[Senate Hearing 115-710]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-710
AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN THE ASIA PACIFIC
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HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIA,
THE PACIFIC, AND INTERNATIONAL
CYBERSECURITY POLICY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
MARCH 29, MAY 24, JULY 12, NOVEMBER 14, 2017,
AND MAY 15, 2018
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
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Available via the World Wide Web:
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U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
36-854 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
MARCO RUBIO, Florida ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico
TODD, YOUNG, Indiana CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
RAND PAUL, Kentucky CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
Todd Womack, Staff Director
Jessica Lewis, Democratic Staff Director
John Dutton, Chief Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EAST ASIA, THE PACIFIC,
AND INTERNATIONAL CYBERSECURITY POLICY
CORY GARDNER, Colorado, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
MARCO RUBIO, Florida JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia TIM KAINE, Virginia
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC
Part 1: Security Issues--March 29, 2017
Gardner, Hon. Cory, U.S. Senator from Colorado................... 1
Markey, Hon. Edward J., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.......... 2
Forbes, Hon. Randy, Naval War College Foundation Senior
Distinguished Fellow, United States Naval War College, Newport,
RI............................................................. 4
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Gallucci, Hon. Robert L., Distinguished Professor in Practice of
Diplomacy, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service,
Georgetown University, Washington, DC.......................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 14
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Part 2: Economic Issues--May 24, 2017
Gardner, Hon. Cory, U.S. Senator from Colorado................... 35
Markey, Hon. Edward J., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.......... 36
Portman, Hon. Rob, U.S. Senator from Ohio........................ 37
Overby, Tami, Senior Vice President for Asia, U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, Washington, DC....................................... 38
Prepared statement........................................... 39
Annex: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Reports on U.S. Economic
Relations with China....................................... 45
Orr, Robert, Ph.D., Professor and Dean, School of Public Policy,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD....................... 46
Prepared statement........................................... 49
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Part 3: Promoting Democracy, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law--
July 12, 2017
Gardner, Hon. Cory, U.S. Senator from Colorado................... 61
Markey, Hon. Edward J., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.......... 62
Hiebert, Murray, Senior Adviser and Deputy Director, Southeast
Asia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies,
Washington, DC................................................. 64
Prepared statement........................................... 66
(iii)
Part 3: Promoting Democracy, Human Rights, and the Rule of Law--
(continued) July 12, 2017
Mitchell, Hon. Derek, Senior Advisor to the Asia Center, U.S.
Institute of Peace, Washington, DC............................. 69
Prepared statement........................................... 71
King, Hon. Robert R., Senior Adviser to the Korea Chair, Center
for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC........ 77
----------
Part 4: View from Beijing--November 14, 2017
Gardner, Hon. Cory, U.S. Senator from Colorado................... 97
Markey, Hon. Edward J., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.......... 98
Baucus, Hon. Max, former United States Ambassador to the People's
Republic of China, Bozeman, MT................................. 100
Prepared statement........................................... 128
Pillsbury, Dr. Michael, senior fellow and director, Center for
Chinese Strategy, Hudson Institute, Washington, DC............. 105
Prepared statement........................................... 130
Allison, Dr. Graham, Douglas Dillon Professor of Government,
Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, MA.......................... 110
Prepared statement........................................... 143
Will Trump and Xi ``Solve'' North Korea, by Dr. Graham
Allison, Politico, November 8, 2017........................ 148
North Korea Crisis Presents Risk, But Also Opportunity for
U.S. and China; by Graham Allison and Michael Morell,
Cipher Brief, October 22, 2017............................. 151
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Part 5: The Asia Reassurance Initiative Act--May 15, 2018
Gardner, Hon. Cory, U.S. Senator from Colorado................... 155
Markey, Hon. Edward J., U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.......... 156
Wong, Alex N., Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East Asian
and Pacific Affairs, United States Department of State,
Washington, DC................................................. 158
Prepared statement........................................... 160
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record Submitted to
Alex N. Wong by Senator Tim Kaine.......................... 187
Schriver, Hon. Randall G., Assistant Secretary, Asian and Pacific
Security Affairs, United States Department of Defense,
Washington, DC................................................. 162
Prepared statement........................................... 163
AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC--
PART 1: SECURITY ISSUES
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and
International Cybersecurity Policy,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:23 p.m. in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Cory Gardner,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Gardner [presiding], Rubio, Portman,
Markey, and Kaine.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORY GARDNER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
The Chairman. This hearing will come to order. Thank you
very much to our two witnesses for being here and my colleagues
for joining me. I apologize for the delay.
