James Chau:
This episode of “The Pacific Dialogue” we welcome two people who shape our understanding of global affairs. In Beijing, Wang Jisi, president of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University. And in Washington, David Lampton, professor emeritus of China Studies at Johns Hopkins University. I'm James Chau. There was so much to engage them on, including the Pacific Community Initiative they led and a look back at Alaska.
Let's begin with Alaska, the symbolic midpoint between the two countries, where they met in March 2021. It was a very wide-ranging discussion. But what was the top-line takeaway for you both?
Wang Jisi:
I think the Alaska talks were the first high-level, physical meeting between Beijing and Washington after Biden assumed office in the White House. That in itself was significant and positive, as it shows the willingness of both sides to discuss the difficult challenges they face with each other. I believe they also discussed regional and global matters, such as the DPRK nuclear issue and climate change. That was a good start. But much public attention was paid to the open debate. I guess Yang Jiechi's tough and long response to Tony Blinken had been well prepared. It was natural that Blinken's reference to Xinjiang and Hong Kong touched upon Chinese sensitivities. And just before they went to Alaska, Washington had sanctioned Chinese officials in charge of Hong Kong affairs. Yang's remarks won him millions of likes in the media from Chinese citizens. So it was his personal success as well. The attitude of Yang and Wang Yi was consistent with China's official line, as well as the public mood. Recently, President Xi Jinping made a comment that China can now [hold its] head up to the Western world, so I think this reflects a new pattern of diplomatic style that probably will persist in the near future.
David Lampton:
I think there was a lot of theater, and there were two audiences for the two sides. The Americans, I think, were speaking to their allies and friends abroad. But, principally, you had a new American administration that had to show that it has tried to, in a sense, distinguish itself from the earlier Obama administration policy, which means in the politic language of American politics, be tougher on China. After Yang Jiechi's extended remarks, there was quite a bit of online positive reaction. In a way, the opening presentation reinforced the bad image each has of the other. But it seems telling to me that there was no joint statement at the end of the meeting. I think it's important if we're going to emphasize that this is a partially competitive relationship and partly a cooperative relationship, we surely showed it's competitive in that meeting, but I didn't see much cooperation.
James Chau:
Joe Biden made the following remark in his first news conference at the White House: “China has an overall goal. And I don't criticize them for the goal. But they have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world. That's not going to happen on my watch.” What's your take on that, Professor Wang?
Wang Jisi:
Of course, many Chinese want China to become number one in the world. But if we only see the China-U.S. relationship as a power game, a zero-sum power game, we may put ourselves in trouble. First, China is lagging far behind the United States in comprehensive power terms — economic, military, technological, education and so on. Second, China's ultimate goal should not be to replace the United States as number one, but to do better in improving our living standard, protecting the environment and raising educational levels. Third, we should engage us in peaceful and benign competition to see which country is doing better in our domestic reconstruction... not which country is more dominant militarily.
David Lampton:
So, I very much agree with the general proposition that dominance is not only a pernicious goal, it's a basically an impossible goal. Because if globalization has done nothing else, it has empowered other countries. What was most troubling about Anchorage in a sense was, if you looked at the travel schedule of the Americans going out, they went to Japan and Korea. And I'm not criticizing that. If I'd been in the position that our government is, I would have done the same thing. But it was, in a sense, lining up our support base and giving confidence to our allies. If I look at the time after the Anchorage meeting, of course, then Foreign Minister Wang Yi goes to Guilin and meets Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, and then on to Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Iran. What I'm afraid of is we are in — I don't want to say a sort of cold war, two-camp, kind of a world. We're not. It's much more complicated. As I said, no one can dominate. But both sides are going around the world trying to build organizations and make big power friends in a competitive relationship.
James Chau:
Your institutes at Peking University and Johns Hopkins University led what we call the Pacific Community Initiative. It was inspired by Dr. Henry Kissinger and envisages a common enterprise that seeks to generate the necessary conditions. Why have you chosen, of all the projects you could invest in, to commit yourselves to this particular endeavor?
Wang Jisi:
Since 2016, my colleagues and I have been encouraged by Mr. C.H. Tung to conduct a research project with Mike Lampton and people on the American side, especially a few young American scholars, based on a strategic vision to build up a Pacific community. I think there are two ways to look at the issue. One argument might be that no regional community could be achievable unless and until China and the United States mitigate their bilateral tensions. In fact, when we began to work on the project, the China-U.S. relationship was deteriorating. Today, the situation is even worse. So, if we had waited for the improvement of China-U.S. relations, we would still be waiting.
