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Two recent opinion articles, one entitled, Some Friendly Advice for China’s Leaders, published in Wall Street Journal on 8-22-2018 by Maurice Greenberg, founding chairman and CEO of AIG and current Chief of C. V. Starr & Co having insurance business in China and another in-depth strategic essay, entitled, From Engagement to Rivalry: Tools to compete with China, appeared on Texas National Security Review 8-21-2018 by Peter Mattis, a former CIA Counterintelligence Analyst, currently Editor of China Brief and a fellow of Jamestown Foundation, have compelled me to write this piece to respond to the cited papers above. Greenberg recounts history of US-China engagement since 1900 giving credits to the U.S. helping China throughout her miserable period of nearly being colonized by Europeans and the savage invasion by the Japanese. His advice to the Chinese leaders is to level the playing field by reassessing the terms of bilateral trade and making them more fair and equitable without specific suggestions to Chinese leaders other than urging them to recognize the critical importance of maintaining a constructive and open relationship. Greenberg looked at the trade issues with a narrow lens and offered a somewhat oversimplified interpretation of the trade issues.

Mattis’s article on the other hand is a thorough analysis of the US-China Relations, particularly focused on a review of the American China policy beyond the trade issues. Mattis regarded the past ‘engagement’ policy as a failure and attributed the failure to misunderstanding of the Chinese Communist Party and wishful thinking of changing the CCP or expecting China to be liberalized. Thus Mattis called for a new examination of the China policy and a different approach to analyze and “order the China knowledge” to develop a workable China Policy. Although Mattis’s suggestion is plausible but he is essentially biased against the ‘engagement’ approach and favoring the ‘competition’ approach treating China as a strategic enemy calling for adopting a set of right tools (targeting the Chinese Communist Party and capture the individual wealth deposited in the U.S., a familiar tactics used against terrorists) to deal with China. This bias is perhaps coming from Mettis’s CIA background, I submit though if a fair and logical examination of China’s historical behavior and recent assertive diplomatic actions would not necessarily yield his conclusion that the ‘engagement’ policy was wrong and a hostile ‘competition’ policy will be right.

Looking from high on the US-China Relations over the past century and far into the next several decades, one can discover a number of logic conclusions on why the US-China Relations fell to a new low in recent years with an uncertainty for the future. The first logical conclusion is that the U.S. has always placed her national security strategy as the top priority in formulating her foreign policy and conducting her foreign relationship including trade relation. At the same time, the U.S. does not regard other nations’, case here, China’s national security strategy of any importance in formulating her China policy. On the other hand, China having keen respect to the U.S. as the world’s superpower observes and analyzes the U.S. diplomatic behavior carefully and wishes to learn and follow suit as China is developing up as a sovereign big nation. When China was rising from a weak developing country, the above mismatch of security strategy consideration did not amount to any significant concern simply, therefore tolerated.

When China maintained a steady economic growth with near double-digit annual advance, the U.S. certainly had noticed it. If one observed the transformation taking place in China and how rapidly China had embraced capitalism, the ‘engaging China’ and ‘bringing China into the global economy’ policy actually succeeded not failed. Treating China as a trade partner helped the US foreign policy to contain and eventually to cause the Soviet Union collapsed making the U.S. the only superpower in the world. However, as the U.S. maintained her superior military strength, her national economy took a transformation favoring financial and service industries over basic manufacturing and industrial sectors. On the contrary, China focused on manufacturing and continued her rapid growth to become the second biggest economy of the world and the greatest manufacturer in volume. So in a fair analysis, the ‘engagement’ China policy did succeed in bringing China to the open world and securing the U.S. superpower position. The real issue is what does the U.S. have to do to deal with the inevitable competition element which always comes with a big rising economy. It happened with the European allies and it happened with Japan both created big trade imbalances with the U.S..

The U.S. essentially obtained concessions from EU and Japan as they had been US allies relying on the U.S. for national security protection. The trade imbalance issue with China is far less complicated than the competition perceived by the U.S. The U.S. never treated China as an ally, on the contrary, more like an adversary, thus never offered her security protection. The U.S. from her national security point of view targets China as a threat despite of China’s denial; China solemnly advocates her peaceful rise and from her national security point of view she regards the U.S. Pivot to Asia policy posing military threat to China. Therefore, concession of trade deals cannot resolve this trade war launched out of misunderstanding of national security considerations. China is a single large country with 1.4 billion hard working people, very different from EU, a collection of smaller countries and also different from Japan a natural resource limited aging nation by US design relying on US protection for national security. Of course, the U.S. has a right to negotiate and try to reduce the trade imbalance; however, she must take a fair and honest approach to solve this trade conflict without compounding the trade issue with twisted national security consideration and misunderstanding. Just imagine, if the U.S. and China would have a national security alignment treaty, the trade issue could easily be settled over a negotiation table.

