Quid pro quo (QPQ) is a Latin phrase absorbed into English; it is a noun meaning a favor is granted or expected in return for something. In Chinese it is translated as “交換條件“ which means “give or take something for take or give another thing as a condition”. As described in dictionary, in Latin, QPG implies that something has been substituted (this instead of that). The English usage of QPQ in early sixteen century had the same meaning as in Latin, meaning substitute, a common usage in medicine, substituting one medication for another. Wikipedia cited an usage of QPQ in the history book, “the Reign of King Charles” (1654) as something done for personal gain or with the expectation of reciprocity (God and believers do not enter into a contract without QPQ, meaning believers must forsake the devil and all his works).
 
QPQ would go on to be used in English in legal and diplomatic contexts, as an exchange of equally valued goods or services where value can be something immoral or illegal or obtained such way, for example, as done in extortion or bribery. But QPQ can be done legally or out of necessity, many examples can be found in legislative process in the U.S. Congress where the sponsors of one bill are making a QPQ deal with another bill’s sponsors so that they will vote for each other’s bill to get them all passed in Congress. Another example also quite prevalent happens in government’s budget appropriation negotiation; sometimes one or two expense items are added in the budget provided another one or two budgets are also added so that they all get approved. QPQ deals have been done in diplomacy too numerous times to be countable. The most infamous one, perhaps, is the surrender of Japan at the end of WW II with the condition that the Japanese Emperor would not be tried for war crime. So QPQ is a negotiation tool often used in power negotiation regardless whether the goal is a just one or not.
 
American presidents have done their share of QPQ; of course, whether they are done morally or not, are subject to interpretation. We can simply cite a few examples here to show that QPQ is a necessary tool presidents must learn and know how to use to gain political advantage. Cheryl Chumley has published an article in the Washington Times, 9/25/2019. citing a few examples: 1. An article in Green Biz in March of 2011, “Barack Obama, Clean Tech and the Political Quid Pro Quo.”, 2. “Barack Obama’s Ambassador Legacy: Plum Postings for Big Donors,” headlined in Public Integrity, January, 2017, and 3. The Wall Street Journal in August of 2016, “President Barack Obama defended his decision to authorize a $400 million cash payment to Iran that coincided with the country’s release of American prisoners in January.” All the above looked like and smelt like QPQ, didn’t they?
 
As Mentioned above, the ending of WW II contained an act of QPQ involving the fate of the Japanese Emperor. We could simply visit the history of FDR’s relations with Churchill, Charles DeGaulle of France, Josef Stalin of the Soviet Union and Chiang Kai-shek of China to find more QPQs being used during the war to achieve many objectives at the expense of one or the other nation or at the expense of the career of an individual American. It is interesting to find a quote attributed to President Ted Roosevelt, on being American: "Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. (QPQ?) We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as be seen as a people with such responsibilities." We can conclude from the above that being able to use QPQ effectively is a responsibility of the American President; being able to understand QPQ is a responsibility of the American people.
 
Come to the question whether President Trump had made a QPQ with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as his phone call transcript had revealed, the answer is probably yes. As whether President Trump had made that QPQ for A personal gain as charged by the House Intelligence committee, the answer is probably no, at least there is no legal evidence. Politicians try to gain political advantages using QPQ are acceptable if there is no violation of the law exhibiting measurable damage. Investigating a possible corruption case of any American involving a foreign country, Hunter Biden in the specific case, is within the responsibility and legal bounds of the Presidency. Whether Hunter’s father, Joe Biden, is a Presidential candidate running against Trump or not is totally irrelevant. One may raise the moral issue of the timing of the QPQ, but aren’t there many sex scandals, whistle blowers and extortion activities surfacing during the campaign process of American elections? The voters are used to that and they have developed a bias wanting to know the truth and less so on how the truth was revealed.
 
Unfortunately, the so-called Trump’s QPQ with Ukraine President has become a bi-partisan fight, obviously with Democrats trying to destroy Trump’s chance of being re-elected. On this election issue, I believe, the American voters will judge on Trump’s performance on managing the economy. Is the nation better off today than 3-4 years ago? Can he make a good trade deal with China (with or without using QPQ) leading to four more years of healthy economic growth? I believe the American voters want to know the truth about whether Joe Biden, the father, knew his son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine working for a corrupt energy corporation there more than the truth about how Trump has made a QPQ with Zelensky to investigate the corruption case. After all, the Democratic Senators had openly in a letter threatened Ukraine with withholding financial aid to urge Ukraine to investigate corruption cases revealed in Mueller’s (The U.S. FBI ) investigation.
 
