The U.S. and China are working to stabilise their relationship but face challenges from persisting mistrust to the Taiwan issue. Max Baucus, former U.S. Ambassador to China, says in an interview that both sides should consider making unilateral actions to build confidence rather than be tied down by reciprocity. Washington, he suggests, should, as a start, repeal sanctions on the Chinese Defence Minister, which has emerged as a stumbling block in restarting military dialogues. On Taiwan, he says both sides should work to maintain the status quo. While the U.S. is building closer security ties with allies as well as partners such as India to counter China, the key challenge in the region, he says, lies on the trade and commercial front. Excerpts from an interview.
Where are U.S.-China relations heading at the moment? We are clearly seeing stepped up engagement by both sides. Are you optimistic after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit last month to Beijing?
After Bali [when Presidents Biden and Xi met in November 2022], things went south. A lot of people were telling the administration, ‘hey, this isn’t working too well’, and there were also people probably telling the Chinese leadership that this isn’t working too well.
I do think both President Biden and President Xi want to get a much better relationship because they both know that’s important for their country’s future, in terms of economics, science, global health. So that’s why they orchestrated that meeting. I also think this [engagement] is to pave the way for President Xi to go to APEC [in San Fransisco in November] and to visit in a way that he feels good to be in the United States, and maybe meet with President Biden.
But at the end of the day, it’s deeds, not words. That’s most important. I would say constantly when I was serving in Beijing: ‘Tell us what’s your aspiration? Do you want to be the hegemon? I don’t care what you say, but are you going to show that you don’t want to be the real hegemon?’ They would listen, but I never got a response. But that’s fine. You just keep making the point. When I was serving over there, I developed what I call my ‘three Ps’. With China, you have to be patient, positive, persistent. Stick with the message. And, after a while, things start to fall into place.
There appeared to be a meeting of minds between Presidents Biden and Xi in Bali. Things then went downhill. What went wrong?
When I was in the Senate, I would often go home to my state of Montana. I would say, when I get back to Washington, I’m going to do A, B, C, all these great things. But when I come back, thud, it’s the bureaucracy of Washington. It’s very, very hard to break through. It’s just hard to get stuff done. So what I think happened is President Biden and President Xi went home. The follow up takes extreme discipline. But things fell apart, with the incident with the balloon, whatever it was.
How did the ‘spy balloon’ row end up having such a huge impact, including cancelling Secretary Blinken’s planned trip which, of course, later went ahead?
It was very unfortunate. It was visual – a physical object – and not a concept, it’s not sanctions or the entities list. It was a balloon, and it was from China. It was so unfortunate that a small development like that below things so much out of proportion.
President Biden often mentions the need for “guardrails” in the U.S.-China relationship. What are your thoughts on what those guardrails should be?
We talk about ‘a small yard and high fence’. The trouble is, it is getting to be a pretty big yard and a high fence. I think the idea of guardrails is a little negative. I’d rather just find areas where we really work together in basic cooperation, and just do that. And then the guardrails will take care of themselves. I think that too often with the U.S. and China, reciprocity can get in the way. Sometimes you cannot wait and you have got to take the first step, if the U.S. or China were to take some unilateral actions to show good faith, not expecting reciprocity.
For instance, you have the Chinese Defence Minister who is sanctioned. I can understand why the Defence Minister did not want to meet with Secretary [of Defence] Austin. To me, it’s a no-brainer to repeal that sanction. But even that is going to be extremely hard because of the politics. A couple of months ago, I was talking to former [Chinese] Ambassador Cui Tiankai and said, why can’t China take some unilateral action that showed good faith? He said it is too hard. The same is true with the U.S. But once it happens, it is going to have a positive effect.
Beijing also seems to have a fundamental issue with the Biden administration’s emphasis on competition, that competition is going to be an essential part of the relationship. How do both sides get around this apparently fundamental difference?
When Secretary Blinken gave his first big policy speech, I recall there were three points: building the U.S. strong, for instance with infrastructure, the CHIPS Act and so on; working with our allies, which I understand; and third, it was about competing. There wasn’t a fourth on cooperation. I think the real question to ask is, what does compete mean? Does it mean we are going to win? This is because the more that compete means winning, the more it’s going to upset the other side, as they are going to want to win. And then we’re in the soup. The effect here is much less cooperation.
