The Daily - Confronting China

Episode Date: July 29, 2020

A cooperative relationship with China has been a pillar of U.S. foreign policy for more than half a century. So why does the Trump administration think it’s time for a change? Guest: Edward Wong, a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Why top aides to President Trump want to leave a lasting legacy of ruptured diplomatic ties between China and the United States.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. A cooperative relationship with China has been a pillar of United States foreign policy for more than half a century. Edward Wong on why the Trump administration believes it's time for a change.

It's Wednesday, July 29th. Edward, can you tell me what happened in Houston last week? Can you tell me what happened in Houston last week? Sure. We first got a tip that something was up with the Chinese consulate in Houston around Tuesday afternoon or so, that the Chinese ambassador to the U.S. had been told by American officials that he had three days to shut down the consulate and that the employees there had 30 days to then leave the country. And a colleague and I started chasing this tip, but we couldn't quite nail it down to publish a story.

And then... Houston firefighters and police responding to the Chinese consulate in Montrose after reports of a fire. Crews were called to the building of Montrose and Harrow around 8.20 tonight. In the evening, I started seeing these videos of people burning things in metal barrels and open metal barrels. And there was video of fire trucks and police cars surrounding the consulate with their lights on. So it's quite a dramatic scene. And local media were reporting that documents appeared to be being burned in the courtyard of that building.

You know, for people in the national security world and the foreign policy world, when you see people burning lots of documents or papers at a diplomatic mission, the assumption is that they're about to clear out of the mission. So when I saw those videos, I realized that the tip we had gotten that the Chinese ambassador had been told to shut down the Houston consulate within three days was indeed true. On July the 21st, the U.S. abruptly asked China to close its consulate in Houston. And within hours, the Chinese foreign ministry confirmed that in Beijing. We urge the U.S. to reverse this incorrect decision immediately. Otherwise, China will definitely take necessary legitimate actions. And why would the U.S. take this pretty significant move of kicking these Chinese

diplomats out of this consulate in Texas? Officially, people in the American government told us that they targeted the Houston consulate because it was a hub of economic espionage and trade secrets espionage in the U.S. But American officials haven't given us detailed evidence on the activities undertaken by the Chinese diplomats. And it's not clear to us how much farther these activities go beyond the types of covert or espionage activities that take place at missions around the world, including ones run by Americans. But in the bigger picture, a main goal of some American officials in the Trump administration is to unwind a range of diplomatic and economic ties that have built up between the U.S. and China over the decades,

ever since President Nixon started the opening of China back in 1971. So there's a version of this where the U.S. was looking for a reason to unwind this relationship and espionage, real or not, was that reason. Right. And why would the Trump administration want to unwind its relationship with China? I mean, it's our single biggest trading partner. It's a global superpower.

It's a nuclear power. So that's a pretty significant decision. It is significant. And there are some senior officials in the administration who are against this. Throughout the last three and a half years, we've seen, broadly speaking, two factions of advisors on China competing against each other for Trump's ear. And that helps explain some of the contradictory impulses and policies that we've seen coming out of the administration on China during this period. What do you mean? On one side, you had the ones wanting to confront China in part over trade and also in part over national security matters.

You had Peter Navarro, who's a White House trade advisor. How do you work with a country that lies through its teeth? Who wrote a book called Death by China. Right. And then you also had Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. They very much want to undermine our Western values, all the things that we hold most dear. And those people saw China as a threat to America.

And then on the more cooperative side, you have, for example, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. We need to work together to maximize the benefit for both sides. People who still clung to the classic notions of free trade and thought that the traditional relationship with China was a stabilizing force in the world and that this had helped American companies get wealthy over the years, as well as had benefited American consumers. And Edward, when it comes to those who want to confront China, when it comes to the Peter Navarro's and the Mike Pompeo's, what is their case for why China is such a threat to the U.S. and should be reined in? Well, they argue that China presents a range of strategic threats to the U.S.

For example, they say that China's attempts to export its 5G technology, its next-generation communications technology around the world presents a security threat. They say that China's recent military expansionism in the South China Sea and its vast maritime claims in that sea are also a security threat, and they would impede American military dominance in the Asia Pacific.

