 And welcome back to Think Tank. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections. We're talking today about an update on the decline of U.S. relations with China, Carl Baker, who has been around Pacific Forum and other global organizations for years and years, and is a fantastic Think Tank kind of observer on all of this. Carl, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me back, Jerry. So we met in June, seems like a long time ago, and we talked about the obvious deterioration of U.S.-China relations with Trump and Xi Jinping, and now it's a couple months later, and that deterioration has not stopped. What benchmarks do you see to kind of examine the direction of that decline? Well, of course, the three big speeches that we had by Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Advisor O'Brien and then FBI Chief Christopher Wray have all painted a very bleak picture about national security concerns from China. And so I think that that's the benchmark, is that it's becoming very much a consensus that there is a problem with national security, that our national security is being challenged by China. But what's bothersome for me is that it's hard for me to see where the national security concerns are coming from, because, for example, today, we just had a proclamation by Donald Trump that as of September 20, we are no longer allowed to do any business with TikTok and WeChat from China, and he's citing national security concerns. But the security concerns are about personal information that might be aggregated by the Chinese that they could use against American citizens. But if you're not traveling to China, I fail to see how that's really a imminent national security concern to the level that we've heard from these three individuals. Well, let me throw a theory at you and see what you think. You know, this all started at the beginning of his term where he started bashing China and he started a trade war with China, which is a pretty destructive and threatening. And he didn't achieve anything, even his phase one agreement, if you can call that an agreement. There's no hope of a phase two, now it looks like to me. Those were not particularly constructive things. You know, between the race aspect of it and the trade aspect of it and the name calling aspect, this all seemed like a way to play to his base and bash the Chinese, find a scapegoat, if you will, a shiny object to hand them, rather than advance American foreign policy. What do you think about that theory? Well, I think that that is certainly a component of it. But it's broader than that, I think, Jay. I think that it really is a societal problem right now. And I think the Americans feel threatened by Chinese technology. They feel threatened by the expansion of Chinese military capability. And the one area that some Americans at least feel threatened by is the movement by the Chinese to assume leadership of international organizations. Now, of course, this is a particular problem with the Trump administration because in some ways we are busy abdicating our role in those international organizations. I think those are, if you want to talk about three areas where I see some level of consensus in the United States beyond just what the Trump administration has done in terms of the economy and in terms of responses to the military activity in South China Sea. I think that those are the three areas that I see. And again, there's some level of consensus with both Democrat and Republican constituencies in Washington that this is becoming a problem and that the United States needs to act in response to what they see our Chinese provocation. But is there really a security threat? I mean, for example, yesterday Senator Blumenthaler got up and said that they had been, his committee, Armed Forces Committee had been taken to a dark room in the basement of the Capitol building and sworn not to reveal any of the proceedings. And then they were told by the intelligence agencies that Russia was undermining our election at a rate much more profound than in 2016. Using all their old weapons for the internet research agency and the like and even hacking into our election devices. And now to me, that is clearly, you know, it clearly goes to the security of the United States, goes to our elections are the fundamental governmental structure that we rely on for the country. And Trump hasn't done anything about that. He ignores it. And in fact, he classified this so they had to be sworn to secrecy. But now they're really hampered because they can't do anything about it. Where according to Blumenthal, it was a fantastic existential threat. Now that to me is a paramount security concern, much greater concern than TikTok. How does our government establish this kind of policy? Isn't it wrong way car again here? