The NPR Politics Podcast - Cooperation To Confrontation: Why US China Strategy Changed

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

A new House panel kicked off a series of hearings focused on what lawmakers describe as the threat posed by China's government to the United States. The committee's chair, Republican Mike Gallagher, hopes the committee produces a slew of bipartisan legislation. How did things get to this point?This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Giveaway: npr.org/politicsplusgiveaway Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Lily calling from Oakhurst, California. I finally was summoned to my local courthouse for jury selection, only to find out today that because of the duration of the trial, they thought it would be too much for me to be away from my sixth grade students. I'm really excited to be back in class tomorrow. However, I'm a little bit bummed that I don't get an inside peek at our judicial system.

This podcast was recorded at 1.42 p.m. on Wednesday, March 1st. Things may have changed by the time that you hear this, and I'll still be hoping to one day have a chance to sit in the box. I'm sure you will get called for jury duty. I do, though, have never gotten called. Really? In your whole life? I got called once before I didn't make the cut. But you guys have gotten called. Many journalists have been called.

Actually, twice, but the second time I was on maternity leave, and they gave me a pass. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. We may call this a strategic competition, but it's not a polite tennis match. This is an existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century. That is how Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher framed the U.S.-China relationship last night in the first primetime hearing of the new House committee focused on the relationship between our two nations. On this issue, maybe more than any other in Washington right now, there does appear to be some level of bipartisanship. For his part, Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the panel,

said the U.S. must focus efforts on diplomatic solutions. We do not want a war with the PRC, not a cold war, not a hot war. We don't want a clash of civilizations, but we seek a durable peace. And that is why we have to deter aggression. Deirdre, this was the first hearing of this new committee. They heard testimony from two of former President Trump's national security advisors, H.R. McMaster and Matthew Pottinger. What were your major takeaways? I thought the hearing was a pretty effective and kind of rare occasion where there was a lot of substance and a lot of debate. I thought the chair and the ranking member did a good job, as well as a lot of the members

on the panel, of setting the scene and trying to create this narrative for the American people about why U.S.-China policy matters to most Americans and sort of what's at stake for our economy, for your own privacy, for our national security interests in the region. I thought it's a lot. I mean, there's a lot of things that get covered under this giant rubric. And I think they're trying to take a page from the January 6th committee. There were a lot of similarities. They were in the same room. There were multimedia presentations, prime time. I was just going to ask you if they had those snazzy videos. They had videos. They were up on the same dais. I think they were trying to grab an audience that wasn't at work that might tune in for some of it. But I think it's one of these rare issues where we are seeing a bipartisan agreement that this is something that urgently needs Congress to really

dig in on. Asma, when I think about China policy, you know, there isn't really much about the former administration that Joe Biden has sought to keep in place. But former President Trump did take a much more aggressive posture towards China, both rhetorically and in policies. And Biden seems to be sort of picking up that mantle and continuing it. That's true. And I would say some of the both economic and foreign policy experts that I've spoken with will say that the relationship between the U.S. and China is just far more contentious than it was certainly a decade ago, but they would say even just a couple of years ago. Even a couple of weeks ago. I know, right? Exactly. And so because of that, you know, I would say you can look at certain

policies like the Trump-era tariffs. They are still in place. They you know, I would say you can look at certain policies like the Trump era tariffs. They are still in place. They are now, I would say, the Biden Trump era tariffs. Right. Like this administration has embraced them. There are no indications that they are planning to change them, at least in the immediate term. And I would say on other things like export controls. There's a guy I was talking to, Danny Roderick, over at Harvard University, and he said he studies a lot of industrial policy. He says what the Trump administration did with export controls was one thing. He says the Biden administration like took this and put it on steroids, essentially, like they have done a lot of really aggressive moves. And he essentially is trying, I mean, some economic analysts will say

it feels like they're trying to strangle aspects of the Chinese economy. And what makes this really, I think, challenging is that, you know, the U.S. has, I think, taken this approach in the past, some would say, with like the former Soviet Union, right? And you think of the Cold War, and they invested a lot in domestic economic policies as a result. And you got things like DARPA, which stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and, you know, led to a lot of innovations that we still use today. Like the internet. Like the internet, exactly, right? And so, you know, folks will say, look, there's a precedent for what the Biden administration is doing in terms of trying to invest economically at home from a national security perspective.

