The Munk Debates Podcast - Be it resolved: It's in America’s interest for Joe Biden to continue Trump’s China policy

Episode Date: December 16, 2020

Tough talk on China helped Trump win the presidency in 2016 and over the last four years the US has taken a markedly more assertive approach to confronting the rise of its first major geopolitical competitor since the Soviet Union. Critics of Trump's approach say his China policy is based on flawed assumptions - the key one being the jingoistic assumption that China aspires to be an expansionist power rather than a regional broker primarily focused on protecting its sphere of influence. These same critics argue that American's decline, relative to China's rise, is inevitable and America should be preparing now for an era of increased cooperation with Beijing to tackle the world's big problems from climate to the next pandemic. China hawks respond that a naive American policy prior to Trump paved the way for China to become the world's second largest economy and chief geopolitical rival. Trump deserves credit for reversing this complacency. China skeptics argue that America must continue to be vigilant and suspicious of Chinese intentions in Asia and beyond. To ensure the preservation of the liberal international order in the 21st century, the US must confront and contain China across a spectrum of flash points including the South China Sea, Taiwan, trade, space, high tech, and human rights. Arguing for the motion is Michael Pillsbury, Director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C. and the newly appointed Chairman of the US Department of Defence policy advisory board. He's the author of The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower. Arguing against the motion is Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy. Sources: ABC, Bloomberg, PBS, CGTN, Fox News, NBC, CBC The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths - @rudyardg.   For detailed show notes on the episode, head to https://munkdebates.com/podcast. Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/ To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [e-mail].   To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership Members receive access to our 10+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/ The Munk Debates podcast is produced by Antica, Canada's largest private audio production company - https://www.anticaproductions.com/   Executive Producer: Stuart Coxe, CEO Antica Productions Senior Producer: Christina Campbell Editor: Kieran Lynch Associate Producer: Abhi RahejaBecome a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I think it's time for this toxic binary zero-sum madness to stop. We're not an imperial power. We're a revolutionary power. We are no longer in a world where you can plot out moves statesmen to statesmen like a chessboard. You don't know anything about my background to where I came from. It doesn't matter to you because fundamentally I'm a mean white man. We can't do this to the next generation because America will cease to exist. Welcome to the Monct of Be. Every episode we provide you with a civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. Free of spin, focused on the facts and animated by smart conversation to arm you, the listener,

with enough information to make up your own mind. Today's debate, be it resolved, is in America's interest for Joe Biden to continue Trump's China policy. Donald Trump at the center of a day. diplomatic controversy, turning decades of protocol upside down with his 10-minute phone call with Taiwan. The reaction pouring in- We are now making it clear to China that after years of targeting our industries and stealing our intellectual property, the theft of American jobs and wealth has come to an end.

A global fight escalates again. Today's move to close the Chinese consulate in Houston is the latest action by the Trump administration against Beijing. Hello, I'm your moderator, Redyer Griffith. Well, tough talk on China helped Donald Trump win the presidency in 2016, and over the last four years, the U.S. has taken a markedly more assertive approach to confronting the rise of its first major geopolitical competitor since the Soviet Union. Critics of Trump's China policy say it is based on fundamentally flawed assumptions.

Most notably, the jingoistic view that China explains. aspires to be an expansionist power rather than a regional broker primarily focused on protecting its own sphere of influence. These same critics argue that America's decline relative to China's rise is inevitable, and the U.S. should be preparing now for an era of increased cooperation with Beijing to tackle the world's big problems from climate to the threat of the next pandemic. We need to go very firmly for peace and constructive dialogue rather than treating the other as an enemy, because China, U.S., becoming enemies against each other, will probably spell the doom for mankind. China Hawks respond that a naive American policy prior to Trump paved the way for China to become the world's largest economy and the U.S.'s chief. geopolitical rival. Trump deserves credit for reversing this complacency. China skeptics argue that

America must continue to be vigilant and suspicious of Chinese intentions in Asia and beyond. To ensure the preservation of the liberal international order in the 21st century, the U.S. must confront and contain China across a spectrum of flashpoints, including the South China Sea, Taiwan, trade, the space race, high tech, and human rights. The single greatest threat to the United States of America from a foreign power emanates from the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party is building out its military. It has infiltrated the United States in ways that Russia has not, and its economic might, has been used to destroy tens of thousands of jobs all across the heartland in America. It's unacceptable behavior, and President Trump's not going to permit it to continue.

On this installment of the Monk debates, we challenge the essence of these arguments by a debate. the motion, be it resolved, it's in America's interest for Joe Biden to continue Trump's China policy. Speaking for the motion is Michael Pillsbury, Director for the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and the newly appointed chairman of the U.S. Department of Defense Policy Advisory Board. He's the author of a number of important books on China, including the 100-year Marathon, China's secret strategy to replace. place America as the global superpower. Arguing against the motion is Kishore Mahabani,

distinguished fellow at the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. He's the author of a string of international bestsellers, including Has China Won, the Challenge to American Primacy. Michael Kishore, welcome to the Monk Debates. Pleasure to be back. It's great to be on the show again. Thank you.