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's what I was trying to say early. And I think you see the same thing that okay, if there is a national security concern, what is the national security concern? You can't just throw those words around and not have some conceptualization of how our society is being threatened. And I think you're right. Cyber security is a problem. And what Russia is doing with the elections does create a national security concern. And what Russia has been doing in Europe, I think, is a national security concern. And the arms control breakdown between the United States and Russia, that is a national security concern. But what China is doing, I think, is really trying to establish itself in Asia, which is understandable why they feel threatened by the United States in the South China Sea. Now, have they done excessive land claims? Yes, certainly. Have they done things that need to be dealt with? Yes. But the United States has to have some level of cooperation from other people in the region if they're going to be successful in contesting what China is doing in those areas, just like with the economy. If you're going to sanction and you're going to put tariffs on China, you have to have support from the rest of the world. And Europe isn't working with the United States. And the United States isn't working with Europe on developing a collaborative approach. Just like in Southeast Asia, the Southeast Asian countries are not encouraging the United States to take belligerent action. In fact, several of the Southeast Asian countries are saying, hey, United States, please understand that we have our own problems with China and we'll deal with them in our own way. But don't think that we're on board with you trying to be overly aggressive in the South China Sea and that we're going to come along with you because we're not. Yeah. Well, you and I have shared the Jerome Cohn, the latest blog, in which he includes a number of commentaries by various people, a number of Chinese in the United States and elsewhere about their reaction to what is going on between the US and China. And one that sticks with me is the blog that said that the Southeast Asia and all that, they're standing by. They're waiting in the wings. They don't want to offend the United States and they have too much at stake to offend China. So they're kind of just watching, waiting for some resolution of it and hoping that China and the US can work things out. So I think it sounds like what's happening is this is becoming a mono-e-mono bilateral issue between the two countries and everybody else is standing to see what happens. Yeah. And I think that's why perceptions matter. And so if we're in a competition with China for international leadership, well, the worst thing we can do is to continue to walk away from international organizations. And that's really what we're doing. So if our interests are human rights and we're not going to pursue human rights through international organizations, then what are we doing? I mean, China has developed its own approach to international organizations and it supports governments. It doesn't try to change governments. It's not in the business of creating an empire. In the Cohen piece that you're talking about, several people acknowledge that. That China is a lot of things, but what it's not is a country that's trying to dominate the world. China is perfectly willing to work with other countries and let dictators be dictators. And it's not out there to dominate the world. It's there to ensure that its interests are protected and protect the interests of other states and support those people that are friendly to China. Yeah, I'm sure. And one great ironic thing is that China is on the human rights organization within the United Nations. And so they're heroes for human rights there and realize at the same time they're doing terrible things on human rights. And frankly, I think the U.S. and the Trump is declining on human rights. I mean, there's recently a book about the caste system and that's an expansion of the term as it used to exist as it does exist in India, where the U.S. has institutionalized a caste system on race. So we don't look so good either. And meanwhile, at the U.N., they're kind of taking a leadership role on the issue. That is so ironic. Yeah. And we're sort of, as I said previously, and we're sort of abdicating, right? The United States is sort of abdicating that role to China. So where are we in health? Where are we in world trade organization? Where are we in the U.N.? What are we doing? We're sort of saying, well, we don't want to be a part of that. We're going to walk away from these treaties. We aren't going to be a part of the Paris Accord. We're going to withdraw from WHO in the middle of a pandemic. And China saying, okay, thank you. There have been several commentaries by people who have said China couldn't ask for more than a second term from Trump because it's sort of a free grab of world leadership that the United States is basically giving away. And so, yes, you're right. It is a competition between the U.S. and China. And the rest of the world is watching. And the rest of the world is watching the United States basically allow China to take control of these organizations and control their control the way they run. It's very chilling when you say that China would like to see Trump reelected. So let's see. That means China would like to see Trump reelected. And so would Russia. And both of those countries have the ability to interfere with our national elections, which is also chilling. But it doesn't seem to me that China is actively doing that. Is there any evidence that China is sort of rolling out some kind of initiative to interfere with our elections? No, I don't think it is. I don't think we have seen that. I don't think we've seen the active role that the Russians have played. And again, see, I think that that's really inconsistent with what China has done in the rest of the world. They aren't really interested in trying to influence American society as much as they are interested in having countries that support China's interests. And so I don't see them as trying to undermine the society. Certainly, they're trying to get trade secrets. They're certainly in the business of stealing