Let me welcome you all to the first hearing for the Senate
Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and
International Cybersecurity Policy in the 115th Congress.
I am delighted to be partnering with Senator Markey in this
Congress and want to welcome him as the ranking member of this
subcommittee. Senator Cardin and I did great work through this
committee over the last 2 years and look forward to doing the
same with Senator Markey over the next 2 years. And I am sure
we are going to have some great opportunities to collaborate to
address the very important issues that come within this
subcommittee's jurisdiction. And so thank you very much for the
opportunity to be here.
I do want just to start with a couple of words about the
committee and the work that we will be doing.
The new administration and the new Congress ushers a new
era of challenges and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific.
Despite the political changes in Washington, the U.S. policy
imperatives remain the same. The Asia-Pacific region has been
and will remain critical to the United States' economic and
national security interests.
By 2050, experts estimate that Asia will account for over
half of the global population and over half of the world's
gross domestic product. We cannot ignore the fundamental fact
that this region is critical for U.S. economic growth and to
create U.S. jobs through export opportunities.
The security challenges in the region are complex and
rapidly growing. In 2016, North Korea conducted two nuclear
tests and a staggering 24 ballistic missile launches. Since
2013, China has reclaimed over 3,000 acres of land in the South
China Sea and has militarized these features, contrary to
international law. The Islamic State has now established a firm
foothold in Southeast Asia. Democracy, human rights, and rule
of law are generally in retreat across the region despite some
hopeful developments in countries such as Burma.
So this year, instead of focusing on individual countries
or specific issues, the subcommittee will conduct a four-part
series that will examine American leadership in the Asia-
Pacific region from all perspectives: the security outlook,
economic engagement, as well as projecting our country's values
across the region.
This series of hearings will also underpin and inform
legislation that I am leading, the Asia Reassurance Initiative
Act, or ARIA. ARIA will pursue three broad goals. First, it
will strengthen U.S. security commitments to our allies and
build partner capacity in the Asia-Pacific to deter aggression,
project power, and combat terrorism. Second, it will promote
economic cooperation and U.S. market access in the Asia-Pacific
region as key to U.S. policy objectives in the region and
essential for the growth of the U.S. economy and success of
American businesses. Third, it will enshrine promotion of
democracy, human rights, and transparency as key U.S. policy
objectives in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in
Southeast Asia.
With this in mind, our first hearing today is focused on
security challenges in the Asia-Pacific, and we have two
distinguished witnesses, Congressman Randy Forbes, who I had
the--both of us had the privilege of serving with in the House
of Representatives, and Ambassador Bob Gallucci to help us shed
light on these very important issues. I look forward to your
testimonies, and now turn to Ranking Member Senator Markey for
his comments.
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Markey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I
thank you for convening this hearing on U.S. security interests
in the Asia-Pacific. And as you outlined, this is the first in
a series of hearings that will underscore America's critical
role in leading that dynamic region and addressing its
challenges. And I am looking forward to our partnership over
the next 2 years, Mr. Chairman. I think it is just an exciting
time for Asia. And I think this series of hearings which we are
going to be having is just going to lay the foundation for our
ability to be able to make some intelligent decisions about
what the role of the United States should be going forward.
And to our distinguished witnesses, Randy Forbes--and you
and I, Cory, we served in the House together. And Bob Gallucci
is an old pal of mine and just about at the top of the list of
any of the most distinguished commentators you can have on so
many different subjects. It is hard to list them all. So it is
an honor to have you here today, Bob.
And it is hard to dispute that American leadership in the
Asia-Pacific has brought sustained stability and unprecedented
economic growth. Sustaining and broadening this progress will
depend, however, on addressing major security challenges and
strengthening respect for international rules and norms.
Today, Asia-Pacific nations face significant challenges,
particularly in the area of security. North Korea's nuclear and
missile programs threaten regional security, as does the
proliferation of weapons-usable material. Territorial disputes
in the East and South China Seas, festering conflicts and
insurgencies in parts of Southeast Asia, and threats ranging
from cyber attacks to pandemic disease all demand the
collective attention of Asia-Pacific nations.
