US policy on China must pivot to cold-war stance from managing competition, two Republican policymakers say
- Joe Biden accused of prioritising ‘a short term-thaw’ with Beijing’s leaders at expense of ‘a long-term victory over their malevolent strategy’
- Mike Gallagher and Matthew Pottinger also urge increased US defence spending to deny Xi Jinping ‘a successful invasion’ of Taiwan
Likening the Biden administration’s tack to that of detente with the Soviet Union in the 1970s, the policymakers said in an essay published in Foreign Affairs magazine on Wednesday “the current approach will yield little cooperation from Chinese leaders while fortifying their conviction that they can destabilise the world with impunity”.
Gallagher made Washington policymakers’ concerns about China more prominent in the many events that his committee organised, some during prime-time viewing hours. And Pottinger testified at its first hearing, calling Beijing’s ability to present itself as a responsible interlocutor “one of the great magic tricks of the modern era”.
Campbell recently held the same role in Biden’s NSC that Pottinger did under Trump.
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“For the first time in years, Xi appeared to have successfully positioned the United States as supplicant in the bilateral relationship.”
Asked for comment on the essay, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington said it was “tainted with false accusations against China, reflects the entrenched misreading and bias toward China of certain politicians and their cold war, power politics mentality”.
“Power competition can not resolve issues facing both countries and the world,” Liu added. “The Earth is big enough for China and the US. Their respective success means opportunities to each other.”
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On the defence front, recommendations by Pottinger and Gallagher ranged from significant increases in defence spending to “creative solutions” for the Asian theatre that include “missile launchers concealed in commercial container boxes or field the Powered Joint Direct Attack Munition, a low-cost kit that turns standard 500-pound bombs into precision-guided cruise missiles”.
They also called for defence spending on the order of “four or even five per cent of GDP” – up from about three per cent currently – and an additional US$20 billion to be earmarked as “a dedicated ‘deterrence fund’ overseen by the secretary of defence, who would award resources to projects that best align with the defence of Taiwan”.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary. Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-governed island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.