technology. And they're certainly in the business of trying to get people in the United States to support China's interests. But I don't see them, again, I don't see them as trying to create the empire. And that's really what it would suggest if they're trying to undermine the society, that they want to dominate the world, whatever that really means today. They're happy enough to see the way it's going. We talked about the State Department. Under Trump, it's like there is no State Department. There's no policy. There's no plan. That was clear in these various commentaries. There seems to be no foreign policy plan. But if there was a plan, Carl and Sherry Conn talked about this, and it could be a plan. It could be a plan. With a real State Department, we would have a plan and we would deal in a much, much more strategic way with all this. But what would that plan look like in your thought? Well, see, I think, actually, we have a bipartisan agreement on development. And it's trying to work with private enterprises to support developmental goals. And so they call the Build Act. And this Build Act is really the format for a true global economic policy. It's easy to say we walked away from the trade agreements. But really, this Build Act really represents a much broader approach to economic integration with the rest of the world. And so while we don't have just the trade piece, but you also have trade and development and foreign assistance all working together. And so when you have somebody building infrastructure like China and Japan have done, you have the ability to actually create enterprises to use that infrastructure. And the Build Act really is a policy that is the format for that. But of course, we haven't followed through with it. We haven't done anything with it because that we've been distracted with other things. But that really is the basis, I think, for a strong foreign policy. It's not driven by the military. It's driven by economic concerns and economic cooperation that gives the United States some leverage over these countries that China is trying to develop this infrastructure in. Because what these countries really need is the capacity to actually use that infrastructure once it's put into place. And no one has really thought about how you do that. And with all the private capital available in the U.S. markets, of course, it's a great opportunity to really develop a true economic approach to foreign policy and move it away from the military. Sounds like a kinder, gentler, one-belt, one-road approach where we could meet them on a competitive basis. We're competing with them, but we're also taking advantage of what they're doing. Instead of seeing it as competition for us, we should be seeing it as an opportunity for us to actually leverage what they've done to our benefit. And like I said, the pieces are in place. And to his credit, Assistant Secretary of State Stillwell has actually talked a little bit about that in some forums. That he has talked about how that development program would actually help. But of course, it's talk. There's not enough money being put against it or any real serious manpower being put against it. And query whether we can be confident that anything will happen. But looking at the day-to-day and the shiny objects and the news and all the media, all the media I look at anyway, you have the closing down of the consulate in Houston, is it? And now in response, the closing down of the American consulate in Chengdu, these are not happy things. And they are sort of slaps in the face, if you will, and they raise the temperature. And it's not just between governments or between Xi Jinping and Trump playing with each other. It has an effect beyond that, doesn't it? Has an effect to the man in the street who thinks, as I would, that these countries are in contention. And the next step could be much more controversial. Yeah. And that's why the rest of the world, as you say, it is watching. And they're seeing this. And nobody really wants to get in between it because they see this as sort of a fight to the end between the two superpowers, between the two large powers. But I think one thing we have to understand is that China is a big place. And you can't really compete with China if you're going to try to make America first. Because if you try to focus on the mercantilist approach that China has done, you're going to lose because it's not a fair fight. They've got a few more people and they have an economy now that can actually sustain itself. So you have to think about how do you really compete on the global level is through cooperation, through collaboration with these other countries on key issues like climate change, like arms control, like health, like development assistance, all those things. There has to be a collaborative effort. And if you're going to try to compete between the United States, which has a large economy, has a big military, but what it doesn't have is it doesn't have a strong economic policy for global integration. And that's what's missing, I think. And so if you're going to do that, you really have to think about how you collaborate with the other countries. And of course, the military and other things go with that. Once you start doing that, it's a much, much more effective approach rather than trying to sanction everybody. And think that because you have the largest economy in terms of GDP, that you can get away with that. And the fact is, is that it just isn't sustainable. Well, this is confrontational behavior we see. Usually it starts with