China's rapid development, achieved through economic
integration, offers the hope of a cooperative and productive
relationship with the United States and other nations in the
Asia-Pacific.
Yet, fundamental questions persist. Will China choose to
cooperate to strengthen the regional order in the face of
mutual security challenges? Or will Beijing choose to be a
disrupter, undermining the very institutions, rules, and norms
that have enabled its economic rise?
First and foremost, the United States must take the lead in
averting the threat of nuclear war. In particular, the United
States must take a bold, new approach to address the threat
from North Korea's growing nuclear and ballistic missile
capabilities. Last year, North Korea tested two nuclear devices
and carried out numerous ballistic missile tests. It is now
accelerating efforts to develop a missile capable of striking
the territory of the United States with a nuclear weapon.
These growing capabilities represent a grave threat to the
security of the American people and to our allies and partners
in the region. Existing policy to address this threat has not
succeeded. Sanctions and deterrence, while essential, have
failed on their own to induce the Kim regime to constrain its
nuclear and missile ambitions.
Without a diplomatic track, North Korea is likely to
continue exploiting divisions in the international community to
steadily advance its nuclear and ballistic missile
capabilities. Only a comprehensive strategy of coercive
diplomacy, one that brings together economic pressure, military
deterrence, and active negotiations stands a chance of
achieving a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Instead of refusing to negotiate, the Trump administration
should embark on such a strategy and must strengthen existing
sanctions and bolster deterrence, but it must also reach out to
North Korea to begin talks aimed at constraining, rolling back,
and ultimately eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. If
North Korea refuses or if negotiations fail due to Pyongyang's
intransigence, then we should escalate economic and political
pressure on the Kim regime and those who enable it. Without
diplomacy, however, pressure is unlikely to succeed.
Addressing the nuclear danger in the Asia-Pacific area will
also require the United States to dissuade Japan and China from
expanding spent fuel reprocessing efforts and discourage South
Korea from following suit. Otherwise, these activities will
result in the stockpiling of materials that can be used to
build hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons. Without a
strong U.S. commitment to nuclear security and proliferation,
East Asia could see a spiraling nuclear arms race that
dramatically raises the likelihood of a nuclear catastrophe.
Cybersecurity, other issues are all on the table. This
region is, without question, rising to the very top of the
security and strategic list of issues that the United States
has to deal with.
I am very much looking forward to this hearing, and I thank
you, Mr. Chairman, for calling such a distinguished panel.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Markey.
Our first witness is the Honorable Randy Forbes, who
currently serves as the Senior Distinguished Fellow at the U.S.
Naval War College. Congressman Forbes represented Virginia's
4th congressional district from 2001 to 2017 and served as
chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's Seapower and
Projection Forces Subcommittee. During his service to our
country, Congressman Forbes has been a true leader with regard
to U.S. policy toward the Asia-Pacific region, and we are
honored to have him here today.
And our second witness is the Honorable Bob Gallucci, who
currently serves as Distinguished Professor in the Practice of
Diplomacy at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign
Service. Ambassador Gallucci brings 21 years of distinguished
service in a variety of government positions, focusing on
international security. As Ambassador-at-Large and Special
Envoy for the U.S. Department of State, he dealt with the
threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and
weapons of mass destruction and was the chief U.S. negotiator
during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994. I will note
that Ambassador Gallucci testified before this committee in
October of 2015 when we discussed North Korea helping lead to
the unanimously supported bipartisan North Korea sanctions
bill. And I am delighted to welcome you back to the committee.
Congressman Forbes, if you would like to begin. Thank you
very much for your testimony today.
STATEMENT OF HON. RANDY FORBES, NAVAL WAR COLLEGE FOUNDATION
SENIOR DISTINGUISHED FELLOW, UNITED STATES NAVAL WAR COLLEGE,
NEWPORT, RI
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Chairman Gardner and Ranking Member
Markey, members of the subcommittee. It is an honor for me to
be here. Thank you for having me. It is also a privilege for me
to be here with Bob Gallucci this afternoon.
In the 5 minutes that I have, I can only highlight perhaps
the challenges that we have in this region, why this region is
important. And I have submitted a number of recommendations in
my written remarks, if they could be made part of the record.