Well, gentlemen, I'm really looking for today's debate. It was a rare privilege indeed to host you on the stage of Roy Thompson Hall in front of a live audience of 3,000 people in 2019 to have, I think, what was a very important and prescient debate about China. We can't be in front of a large crowd today physically, but virtually we have the thousands of listeners to this podcast, tuning in, looking to be edified and informed about where the China-U.S. relationship is going to go. from here, and I think the opportunity to hear both of your considered opinions on this critical geopolitical topic is a privilege indeed. Our resolution today, it's a simple one, be it resolved, it's in America's interest for Joe Biden to continue Trump's China policy. Michael, you're speaking in favor of the motion, so we're going to put a couple of minutes on the proverbial clock here and turn the debate over to you.

The most important thing first is to understand what was Trump's China policy and what Mr. Biden, Joe Biden, would have to do to follow it. One of the first things all presidents do that I have ever seen is they demonize the opponent they just beat. They repeat the campaign allegations against their opponent, usually the first year, sometimes the whole first four years. And what we've heard from the Biden campaign and then since the appointment of some of the key. people, Tony Blinken as Secretary of State, and Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor. What we heard from them is that the Trump policy toward China was really, really bad. It was stupid. One of their key points is it created a vacuum in Asia because Mr. Trump so badly handled all

the allies that now Mr. Biden has to correct this damage, repair this terrible, terrible damage done to create a vacuum in Asia. So obviously, from the point of view of President Trump, he did nothing of the sort. He didn't create a vacuum. He didn't treat the allies all badly. So what his China policy was is what the Biden team right now is trying to find out. Just last week, the first two Biden transition team members went into the White House to read the secret Trump-China policy for about a day.

They've made no comment since them. I think what they're going to do is they'll have this. continuation of demonizing Mr. Trump. So it'll be very, very difficult for outsiders to notice what Biden will do that I predict will be something like 80 or 90 percent of Mr. Trump's China policy will be continued, but the Biden people will deny that they're doing this. Thank you, Michael. Kishore, we're going to put a couple of minutes on the clock now for you to have an opportunity to present your opening statement on our motion, be it resolved. It's in America's interest for Joe Biden to continue Trump's China.

policy, you're arguing against this point of view. Let's hear your opening statement. Well, you know, the goal of Trump's China policy was to make America stronger and China weaker. So the obvious question to ask, after four years of Donald Trump, has America become stronger and has China become weaker? And I would say on several, several counts, China has actually become stronger over the past four years. And just two statistics. One, in the year 2009, the size of the retail goods market in China was $1.8 trillion, and in the U.S., it was $4 trillion.

You fast forward 10 years to 2019, which is three years into Trump's term, China's retail goods market has grown to $6 trillion. and United States is now $5.5 trillion. So during the Trump term, what used to be United States' biggest competitive advantage over China that it had a bigger market, United States has lost it. Secondly, and this of course, we cannot blame President Trump for COVID-19.

COVID-19 was clearly an accident of history. But it's very clear when the rest of the world watches how the United States has handled COVID-19 and how China has handled COVID-19. And, you know, if the United States at the same number of deaths, same number of rate of deaths per population as China, instead of having close to 300,000 deaths,

United States would have 1,000. Of course, you can't blame President Trump for all of that, but another clear indicator that China has become a much strong, more competent country. So clearly, if Trump's policy was to make China weaker, it has then succeeded. And therefore, I would suggest that maybe Biden should consider a totally fresh approach to handling China. Thank you, Kishore. We're going to get into that fresh approach and your thoughts on it, I'm sure, over the course of this conversation. So, Michael, time for

rebuttals. A couple minutes on the clock now for you to respond to what you've heard from Kishore. his opening statement. Take us away. Thanks. Well, first of all, President Trump's China policy was not to make China weaker. No Trump administration spokesman ever said this. This is a kind of a rhetorical device to criticize Trump as though he must have said it. But actually, not only did he not say it, he said the opposite. He said he wants more American investment by our investment companies in China. And part of the phase one trade agreement was just that. This has now successfully happened. Our top six investment banks have now entered China.

China changed its policy very dramatically and allowed them to have fully owned investment companies inside China for the first time ever since I guess the 1930s. There's a number of other aspects of President Trump's policy where he tried to work with China. His first summit in Mar-a-Lago was sort of a family meeting to discuss common interests. He set up four dialogue mechanisms with the various members of the Chinese cabinet. There are a lot of things President Trump did that were definitely not designed to weaken China. However, he did say many times, I count by my count seven times, Kishore. He said if Hillary Clinton had been elected, China would be surpassing the U.S. GDP now during her term.