Trump, as it did in the closing of the consulates. This is a concern you. I mean, we have three, four months left. Even if he loses, we have three, four months left. And gee, he could do a lot of things like that to raise the temperature. Is this concern you in terms of raising the level of confrontation, maybe even to violence, violence in the South China Sea, violence in some theater in the world? Well, I think that China has certainly taken the approach to say Trump is crazy. I mean, they're basically characterizing the Trump administration as people who are irresponsible. And so I think that that's in some ways a good indication that they recognize that the Trump administration is that they might be able to wait out the Trump administration. And so, and I think that's what the way the rest of the world sees it, is that, you know, certainly it puts a lot of pressure on the election in November. But I think that most of the world sees that if we can get past November, then we can re-look at things. And even China has sort of characterized this as pre-election posturing by the administration, even giving the administration if, for some reason, the Trump administration wins the election, you know, that they're leaving the door open to rethink how we do things after the November election. So I think that's a bit encouraging that at least the Chinese recognize that this is largely posturing by an American political party. Then to throw COVID into the soup here, although Trump has criticized them and used comments like that the Chinese flew and all this. Fact is that the researchers in China, in Wuhan, gave to the world the genome for the virus very quickly. And, you know, I don't think people realize that all these researchers working on vaccine or therapeutics, they have the genome for the virus and that's their way ahead for that. That saved them a lot of time. Furthermore, let me add that I understand that China, even now, through those same laboratories in Wuhan and elsewhere in that part of China, are developing, in fact, have developed a vaccine because it's like every country for itself these days and the level of cooperation developing a vaccine is not what it should be. And China has done that itself. And China is not burdened by the FDA and the phase three trial obligations to be sure of efficacy and safety. So they're actually distributing a vaccine now. Maybe it's kind of a phase three trial without calling it a trial. And if they succeed, Carl, if they succeed in a vaccine that actually cuts down the demographic demography on further cases with further infection of coronavirus, they're going to look like a hero for the world, for the world everywhere. People are going to see them as advanced on the biochemical and medical research end of things. Does that enter into any of this in terms of the relationship? Well, I think it does. But I want to just give a little bit of a corrective there is that while China is developing its own vaccine, it's also in collaboration with the German company developing a vaccine. And so there's news this week that in fact that they are entering phase three trials, that it's a German company and I can't remember the name of the company right now, but it's a German-Chinese collaboration. So certainly China is heavily engaged with the rest of the world in developing a vaccine and is heavily engaged in doing the research to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. And so I think that, yes, it does enter in. And again, if you look at how the rest of the world is viewing this, I think that they see China as being a serious actor, as being an actor that is actually interested, again, in finding a collaborative approach. And this is all part of the Chinese narrative, that win-win cooperation and all this stuff that they always talk about. I think the rest of the world sees. The United States, of course, says, oh, that's just the Chinese trying to trick people. But I think that the rest of the world doesn't quite see it that way. If you look at the news coming again from the rest of Asia, from Europe, they see China as someone who has taken an interest in these international organization, in these international collaborative efforts, specifically right now on the pandemic. And so, yeah, they might cheat a little bit on how they approach their research and how they do their trials. But they also understand that there is a international norm for scientific discovery. And they're following that. They're not just arbitrarily saying, we're going to provide a vaccine to everybody. They're actually, I think, collaborating better. And they're working through the WHO. They're not walking away from the WHO. So they're collaborating with individual companies. They're collaborating with the WHO. And so I think that in the end, they're looking like a better actor in this sense than the United States. Oh, I totally agree. Well, so up to this point, Carl, we've had so many Chinese researchers and academicians all through our colleges and universities, all through our research companies and facilities in this country. They have made great contributions, not only to the global effort in medicine in general, and all kinds of science, but also to the United States initiatives. And so I really wonder how this contention is affecting them. A certain amount of racism against them that he's whipped up. He's made it hard for them to travel and immigrate and lead the lives they were hoping to lead before. And if you throw them out, you don't let them lead those lives, it's