But I want to begin by saying that the topic you have
chosen is not a crisis de jure. It is not going to go away
tomorrow. It is not going to go away next week. The Indo-Asia-
Pacific region is going to require more attention and more
resources from the United States over the coming decades, and
if we do not do that, it will be not just at our peril but at
the peril of the world.
The current security outlook in the Asia-Pacific region is
precarious at best. We know there are two main actors that are
causing this. First of all, China, which now for almost 2
decades has had an ambitious and unprovoked military buildup
with now a very clear, discernible goal of supplanting the U.S.
as the dominant military power in the region. The other thing
that has been a sea change is their use of paramilitary
activities in their gray zone aggression, which we have as yet
not developed a sufficient policy to push back on. The result
of their efforts has been de facto control of disputed waters,
as you mentioned in your opening remarks, Mr. Chairman, the
reclamation of 3,000 acres of features or land, which have gone
somewhat unchallenged in their activity to do that.
North Korea, as the ranking member also pointed out, poses
an imminent and unpredictable threat not just to its neighbors,
but now to the continental United States.
Yet, even as we mention those two causes for concern, I do
not think they adequately reflect the sea change that has taken
place. When you look at China, it is not just the buildup that
China has done. It is the way they have done that buildup. You
are looking at advanced fighter aircraft and long-range cruise
and ballistic missiles that threaten U.S. assets at greater
ranges. They have credible capabilities to destroy, disable or
reduce the effectiveness of our aircraft carriers, our regional
airbases, and even deny us air superiority. Their electronic
warfare, space operations, and cyber capabilities, when added
to this, present a very concerning tapestry of concern for all
of us.
North Korea. In addition to their nuclear concerns, one of
the major risks we have from a security point of view is the
world has changed even in a decade. A decade ago, we were
worried primarily with North Korea about, one, a single actor
and, number two, a conventional war that might take place.
Today, if you look at most strategists, when they are concerned
about North Korea, they realize that any conflict we may have
may have multiple actors involved, and we certainly look at
multiple domains no longer will be limited to conventional war.
We may very well be looking now at nuclear, cyber, and even
space challenges that we have.
Why is this region important?
Well, if you just took former Secretary Carter or you took
Admiral Harris, they would both say that this is the most
consequential region for America's future. And in the coming
decades in this region alone--you mentioned the trade that is
going to take place there. But we are going to have in this
region the largest armies of the world will camp here. The most
powerful navies in the world will gather here. Over one-half of
the world's commerce will take place here, but two-thirds of
the world's commerce will travel through here. This is a
maritime super highway, leading to the United States bringing
good things or bad. Two superpowers will compete here to
determine which world order will prevail. And most importantly,
this is the region where the seeds of conflict that could most
engulf the world will probably be planted.
So I appreciate you having this hearing. And I want to just
make a couple of recommendations and suggestions for you to
consider.
The first and foremost is that if you have a continuum
between being reactionary and being strategic, this country,
this committee, this Congress needs to move back to strategic
thinking where we have a comprehensive strategic plan. And we
need to demand not just the strategic plan and analysis, but
also the assumptions that go into it. If we have faulty
strategies, we will have faulty outcomes, and we can no longer
outrun all of our problems.
The second thing that I would recommend that we consider is
that we once again put on the table and relook the INF Treaty
and whether or not it is worth us continuing to examine this
and to look at it.
And then the final thing I think is going to be vital for
us is rebuilding our presence in the Asia-Pacific area.
I will be glad to elaborate on any of those in the question
period of time. But my time is out. So thank you, gentlemen,
for allowing me to be with you.
And if it is okay, I would like to submit the full content
of my written statement for the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
[Mr. Forbes's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of J. Randy Forbes
Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the work your subcommittee does and for the
honor of appearing before you this afternoon. I am also very happy to
be here with Robert Gallucci.
The topic you have chosen for this hearing is both timely and
critical.While the world's eyes seem rightly focused on the instability
of North Korea's leadership and the actions of that leadership, it
would be wrong to conclude that this was merely ``a crisis de jour.''
The security issues presented with North Korea and the entire Inda-
Asia-Pacific region will continue to require more attention and
resources from the United States. We ignore this not just at our peril,
but at the peril of the world.