This is not going to happen on my watch. So he didn't want China to not surpass the United States. As far as I can tell, the Biden team has the same way of thinking, but they don't want to say it. They've specifically said make America great again or America first is a bad thing. Kishore is on to a very important point, diagnosing what are the sources of the competition between the two countries? One of them clearly is this economic primacy issue and the metrics by which to measure it. But experts differ.

Some experts believe that the metrics favor the United States, almost across the and that China will never catch up with this. However, we have another group that says that's simply not true. We are not competitive anymore as an economy, and we have to fix ourselves in education, technology, innovation, a long list before we can ever be sure of staying ahead of China forever. So I think Kishore is right to focus on the issue of the strength of the two competitors, but there's a lot more to it, I think. Thank you, Michael. Kishore, you're around your opportunity to rebut

Michael's opening statement or some of his remarks just now. Take us away. Well, Donald Trump did say that he wanted to make America great again. Maga. That was his goal. And clearly what he meant by that was that America

would become stronger and that the trade war would make Americans become better off after four years of the trade war. Unfortunately, the data seems to show that the trade war has completely failed. Firstly, the trade deficit with China hasn't gone down.

The trade deficit with the rest of the world has gone up. And then in September 23rd, 2020 Market Watch reported that he told the Michigan workers, and I quote, you won't lose one plant. I promise you that, he said that in 2016. Four years later, Michigan has actually lost. three major auto plants. In 2016, China bought $13.7 billion of United States soyabins. By 2018, two years in the Trump administration, that number had fallen to nearly half. And at the same time, a Moody's analytics report in September 2019 said that trade war

already cost the U.S. economy nearly 300,000 jobs and an estimate 0.3% of real GDP. I'm quoting these sources to indicate that if the goal of the trade war was to make America great again, a more powerful economy, lower threat deficit, more jobs, more exports for U.S. agriculture, on all the data shows that he has failed, sadly, President Trump, in the goals he set for himself in the trade war. Thank you, Kishore. Now it's an opportunity for us to have a three-way conversation, I think get into some of the key issues

that are on the minds of our listeners. And Michael, maybe to start with you and just let's have a little more clarification here because you really played an important and influential role, advising the Trump administration, advising the president himself on America's China policy. Give us a sense of what is. its key objectives in Planck's word. You're saying that it wasn't to punish China, but what were its intentions? What was it trying to achieve vis-a-vis America's relative power and standing versus that

of Beijing? Give us a sense of what its key objectives are. Sure, I'm happy to. First of all, and this is a contrast between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Donald Trump, as early as 2000, published a book with a long section on what he wanted to do about China. Now, that's 20 years ago. It's 16 years before he ran for president. And he laid out in that section of the book with lots of footnotes to the Wall Street Journal, maybe even to Kishar Mahbubani, I haven't checked. He laid out a strategy was very flattering toward the Chinese.

He said these are the best negotiators in the world. They're the major competitive challenger to America compared to any other country. in the world. This is, again, 20 years ago. In his speeches, in his ads he took out in the New York Times, he campaigned on poor or flawed trade agreements. The very issue Kishore Mububani is mentioning now, trade was a focus for a long time. So when he appointed Bob Leidheiser as his trade representative, this became the focus of the Trump-China strategy. The terms of trade, intellectual property theft, everyone sort of knows this long list.

And that did succeed. By the way, it's never called the trade war. We have to be careful what vocabulary we select to describe what's happening. Trade war is a media expression. There was no trade war. There was a very mechanical, slow, almost two-year process of negotiating,

really, between Trump and Xi Jinping. And they reached a 95-page agreement in great detail, which I believe Joe Biden will honor. This morning, President Trump signed phase one of a trade deal between the U.S. and China. The PAC comes after months of escalating tariffs between the world's two biggest economies. Now our efforts have yielded a transformative deal. It includes groundbreaking provisions in an area of critical importance to the United States, protecting intellectual property.

They also put aside the hardest issue, structural reforms, that subsidies that China grants its companies and the state-owned enterprises, which now take a growing share of China's economy. That was to be left to the next round of the trade talks. I believe the Joe Biden team has already taken note of this and intends to start that phase of the talks. Now, they have also criticized Trump as not being tough enough during the trade war. I saw an interview one time, I think in August, where Joe Biden said during the campaign, I will keep all the tariffs accept. And then he lifts three he's going to lift.

He did not praise the trade agreement because that would be helping his opponent. But he agreed with the thrust of what Donald Trump is doing. So look for continuity, but there's a huge deficit for Joe Biden because of this very famous conversation that has been replayed hundreds of times. China is going to eat our lunch.

