Behind closed doors, there are some areas of anxiety about just where President Trump stands.”
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed by law to supplying it with weapons.
The former official, who has spent nearly four decades bouncing between business, academia, military service, journalism and government, said it is hard to read Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s motivation in ousting numerous top Chinese military officials.
Initially it seemed like he was working to remove ineffective officers in the ranks, but more recently the purge has appeared increasingly political, he said.
“He is seeking to have younger, more dynamic leaders, kind of, Tiger dynamic leaders, to assume positions of power. But at the same time, he doesn’t want competing power centres that would threaten him either,” he said. “If anything, I think this probably elongated the period in which we can have at least some comfort that China is not prepared to take dramatic steps against Taiwan.”
Campbell said some of the mistakes the Biden administration made in retrospect include its inability to offer more open trade ties with Asian nations to counter China; insufficient US initiatives on rare earths; and some sanctions against China that were more about appeasing domestic interests than an effective strategy.
“I would not give us particularly high marks in the trade arena,” he said. “There are areas that, we have to be honest, that we could have done more and better.”
Campbell said in Trump’s second term, most of the machinery normally employed to manage relations with complex nations like China is gone, most notably the National Security Council that traditionally coordinates policy.
“It’s the only administration that I can point to in modern history that has so few experts, not just on China, but on Asia more generally,” he added. “The action officer for China, in many respects, is President Trump.”
China’s strategy in dealing with Trump has evolved. During his first term, Beijing often seemed off balance, he said, while its strategy is now far better honed.
Xi has been careful to treat Trump with great respect and refer to him in glowing terms.
“But at the same time, when the United States takes a blunderbuss approach, saying we’re going to do 200 per cent tariffs or something, China immediately responds with an almost scalpel-like approach, whether it’s on rare earths or in some other area, to make clear that China has cards and is prepared to play them,” he said. “And I think that has been extremely effective.”
But China’s inordinate desire for order and stability in international relations also means it does not fully appreciate that Trumpism reflects a fundamental shift in the American outlook, with ties unlikely to revert to past patterns.
The US has some strong cards to play, including innovative technology and a history of recovering from setbacks, he said. But it needs to stop reversing policies every four years.
“This is a much longer term set of challenges,” he said. “Sustaining that bipartisan approach in the Indo-Pacific is one of the most important tasks of American political leadership.” -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