To say that I admire the expertise of each member of this
subcommittee is not flattery, it is simply accurate. I read much of
what you write, and I listen to much of what you say. My comments this
afternoon are not offered with the arrogance of believing they are not
without challenge.However, they are offered with my conviction that
they are right, and with my hope that they will at least open avenues
of thought which could assist in some small manner in preparing us as a
nation for the challenges we will face in the Asia-Pacific area for
decades to come.
The current security outlook in the Asia-Pacific region is
precarious at best. For decades, the peace and prosperity of the Asia-
Pacific region has been based upon the perception that the United
States was both willing and able to intervene decisively to stop
aggression by one country in that critical region against another.
Today, more than at any point I can recall, that peace and
prosperity is in jeopardy. The causes of present concern are well known
to this committee.
First, China is now almost two decades into an ambitious and
unprovoked military buildup, with a clear goal of supplanting the
United States as the dominant military power in the region. At the same
time, it is using paramilitary forces to commit ``gray-zone''
aggressions against its neighbors and establish de facto control of
disputed waters. The tangible result is that they have now reclaimed
over 3,000 acres of land (features) in the South China Sea and they
have militarized many of these features contrary to international law.
Second, North Korea and the regime of Kim Jong Un continue to pose
an imminent and unpredictable threat to their neighbors, while steadily
pursuing a larger nuclear arsenal and the capability to threaten and
potentially strike the continental United States.
Yet, even these two causes for concern do not adequately reflect
the sea change that has taken place regarding the security threat
currently existing in the Asia-Pacific area.
For example, it is not just that China has been engaged in a
significant military buildup. It is the nature of that build up that is
concerning. They have developed advanced fighter aircraft and long
range cruise and ballistic missiles that can threaten U.S. assets at
much greater ranges. They have credible capabilities to destroy,
disable or reduce the effectiveness of U.S. aircraft carriers and to
threaten regional air bases so as to deny air superiority. If you
combine this with their advances in electronic warfare, space
operations, and cyber capabilities a very concerning tapestry begins to
unfold.
Equally concerning is a new boldness and aggressiveness appearing
in Chinese leadership, especially in their rising ranks. This is
especially manifested in a growing willingness to disregard
international laws and norms and to project their claims in ways
creating more opportunity for possible confrontation.
North Korea has always posed a problem because normal principles
ofdiplomacy and asymmetrical coercion do not work well with irrational
actors and that is what we face in North Korea. The difference between
the threat we face today versus the threat we faced even a decade ago
is quite substantial. A decade ago, we worried about a conflict in a
single domain with a single actor. Today, a conflict most likely would
involve multiple actors and would almost certainly involve multiple
domains. A conflict could very well present the normal threat of
conventional warfare but be combined with potential nuclear, cyber, or
even space challenges.
So why is this region so important?
Many analysts including former U.S. Secretary of Defense Carter and
the current PaCom commander, Admiral Harry Harris have called this
``the most consequential region for America's future.'' It is easy to
see why. In the coming decades, this is the region where the largest
armies in the world will camp. This is the region where the most
powerful navies in the world will gather. This is the region where over
one half of the worlds commerce will take place and two thirds will
travel. This is the region where a maritime superhighway ( transporting
good or bad things) linking the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia,
Australia, Northeast Asia,, and the United States begins. This is the
region where five of America's seven defense treaties is located. This
is the region where two superpowers will compete to determine which
world order will prevail. This is the region where the seeds of
conflict that could most engulf the world will probably be planted.
Recognizing the importance of this region is vital and I was one of
the first to applaud the Obama administrat1on for doing so when it
first announced its ``pivot'' to the Asia-Pacific area which was soon
renamed the ``rebalance.'' Unfortunately, confusion about this policy
was not limited to its name. When there is confusion in the
articulation of a policy, our competitors and allies can look to how we
resource that policy in an attempt to extrapolate what it means.
Otherwise, they are left to define it for themselves which often means
our competitors see in it their worst fears and our allies have
expectations that are never realized. That is exactly what happened
with the ``rebalance.''
Since this hearing is focused on security issues, I have limited my
analysis and comments to those issues. The scope prevents me from
looking at other important issues such as human rights, trade, economic
development goals, and the principles of democracy itself. Yet I know
you realize the importance of all of these issues.
