Ex-officials, academics call for US to work with Europe to counter China

Group of experts suggest cooperation such as joint investment screening and intelligence sharing

Report identifies key areas of trade, technology, human rights, climate, the pandemic, and reform of international institutions

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The report identified trade as a top priority for cooperation, including through joint monitoring of China’s promises on subsidy transparency, intellectual property protection and “market opening”. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:00pm, 18 Feb 2021Updated: 9:00pm, 18 Feb 2021

A group of academics, former US officials and advisers have called on the United States government to work with Europe to counter China, including through joint investment screening and intelligence sharing.

In a report titled “A road map for US-Europe cooperation on China”, published by the Paul Tsai China Centre at Yale Law School on Wednesday, the experts said steps needed to be taken as an “urgent priority” in six key areas: trade, technology, human rights, climate, pandemic plans, and reform of international institutions.

They said distrust and difficulties in the relationship between the European Union and the former Donald Trump administration had hindered transatlantic cooperation, as had Brussels going ahead with an investment deal with Beijing despite Washington’s request for it to wait until President Joe Biden took office.

Suggested areas for cooperation were those with “the most US-Europe common ground and where joint approaches or actions would increase prospects of eliciting improved Chinese behaviour or deterring bad behaviour”.

But the authors – Paul Gewirtz, Ryan Hass, Susan Thornton, Robert Williams, Craig Allen and David Dollar, all China experts – also called for a cautious approach.

“[D]urable new habits of transatlantic coordination in China should proceed with modest public expectations and quiet diplomacy on specific issues likely to produce concrete agreement,” the report said. “Conversely, such efforts could be undermined if framed as creating a bloc or coalition in opposition to China, since such framing has almost zero purchase among European leaders.”