US seeks to ‘de-risk’ its relationship with China, national security adviser says
- Jake Sullivan uses same language as EU leader Ursula von der Leyen, in a bid to more closely align Washington and Brussels approaches to Beijing
- Meanwhile, US intel chiefs do not believe a conflict with the PRC is either imminent or inevitable’ and seek to ensure ‘no miscalculation’
“We converged with key European leaders in saying we are for de-risking, not for decoupling,” he said during a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“De-risking fundamentally means having resilient, effective supply chains and ensuring we cannot be subjected to the coercion of any other country,” Sullivan added.
Such measures were to reduce the chance of intellectual property theft by Chinese companies and to avoid strengthening the Chinese military-industrial complex.
While not new among European leaders, the strategy was seen to show the difference, or at least nuance, in the approaches Brussels and Washington were taking towards Beijing.
With a rift widening on a range of issues while trade blacklists, export controls and investment reviews are increasing, investors and businesses across the world are concerned about a lasting split between the US and Chinese economies.
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Yet those measures were premised on protecting national security – and not meant to harm China, he added.
“They are not, as Beijing says, a technology blockade. They are not targeting emerging economies. They are focused on a narrow slice of technology and a small number of countries intent on challenging us militarily,” Sullivan said.
“We are not cutting off trade,” he said. “In fact, the United States continues to have a very substantial trade and investment relationship with China.”
Still, Sullivan noted the difficulty in the approach. “How do you effectively de-risk without decoupling?” he asked. “There is no clear mathematical formula for that.”
Sullivan said the last few decades revealed cracks in the international economic order that the US led after World War II.
“This moment demands that we forge a new consensus,” he said.
He rejected the idea that a new “Washington consensus” is “America alone” or “America and the West to the exclusion of others”.
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“This strategy will build a fairer, more durable international economic order for the benefit of ourselves and for people everywhere,” he declared.
Sullivan said the US domestic capacity was the starting point of the administration’s international economic strategy but that the US would work with its allies and partners to ensure they built capacity and resilience as well as inclusiveness.
Sullivan said the US was mobilising trillions of dollars in investment into emerging economies, and he pressed China on genuine relief to struggling countries.
“We share the view of many others that China now needs to step up as a constructive force in assisting debt-stressed countries,” he said.
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Hours after Sullivan sought to redefine the contours of America’s economic face-off with China, US intel chiefs ruled out any inevitability of an all-out military war with the Asian powerhouse at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday.
While calling out China for cyberattack threats, global influence and disinformation campaigns, General Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency, warned against any “miscalculation”.
Asked about assessments that China was seeking to be capable of invading Taiwan by 2027, Nakasone said the agency was investing a “tremendous amount of time” to ensure “no miscalculation” in understanding Beijing’s “capabilities and intents”.
Additional reporting by Khushboo Razdan in New York