From a security view, the rebalance was not only grossly under
resourced but the signaling was very poor. One of the primary reasons
for this was the failure to develop an adequate National Defense
Strategy.According to testimony before the House Armed Services
Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, the primary document used
to resource the military during much of the last administration was its
2012 National Strategic Guidelines. Those Guidelines were fatally
flawed with wrong assumptions. Four of those assumptions according to
testimony later presented by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
to the full House Armed Services Committee were:
1. That Isis would not rebound and grow as it did
2. That the U.S. would be out of Iraq and Afghanistan
3. That the Chinese would not militarize as they did
4. That the Russians would not rebuild at the rate they did
The result among other shortfalls was that in 2007 the Navy could
meet approximately 90 percent of our combatant commanders validated
requests. Last year the Navy was able to meet less than 42 percent. A
defense budget was presented that would have delayed the deployment of
an aircraft carrier and remove cruisers from our fleet. There were
major reductions in the army and the air force. Carrier gaps emerged
and our surge capacity challenged. FONOPS were essentially prohibited
between 2012 and 2015 and allowed only begrudgingly at other times.
The Chinese felt they were virtually unchecked and our allies
seriously questioned not just our capability but our resolve in the
Asia-Pacific area. China and North Korea share responsibility for the
growing instability we see in Asia. But at the same time, the stability
of the international system is also being undermined by the fact that
the willingness and ability of the United States to uphold it has
fallen into doubt. The Obama Administration's ``rebalance'' to the
Asia-Pacific signaled that Washington understood the importance of this
region to U.S. interests. However, failure to adequately resource this
effort-both at the Department of Defense and the State Department-
resulted in it falling short of hopes and expectations.
So what recommendations can we offer for moving forward? While we
certainly can not do everything, there is much we can do.
I believe the most important thing this subcommittee and this
congress can do is to build a new culture of strategic thinking. I am
convinced that we will need to increase our defense spending. However,
you can not just write a check to fix our security issues in the asia-
pacific area. We need first and foremost a comprehensive National
Defense Strategy with a major part of it focused on the lndo-Asia-
Pacific arena.
We can argue over nomenclature, but for the purposes of my
comments, ``strategy'' is that endeavor by which we balance our ways,
means, and desired ends. It is where we make trade offs and though it
is not popular to say, take risks. I also agree with Lawrence
Freedman's conclusion that its purpose is ``about getting more out of a
situation than the starting balance of power would suggest.''
``Policies'' are the guidelines that help structure how decisions
are made within the broader strategic architecture.
``Tactics'' are how we implement our decisions through action.
Strategy should drive policy which should drive tactics. However, I
fear that all too often in our country today we are reversing the order
and becoming reactionary instead of strategic. There was a time when we
could afford that error because we could essentially outrun our
mistakes. That time has passed. There may have been a time when we
could rely so/ey on our military strength. That time has passed. So too
has the time when our strategy can be dictated by our budget.
To be effective, a National Defense Strategy must be birthed in a
marriage between Congress and the Administration. It must also be a
holistic approach uniting every element of government power. You should
no longer accept the ruse that you are not entitled to a strategy
because it is like some secret football play that can not be disclosed
until you have to use it. For a National Defense Strategy to work you
must be able to articulate it so that policy makers feel comfortable
resourcing it, so our allies know how to embrace it, and so our
competitors know the lines not to cross.To do that, I would suggest the
following:
A. Require the Department of Defense to develop and present to
Congress a National Defense Strategy along with the basic
assumptions used to develop it. If the assumptions are wrong,
the Strategy will be flawed.
B. Require the Department of Defense to show how its budget resources
that Strategy and the risks assumed if it is not so resourced.
C. Ask for a plan from both the Department of Defense and the
Department of State as to how it plans to improve strategic
thinking. If it is not a priority to agency leadersh'tp, it
will not happen. If you are not seeing it in personnel
decisions, it will probably not happen.
D. Require a cross agency review of Asia-Pacific policies with a task
force designed to develop policy guidelines and to ensure those
guidelines are compatible with the National Defense Strategy.