They point to attempts at economic espionage by China and a vast range of cyber attacks that have targeted the American government and other important institutions around the world. Am I right to think that from the start of this presidency, the confrontation camp more or less prevailed? Well, it's complicated. The first big blow to the U.S.-China relationship under the Trump administration was in mid-2018. We're going to have some incredible things. We're just announcing very big tariffs today on China. When President Trump started putting tariffs on billions of dollars of goods made in China, China retaliated by doing the same on American goods.

So here's what they would do. They target farm products, such as soybean, cars, seafood. And then just spiral downward from there. Medical equipment, energy products, that would start a little bit. As the U.S.-China trade war escalates, business leaders have been speaking up. So the trade war had this huge impact on companies both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S.

And it created a lot of instability in their thinking about how to do business. The escalating trade battle between the U.S. and China is rocking investors around the world. It created a lot of instability in the stock markets, which Trump watches closely. And... Some farmers in the U.S., the disruption of normal trade with China has forced many of them to go bankrupt. Important groups of voters who had supported Trump, for example, farmers in the Midwest,

were starting to suffer. I was a Trump voter. I voted for the president, certainly, but he certainly hasn't come through. He's lost on trade. He's lost on trade and certainly... They saw agricultural products like corn and soybeans piling up in the Midwest because China had imposed tariffs on their end to strike back at Trump.

So I won't be voting for the president again. So Trump and some of his economic advisors, especially those who were preaching more cooperation with China, started to get nervous about these economic signs that they were seeing, as well as about the anxieties of these Midwestern farmers and potential Trump voters there. And so what do they do, these cooperation camp folks who are not happy with this trade war? Well, as they go through negotiations for a potential truce to the trade war, President Trump talks with Presidency of China several times. And they have these like sort of one-on-one conversations that Trump likes to do with leaders.

And in each of these, Trump sort of cozies up to Xi. And it's clear he's willing to sort of brush aside a lot of sort of the most egregious behaviors of China in the pursuit of this trade deal. Like what? In one conversation, according to John Bolton, the former national security advisor, Trump encouraged Xi to actually continue building internment camps for Muslims in the northwest of China and sort of signal that this wasn't a big issue for him. These are the Uyghurs. Right. These are the Uyghurs, exactly. The ones a million or more held over the recent years in internment camps. And, for example, we've seen these during this period, these pro-democracy protests arise in Hong Kong. And while Trump's national security aides are supportive of them, Trump himself tells Xi privately in a phone call that Xi should just handle those in

whatever way he wants to deal with those. And that Trump himself will not say anything about those, and he'll tell his aides not to say anything vocally about those protests either. So in this trade war that's supposed to represent confrontation with China, there's actually a fair amount of cooperation going on, most of it behind the scenes. Right, exactly. And ultimately in December, they reach a tentative agreement

and then they sign that in January of this year. And I think that brought a big sense of relief to the people in the cooperation camp. I think they were relieved to see a sense of stability return to this key economic relationship. Now, the confrontation people in the White House and in other agencies were generally disappointed, I think, by the outcome of the deal. They felt that Trump had sidelined a lot of the hardline policies they had pushed for in the first half of the administration for the sake of just trying to get a marginal increase in agricultural

purchases. And also there was a sense of outrage among some of them. And this was in John Bolton's recent book that Trump was also aiming for this negotiated truce purely for reelection purposes, that he pleaded with Xi in a conversation that Xi should help him get reelected, should help him win. And that the best way to do this was to reach some sort of truce or deal in the trade war that he could then bring back to his constituents. And so certain national security people were outraged by the saying that Trump was focused purely on personal politics and was not looking after the national security interests of the United States. Edward, what you're describing so far, especially this trade deal, does not seem like a relationship that is about to be fundamentally unwound and blown up. So what happens to get us from that truce to now, into the shutdown of this consulate in Houston? Well, what changes things is this pandemic that starts in central China and spreads across the globe.

That sets the two powers on a much more confrontational course. We'll be right back. I spoke with President Xi. We had a great talk. He's working very hard. I have to say, he's working very, very hard. So in the first weeks after the virus started spreading around the globe, Trump was still praising Xi publicly. If you know anything about him, I think he'll be in pretty good shape.

They've had a rough patch. And I think right now they have it. It looks like they're getting it under control more and more. This was in January and February, right after they had signed the trade agreement. So Trump was still in this mode where he wanted intensely to preserve that negotiated truce. But by the spring... We got hit by the virus that came from China. Trump was laying into China publicly for what had happened.