another one of his immigration initiatives. And the result is we lose all that talent that has been so instrumental. I mean, you and I can see that there are so many people with Chinese names, with Mandarin names, sprinkled throughout the country in there, all achievers it seems like, and they're all from China, and now they're at risk. So that's going to have or already has had an effect on the ability of this country to do research and academic discovery. What do you think? Yeah, no, I agree completely. I mean, we are a country of immigrants and Chinese are part of that demographic. And what we're doing is we're trying to turn our back on those people. And I think that some people feel very bad about it. And like you say, there are Chinese who are leading experts in so many areas in the United States and certainly in the hard sciences. You know, when you look at the math departments and the chemistry departments and the biology departments in the American universities, they're full of Asians and specifically Chinese who have come to the United States and contributed to American intellectual advancement in all those areas. And so, yeah, I think I think we really need to need to step back and think about what we're doing for the long term national security interests of the United States, which is to have a dynamic economy that's based on research, based on science, based on developing new ideas. Instead of this mindset of we're going to come back and we're going to mine coal and we're going to build iron products in the Midwest. It's just so 19th century and we can't do that. It's an information age and we need to think about it as an information age. And when we do that, then we can think about how we really need to approach China and how we need to think about integrating our American economy into a world economy that benefits everybody, not just the United States in a very narrow closed sort of economy. And I think that that's the hope that we get in next year. That once we're past this pandemic and once we're past this sort of silly competition between China and the US, you know, maybe this flushing out from the virus that will come to realize that their time is not on our side anymore, that we really need to start thinking about collaborating and developing our new economy and moving beyond this mindset that the nation state is the only reasonable political actor in the international system that we really do need international organizations to advance the areas that need to be advanced in terms of the information age. You know, about a month ago, Carl, Trump announced that he wanted to resume nuclear testing. I'm not sure that he actually did anything about that. I haven't heard more about it, but I've heard reaction to it. And in fact, this week, one of the individuals thing, retired general, came on the media and he'd written a book about nuclear testing in the United States. And the notion of the book was that the president, whether it's Trump, but especially if it's Trump, should not have a one person discretion to launch a nuclear attack and we don't live in those times anymore. We don't need that kind of immediate response sort of thing that we thought in the 50s, maybe we needed. And this book, I think it'd be pretty popular, but what troubled me about it is that it still seems to be out there in play that this president could actually press the button and that nuclear has gone beyond deterrence. It's going to first strike thinking. And that is the ultimate possibility when you have two nations, both of which have the bomb and which are getting angry at each other at some levels and may get angry or still. How does that play in all of this? Do you think that Congress will ever limit, should it limit, can it limit politically? The notion of having one person controls the football? Well, certainly, I think they should. I mean, this was an issue during the latest nuclear crisis with North Korea. And it came up. Really, how much power does, how much authority does one individual have? And you're right, it's all based on the idea that if the Soviet Union launched a missile, you had to launch yours in 20 seconds or you'd be destroyed. Well, those days are gone. I mean, it's a time to rethink that, but as you say, it's a very difficult issue. So to give you the short answer, no, I don't think it's possible to deal with that today, but it certainly is something that we need to deal with in the immediate future. And it's out of sight, out of mind because nobody really wants to think about it. There's a small cadre of people that think about nuclear war. And it's probably the most dismal, horrible thing that you could possibly have for an occupation because you're really thinking about the destruction of the earth as we know it. But it needs to be a public conversation about how do we deal with that. And it goes beyond just a conversation within the United States. We really need to have a global conversation about this. What are the impacts of a nuclear weapon? If you think about the panic that has been created when we had the nuclear reactor in Japan, how much panic there was when people were buying salt in Portland because they were worried about contamination. Imagine what would happen if there was actually a nuclear weapon that was detonated, of how much panic that would create. So again, maybe we've learned something from this pandemic that things really don't recognize borders. And so that whole arms control approach needs to be rethought. And certainly part of that should be how do we