Our U.S. security alliances are very durable but they need
reinforcement. They need to know that the United States still knows how
``to make the trains run on time,'' especially when it comes to
national defense. Articulating a well-reasoned National Defense
Strategy they can embrace and resourcing it to show an increased
presence in the area will do much to strengthen these alliances. In
addition, I would suggest the following:
1. Continue to strengthen bilateral alliances with Japan and South
Korea, while also encouraging and enabling those two key allies
to cooperate more closely with one another on many issues of
mutual concern.
2. Make clear our commitment to the security of Taiwan. Our allies
read our resolutions, so language can be important.
3. Work with Prime Minister Duterte to sustain recent progress in US-
Philippines defense cooperation and, importantly, ensure that
American forces can continue to deploy to the Philippines in
support of both Philippine security and our broader security
objectives in the region. Despite recent bumps in the road, it
is still mutually beneficial to both countries to improve this
relationship.
4. Continue to work with our ANZUS allies, Australia and New Zealand,
and in particular explore additional options for forward
deploying or forward staging American forces and conducting
combined training in the region. This includes integrated
maintenance and ground support operations as well as greater
integration of 5th generation fighter deployments.
5. Seek to develop closer ties with countries like India, Vietnam, and
others that share many of our security concerns and could be
enabled to play a bigger role in maintaining regional
stability.
6. For too long, the Asia-Pacific has not been prioritized within the
State Department security assistance budget in a way that is
commensurate with its level of importance to U.S. interests.
Indeed, in recent years, the entire region has received only 1
percent of U.S. Foreign Military Financing. If we conclude that
this may be the ``most consequential region for America's
future'' we should strongly consider proposals for an Asia-
Pacific Stability Initiative as a budget mechanism similar to
the European Reassurance Initiative with the goal of devoting
additional resources to our interests in the Pacific.
7. We certainly must send additional funding to DOD to invest in
munitions, resiliency, sustainment, and capabilities that
Pacific Command needs. However, i would also advocate for
increasing targeted Foreign Military Financing and
International Education and Training funding to help enhance
the militaries of partners like the Philippines, Thailand,
Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia.
8. Routinize Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS).
9. Reconsider the efficacy of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
(INF) Treaty. Since 1987, the United States has complied with
the bilateral Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty
with Russia, which prohibits either party from fielding certain
types of surface-to-surface missiles. At the same time, China
has deployed over 1000 of these missiles, according to DoD
reports to Congress, and uses them to menace our allies and
partners and our own forward deployed forces in the region. In
light of this fact, and the recent testimony by Gen. Paul
Selva, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that Russia
is actively violating the INF Treaty, I believe this committee
should begin reassessing whether continued adherence to the INF
Treaty is in the interest of our country. As a member of the
House Armed Services Committee's Strategic Forces Subcommittee,
I tasked the DoD with reassessing the military implications,
but I believe it is incumbent upon this committee to further
explore the diplomatic and broader foreign policy
considerations.
10. Support efforts to restore US military readiness and better
prepare it for threats. While I realize the importance of
focusing on matters of foreign policy that fall clearly within
the purview of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I would
be remiss if I did not remind members of the committee that
deterrence, which I believe is the primary contributor to peace
and prosperity, is predicated upon the belief that our country
is both willing and able to stand up to aggression. To deter
aggression in the Asia-Pacific, we must make it clear to would-
be aggressors that we not only remain committed to the region,
but also will be able to effectively project power into the
region, deny aggressors their objectives, and impose costs and
punishments upon them. Current shortfalls in U.S. military
readiness-such as insufficient stockpiles of precision-guided
munitions, and forgone training and maintenance- are seriously
undermining our ability to respond to and defeat aggression.
This, in turn, undermines our ability to deter it.
11. Finally, no discussion of Asia-Pacific security issues would be
complete without at least discussing the rise of Islamic
extremism. If one thing is increasingly clear there is no
single magical response now available to eradicate this
dangerous evil. We must continue to foster partnerships not
just with our allies but also with other actors within the
region who suffer from its effects. In the cross agency review
I addressed earlier, I would specifically laser in on joint
efforts to cut off the funding streams for these organizations.
Removing the financing is like removing the oxygen from a room,
it makes it almost impossible for the organization to survive
or grow.
Once again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and
thank you for what you do for our country.