The difference is the U.S. and the Chinese economy are really interconnected. And that makes this all really complicated. I also think there's been sort of a tone shift, too, in terms of how Congress talks about China. I think when you talk about like export controls and concerns about how far they're going, you're hearing like bipartisan concerns that maybe they're not going far enough. It's like I mean, there there was like a joint letter recently from a top Senate Democrat, top Senate Republican saying, like, why aren't you doing more? Why aren't these applying to more companies dealing with military technologies? So I think there's this shift on Capitol Hill of they're a competitor. We don't want to confront them. But we have to figure out a way to maneuver this relationship at a time where, like, they've really eaten our lunch in a lot of industries. Deirdre, the timing of this hearing is fascinating to me because it's coming at the same time as these other events about China in the news. Just this week, new reports about the origins of the coronavirus. We did a whole podcast episode on that yesterday.

But also the alleged spy balloon incident of a Chinese balloon floating over the course of the United States that really enraged Washington. It caused Secretary of State Tony Blinken to cancel a planned trip to China. I wonder if those factored into this hearing and in what way? They both factored in. There was discussion of both issues. And Chairman Gallagher actually admitted ahead of the hearing that the spy balloon actually is helping him make the case, right? Because so many Americans actually looked up with their own eyes and saw the threat of like, what is China doing? Are they taking my information? So he's been saying going into the hearing that it did help focus the American public on the issue, which is the whole point of the creation leak, it did come up. It didn't dominate the discussion. I think on that issue, because there's been a lot of, you know, sort of partisan sniping and controversy around the theory, and I know that this was in our pod that you just mentioned, I think that that's an issue where there's so much bipartisan agreement about different policy approaches, that issue could

sort of inject politics into this debate on China where, you know, I didn't see a ton of it last night. All right, let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we'll talk about some of the policies lawmakers are looking at to take on China. Hey, it's Eric McDaniel, editor of our podcast, And I'm here to plug our latest bonus episode. We talk about what happens behind the scenes of a secret presidential trip. The two reporters who were chosen were allowed to tell in person their spouse and one editor. Plus, we answer a few questions from listeners about working on Air Force One.

I can't overstate how not like normal airplane food this is. That's in our bonus episode out now. Bonus episodes are how we say thanks to our NPR Politics Plus supporters. If that's not you, it could be. Details at the link in our episode notes. And we're back. And let's talk about what some of these ideas or policies that lawmakers are looking at for how to confront China. I think one of the best examples is something that Congress has already approved and Joe Biden signed into law known as the CHIPS Act. It's a bill that would boost U.S. manufacturing of semiconductor chips. The implementation of this law is now heavily underway, Asma, sort of under the Biden administration to implement it. What does

that look like right now? Yeah, so this is actually going on just this week. The Commerce Department announced that they're going to begin, they rolled out the launch of applications for this $39 billion portion of the bill for manufacturers that say that they want to get government assistance to build additional semiconductor facilities here in the U.S. One thing I was struck by is that this week we got more details on what companies have to do if they want to get some of this funding. And tucked into this, the Biden administration has put through some democratic priorities. So, for example, these companies have to ensure that they're going to provide accessible, affordable child care. They also have to limit stock buybacks.

These are, I would say, traditionally more democratic priorities. And I don't know the answer to this, but I am intrigued to see how bipartisanship on China gets affected when the implementation perhaps becomes a little more partisan. And more politicized because it looks like Washington is trying to govern private companies and how they do it. But at the same time, a lot of these new factories that are coming up, it's going to be done with government dollars, right? I mean, they have an investment stake here as well. They do. And one of the things, you know, that even the Commerce Secretary herself has said about this implementation phase is she

constantly refers to the CHIPS Act as being a national security imperative, right? And I was so struck by that language because here you have, it's the Commerce Secretary, right? You imagine her largely thinking and talking about things through an economic lens. But when it comes to this CHIPS Act, you keep hearing it framed as being a national security priority. I also think it's interesting because I think for sort of the everyday American, one of the issues with China is this idea, especially in the industrial Midwest, that jobs were lost. And part of the argument for the CHIPS Act is it's going to bring these jobs back. There's workforce development. And they're good paying jobs. I mean, these are highly skilled labor and they tend to pay better.