Come on, man. They can't even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean, in the West. They can't figure out how they're going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they're not bad folks, folks, but guess what? They're not competition for us. So that shows you where he was 18 months ago. But a quick learner can learn from Tony Blan. Lincoln, Eli Ratner, Jake Sullivan, they will teach Joe Biden what to do and they will draw heavily on what President Trump has done.

Hi there, Rudyard Griffith, the moderator of the Monk debates. Look, this we know. Our society is becoming dangerously polarized. We don't listen to each other. We don't search out opposing views. Instead, too many of us live in tribes, convinced that we are right and they are wrong. It's time to put a stop to polarization before it wrecks our democracy. This is what the monk debates charity is all about, ending polarization, searching for common ground. We do this by producing the world's only weekly debate radio program through our monk dialogue series and through mainstage debates on the big topics of the day.

Support civil and substantive public debate by becoming a monk member. As a member, you get access to our 10 plus year online library of great debates and streaming high definition video, a free Monk Debate book of your choice, ticketing privileges, and so much more. 30% off when you use the promotional code, Monk, 2021, at our website, Monc Debates.com. Again, that promotional code, Monk, Munk, Munk, 2021 at MoncDbates.com. Join now and help fight the polarization of our democracy. Now back to our program. Kishore, to come back to you and to refocus it, because I think it's important what Michael's done there is kind of set out some of the core objectives of the Trump-China policy and their potential continuity into a Biden administration.

But our resolution today is be it resolved, it is in America's interest for Joe Biden to continue Trump's China policy. So speaking to an American audience, we have a lot of American listeners of this podcast, Kishore, I want to hear a bit more from you of why you think it's not an America's interest to continue the tariff. continue to push back against Beijing on issues related to human rights, to defend Taiwan in its independence. Why are those core tenets of Trump's China policy not in the interests of Americans? Well, that's a very good question. You know, I wrote a book called Has China One. And the central insight of that book comes from a two-hour, one-on-one lunch I had with

Henry Kissinger, whom I think Michael would agree, is probably one of, if not America's greatest strategic thinker. And what I learned from him in that two-hour lunch, basically, and he's allowed me to cite him. So I'm going to say what he allowed me to cite. He said the basic mistake that the United States has made in launching this geopolitical contest against China is that it hasn't worked out a strategy first before launching this contest. So you have a series of actions, okay? Tariffs, closing down consulates, naming entities in China. But what's the strategy? What is the goal? And that, frankly, has never been made clear. What are you trying to accomplish? Now, Michael has said earlier that the goal was never to make China weaker. But that's how the rest of the

world perceived it that the United States was making one last-ditch effort to stop China from becoming bigger and stronger than the United States of America. By the way, which is perfectly normal behavior. Most number one powers in the world always try to thwart the rise of the number two power. But presumably you have a choice of doing it either with a strategy or without a strategy. And I think that's the fundamental issue. So, for example, when you impose tariffs on China, a simple question to ask is, what did the tariffs accomplish? And I know that President Trump keeps saying, hey, we're making China pay for these tariffs.

But every economist I speaks to says that the American consumer pays for the tariffs and China doesn't pay for the tariffs. And in any case, one of the most fundamental mistakes about President Trump's tariffs, is that America's trade deficits are a result of an imbalance between savings and investments. So even if you got down, America's trade deficit with China down to zero, it would balloon somewhere else because of the imbalance within trade and investments. So that's a perfect example of where you're trying to impose tariffs, trying to cut down deficits, but you're not fixing America's problems.

America is not going to become stronger by applying tariffs to China. And actually at the end of the day, frankly, China is actually going to become stronger as a result of this because China is going to rely less and less on the United States. And I think Michael knows this better than I do. China has just announced what they call a dual circulation strategy, which is why the size of the retail goods market figure that I give is very important.

But rising jip, political tensions are prompting a shift in strategy. The new buzzword is dual circulation, first announced by President Xi in May. It aims to boost the economy's internal circulation, making domestic production and consumption the main engine of growth. China has decided, okay, if America is not going to allow me to grow, I will find other ways of growing. And you know what?

The largest free trade agreement was just now signed between China and the United States. 14 other countries in East Asia. And guess what? The largest growth in trade in the next 10 years is going to come from this area. And America had a chance to be in it with the trans-Pacific partnership. America withdrew. China is developing its largest trade bloc. So you can see clearly what the point I'm getting to is very simple. United States doesn't have a strategy on what to do with China. China has a strategy. And that's the key issue that thing that Biden has to address. And that's why it be wiser for Biden to work out first a comprehensive strategy before carrying on with any of Trump's policies. Thank you, Kishore.