So in a fair minded analysis, we must say that using QPQ is not an impeachable crime, unless a quantifiable personal gain or a national loss can be proven!
 


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Is it so hard for American foreign policy scholars to give credits to China for her foreign policy success? The case in point is about China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This column piece appears here because it will never be accepted by Foreign Policy (FP, A prominent journal on foreign policy) where only papers defaming or making criticism on China appear. Recently, on the FP website, a paper entitled, China’s Global Critics Are Helping It Win, by Joshua Eisenman and Devin T. Stewart, October 30, 2019, caught my attention. The following papers suggested for further reading by FP, Belt and Road Tests China’s Image in Pakistan - by Daud Khattak , Can China Deliver a Better Belt and Road? - by Jamie Horsley, China’s Belt and Road Initiative Is a Corruption Bonanza - by Will Doig, compelled me to write this column piece.

I have written a few times about BRI since its beginning in 2013 known as One Belt and One Road (OBOR) tracking its origin and progress as well as its problems and criticisms appeared in the media. Perhaps influenced by the Silk Road history I had learned in my youth, I was glad to learn such a proposal. But I was duly concerned with its magnitude and scope which definitely will challenge China for its implementation from finance, engineering and foreign relations points of view. Therefore, I could understand if any country was hesitant to endorse or join the program and any foreign policy scholar was critical about its potential problems. However, as an economic development program chartered to encourage inter-State collaboration and to produce win-win economic results, even possible social and cultural benefits, I don’t see any reason for anyone to oppose or sabotage the program. Rather, I expect to see analysts to encourage participation in BRI and keep a critical eye on its progress. My previous papers on BRI appeared in this column (#312, 8/10/2019, #302, 5/25/2019, #301, 5/18/2019, #297, 4/20/2019, #296, 4/13/2019, #168, 10/29/2016, #91, 5/9/2015) were written with the above attitude.

As seven years have passed and 126 countries have joined the BRI program, BRI must be considered as the most significant foreign policy ever introduced by any nation in a peaceful time with a positive objective (not a war or anti-war alliance). As an American citizen, I do not understand why the United States would not take part in such an international program and make a positive influence and contribution to it. It is reasonable to make criticism (such as warning on finance burden and analysis on inadequate payback) but it is unreasonable to discredit them if China and many participating countries had weathered through the financing problems or made mutually agreeable debt-equity swap to sustain their part of the BRI development. Eisenman and Stewart’s article is obviously biased to wish the BRI to fail (or hoping China has ignored the criticism and failed miserably). As foreign policy scholars, the authors underestimated the wisdom of the policy makers in China and her partner countries. Why wouldn’t they understand the problems and criticisms? Why wouldn’t they even foresee those problems and solve them? In all fairness, they, not the criticizers, deserve the credit if they win or succeed.

Eisenman and Stewart started their essay with the story of Hong Kong’s protest and NBA Houston Rockets’ blunder in handling general manager Daryl Morey’s irresponsible tweet about Hong Kong’s protest. After seven months of demonstrations in Hong Kong, even common folks now know that there were fake reports about the Hong Kong protest. The protest against amendment of extradition law for criminals should have ceased after the Hong Kong government scrapped the amendment attempt. (Even though the extradition law is needed to include Taiwan so that a murder, Chen Tong Jia, a Hong Kong citizen, killed his pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan and escaped back to Hong Kong avoiding murder charges, could be brought to justice.) On the contrary, the Hong Kong protests were agitated by external influence and turned violent destroying properties and hurting innocent people and police.

President Trump knew and called the Hong Kong protest as riot long before lots footage of riot scene circulated through the Internet contradicting the fake news reporting. Thus now even common folks know that the Hong Kong protest is not for freedom and democracy. The Hong Kong people have more freedom than Americans as they have gotten away with rioting. (Which would never be permitted in the U.S.) So Morey’s tweet supporting Hong Kong protest is just like supporting violence or hate crime or racial slur which cannot be tolerated as freedom of speech. The Chinese people certainly have the right to be angry at Houston Rockets and NBA that they made insincere apologies, different in Chinese and English versions, and tried hypocritically to hide behind the shield of freedom of speech. I am totally surprised that Eisenman and Stewart would use the Houston Rockets’ case to support his opening statement:  ”The American public has suddenly awoken to China’s pervasive influence over U.S. corporations.“ The U.S. has used business sanctions and boycotts freely to punish foreign corporations for their misbehavior. I think the Americans are wise enough to know that on this issue the China is mimicking the U.S. to use boycotting NBA games to punish them.