You know, the pandemic had spread into all corners of the U.S. The economy was in shambles. Trump was seeing his reelection chances starting to go down the drain. And we continue our relentless effort to defeat the Chinese virus. Why do you keep using this? Because it comes from China. A lot of people say it's racist. It's not racist at all.

No, not at all. It comes from China. That's why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate. And so his campaign strategists came up with this idea that they can try and shift the conversation to China rather than having people focus on Trump's failures on the pandemic.

And that by blaming China for all of this, they could win back some of the votes that Trump's starting to lose. Some of his top advisors started speculating whether the virus might have started from a lab accident. I can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory in Wuhan. Even though there was no evidence for that. Have you seen anything at this point that gives you a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of this virus? Yes, I have. Yes, I have. So you have this very concerted effort by Trump to really cast China as the person or the entity to blame for

all of this. China's cover-up of the Wuhan virus allowed the disease to spread all over the world, instigating a global pandemic. And where does the pandemic fit into the kind of now familiar outlines that you have described of the confrontation camp versus the cooperation camp? I have to imagine it kind of challenges both. The pandemic really empowers the hawks in the administration to say we really have to go after China. at how their misgovernance, how their political system led us to this point, led America into an economic crisis that's been the worst since the Great Depression. And even the people in the cooperation camp are starting to change their minds a bit. It's hard to tell the world that we should prioritize this trade agreement that just rests on some agriculture purchases when you've got this global crisis enveloping everything and when American citizens

are anxious about their future. And how does China respond to these attacks from Trump and from his advisors? So what we're hearing this spring is Chinese officials denouncing the U.S. for all of these attacks. And they also point out that the Chinese system actually has handled the virus a lot better than the American system. They say, even though there might have been this outbreak in central China, look at how we controlled it through the measures we took and look at how the virus is running rampant in the U.S. And China also then starts to try and send out aid to other countries. It starts sending shipments of, for example, medical supplies, medical equipment, face masks to other countries around the world,

and even to parts of the U.S. to try and sort of mask over its own responsibility for how the outbreak began in its country. So the relationship between the two powers was bad and then it got worse. We have some breaking news coming in. China's annual parliamentary meeting has been officially opened in Beijing and it's expected that national security legislation for Hong Kong will be discussed during the seven-day session. In the late spring, Chinese officials start talking about

this new national security law that they want to impose on Hong Kong. Well, this piece of news has set shockwaves across the city. It says Beijing will set up a new National Security Bureau in Hong Kong, supervised by the central government, to crack down on dissent in the city. The legislation has faced sharp criticism from governments all around the world and sparked new protests in Hong Kong. And so this continues the downward spiral that U.S.-China relations have been on. Right. And I'm imagining that that security law was especially upsetting to those who want confrontation with China. That seems to be exactly the kind of thing that they find so objectionable. That's right. As you recall,

they were very upset at Trump for putting the Hong Kong issue on the back burner in his aim to try and reach some sort of trade truce with China. And now they were intent on pushing forward on policies and actions that would make the Communist Party pay a price, not only for what they were doing in Hong Kong, but for their actions in other parts of the world and for their role in the pandemic. So they started announcing a series of actions against China that really brought the relationship to a new low. They said that Hong Kong was no longer an autonomous entity and that the U.S. would break off its special relationship with Hong Kong. They imposed visa restrictions on a category of students who were associated with military institutions in China. They said that these students could no longer come to the U.S.

to do research or study because of suspicions of potential economic espionage. They've even floated a proposal internally to block all 92 million members of the Communist Party from traveling to the U.S., as well as their family members, which could encompass hundreds of millions of people. It's really felt like a moment where the gloves have been taken off in this relationship and where the people in the administration who want to fundamentally reorient the relationship with China

have the upper hand right now. Edward, is it possible that at the end of the day, what you're describing here and the events of the past couple of weeks, it's the right strategy for the U.S.? Because China is behaving in ways that fundamentally violate American values, especially in Hong Kong, especially with the Uyghurs. And so no matter what motivates Donald Trump to begin confronting China, is that potentially a good thing for the United States?