So, Michael, I mean, I want you to respond to Kishore's challenge that the Trump policy that you're expousing is in the America's interest to have continued under the Biden administration is to contain China. It is to thwart China's rise to a status and power, economic. military, technological that challenges, or fundamentally, American global supremacy. I mean, is that the goal of the strategy? And if it is, do you accept Keyshore's intention that it really hasn't been particularly thought out? It doesn't really have a framework or structure to pursue that specific end. No, I don't agree. I published a book on the Hudson website, of 500 pages of the speeches of the senior Trump administration officials on China. You can see from their speeches the comprehensive nature of what they were trying to do.

I think it's very common to say someone doesn't have a strategy. It's like a cheap debating trick because then it puts that other person on the defensive. Oh, gee, we did have a strategy. Actually, the Trump administration China strategy was secret. It's why the Biden transition team wanted so bad. badly to come in last week and find out what the real strategy was. You can't deny the Biden people are trying to understand what exactly were you trying to do. They're much more open-minded than Kishore is, condemning Trump or never having a strategy. I've heard that in most American political

debates all the time. Oh, my opponent doesn't have a strategy. Actually, Trump did. It was very clear and one of his key points over and over is China has got to play by the rules, the international norms. In a tense dispute over the South China Sea, a landmark ruling today, an international arbitration court says China does not have territorial rights there. When the South China Sea decision was made in the Hague, China said no, we don't accept it. We weren't there.

That's a violation of the United Nations entity finding. When China puts Uyghurs in box cars or has surveillance and invasion of privacy, when the Chinese terms of trade for Belt and Road loans are really quite outrageous in terms of knowing by World Bank standards that a country cannot afford that loan. All of these things China could correct. In fact, there's debate in China, which I've written three books about, debates inside China inside the Communist Party of China about the Communist Party of China about the future directions China should take. I believe China does have a strategy, much debated among

themselves, but that strategy is what President Trump was trying to interact with, to counter in some ways their strategic goals, but also to guide them toward a China that played by the rules, in particular the share of the free market. For a long time, everybody, including me, thought China was on an inexorable trend toward an increasing share of free market and the end of the dinosaurs. We used to call them the dinosaurs, as Kishore knows, the state-owned enterprises, the inefficiencies, all that has changed. China's driving to make its state-owned enterprises more efficient, let them engage in intellectual property theft, subsidize them in the extreme. And now of the top 100 companies in the world by value, China has most of them. It's really

quite shocking how far China has exceeded the United States already. So when Biden inherits this diagnosis, and he hears this briefing. Of course, he's not going to say Donald Trump did his best. He'll demonize him, but he will pursue these very same policies. And that was what was in the 95-page agreement. Where I would really disagree with Kishore is the idea that the tariffs were some kind of a punishment and had no purpose, had no strategy. That's the opposite. I'm an eyewitness to the Chinese at one point reneged almost entirely on what they had signed before. There was an internal debate in China that their delegation had given away too much. The hawks in China attacked the agreement, pulled back half of it, and it's a Microsoft Word document that they ran lines through.

Everything we agreed to, not everything, half, we don't agree to anymore. That's when the president slapped on the tariffs, and guess what? The Chinese came back to the table and restored most of what they'd taken out. It's pure negotiating skill of President Trump. President Biden is going to find the same challenge for him. Yeah, this is fascinating. Michael, really important contribution there because allows me to come back to you, Kishore and say, look, you're mischaracterizing the Trump policy. It wasn't to punish China. It wasn't a punitive approach to tamping down the rise of China. Instead, it was a policy that was trying to guide their development in ways that would ensure their participation in the liberal international order

that would ensure the modernization of their economy. And maybe, I mean, Michael didn't say this, but maybe the underlying idea there was the potential here to open China up politically, ultimately, to push back against the hawks and the authoritarian trends in China, which are, you know, a worry to everyone. Why do you not accept that, Kish? as the intent, a kind of benign intent here on the part of Trump's policy. Michael is absolutely right. I'm pretty sure that Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan are reading some secret documents about some secret policies that are clearly being carried out by the Trump administration.

By the same time, the strategy, the big strategy clearly has to be visible. everybody, if it's a strategy, everybody can see it. And I can tell you that the people who are the most mystified by what United States is doing are some of America's allies, right? And this is an important point to make because I haven't seen any American ally rush to join the United States in what it's trying to do with China. Why now, when this final dash to the election lesson now a month away, Is Pompeo in Asia?

This was an initiative actually proposed more than a decade ago, originally by Shenzhou Abe, to get like-minded democracies in the region together to kind of counter the rise of China. India has really kind of resisted getting into such alliances. And for Japan, he has to strike a very delicate balance between appeasing the United States, its lone military, ally, and China. China, its number one trading partner. Look at the contrast between this and the Cold War that the United States carried out against the Soviet Union.

