December 6, 2023
Getting China Wrong
Aaron Friedberg
Professor of Politics, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Getting China Wrong
Aaron Friedberg
Professor of Politics, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Minutes of the 13th Meeting of the 82nd Year
John Cotton presided over the meeting with 131 in attendance. Frances Slade led the group in the singing of the first verse of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” The minutes of the November 29 meeting were read by Sarah Ringer. Guests, introduced by their hosts were Paul Eaton (guest of J. Rogers Woolston), Vince Serpico (Larry Hans), and the following, applying for membership: Jim Hockenberry (Micky Weyeneth), John Sturgis (Marcia Bossart), Blair Woodward Ayers (B.F. Graham), Jim Farrin (Dick Scribner), and Lorraine McDade (Christine Danser).
George Bustin introduced the speaker, Professor Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Professor Friedberg served as Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs in the office of the Vice President from 2003 through 2005. He was the first recipient of the Henry Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress. His AB and Ph.D. were from Harvard, and he is the author of several books, including In the Shadow of the Garrison State; A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia; and Getting China Wrong, published in 2021.
Professor Friedberg began by reviewing the last thirty years of relations between China and the advanced industrial nations. Between 1949 and 1969 there was essentially no contact between China and the U.S. Between 1969 and 1989 the U.S. policy was to build China into a counterweight to Soviet power.
1989-1991 saw policy in transition: the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse and fragmentation of the U.S.S.R.—all had an impact on U.S. foreign policy.
Engagement 2.0 saw ambitions of taming and transforming China. Richard Nixon said that we don’t care what you do to your own people, we only care about what you do to us. The policy was not to look too closely at the character of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The new strategy was influenced by the Information Technology (IT) revolution, globalization, and a new wave of democratization. Interest group pressures were on the promise of the China market.
There were various liberal beliefs:
Outcomes:
Politics: China has become more repressive.
Economics: More mercantilist and no liberalization.
Geopolitics: More aggressive and openly revisionist.
What Went Wrong?
The Chinese Communist Party leaders saw engagement as a trap. They saw that the West was trying to promote “peaceful evolution.” They devised a counterstrategy to defeat it.
CCP Aims:
Preserve CCP rule and maintain a monopoly on domestic power. They needed time to build comprehensive national power, but they believed that they should advance towards external objectives such as restoring China to its rightful place of global parity leading to eventual superiority.
CCP Counterstrategy to the U.S. position:
Politics – since Tiananmen, an evolving mix of measures including repression, co-optation (offering people something that they want) and indoctrination.
The crisis of the mid to late 2000s, including concern about corruption and liberalization (Ukraine, the Arab spring etc.).
The Xi Jinping solution: yet more repressive, including re-education camps, especially for groups such as the Uighurs. The “China Dream” – much more nationalism, patriotic education promoting the West as villain, China the savior. Monitoring all people’s activities. The West believed that China would adopt our ideas about economic activity, but they became more mercantilist based on Leninism and saw the purpose of economic activity was to generate power.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was massive state-funded investment, plus massive state-assisted exports, and a search for a new growth model.
Xi saw doubling down on state-driven techno-nationalism. But further economic liberalization would weaken the CCP power. That had always been a problem. They believed that technology was the answer, but they fended off a peaceful evolution and they reasserted CCP power. Reshaping would make it safe for perpetual CCP rule. So, they shifted away to fulfilling domestic demand rather than exports.
Geopolitics: 2012 saw a push for regional preponderance, challenging U.S. global hegemony and building a new illiberal order.
There will be no change in CCP’s policies even though they will attempt a charm offensive. But continuity is more likely than a shift in direction. Xi will further tighten his grip on society. He will further intensify what he sees as a life and death struggle against the U.S. and the West. The CCP doesn’t believe that it is losing. Their economic policy is driven increasingly by strategic considerations.
There were numerous questions, including one about Chinese and Russia alignment—is it closer? Professor Friedberg said that both countries believe that the U.S. is out to encircle them. They are driven together by being anti-liberal. We can’t peel these two apart. The Chinese believe that if they were to let the Russians go, all the attention of the West would be on them.
Another question focused on CCP spending a lot of money on things such as semi-conductors. Are they more interested in meeting with us than before? Is there state-developed technology? Our government shows that we are no longer sure that that is the way to do it. Maybe we should encourage companies, rather than the government, to spend the money.
Numerous other questions followed.