Competing sounds good on the surface, but too few people ask the next question, what does that really mean? It should be asked frequently. I’ve asked that question frequently, and I haven’t gotten an answer. I think it is one of the key questions, and exposes a kind of undisciplined thinking.
The other big issue is Taiwan. Secretary Blinken in Beijing reaffirmed the ‘one China policy’, but China has recently accused the U.S. of ‘hollowing’ it out, especially after Nancy Pelosi’s visit.
don’t think the U.S. understands that Taiwan is an existential and non-negotiable issue for China. I think too few journalists know very much about the one China policy and its evolution. It’s easy for members of Congress, for [Nancy] Pelosi, to go over [the August 2022 visit strained relations]. She should not have. It’s such a freebie for them to say because they are not the executive branch, they can. I think the better approach to Taiwan – Deng Xiaoping had it right – was to put the issue on the shelf.
What U.S. and China should do is to maintain the status quo. The Taiwanese don’t want war, they say, ‘we like our country, don’t make things difficult.’ I think what happened with Senator Kevin McCarthy [who hosted President Tsai in California instead of travelling to Taiwan as he had initially planned] was orchestrated. The Pelosi visit didn’t go too well, and both sides said, well, let’s find a nuance and have McCarthy meet Tsai Ing Wen in California, not have a joint session [of congress for Tsai in Washington] and so on. It could have been much, much worse.
What is your impression of the Biden administration’s outreach to allies and partners such as India, as part of its broader China policy?
The Biden administration is happy to see strong alliances. When I was in Beijing, the most important geopolitical matter across my desk was the Trans Pacific Partnership. Ambassadors from Southeast Asian countries would say you have got to pass that, because if you’re here , then we could more easily push back against China. If you are not here, it’s harder for us to push back. This leads to a deeper point which is critical. And that is that the U.S. should push more to enhance commercial ties with countries, trade, investment, and so forth. Too much is wrapped up in political headlines, and often that is only background.
Finally, you have been championing closer people-to-people ties with China even while political ties are strained. How have the political problems affected what you are doing?
When I was in college, I had attended overseas campuses in France. At the end of six months, I realised that I hadn’t learned anything. I decided not to come home, but to stay in Europe. So I got myself a knapsack, and I hitchhiked around the world
for one full year, Europe, Africa and Asia. We were getting off a boat in then Bombay. This was 1963. I went to Delhi, where I stayed at the YMCA and somebody told me that the Prime Minister sees Americans on Thursdays. I ride over to the Prime Minister’s residence. They put me in a room and five minutes later, in walked Prime Minister Nehru out of the blue and he spent 25, 30 minutes talking to me. It was during the Chinese border crisis and you could tell it was weighing on him. He was very friendly. That trip I took opened my eyes. It was an epiphany. That trip encouraged me to get into public service.
When I returned to the United States from Beijing, I wanted to encourage more students to travel and therefore I set up a public policy institute in Montana to get the kids involved, travel. So that’s why we are here [in June, the institute brought the first group of American students to China after the pandemic, at the invitation of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF)].
I feel very lucky to have had two of the best jobs in the world. One, representing my home state of Montana in the U.S. Senate. Second, representing the United States in Beijing. Before I went over, I read Henry Kissinger’s book on China, which was kind of my Bible on how to approach the relationship. People asked me, did you like your job in China? I loved it for two reasons. One, the people, industrious, hard-working, getting things done, the energy. Second, because of the reward of working on the US China relationship. It’s so important. Many people have spoken of the importance of US China relationship for the well being of our kids and our grandkids. It’s true. The better the U.S. and China get along, more likely that our kids and grandkids will have a better future. So I’ve dedicated myself to all of this.
As the world gets more complicated, with the rise of populism in many parts of the world, especially since there is now greater tension between U.S. and China, it’s even more critical that we work harder. The real key is communication and travel, getting to know people in other countries. Americans don’t understand Chinese. Americans haven’t been to China. U.S. government officials don’t know China very well, in my judgement, because they haven’t spent much time in China. This may be trite but it’s true. Especially now, because so many people are enamoured with social media. Going on the Internet and reading about a place is not the same by any stretch of the imagination. That makes people lazy. With communication and travel, there will be a better understanding of what can be done to find solutions, how we can compromise and understand the nuances and the shades of grey, rather than the black and white polarisation that otherwise occurs.
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