As a foreign policy, the BRI is genuinely a Chinese proposal in many ways completely opposite to the isolationism the U.S. seems to be adopting lately. Since WW II, the U.S. has been the strongest leader in the world engaging everywhere on the globe. However, our current foreign policy has been shying away from international obligations, for example, withdrawing from Paris Climate Change Agreement, Trans Pacific Partnership (Trade agreement), UN Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and UN Human Rights Organization (UNHRO). We also did not join the UN Convention of Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS) which makes us less righteous in making claims on ocean rights (such as Freedom of Navigation) in the South China Sea. China and South East Asian countries are members of UNCLOS and they are working on a policy regarding ‘Proper Conduct in the South China Sea’ (PCSCS). When PCSCS is ready, the U.S. has to either accept it or ignore it showing the world that the U.S. is an ocean bully.

From foreign policy perspective, globalization is a de facto phenomenon whether one likes it or not. The BRI program aligns very well with the principles of globalization. There were 68 countries 65% of world populations and over 40% world GDP participating in BRI in 2017. In 2019, it has 126 countries and 29 international organizations involved with BRI. The second annual BRI conference held in Beijing had 29 head of States attended. Should the U.S. stubbornly refuse to join the BRI? I don’t think so. The FP journal and its foreign policy scholars are doing a disservice to our country by keep publishing biased articles regarding China’s foreign policies, especially the widely accepted BRI. 



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The book, China’s Vision of Victory, authored by Jonathan D.T. Ward, 316pp, Atlas Publishing, March 2019 was reviewed by Tanner Greer in a review article, Can American Values Survive in a Chinese World?, published in Foreign Policy, pp 68-70, Fall 2019 (foreignpolicy.com, 10/12/2019). Dr. Jonathan D.T. Ward is a multi-lingual China-India relations specialist with a doctorate from the University of Oxford. He had spent over a decade living and traveling in Russia, China, India, Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East. He speaks Russian, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic. Dr. Ward, a frequently invited speaker, founded the company, Atlas, a consulting firm advising American companies doing business in China, etc. He was interviewed on Fox News but as usual the questions were brief tailored with Fox’s current interest such as the Hong Kong protests rather than getting into his book. Tanner Greer, a writer and strategist residing in Taiwan, on the other hand, did make some analysis of Ward’s book with his own opinion in his review. However, Greer’s opinion and America mass media’s narrative (such as Fox, CNN, ...) on China’s foreign policy often contain a deep bias revealed by Ward’s book and visible in Greer’s review. Hence, a review on the review and the book is meaningful. 



Ward with his credentials as a keen observer of Chinese politics operates his political consultancy from Washington. His book title certainly catches attention of many people concerned with US-China Relations. With China rising rapidly gaining wealth and power relative to her peers in the world, what do the leaders in China hope to achieve with the nation’s new found clout is the central question posed in Ward’s book. Greer said that Ward’s simple answer to the question is ‘supremacy’. Greer cites Ward’s book as a useful anecdote to “the delusion that Chinese leaders seek nothing more than to roll back U.S. hegemony in the Western Pacific (or just satisfied by becoming the dominant East Asian power). Ward guided readers through many Chinese official documents to show how wide-ranging the Chinese leaders’ ambitions are, from projecting the strength of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be second to none by 2050 to a China-centered future where the U.S. led system will be discarded and a community of common destiny for mankind will emerge.



Ward traces the Chinese desire to shape the future of all mankind to a notion being taught to schoolchildren: China was once the center of the world (the mother of invention, the seat of wealth and the beacon of civilization) - China’s natural role in the world order - a role disrupted by a century of humiliation, foreign invasions. The age of suffering is over and now comes the “national rejuvenation”. Ward stresses repeatedly that the popularity of national rejuvenation ideal lies much more outside of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). However, Greer expresses objection to Ward’s view by claiming that Ward is wrong about CCP not being the driving force behind China’s foreign policy. Greer discounts Ward’s conversations with common folks and his findings in Chinese books and think-tank reports, rather Greer claims that the critical issue is what the Chinese leaders in Zhongnanhai believes on which Ward has nothing to report.