And here, I must say that it's useful to refer to another strategic thinker, George Cannon, who might quote a lot in my book, has China won. And he said that, you know, the outcome of any geopolitical contest will depend, number one, on the spiritual vitality of your population, vis-a-be-your competitor. are the Americans feeling good, being better off than the Soviet population was. And today, you've got to ask the question, are the Americans better off? Number two, George Kennan said, we have to cultivate friends and allies and keep them on our side. And number three, he said, by the way, be humble.

And the fourth thing, he said, don't insult. Now, these are George Kennan's advice on how you manage a geopolitical contest. And what's interesting is that the four pieces of advice that George Cannon has given have all been ignored in this current policies towards China. And as a result of it, you notice that it's very hard to think of a single country that has stood up and said, hey, we are right behind you. We're going to go all the way with you. And that in itself is very, very telling because it's so different from previously, whenever America did something,

there was a lot of countries would rush to follow the United States of America. But in this campaign against China, I cannot think of any country, with a possible exception of Australia, that has been enthusiastically saying, we are right behind you in this campaign that you're having. So that is an indicator of how the rest of the world is mystified and trying to figure out what is really going on here. Let's have you, Michael, talk a little bit more, again, focusing us like a laser on our resolution. today, it's in America's interest for Joe Biden to continue Trump's China policy, a lot of people would think that there are these really important bilateral issues between the United States and China. Think of climate. Think of the risk of another pandemic. Why isn't it time to kind of

set aside the antagonism, set aside the perception of rivalry, and just acknowledge that China's rise is inevitable, it's unstoppable, and what we really need here is a return to a spirit of cooperation that typified China-U.S. relations prior to the Trump presidency. Why isn't that the right path forward when we consider how important some of these bilateral issues are for the populations of both countries? Good question. It takes me back to the definition of what the Trump-China policy really was on the ground in reality. We have the largest embassy in the world in Beijing. It's 2,300 staff. If you go to the embassy in Beijing website, you will find a description of 50 U.S. government agencies, all represented in our embassy and our consulates,

who have cooperative programs with China. For example, just to pick one at random, our FAA helps the Chinese manufacturer airliners that meet international safety standards. the long list of cooperation between the U.S. and China has continued under President Trump. What happens, though, is his critics who are really, I think he uses the term haters. These are the haters. They so hate President Trump, they will distort his policy and make it sound like either Cold War or he wants to start a war. I noticed there was just a few minutes ago I mentioned of the independence of Taiwan.

President Trump from the beginning said he supports the traditional one China policy. He's not for the independence of Taiwan. His arms sales to Taiwan have not been any greater over a four-year period than previous presidents. So you get this crescendo of Trump haters characterizing his policy, and it just confuses allies and partners. For example, with allies, it took a long time to convince them that China engages in terrible misconduct when it buys foreign companies for their technology, then rips off the technology, replaces it through Chinese production, and then ultimately that company loses its world market share.

Trump published a study 300 pages long in early 2018, listing all the examples of how this is done. Fairly soon, the Germans and the Japanese at first realized, my God, that's happening to us. here in Germany. State of the art technology, whether it's electric cars, maneuvering in space, there's a very, very long list in these publications. China is stealing this in a systematic way, nothing to do with America, wherever the technology is. So Germany began to toughen up its mergers and acquisitions policies. He created a group to review what are the Chinese doing with our most advanced technologies that we better block to make Germany's Germany, at least safe from this kind of predatory behavior.

The Japanese did exactly the same thing. In fact, the Japanese Kishore, I'm pretty sure you've written about this, they created a billion dollar fund to help Japanese companies come home from China to try to reduce this theft. Now, will President Biden continue this? You bet he will. Will he say, thank God, Donald Trump, you know, took these pioneering moves with the Germans and the Japanese? No, of course, he won't say.

that, but it's the truth that he'll be building on Trump's successes. Thank you, Michael. So that's a great segue. Kishore to come back and just push you a bit more again on why you think it's not in Americans' interest. Forget the administration. Let's just talk about the average citizen in America to adopt a Trump policy that ensures or pushes hopefully forward for Americans their continued technological dominance, their economic superiority. Well, you know, Radia, since I have disagreed with Michael a few times, let me agree with him for a change.

I'm going to shock Michael by agreeing with him. You know, Michael is right. China has made a huge, I would say even a strategic mistake in alienating the American business community. and clearly this has been due to unfair rules and practices in China, insisting on transfer of technology, intellectual property theft, and not creating a level playing field for American companies in China. So yes, China has made serious mistakes too.