Well, the people who are supportive of the more confrontational approach say that this type of strategy on China is long overdue. Now it's time to really push back against China on all these fronts, especially at a time when China hasn't overtaken the U.S. yet as the world's largest economy, and it's still a rising power. And this is a moment when we have this opening to really reframe the conversation on China, not only in the U.S., but globally and sort of rally countries to really confront China on a whole range of issues. Right. So basically, this is our last chance. Right. They see it as time running out. Then you've got people in the other camp who say, we don't know where this will end.

This starts this downward spiral in relations that starts to erode all the diplomatic ties, economic ties, the people-to-people ties that have kept the relationship firm over the decades, a relationship that's an unlikely one. You've got this close relationship between a Western democracy and an authoritarian state, and somehow they've managed to avoid open conflict. They've managed to avoid war. And where could we end up? Where could the world end up if we start breaking off those ties now? Right. It could end up in a pretty dangerous place. Right. So I want to return to where we started this conversation, Edward, which is with the U.S. kicking China out of its consulate in Houston, because it very much seems like this is the capstone to this approach. And I wonder

what the response has been from China and what that tells us about what this dynamic of confrontation is going to start to look like over the next coming months and maybe even years. of confrontation is going to start to look like over the next coming months and maybe even years? Well, last Friday, we saw China announce that it was going to force the U.S. to shut down its consulate in Chengdu, which is the only diplomatic mission that the U.S. has in western China. It's a very critical mission for the U.S. because it allows American officials to observe what's going on in the vast reaches of that part of the country, including in Tibet, which is a very important issue for the U.S. The people in Beijing couch this as a reciprocal action. And some people still say that they could have taken a more escalatory step, but that

they appear to be willing to hold back and see whether there might be some reset of the relationship if Trump loses the election in November. But even if that were the case, I'm not sure that the orientation of the relationship would change. There might be a temporary halt to the tit-for-tat cycle that we're seeing, but it feels like because of where the U.S. and China are now in the world and the entrenched ideological systems in both countries, we might be on course for a long-term confrontation. Thank you. Thank you all. And you could hear that a few days ago in this very dark speech that Secretary of State Mike

Pompeo gave at the Nixon Library. We, the freedom-loving nations of the world, must induce China to change in more creative and assertive ways because Beijing's actions threaten our people and our prosperity. He laid out a vision of a potential Cold War with China and said that China was the most challenging foe to the United States. Now, people of good faith can debate why free nations allowed these bad things to happen for all these years. Perhaps we were naive about China's virulent strain of communism, or triumphalist after our victory in the Cold War,

or cravenly capitalist or hoodwinked by Beijing's talk of a peaceful rise. Whatever the reason. Whatever the reason, today China is increasingly authoritarian at home and more aggressive in its hostility to freedom everywhere else. President Trump has said enough. Edward, thank you very much. Thanks a lot, Michael. It's been great being on the show. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

Mr. Barr, you may begin. Good morning, Chairman, Ranking Member, Jordan. I'm pleased to be here this morning. On behalf of the Department of Justice, I want to pay my respects. During his first appearance before the House since Democrats took control in 2018, Attorney General Bill Barr was repeatedly challenged over his response to everything from the Russia investigation

to nationwide protests over policing. Is it ever appropriate, sir, for the president to solicit or accept foreign assistance in an election? It depends what kind of assistance. Is it ever appropriate for the president or presidential candidate to accept or solicit foreign assistance of any kind in his or her election? No, it's not appropriate. Okay. Sorry you had to struggle with that one, Mr. Attorney General. Several Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State,

demanded to know why Barr had deployed federal agents to Oregon to monitor Black Lives Matter protests, but not to Michigan, where conservatives protested a coronavirus lockdown order. There is a real discrepancy in how you react as the attorney general, the top cop in this country. When white men with swastikas storm a government building with guns, there is no need for the president to, quote, activate you because they're getting the president's personal agenda done. But when black people and people of color protest police brutality, Black people and people of color protest police brutality, systemic racism, and the president's very own lack of response to those critical issues. Then you forcibly remove them with armed federal officers, pepper bombs, because they are considered terrorists by the president. Did I get it right, Mr. Barr?

I have responsibility for the federal government, and the White House is the seat of the executive branch. Mr. Barr, let me just make it clear. And on Tuesday, the nation's second largest teachers union, the American Federation of Teachers, announced that it would support members if they choose to go on strike over unsafe school reopenings. The union said that strikes should be a last resort, but the announcement gives local teachers greater leverage in negotiations over the kinds of protections that teachers should have in reopened schools.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.