Greer technically agrees with Ward’s implicit question throughout his book: whether the U.S. should acquiesce to China’s vision of victory? Greer’s reasoning is plausible since he says that the U.S. is a strong nuclear-armed nation blessed with rich resources, with positive influx of immigrants, and situated between two oceans with no near-enemy. China would not pose a credible geopolitical threat to the U.S. However, Greer raised the issue of ideological threat that the Chinese leaders are locked in what Xi Jinping has called “fierce competition” ... in the ideological sphere.” “The Chinese leaders assert that this ideological competition threatens the existence of the CCP and to national rejuvenation.” Greer further writes, “This is the root motivation behind the “interference” and “influence” operations conducted by the West.” These operations are not just about shaping the opinions of foreign policy elites in China but also aim at the enemies China’s leaders fear the most, from Christians and Ulghurs fleeing from religious persecution to Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, etc. who live in America. Ideological threat may be greater than geopolitical threat, however, Greer is outdated and wrong in emphasizing CCP’s fear of ideology threat and CCP being an insecure regime, as I shall explain below.



Greer’s above logic may be acceptable when the Communist China was just established. The U.S. being the strongest nation was holding the anti-Communism flag and leading the world against Communism. Mainland China was a new Republic facing an opposing regime retreated to Taiwan. The Ideological threat of ‘Democracy against Communism’ was genuinely felt by CCP, but China experimented with Communism with failures and bitter lessons for nearly three decades. Then China changed her ideology by gingerly embracing capitalism and reforming her own socialism. The U.S. later recognized China acknowledging Taiwan as a part of China. The U.S. engaged China causing the collapse of Soviet Union in 1990, a victory year for ‘anti-Communism’. China went on with her reform and economic development to become world’s second largest economy, but the U.S. still held her anti-Communism flag even though the number of Communist countries dwindled significantly. So the ideology battle of ‘Democracy vs Communism’ is gradually replaced with the inter-nation competition and geopolitical conflicts.

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Among top twenty high GDP countries, fewer countries are democratic. China’s rapid rise certainly cannot be attributable to Democracy neither attributable to pure Communism. After three-four decades of continuous economic growth propelled by China’s political/economic reform, CCP certainly deserves credit for her hard work and success. At the same time, many Western democratic countries went into turmoil some bankrupted. Therefore, it is China who cannot understand why the U.S. is still obsessed with ideology threat or fear of Communism which had been abandoned in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. China proclaims “non-interference” doctrine in her foreign policy but she gets plenty of problems coming from external influence and interference. China was able to lift several hundreds of millions of people above poverty including Tibetans, Ulghurs and other minorities living in the western part of China. The ever self-confident Chinese (billion people) are wondering why the strongest U.S. is insecure and wants to interfere and influence China’s domestic issues? No wonder, Ward finds Chinese people so positive about national rejuvenation.

Greer said correctly that geopolitical threat is easy to handle but with the wrong argument. Geopolitical threat boils down to national economic interests, problems solvable with economic solutions or money. For instance, South China Sea islands disputes, the involved countries are finding solutions barring external political interference. So are the India-Pakistan-China or Korea-Japan-China problems all solvable if external political influence were removed. I would say Ward’s book can shed some light for the American foreign policy elites if they remove “the ideology threat” bias. From foreign policy point of view, the U.S. should not use ideology as an excuse to influence and interfere in other nations’ domestic issues. What is the real justification for wasting so much resources on soft power, interference and influence operations in the name of ideology threat to topple other regimes?
 
Take Hong Kong’s protest as an example, Hong Kong citizens enjoy more freedom and democracy than most people in Asia, even more freedom than US citizens judging on how Hong Kongers got away with riot for four months. Americans can never get away with any violent protest. China is gaining self-confidence every day; Hong Kong situation will be remembered as a political lesson for her citizens. The U.S. and China are simply two great nations in competition, neither affordable to have a war. If both sides remove insecurity from non-existent “ideology threat”, any conflicting problems can be avoided. Most American Values can survive in a Chinese World since most Chinese are used to adapting beneficial American values through their system reform. The U.S. can also benefit from China’s rejuvenation.
 
Ifay Chang. Ph.D., Inventor, Author, TV Game Show Host and Columnist (www.us-chinaforum.org) as well as serving as Trustee, Somers Central School District.