I want to emphasize that. And I think it's right for United States and right for Germany to complain about the fact that Chinese are buying up their companies and sucking away the technology. I think that's a fair complaint to make or so on. And I would say the best way to solve these issues is not to take a bilateral approach, which is what the Trump administration has been doing, but to take a multilateral approach and agree on a common set of rules, for example, on intellectual property theft, on technology transfer, and then create a level playing field for all companies, American, German, Japanese, Singaporean companies,

and Chinese companies, these are the rules we must all abide by. So what we need is for Biden to work together with the other G20 leaders, including China, on a coordinated multilateral push to revive the global economy. That's a kind of global multilateral cooperation

that was basically missing in the Trump era, that I hope Biden era will come back. And in that sense, that's a major U-turn away from the Trump policies towards a Biden policy. Fascinating, guys. This is really an illuminating conversation.

Before we go to closing statements, I think it would just be fascinating for our listeners to kind of tap your big brains, to have you both prognosticate a little bit if you do us the favor of where you think the China-U.S. relationship is going to go from here. So, Michael, maybe I could just get your thoughts on that. what do you see as the trajectory of this relationship over the next four years, say, of a Biden presidency?

Will it remain in this level of contestation? And will it break out in a new direction? Do you see some – and talk to us about the Hawks in China, Michael. These are people that you've written about, that you know. What is their influence going to be going forward? You know, what's the Chinese side of this relationship going to look like under the – the next four years of a Biden presidency. President Trump and his team got to know hawks and doves.

When you said, you know, do this in the trade agreement and someone else said, no, don't do that on the Chinese side, we got to see the quarrels and the fights in China. They've got a cause called constitutionalism, putting the Constitution first above the Communist Party. Some professors, people online have been endorsing this. This is about a 10-year-old debate. The Hawks say no. The Communist Party is above the Constitution. It will dictate judicial decisions. It will dictate what trade agreements are assigned. There are several other major debates like this going on. One of them we haven't talked about is the military expansion, aggression, and weapons systems of China. In theory, the good guys, the doves, say China's never expanded in a thousand years. We have no such intent. All those satellites maneuvering in space, coming close to your American satellites, don't worry your pretty little head about it.

Our Navy being larger than your American Navy now, don't worry, your quality is better. Don't worry about the numbers of the Chinese Navy. So we have this military puzzle to analyze. Why is China which loves peace so much, they tell us? Why are they the fastest growing military power in the world? Like 15 new types of missiles, one of which they denied to us

they were ever going to build, now they have more than 200 designed to sink an aircraft carrier by coming in at six times the speed of sound so the aircraft carrier can't even detect it. Why is China doing these things? This is part of what the Biden team is going to have to debate. While the debate goes on in China, are we pushing ahead too fast? Have we created a global coalition against China by our overly aggressive activities? This is a debate I find quite fascinating in Beijing. That will be fascinating to watch. So Kishore, before we go to closing statements, let's get your thoughts about how you think the next four years of the Biden administration can unfold.

Are we going to see a repression between the United States and China? Will tensions continue? Will there be new irritants in the relationship that will crop up? Well, I expect that there will be a major debate within the Biden administration. It's absolutely no question. And on one side, very clearly that this geopolitical contest between US and China is not driven by personalities. It's driven by structural forces, which, as I say, I've documented in my book, has China won. The three structural forces are number one.

Over 2,000 years, the number one power always towards the rise of the number two power. The second structural force is the fear of the yellow peril. I know this is politically incorrect. I'm going to table it. And then the third one is. is the bipartisan consensus in Washington, D.C., that China has let America down by not becoming a democracy. These are the sort of structural forces driving this contest.

But on the other hand, I also argue in the last chapter of my book that actually the United States goal, frankly, primary goal is to improve the well-being of the American people. And that should be the primary goal of Joe Biden, because America, unfortunately, is the only major developed country where the average income of the bottom 50% has gone down over a 30-year period. All the statistics show that the bottom 50% in America

really need a lot of help. And the best way to achieve this is not for America and China to work against each other, but to work with each other in this economic dimension. And similarly, if Joe Biden is going to make global warming is number one priority, which he said is going to be, climate is going to be his number one priority, John Kerry is his climate czar. There's no way you can prevent global warming unless China is part of the solution. Because if China is not part of the solution,

China becomes part of the problem. And so if you want to achieve all these things, it's important for the Biden administration. I can understand some competition will continue, but to balance the competition, there are also many other areas where the United States can cooperate well with China, and frankly, the rest of the world will be happy to see cooperation in those areas so that the whole world, the 7.8 billion people in the world will feel better off with the U.S. and China balancing competition and cooperation and not going out into an all-out competition. Thank you, Kisharlow.