Blaming is not a fair approach in solving conflicts. China did not and cannot steal American jobs. As an MIT professor said, no one can build and dominate any industry by stealing. You need skilled talents and hard working people to build a successful industry. China’s desire to elevate her technology by charting a ‘China Manufacturing 2025’ is a legitimate competitive economic development plan. The U.S. must have a legitimate counter measure to deal with competition. China has become the number one patent producer and the largest producer of STEM graduates. It is obvious that the U.S. must accept and work with China for mutual benefits. The U.S. still leads in many areas of high-technology. Sanctioning hi-tech export only destroy hi-tech industry’s future. Mattis is taunting a ‘competition’ policy to replace ‘engagement’ Policy, but in all fairness, he did not dwell in the fundamental question - What is the definition of national securities for the U.S. and China? The leaders of the U.S. and China need to understand this question and reach an agreement. Then the U.S. can develop an ‘engagement and competition’ China Policy and China can develop an ‘engagement and competition’ US policy both under a fair and mutually acceptable definition of national security strategy.
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Ifay Chang. Ph.D. Producer/Host, Community Education - Scrammble Game Show, Weekly TV Columnist, www.us-chinaforum.org . Trustee, Somers Central School District.
 
 

Dr. Wordman
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American people are proud citizens better versed in American history (The American Revolution and Independence (1776) and her own democratization process: The States grant white male land owners voting rights in 1789, free black male lose right to vote in some States 1792-1838, property qualification dropped for white men 1792-1856, women allowed to vote from 1920, all native Americans granted right to vote, 1924, Chinese immigrants granted the right to citizenship and voting right, 1943, adults 18-21 granted right to vote, 1972) than in foreign relations and global conflicts. The reason may be that there were never wars or foreign invasions occurred on the continent of the United States. Americans went to foreign wars generally out of patriotism, serving the country and the military and supporting the government’s foreign policy, interpreted under national security consideration. The engagement of the U.S. in global conflicts prior to WW II and WW I were limited and constrained, it became full scale during WW II making the U.S. the strongest nation in the world as a result. Post WW II, when the spread of Communism flamed to threaten the capitalistic established nations and societies in the first half of the twenties century, the U.S. raised the flag to resist Communism and led the world to fight any Communist country. The American citizens generally accepted that doctrine whole-heartedly but rarely had learned the deep issues involved in the global conflicts, for example, the Korean War (6/27/1950 – 1/31/1955), the Vietnam War (2/28/1961 – 5/7/1975) and the Gulf War (8/2/1990 – present).
 
Korean War was an anti-Communist war but it evolved into a global conflict of nuclear threat not so much as a threat of Communism. It was obvious, Communist country fared poorly in economical development. The North Koreans finally realized that no suppression could hide the fact that South Koreans live with nearly 20+ times higher per capital GDP than their northern brothers. Now the South Korea and the North Korea are seeking a peaceful settlement, would the American government encourage that or reignite another Korean War to remove the nuclear threat? Wouldn’t it make more sense to work with NK, SK and all their geopolitical neighbors together to resolve the nuclear issue by peaceful dialogue?!
 
Vietnam War was another bitter war; many Americans lost their lives for it, again under the flag of anti-Communism. The U.S. sort of inherited the Indochina regional unrest like a hot potato created by colonialism and the Japanese invasion. The U.S. picked her support and created South Vietnam waving the flags of democracy and anti-Communism but in the end giving in to nationalism that the local people wanted their way of life because of their history, culture and their will of self-governance with no foreign interference. After the war, North Vietnam and South Vietnam are united; perhaps still having conflicts with her neighbors, but Vietnam is striving in her own way of focusing on economic development. Ironically, the U.S. is now considering enticing Vietnam to become one of her strategic partners for her anti-China Policy. Does that make sense?
 
The U.S. has given up her national draft policy, that is, every eligible citizen (18-25) must serve in the military to meet the call of duty in case of war. As the Vietnam War drew to a close in 1973, the Selective Service announced the cease of draft calls after Richard Nixon, a conservative Republican, won the Presidential election over Senator George McGovern of S. Dakota, a Democrat and outspoken opponent of war. The present voluntary army system means that the military service has become a professional career which will respond to any duty of war called upon by the Pentagon under the Commander of Chief, the President.
 
We all knew how George W. Bush started the Iraq war with false information. Subsequently, there are debates of withdrawal from the Middle East from Bush through Obama and now to Trump. But the Gulf War debate had never reached the level like the Vietnam War debate. The simple reason is the draft system. It has become apparent; the President of the U.S. and the Congress must be prudent in managing global conflict and especially careful in initiating any war and the American citizens must raise their understanding of global conflicts so that the citizens can impose their understanding and will onto the elected officials to conduct foreign policies and make sensible war decisions. Citizens must realize that the career military system would not offer the nation a debate process about a war (where the entire nation participates) like a draft system would (since every family has a stake in it).   
 
