On October 24, 2019, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence delivered a speech on U.S.-China relations at the Wilson Center in Washington. Pence’s hawkish attitude towards China is already well known, and in this speech he made a number of harsh criticisms on China. However, in the context of the adjustment of U.S.-China strategic relations, Pence’s speech is still important for us to understand the adjustment of the U.S.’s strategy towards China and the future direction of the bilateral relations between the two countries.
When we sort out the content of Pence’s speech, if we ignore the parts about his usual prejudice against China, the following aspects are still worth noting:
First of all, Pence affirmed the unique importance of U.S.-China relations. At the beginning of his speech, he pointed out that he wanted to discuss a topic that largely determines the fate of the 21st century, namely the relationship between the United States and China. Pence’s position on the importance of U.S.-China relations is objective, and the United States remains committed to establishing a pragmatic cooperative relationship with China on the basis of fairness.
Secondly, Pence criticized China a lot, with issues ranging from trade, tariffs, quotas, currency manipulation, compulsory technology transfer, industrial subsidies, intellectual property rights, South China Sea, human rights, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Belt and Road Initiative, to military-civilian integration and so on. Pence’s prejudice and anxiety about China have a large following in the United States. This indicates that the fundamental characteristic of the U.S.-China relations is one that is confrontational.
Thirdly, although there are many differences between the interests of the United States and China, the U.S. will still choose to pragmatically cooperate with China instead of opting for a Cold War-style confrontation. Pence said that President Donald Trump has made it clear that the United States does not seek to confront China, but looking “to compete on a level playing field”, an open market, fair trade and respect for the American values. In addition, he said the U.S. does not seek to contain China's development, but hope to have constructive relations with the Chinese leaders. He also stated that despite of the many challenges in U.S.-China relations, under the Trump administration the U.S. will not allow them to prevent pragmatic cooperation with China.
Fourthly, the United States has clearly stated that it does not seek to decouple from China. “People sometimes ask whether the Trump administration seeks to ‘decouple’ from China,” Pence says. “The answer is a resounding, ‘No.’” The United States seeks to engage with China and China's contacts with the outside world, but the way it is approached is in accordance with fairness, mutual respect and international business rules.
Fifthly, the United States hopes to restructure its relationship with China. Pence stated that “we will continue to negotiate in good faith with China to bring about long-overdue structural reforms in our economic relationship.” He also said that “America will continue to seek a better relationship with China. And as we do so, we will speak plainly, because this is a relationship that both the United States and China have to get right. America will continue to seek a fundamental restructuring of our relationship with China.”
Lastly, the United States and China still have room for cooperation on some international issues. For example, Pence mentioned that “China and the United States will also continue in a spirit of engagement to work together to secure the full, final, and verifiable denuclearization of North Korea. And we will seek greater cooperation on arms control and the enforcement of U.S. sanctions in the Persian Gulf.”
It can be seen from these statements that what is mentioned is far more than just a U.S.-China trade war, but also a new framework for the strategic relationship between the United States and China. On the whole, the United States and China will be in a certain degree of sustained "confrontation" relationship. This confrontation is not an entirely hostile relationship; it also includes an interactive mechanism and some form of partnership. InChina Strategic Environmental Report 2035, ANBOUND’s scholars have already pointed out the relations of the two countries will be one that is in a strategic co-opetition period, forecasting the shapes of the things to come in the new U.S.-China relations.
To determine the changes of U.S.-China strategic relationship, we should not limit ourselves to Pence’s speech. In fact, even before the Vice President’s speech, we have tracked a number of key information links. The most significant one is of course, the U.S. National Defense Strategy in 2018 that proposed the shift of the U.S. strategic priorities. In addition, U.S. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for China Chad Sbragia, also expressed a clear signal at a meeting on Asia-Pacific Security Architecture at the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing this October. Sbragia said that he heard many people saying that “the idea that the United States approach is fundamentally based on decoupling”. To this he responded, “I’ll tell you from personal experience that’s not only not official U.S. policy, that’s not even a policy discussion that I hear in my day-to-day business. That’s not even how we think about that,” he said. “If decoupling was actually the practice, what you would see on a day-to-day basis would be fundamentally different than what you see.” He added that both countries want to enhance stability and deepen their relationship to reinforce crisis avoidance.
It can be seen that from the U.S. National Defense Strategy in 2018 to the statement of Chad Sbragia at Xiangshan Forum, as well as Mike Pence’s speech, the U.S.-China relations are showing new changes and patterns. In recent years, U.S.-China relations have become tense. In the eyes of the United States, China is always "bad" and the United States must confront it. But now things are changing. Although the tone of the relations between China and the United States is confrontational, there are still cooperation and communication, which forms a new kind of co-opetition between the two countries. All the signals available to us have verified that these statements are not the personal views of some policy officials, but they are parts and parcels of the major adjustment of the U.S. strategic policy concerning China.