Let's go to closing statements. This is an opportunity for both of you to kind of wrap up your key arguments. push back on anything that you've heard from the other side that you want to underline for our listeners. So Michael, let's hear your summation. I'll put two minutes or so on the clock for you to sum up this terrific debate. Well, I only have one or two points. I think the idea of cooperation with China is very, very important. The cooperation should be in the interest of both sides.

and over the last 30 years, as I try to document with declassified government records, the U.S. has helped China enormously. It takes two hours to list all the programs, most of which are still in effect, are still in a place, how much we help China. This is never acknowledged by the Chinese, or if it is, it's grudging. So when you appeal for cooperation with China and that other countries will like this better, if both sides kind of get along nicely, The problem with that, it sounds good, and it has been American policy, including the Trump years.

But what it does, it makes everybody complacent that there is Chinese misconduct that's hurting the rest of the world, and not just America, the rest of the world entirely. And before it's too late, before Chinese power overwhelms us, and we have no voice, even if all allies and partners get together with the United States. if the Chinese get what they want, which they've been quite open about, they'd like to see a GDP, twice America's GDP. They're sort of closing in on us now. It's hard to measure when they'll surpass us. But the goal isn't just to surpass us on one day. It's to continue. So another 10 years goes by at their growth rate and they're double our economy. And then triple. We've got Chinese economists on the record saying 2049, China will be at least triple the American economy. That's what President Trump meant when he said China will own us

if we can't change these trends. So I hate to say I'm against cooperation with China. That's irrational. There's large areas of cooperation. But if we don't maintain a sense of vigilance, when I say we, I don't mean of just America. I mean all countries in the world have to start to understand how China is very different now, president for life, human rights violations, Pompeo called the stain of the century, the space activities, this long, long list. We can't be nice to China, so everybody else will think, oh, gee, isn't that wonderful? The two great powers cooperate. If China has all this misconduct. I ask Keishore to join me. China is on the wrong path in many, many ways, and the rest of the world had better try to get China

to get back to the right approach, or we're all going to be very, very sorry with the GDP that is double the next contender. That's what we face. And that's why I believe largely the Trump policy toward China will be followed by the Biden team, but no credit to Trump. That's what they're telling me. I got it. Okay, Keishore, we're going to give you the last word in this debate. Two minutes on the clock, your chance to sum up. Thank you. I must say I do agree with Michael when he says that America has helped China's growth. There's no question whatsoever about that. Because as we know, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger reached up to China because China was a very valuable ally against the Soviet Union. And in the process, when America opened up its markets to China, frankly, that's what a fuel China's. growth and China should Chen America, a big thank you note. By the same time, I also need to add that when China becoming so big, we're not returning to an aberration, we're returning the norm,

because from the year 1 to the year 1820 for 1800 after the last 2,000 years, the two largest economies were always those of China and India. So if China and India become the number one, number two economies in the world, given the size of their populations, is a perfectly normal development. The question is how will China behave when it become number one? That's a key question that Michael is raising. And here I would say we should go back to a speech that Bill Clinton gave in Yale in 2003, where he said, if America is going to be number one forever, then he said, fine, we can do whatever you want to do. We've got the Jews. We can do it. But Bill Clinton added a butt, he said, but if we can conceive of a world where America is no longer number one,

then surely it is in America's interest to strengthen multilateral rules, multilateral institutions, multilateral norms, multilateral processes. Because the best way to constrain, not contain, the best way to constrain China, and to ensure that a China which is bigger is a rule-abiding actor is to use multilateral processes, and you get not just 330 million people in, In America trying to influence China, you also get 6 billion people in the rest of the world also engaged in the process of making sure that when China becomes number one, it is a more rule-abiding China rather than one which is a rogue actor.

So that's what that would say, I agree, Michael. We should think about what kind of world we want to have when China become number one. We want to have a China that abides by multilateral rules and processes. And the United States can take a lead in pushing for multilateralism. Thank you, Kishore. And thank you, Michael. This has really been an important debate. I've certainly learned just so much, not only about the last four years and the nuances and complexities of China-U.S.

relations. But what could come next and what the outlines of a Biden presidency might look like vis-a-vis its relationship with Beijing and the Middle Kingdom? So thank you for such a civil, substantive, and informing debate. A real pleasure to have you both on the program. Thank you. Thank you. While that wraps up today's debate, I want to thank our participants, Michael Pilsbury, and Kishore Mahabani. They certainly gave us a lot to think about.

The Monk Debates podcast is that special place for civil and substantive debate on the big issues of the day. To listen to more debates on everything from climate change to religion, to geopolitics, to the future of human progress, visit our website. website, monkdebates.com. You can also find show notes on today's debate. Thank you for helping us bring back the art of public debate one conversation at a time. I'm your moderator, Rudyard Griffiths. The Monk Debates are produced by Antica Productions and supported by the Monk Foundation. Rudyard Griffiths and Christina Campbell are the producers. Abbey Rahesia is the associate producer. The Monk Debates podcast is mixed. by Karen Lynch. The president of Antica Productions is Stuart Cox. Be sure to download and

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