Recently, the U.S. confronted the “China Competition” by initiating a trade war to reduce trade imbalance. This measure itself can be understood by American citizens (to apply pressure to our trade partners to make them to trade fairly, to open up their markets and to stimulate American industry and corporations to focus on US economy). However, what is not understood by American people is the ever growing anti-China attitude based on national security argument, same arguments similar to previous ones which led to Korean War, Vietnam War and Middle East Wars. In those wars, the American citizens were led to war with no deep understanding of why and whether or not the war was justified. The recent development of US-China Conflict seems to have more issues than the trade imbalance. One issue showing possibility of war is the Taiwan issue. The Taiwan issue was a seven decade old Chinese domestic conflict elevated to the global stage because of geopolitical conflict in Asia, recently heightened by the US Pivot to Asia Strategy. Similar to Korea and Vietnam, the Chinese domestic division was triggered by Communism, thus the U.S. was involved (supporting Taiwan and opposing the Mainland). The involvement of the U.S. should have been ceased when President Nixon signed the Shanghai Communiqué (1972) confirming Taiwan is a part of China and later reinforced by President Carter by formally recognizing PRC as the sole legal entity representing China and severed the official diplomatic relation with Taiwan (1979).
 
The American people should really understand the Taiwan issue to avoid another mistake of creating a war in Asia involving American military for no benefit. China regards Taiwan as a domestic issue, hoping to resolve it peacefully. The American people should try to understand the issue from Taiwan, China and the U.S. perspective. One article published in World Journal (9/5/2018), by Su Qi, a former Secretary of Taiwan’s National Security Council, offers such a perspective. On the crucial issue, whether Mainland China would use military force to unite Taiwan and whether the U.S. would interfere with military force, Su states: Based on historical facts, China has not engaged in any military conflict after the Cold War; her wars were taking place only at peripheral regions of her national border, over sovereignty issue, nothing to do with Communism. He further points out that China’s war management generally goes through three clear phases, a warning period, then surprise attack and quick ending and withdrawal, meaning a rational behavior.
 
Su reemphasizes that whether (or not) the Taiwan Strait would break out into a military conflict depends on the behavior of the Taiwan government. Whether a conflict will escalate into a war would depend on the U.S. and whether the war would become serious would depend on China’s decision. At the moment, Taiwan’s current administration is marching onto an anti-China path mimicking the U.S. despite of Mainland China’s friendly gesture and generous offering in trade and benefits to Taiwan. The U.S. currently seems to be using the Taiwan issue to antagonize China by passing the Taiwan Travel Act, dedicating a big building for the American Institute in Taiwan (US Representative in Taiwan) and encouraging Taiwan to buy more US arms and develop submarines, all challenging the redline of the Mainland China raising probability of war. As American citizens, we must ask: Why do we want to trigger a war in Taiwan Strait? What will we gain? What did we learn from the Korean and Vietnam wars? Should we seriously rethink of our presnt and changing China Policy?!




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New York State is called the Empire State for many reasons. New York State has other nicknames such as Excelsior State. Empire State was adopted in 19th century generally referring to its wealth and resources as a big state in the United States. Some attributed the name to the remark George Washington made while viewing the map of New York prior to the battle of New York in the independence war, “New York is the seat of an empire.” The 102 story of Empire State Building in the Big Apple, New York City, built in 1931 as the world’s tallest building at that time, remains as the famous icon of the City and State of New York. Nearly all tourists came to New York would visit the Empire State Building, ascending to the top to take a panoramic view of the Manhattan Island. The first King Kong movie made with the Empire State Building in 1933 had captured the hearts of many millions of movie fans not only for loving the actress Fay Wray and King Kong but also for appreciating the Empire State Building’s architecture. The name Empire State is now on every license plate of vehicles registered in New York.
 
New York State is now the third largest state in the union. Interestingly, the Encyclopedia Britannica had kindly described New York in a paragraph which will lead to my discussion on the title subject, “Until the 1960s, New York was the country’s leading state in nearly all population, cultural, and economic indexes. Its displacement by California beginning in the middle of that decade was caused by the enormous growth rate that has persisted on the West Coast rather than by a large decline in New York itself. Texas overtook New York as the second most populous state in 2000. Still, New York remains one of the most populous states in the country, and its gross economic product exceeds those of all but a handful of countries throughout the world.” Unfortunately, an updated assessment of the New York State in many New Yorkers’ view is that the state, especially New York City, although remains the centre of much of the country’s economy and finance, as exhibited by the power of Wall Street, as well as the driver of America in art and culture, as displayed through Broadway and media and entertainment industries influencing the national political and social lives, however, the state and the city have been divided in political philosophy as liberal against conservative, down State suppressing upstate and rural population opposing city folks among its nearly 20 million people over land of 140, 000 square kilometers.
 
