Rightsizing Xi and Obama: What’s at Stake and Going Forward
On Friday and Saturday, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet for an unprecedented two day summit in California. The summit is an opportunity to “rightsize” the relationship – not offering many concrete deliverables but building toward the blend of competition and cooperation that offers the best path toward a stable, prosperous and increasingly open Pacific future. Among the many important issues on the table, the four issues of cybersecurity, economic competition, military relations and China’s often serious disputes with American allies require the greatest clarity and care to set the stage for progress across the board.
Tackling cybersecurity:
What’s at stake: Sino-U.S. relations in cyberspace are perhaps the most immediate and sensitive issue confronting Xi and Obama. Chinese officials have pushed back on claims from Secretary of Defense Hagel, the Internet security firm Mandiant and unclassified intelligence reports that characterized Chinese actors as the “most active and persistent” perpetrators of cyber espionage. [Chuck Hagel, 6/1/13. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, 10/11]
Going forward: Kenneth Lieberthal of Brookings suggests that pressure on economic espionage be twinned with different approaches in other fields: “President Obama should, though, be careful to differentiate clearly distinct issues in the cyber world. There is little utility in complaining about Chinese efforts to steal U.S. political and military secrets – all nations do that, and none would ever agree to limit these efforts. He should also highlight the importance of cooperation to defend against attacks on critical infrastructure by terrorist organizations that threaten both of our countries. And he should encourage U.S.-China cooperation on combating criminal activity that utilizes cyber tools – money laundering, financial scams, child pornography, etc.” The U.S. and China have agreed to host regularl Cybersecurity meetings, the first of which will be in July. [Kenneth Lieberthal, 6/3/13]
Fostering healthy economic competition:
What’s at stake: The most competitive and important aspect of the Sino-U.S. relationship has been and will continue to be economic. Lieberthal explains, “U.S. bilateral concerns focus especially on market access and protection of intellectual property (related to cyber security). Chinese concerns focus on security reviews of investments in the U.S. and on American restrictions on technology exports to China.”
Additionally, China and the United States are promoting different visions for trade in Asia, with each promoting a regional trade agreement (the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and Transpacific Partnership, respectively) that would exclude the other.
How to proceed: For shared prosperity, the two governments must manage the backdrop and rules in which economic competition takes place Lierberthal urges that the presidents “discuss their long-term trade and investment goals for the Asia-Pacific region overall to gain a better understanding of whether these two programs [Washington’s Transpacific Partnership and Beijing’s Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership] will tend over time to divide the region into distinctive trade regimes or might lead eventually to a common Asia-Pacific platform that will reduce barriers to trade and investment.”
China analyst Douglas Paal recommends Xi and Obama work towards “negotiation of a bilateral investment treaty that genuinely facilitates Chinese investment in the United States and protects and expands American investment in China” and over time the U.S. can encourage China to “open financial services, energy, and transportation sectors that are closed. Government procurement policy, financial liberalization, and sensitive product areas are further points for this group to negotiate.” [Kenneth Lieberthal, 6/3/13. Douglas Paal, 6/4/13]
Ensuring stable military relations:
What’s at stake: The latest Department of Defense assessment of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) explains China “continues to pursue long-term, comprehensive military modernization program designed to improve the capacity of its armed forces to fight and win short-duration, high-intensity regional military conflict.” While China now spends an estimated $135-215 billion on its military, according to the DoD, Andrew Erickson of the Naval War college explains that “rampant inflation has mitigated the real-world impact of nominally large [defense] budget increases” and military-intelligence analysts conclude “Our assessment is they are nowhere near as effective as they think they are.” [Department of Defense, 5/13. Andrew Erickson, 5/13. Anonymous via John Garnaut, 5/13]
Going forward: China and the United States both have an interest in avoiding conflict and preventing misunderstanding, which requires a greater emphasis on military-to-military contacts between the two powers. “Ideally,” Kenneth Lieberthal explains, “this discussion [between Xi and Obama] would lead to an ongoing high level U.S.-China political and military dialogue over respective goals and related force postures in the region, using a five-to-ten year time horizon. Such a dialogue might mitigate current pressures trending toward an arms race in the region. It might also make it easier to expand relations between the U.S. and Chinese militaries that, despite some recent enhancements, remain far behind the interactions that have long existed in the nonmilitary aspects of U.S.-China relations.” [Kenneth Lieberthal, 6/3/13]
Managing tensions over China’s territorial disputes with U.S. allies
What’s at stake: China is engaged in multiple territorial and maritime disputes with other states in the region, including U.S. allies the Philippines and Japan. Michael Swaine of Carnegie explains the latter dispute over the Senkaku Islands is “particularly significant… because of the uniquely volatile combination of elements involved,” including China’s challenge to “Japan’s administrative authority over the islands,” the “high numbers..of the government vessels participating in both sides,” and the intensity of “emotions involved…These and other factors significantly increase the likelihood of a serious crisis occurring, and perhaps escalating out of control.” [Michael Swain, 6/4/13]
Going Forward: Richard Bush of the Brookings Institution explains how Washington can promote concrete risk-reduction steps: “Presidents Obama and Xi have an opportunity to recognize together the danger that these small disputes pose to the interests of their two countries and the entire East Asian region. They can set a tone and create a context for reducing the danger most immediately at hand, which will then permit a shift to more cooperative approaches.” [Richard Bush, 6/3/13]
What We’re Reading
A police officer died after falling into an underpass while trying to subdue a protest in southern Turkey, a regional governor said, bringing the death toll in a week of protests to three.
The Obama administration is secretly carrying out a domestic surveillance program under which it is collecting business communications records involving Americans under a hotly debated section of the Patriot Act, according to a highly classified court order disclosed.
Nearly a year after a bomb in a tour bus at the Burgas airport in Bulgaria killed five Israeli tourists and their Bulgarian driver, the country’s new government is trying to shift blame for the attack from Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shiite movement.
North and South Korea agreed to hold their first government dialogue in years, raising hopes that they were moving toward a thaw in relations after a prolonged standoff marked by military provocations from the North and retaliatory economic penalties from the South.
The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant said it had found another leak of contaminated water, piling pressure on the utility to curb the problem as it seeks permission to release water to the sea.
The US is to start a dialogue with Venezuela aimed at restoring their respective ambassadors, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.
Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, telephoned Nawaz Sharif and congratulated him on assuming the office of Pakistan Prime Minister and invited him to visit Afghanistan.
President Dilma Rousseff’s government said it would send 110 federal troops to the Brazilian farm state of Mato Grosso do Sul to try to prevent more violence between Indians claiming their ancestral territory and ranchers.
Ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to United States, three U.S. lawmakers plan to propose a new law that would punish hackers backed by China, Russia or other foreign governments for cyber spying and theft.
A US army sergeant who killed 16 Afghan civilians in cold blood last year has pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and other charges under a deal with military prosecutors that spares him from the death penalty.
Commentary of the Day
Jeffrey Goldberg discusses what Susan Rice’s appointment as National Security Advisor actually means.
Isobel Coleman writes about her meeting with the cofounder and president of Tunisia’s Islamist Nahda party.
Bruce O. Riedel comments on the new Prime Minister in Pakistan and a turning point for the Pakistani government.