David Lampton:
I think another conceptual way to look at it is when the United States and China have their own difficulties, these difficulties often show up around the periphery of China, whether it's on the Korean Peninsula, in Japan, Southeast Asia. And if you reflect back on the Cold War, most of the large-scale conflicts in the Cold War were in Asia and on China's periphery. And so I think the idea of building a community — and particularly the other nations, particularly in Southeast Asia — they really do not want to see conflict between the United States and China. So, in a way, they are a balance wheel. They are going to push the system I think generally toward moderation, cooperation, and a focus on win-win economic kinds of issues. And I don't want to say the rest of Asia should be a marriage counselor for the U.S. and China. But in a sense, that's kind of what I mean.
James Chau:
I rather like that analogy of the marriage counselor. Professor Lampton, when the world was huddled down and locked down, you released a new book on China's relationship and America's relationship with Southeast Asia. Do you see the Pacific Community Initiative taking in more countries? Could this take the form, for example, of a membership club of nations?
David Lampton:
I suppose people could look at the European Union, particularly before Britain left. I think Asia is a far different place than Europe. And I think it's regionally more diverse, with culturally and religiously very big divisions throughout Asia. Northeast Asia is very different than Southeast Asia. So I don't have the anticipation that a, quote, “community” would be as tightly knit, as we've traditionally thought of the European Union. But I think, you know, ASEAN has been increasingly successful over the years. It has operated according to a consensus principle,
Wang Jisi:
When we talk about the Asia Pacific region on American terms — now the Indo-Pacific region — we don't even know which countries are involved. Not like Europe. In Europe, you have a more or less clear distinction between European countries and non-European countries. But in Asia, we have India, we have even Australia, we have Canada bordering the Pacific Ocean. So one thing we have to think about is, What is Asia? What is the Asia Pacific or Indo-Pacific?
James Chau:
The future state or the U.S.-China relationship is obviously a global concern. Climate change has been earmarked as an area of strong interest that could rescue and return it. Will this method of pragmatic cooperation be close enough to what people like Dr. Henry Kissinger conceptualized, where strategic unease is replaced by the elaboration of shared purposes?
David Lampton:
I think the fact that the United States has designated former Secretary of State John Kerry is a very credible move. He's both interested in the topic and knows all the players. And frankly, I don't know exactly the lineup on the Chinese side. But Xie Zhenhua has been a longtime climate leader for the Chinese government, and I think he enjoys confidence. Clearly, climate change is a global, existential threat, you can't address the issue without the United States and China, and I would say India addressing this issue. So, it's very important, it's eminently feasible. The United States and China both have good people on the issue.
Wang Jisi:
I think, of course, the climate change is essential in U.S.-China collaboration, but not enough. And even in talking about climate change, we have domestic politics to think about. Trump and other Republicans were not interested, or were even opposed to having climate change as part of global collaboration. In China, there has not been adequate public attention to this issue. So China has seized time to formulate an open plan for peaking carbon dioxide emissions before 2030, and this is a very bold plan. But if we look at society at large, we still have to do a lot more to look at the situation. And on top of climate change, we have other environmental issues to think about.
James Chau:
I just want to finish very quickly with the Pacific Community Initiative. The scope of your work brings in so many of the traditional and nontraditional security threats that we face today. Is the timetable and the scope of that work being altered by the current pandemic?
David Lampton:
I think the pandemic has made the idea of community and transnational organizations more self-evidently needed than ever. I mean, just look at the World Health Organization and the need for pandemic information and so forth. So, I think as the problems get more global in scale and more technical in character, the argument for a community approach to solving problems is going to become more powerful, not less.
Wang Jisi:
Today, this morning, I heard the news that both China and the United States are accusing each other of being the origin of the pandemic. This is politicized, and I don't like that to happen.
David Lampton:
The politicians and the diplomats should get on with the job of solving the problem. And the epidemiologists can argue about the facts in due course. But we shouldn't hold up cooperation on the problem we can all see, just because we can't fully agree how it started.
James Chau:
Professor Wang Jisi at Peking University, Professor David Lampson at Johns Hopkins, thank you very much for your time, your skill and your insight.
(The foregoing transcript was edited lightly for clarity.)