The upstate of New York has been on decline economically for decades. The manufacturing jobs have dwindled post World War II from 2.2 million to less than 300,000 in 2008. From 2010 - 2016 while manufacturing jobs grew nationally 6.5 % from a decline, New York on the contrary further lost 3% or 14,000 jobs despite of decreased taxes on manufacturing industries, he lowest level in decades. When Volkswagen invested $1B for auto manufacturing it selected Tennessee State for lower labor cost and free of labor union. Manufacturing site selection focuses on labor cost, market access, friendly business environment; New York is just not competitive comparing to other states. Many manufacturers had been scared away after they had examined the financial state of the prospective New York municipalities. New York’s financial center status is no longer a significant attraction to manufacturers. Of course, the lack of growth (turning to paper economy) and high taxes are driving residents and retirees leaving the state and forcing the 1.2 million degree-credit students in New York’s 270 colleges seeking jobs in other states. 
 
The prognosis of the future of New York State is not great. Politically, the State is deeply divided with a frustrated Republican Party forever unable to gain control of the full government and the legislature. The Assembly is essentially controlled by the Democrats in New York City whereas the Upstate counties barely contribute to maintaining one vote margin in the Senate. The long decline of New York State manufacturing since 1945 has a close correlation with the politics in the State. One notices that out of 44 previous US Presidents, New York has more than its fair share of producing six. However, one further notices that the six from Martin Van Buren (8th), Millard Fillmore (13th), Chester A. Arthur (21st), Grover Cleveland (24th), Theodore Roosevelt (26th) to Franklin D. Roosevelt (32nd, 1933-1945)) were all serving prior to WW II. This is probably not a coincidence judging the economic performance of New York post WW II. 
 
The 2016 presidential election was an unusual one having twenty three candidates (17R and 6D), including three contenders from New York, Hillary Clinton (D), George Pataki (R) and Donald Trump (R). Pataki dropped out early leaving Clinton and Trump eventually becoming the final candidates. Donald Trump finally won the presidency after a vigorously contested primary and a bitter campaign against well funded Hillary. However, Trump could hardly claim that he was representing the State of New York. He did not serve any public office in New York other than being a real estate tycoon; he did not even get a fair support from the New York State Republican Party machinery. Thus his victory had little to do with the economic performance of New York, in other words, unlike Franklin Roosevelt who served as the Governor of New York prior to becoming the US President nor like Ronald Regan who served as the Governor of California before becoming the US Commander-in-Chief, both won their home state support.
 
Now the future of the U.S. is in the hands of a New Yorker, Donald Trump. Perhaps, it is a good thing that Trump is not minted out of Albany or New York politics, since the poor score card of New York economy has to be blamed on the politicians in Albany and New York City (poverty rate 19.5% in 2016, high rent problem and sheltering homeless 60,000 per night) and their recent scandalous corruptions and long impotence in revitalizing New York. Whether or not Trump can make America strong again with his “America First” campaign pledge perhaps depends on how fast and well he can learn on the job. He has given lots of campaign promises and has taken many actions on his own initiatives. His bold tax cuts and unwavering positions on trade issues and immigration problems have all yielded early or temporary results that the frustrated Americans find refreshing; hence, the US economy shows a tick-up and the stock market gives him approval and vital support with watchful eyes.
 
If Trump were able to learn on the job and steer the country onto the right path smoothly into a second term by getting our trading partners to agree on a new set of trade agreements benefitting the U.S. economy, negotiating and stabilizing a number of international or global security problems (such as North Korea and Iran) and energizing our domestic programs to create jobs and improve our national infrastructure, the future of the U.S. would be bright. Then, what about 2024? Even though New York State performed poorly since 1945 and showed no sign of revitalization, the New York State is not short of ambitious politicians inspiring for the U.S. Presidency. Clinton might make a comeback and the current Governor Andrew Cuomo already showed his interest for 2024 even 2020. Cuomo is an Albany product used to seeing (or managing) the miserable New York State economy. Cuomo issued an unwelcome welcome statement when Trump visited New York supporting mid-term election candidates. Cuomo even made the statement, “America was never so great.”, a foolish statement to counter Trump’s America First to make America great slogan. Sadly, despite his track record, Cuomo is expected to win his reelection. Hence, I see no good future in New York State. As for the future of the U.S., we must pray for Trump’s fast learning and self-correcting skills. But with so many enemies against him and he keeps making more, the future is at best uncertain. If another authentic New Yorker politician becomes the 46th US President, I may say our future is beyond praying. What the US future would be like?  Your guess is as good as mine!