If it works, though. I mean, I feel like I was talking about this with our economics correspondent Scott Horsley yesterday, and he makes the point that, you know, like, there has been a long list of federal government workforce initiatives that sometimes work and sometimes, frankly, don't work. I mean, I already saw some of the politics of this issue playing out at the hearings yesterday. There were two hearings. There was a foreign affairs hearing, and there were a couple of members who cited my state, my district is on deck to get an X billion dollar investment from the CHIPS Act. And they were sort of like using their five minutes to pat themselves on the back, which you could see in a future campaign ad. It was like, I'm bringing home the bacon. And I think that they all want to be able to do that. And,

you know, I think I am interested, Asma, to see whether Republicans who opposed putting some of these, you know, things they look at as mandates in the bills last year will complain about that or decide it's more important for me to stress that I'm bringing this future employer to my district that's going to broad umbrella issue. And it feels like the China issue is tentacles are in almost every debate, national security, diplomacy, and even social media. I mean, the focus on the social media app TikTok and its relations or ties to the Chinese government have become sort of a huge focus on Capitol Hill right now as well. It is. It was a big part of both hearings yesterday in the House. And it's also another place where there's a lot of bipartisan agreement that there are real national security problems with TikTok, which its parent company has ties to the Chinese Communist Party, having so much control not only about the information it pushes out and how it can control the news environment, but also how much it controls users' data and what are they doing with that data and who gets to see it. So there are a bunch of different proposals for essentially ways to ban TikTok operating in the United States. One proposal, Chairman Gallagher and Congressman Krishnamoorthy have talked about is banning it operating or making sure that

essentially the leadership of TikTok is spun out to an American-owned company and is no longer has ties to ByteDance, the parent company. That way it would still be able to operate, but it would be accountable to an American company that's not sharing information essentially with the Chinese Communist Party. And then there were other efforts. And actually today, a House panel passed a bill that would essentially give the Biden administration a process to ban TikTok from operating in the United States. So I think we're going to see a lot of debate going forward on this. There are some issues that Democrats raised in this debate, too, about how far do these proposals go and could they end up impacting American companies unwittingly. Yeah. Asma, to me, the challenge for this president and probably several future presidents, because this is not going to be a short-term issue, is that so much of this happens outside

the confines of lawmaking. It's diplomacy, it's postures, it's those kind of relationships. And I'm thinking of Blinken having to cancel this trip to China. I don't know if the Biden administration has sort of a clearly articulated posture on a diplomatic level right now towards China. It's just kind of messy. share these stories about his personal relationship with President Xi Jinping. And he'll share these anecdotes sort of on the stump he did during the campaign and even during his traditional speeches. But I think one thing that's very noteworthy is since Biden has actually become president, he has not made a trip to China, nor has President Xi, you know, come here and met with President Biden. They had one very brief meeting on the margins of the G20 recently. But look, I mean, there's not really clear signs that there's an open, active level of communication. I mean, one of the things that I was struck by, and I think actually Biden was asked about this in a recent interview he gave to ABC,

was that when this whole spy balloon incident happened, the Pentagon is supposed to have this, sort of a quick line, crisis communication line to call China, right? Yeah. And nobody answered. You know, Biden was asked about what that means. And I was struck because I don't think he had a very clear answer about what it means because it seems like the administration is figuring it out right now. During the short term, what's next for this committee? Sort of who do they want to hear from or what do they want to look at? I think they're going to have a lot more hearings. Chairman Gallagher is talking about doing field hearings around the country. One issue that

they're worried about is Chinese investment in agriculture interests around the country or Chinese investment in land around U.S. military bases and possible espionage issues there. They might go out around the country and do that. Gallagher is talking about organizing an official trip for all the members of the committee to visit the region, possibly to Taiwan and maybe having a field hearing in Guam to just sort of put a flag in the ground there and say, you know, we're here and we're serious about listening to people from the region. I think that has diplomatic repercussions if they do end up going over there. Chairman Gallagher did go on an unannounced trip to Taiwan over the recess. I think that they are not a committee that's going to pass legislation. It's not in

their authority to pass bills, but they are being looked at by the House, Democrats and Republicans as the place to come up with bipartisan solutions. I think they already have a lot of ideas already about existing bills that are out there that kind of have just been under the radar. But now that people are paying attention, I think there's a good chance we'll see a bunch of votes on the House floor. All right, let's leave it there for today. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Deirdre Walsh. I cover Congress. And I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.