de-glamorize nuclear weapons? How do we get nuclear weapons out of the mindset that this is the ultimate guarantor of peace? I mean, how perverse that we have a weapon that basically ends the world as we know it as the ultimate weapon of peace because that's all we can think of. That's the best we can do. It's rather disheartening when you think about well, you know, when I was a kid, I'm sure you remember too that there were all these protests and demonstrations. Let's end nuclear weapons. Remember the peace sign, right? The peace sign there in the 50s and the 60s. And they never got what they wanted. They never really outlawed nuclear weapons. And non-proliferation agreements really, they're not effective right now. Trump has pulled out. So we're stepping backward on this rather than forward. But here it takes us to the last question I want to ask you, Carl. And that is, you know, knock wood. Soon enough, Joe Biden will be president or at least he'll win the election. Hopefully that'll stick. It's going to be, he's going to have to roll back some of these some of these moves that Trump has made in dealing with China. And it's complex. It's not all right and wrong. It's nuanced in both sides. What do you think he'll be able to do that in a reasonable period of time? What is your advice to him? Because he can save it, I think, but how and when and how long and what kind of expertise is he going to need around him to do it? Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a big question. And it's a big task. And the short answer is, no, I don't think I don't think he's going to be able to do that in the span of four years. Because there's a there's a growing consensus in the United States with the among both Democrats and Republicans that we need to deal with China. And I think that's the that's the part that we need to get passed. And that's going to take a while. Because what we really need to think about is how do we deal with the world? And what is what is our place in the world? Trump Trump has has in his in his destruction of so many institutions has really moved us past the point of going back to to the old liberal idea of, you know, rising tide rises all boats or yeah, you know, I mean, so I think we're I think we're past that and we need to really think about what do we really want from global governance? What do we really want from from our global footprint? And how do we deal with these global issues? And it can't be the United States's way or the highway, which is what both Democrats and Republicans have had that we're to the point now where China has become a reasonable player at the global level, and we need to recognize that and we need to think about how do we develop a collaborative framework? And so that Biden has to has to move in that direction. I think that that's where we need to go. We need to roll back some of the excesses of the Trump administration. But then I think we need to think about where do we go from there and where we go from there is is a much more collaborative approach at the global level where we we actually have friends and allies that work with us to to sort of tamp down some of the excesses that we see from Xi Jinping and and other other people of his ilk in other governments. You know, from a policy wonk like yourself, a foreign policy wonk like yourself, that sounds like the most challenging, interesting, and promising experience that the United States can have to repair a relationship that's been damaged to repair it in such a way that it benefits all the parties and the rest of the world as well. What a great time that would be, don't you think, from an intellectual foreign policy point of view? Yeah, and I think I think you would stimulate a lot of the people who have left the government to come back and and really contribute to that. Because like I said, you know, I mean, if you look at if you look at Trump's aberration as as the opportunity to rebuild with with some of the old chivalrous out of the way, just because that's what Trump did is he kicked everything out of the way that we really have a much more clean slate than we would have had had we had more continuity in in the American approach to to to global governance and to to global engagement. And so I think I think there's there's the opportunity at but it's going to take a lot of perseverance on the part of the Americans because because the Americans have to lose the mindset that only the Americans can be the global leaders. There has to be a collaboration that can't be it can't be okay we're back in the saddle now come follow us. I think those days are gone and we need we need to recognize that and and Americans aren't going to take that very easily both Democrats and Republicans because we still want to be number one we still have the biggest economy so we still need to be in charge and we need to decide when we can when we can put sanctions on people and when we can put tariffs on people and that that whole mindset has got to shift and so that's I think the big challenge for for for the Biden administration when they come into come into office assuming they win the election in November that that's that's where they need to start from that that yes we're going to pull back some of the excesses but then we need to think about building but not not bringing back the old ideas but building new. I hope you and I can regroup from time to time Carl and take a look at that and see how it's working and and have discussions like this it's been very valuable thank you so much Carl Baker. Okay thanks Jay.