Biden & China: Talk is Good, but Pressure on Human Rights Works Best
Biden should get credit for holding the line in his administration’s first meetings with Beijing, despite the media’s hunger to see “deliverables” and unrelenting pressure to lift Trump-era tariffs and new export restrictions on technology. His approach is informed by years of experience in both foreign policy and Congressional deal-brokering, and should make those who carp about his age a bit more grateful there’s someone with experience at the wheel.
In a lengthy and straightforward interaction, he has conveyed both the US interest in Taiwan’s security, calling out Beijing’s “aggressive” approach, and brought up China’s worsening human rights record in some detail, while holding out areas of possible cooperation. This was a welcome counter-balance to China’s strenuous efforts to delegitimize engagement on issues of international law and concern it has denominated “internal” affairs.
The wild card in this game is Xi Jinping, his ambition to restore China’s pre-eminence in its region and compete with the United States for global power and influence. That ambition is not new, but Xi’s control and mastery of Beijing’s power structure is at its zenith now after the latest Party Congress. Much will depend on how he balances an imperial vision with the country’s desire for international prestige and market access. China’s economy is in for rough times and his Covid policies are deeply unpopular. Xi Jinping may be tempted to retake the island to set his mark on China’s future, and this temptation may grow as a way to rally popular sentiment.
China’s policy thinking shifts from leader to leader, but is always predicated on the long game. It sees democracies like the United States as inherently unstable and short-sighted, pegged to a regular cycle of leadership changes and competing political agendas. Biden knows this, and his insistence that he isn’t about to change direction domestically or in relation to the G-20 summit is a way to signal to Xi that the US has long-term objectives as well and is determined to stick to them no matter who wins the next election.
There is no history of China improving its human rights performance in response to the rest of the world going softly on it. To the contrary, the PRC has made concessions on individual cases where it seemed important for a wider geopolitical relationship with the West. Deep human rights reforms will require leadership turnover and social changes that only time, and not a summit meeting, can.
What the summit did accomplish was each side toning down its belligerent tone on Taiwan, reaffirming the norm against nuclear war, and agreement to restart regular communications and climate cooperation. That’s more than one might expect, given the substantial areas of disagreement.
What can the US do to keep pressure on human rights? The key is to catalyze greater discussion of China’s role and record internationally. China’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy has been focused on persuading countries that human rights is a strictly internal matter and not an international obligation. That is a notion the US must fight vigorously, and do what they can to expose the truth of China’s abuses and aggressive ambition.
In particular, the United States needs to rally more than the usual suspects in demanding transparency and accountability. In recent years, the Xi government has made a concerted push to delegitimize the international human rights system that applies ‘soft pressure’ through access, scrutiny, review, debate and findings of accountability. China successfully quashed debate of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s first report on possible crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, the sort of document that often leads to independent fact-finding commissions, rapporteurs and condemnations.
While the US rallied 50 countries into signing an open statement of concern, it needs to focus attention on the increasingly illiberal UN body and get more African and Mid-eastern nations to take a position on both these grave abuses and China’s exports of surveillance technology. To counter the PRC’s influence at the United Nations, the US has to step up its funding and find other countries that can displace China’s recent and extraordinary contributions, and give countries that rely on the PRC’s investments more viable alternatives for infrastructure development.
This will not make for a smooth-as-silk relationship, but it could make for a more productive one. Xi Jinping could make the capstone of his reign China’s leadership on climate change, quashing the nuclear threats posed by Russia and North Korea, or supporting not just anti-corruption but transparency and accountability more broadly in its foreign relations. Such accomplishments would be good for the world, and also strengthen China economically and internationally.