Respectfully submitted,
Ruth Miller
John Cotton presided over the meeting with 131 in attendance. Frances Slade led the group in the singing of the first verse of “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.” The minutes of the November 29 meeting were read by Sarah Ringer. Guests, introduced by their hosts were Paul Eaton (guest of J. Rogers Woolston), Vince Serpico (Larry Hans), and the following, applying for membership: Jim Hockenberry (Micky Weyeneth), John Sturgis (Marcia Bossart), Blair Woodward Ayers (B.F. Graham), Jim Farrin (Dick Scribner), and Lorraine McDade (Christine Danser).
George Bustin introduced the speaker, Professor Aaron Friedberg, professor of politics and international affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. Professor Friedberg served as Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs in the office of the Vice President from 2003 through 2005. He was the first recipient of the Henry Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress. His AB and Ph.D. were from Harvard, and he is the author of several books, including In the Shadow of the Garrison State; A Contest for Supremacy: China, America and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia; and Getting China Wrong, published in 2021.
Professor Friedberg began by reviewing the last thirty years of relations between China and the advanced industrial nations. Between 1949 and 1969 there was essentially no contact between China and the U.S. Between 1969 and 1989 the U.S. policy was to build China into a counterweight to Soviet power.
1989-1991 saw policy in transition: the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse and fragmentation of the U.S.S.R.—all had an impact on U.S. foreign policy.
Engagement 2.0 saw ambitions of taming and transforming China. Richard Nixon said that we don’t care what you do to your own people, we only care about what you do to us. The policy was not to look too closely at the character of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The new strategy was influenced by the Information Technology (IT) revolution, globalization, and a new wave of democratization. Interest group pressures were on the promise of the China market.
There were various liberal beliefs:
- Trade promotes peace.
- Economic growth promotes democracy.
- Democracies don’t fight each other.
- A global all-encompassing market economy.
Outcomes:
Politics: China has become more repressive.
Economics: More mercantilist and no liberalization.
Geopolitics: More aggressive and openly revisionist.
What Went Wrong?
The Chinese Communist Party leaders saw engagement as a trap. They saw that the West was trying to promote “peaceful evolution.” They devised a counterstrategy to defeat it.
CCP Aims:
Preserve CCP rule and maintain a monopoly on domestic power. They needed time to build comprehensive national power, but they believed that they should advance towards external objectives such as restoring China to its rightful place of global parity leading to eventual superiority.
CCP Counterstrategy to the U.S. position:
Politics – since Tiananmen, an evolving mix of measures including repression, co-optation (offering people something that they want) and indoctrination.
The crisis of the mid to late 2000s, including concern about corruption and liberalization (Ukraine, the Arab spring etc.).
The Xi Jinping solution: yet more repressive, including re-education camps, especially for groups such as the Uighurs. The “China Dream” – much more nationalism, patriotic education promoting the West as villain, China the savior. Monitoring all people’s activities. The West believed that China would adopt our ideas about economic activity, but they became more mercantilist based on Leninism and saw the purpose of economic activity was to generate power.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, there was massive state-funded investment, plus massive state-assisted exports, and a search for a new growth model.
Xi saw doubling down on state-driven techno-nationalism. But further economic liberalization would weaken the CCP power. That had always been a problem. They believed that technology was the answer, but they fended off a peaceful evolution and they reasserted CCP power. Reshaping would make it safe for perpetual CCP rule. So, they shifted away to fulfilling domestic demand rather than exports.
Geopolitics: 2012 saw a push for regional preponderance, challenging U.S. global hegemony and building a new illiberal order.
There will be no change in CCP’s policies even though they will attempt a charm offensive. But continuity is more likely than a shift in direction. Xi will further tighten his grip on society. He will further intensify what he sees as a life and death struggle against the U.S. and the West. The CCP doesn’t believe that it is losing. Their economic policy is driven increasingly by strategic considerations.
There were numerous questions, including one about Chinese and Russia alignment—is it closer? Professor Friedberg said that both countries believe that the U.S. is out to encircle them. They are driven together by being anti-liberal. We can’t peel these two apart. The Chinese believe that if they were to let the Russians go, all the attention of the West would be on them.
Another question focused on CCP spending a lot of money on things such as semi-conductors. Are they more interested in meeting with us than before? Is there state-developed technology? Our government shows that we are no longer sure that that is the way to do it. Maybe we should encourage companies, rather than the government, to spend the money.
Numerous other questions followed.
Respectfully submitted,
Ruth Miller