The Chairman. And I would just note that your testimony,
along with Ambassador Gallucci's, if people who are listening
to the hearing have the opportunity to read it, I think both of
them are very well done. So thank you very much for the time
and effort you put into the testimonies. Thank you. And both
will be put in the record in full.
Ambassador Gallucci?
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT L. GALLUCCI, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR
IN THE PRACTICE OF DIPLOMACY, EDMUND A. WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN
SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ambassador Gallucci. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Ranking Member Markey. It is good to be here. I appreciate the
opportunity to share some thoughts.
I want to address briefly three topics: first, the U.S.-
China relationship, the security dimension writ large; second,
the North Korea threat and what to do about it; and third, the
issue of nuclear terrorism and the impact accumulations of
plutonium may have on the shape of that issue.
First, with respect to China, I ought to note that there is
nothing that I heard from my distinguished colleague that I
would separate myself from, and I would like to associate
myself with his interpretation of the importance of that region
and the importance of how we are responding to the threat in
that region.
It has struck me that the traditional and conventional
wisdom about China over the last 20 years has been fairly
consistent across administrations. In general terms, China is
characterized as a great power, and the recommendation is we
see China as a great power, not a rising power, that we
recognize that China has legitimate political, economic, and
security interests in the Asia-Pacific region, that we embrace
cooperation and competition with China and regard it as
potentially a healthy part of our relationship, but at the end
of the day, we avoid confrontation, particularly military
confrontation, with China.
Different administrations have approached China in
different ways with different emphases and different catch
phrases to describe the U.S.-China relationship. But beneath
all that are some structural realities that we really need to
appreciate if we want to protect U.S. interests.
The first is the U.S. has, for more than 100 years, an
interest in having access to the countries of Asia and free
transit of the waters of the Pacific. The U.S. has in the past
and should always in the future oppose any attempt in the Asia-
Pacific region at hegemony that would, by definition, threaten
American access. See here, of course that as the context for
the militarization of the South China Sea and East China Sea
issues with China.
China's comparable view, looking at the United States is to
take a posture that resists what China sees as a U.S. effort at
containment. They look at our alliance system with Korea,
Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines and see us
attempting encirclement. They look at our continued support for
Taiwan's independence, notwithstanding the One China policy,
and see that as a threat as well. They look at our ballistic
missile defense efforts and see that as an effort at denying
them a secure second strike deterrent. And they look even at
and imagine that our conventional prompt global strike
capability, such as it is, also threatens their strategic
forces.
The truth is that both countries have reason to be wary of
each other. China is, in fact, looking to expand its influence
in the Asia-Pacific region, and we are, indeed, interested in
limiting that influence, whether we call it containment or not.
China's military naval expansion and modernization in
conventional forces is evidence of this and the detail that has
been presented by Mr. Forbes. Survivable strategic nuclear
forces is an objective of China and has been for more than a
decade, and we see that in their move to have mobile systems of
extended range and perhaps to MIRV their ICBM forces. And
third, the growth of asymmetric capabilities, particularly in
cyber and space, to counter U.S. comparative advantages in
other areas. All this suggests that China does not wish to cede
military advantage to the United States in any escalating
crisis.
This all leads to my greatest concern with China, and it is
not a North Korean contingency. It is a Taiwan contingency.
This may come about as the Chinese look to stir nationalism in
the face of less than desired economic performance, or it could
come about as a result of a bit of adventurism from the
Taiwanese trying to get out from under a One China policy. But
however it would happen, Chinese capabilities have been growing
and they are designed specifically to prevent U.S. local
domination at the conventional level and to deter us from
escalation to the nuclear level.
The clear prescription for the United States is that it
needs to address the conventional capability and counter
asymmetric moves by the Chinese and to keep the nuclear
threshold with China just as high as possible.
I would say about the Taiwanese contingency, should it
arise, that we well understand how important Taiwan is to
China. It is not at all clear and it has not been at various
times that the Chinese understand our commitment to Taiwan.
That creates certain dangers that we should not be innocent of,
and it makes meetings, such as the one coming up, between the
leader of the United States and the leader of China extremely
important, and words in that meeting will matter a lot.
North Korea. The United States should look for ways to
block the North Korean plan to mate nuclear weapons with
intercontinental range ballistic missiles, both for the direct
security of the United States of America and also for the
credibility of our alliances that I mentioned before,
particularly the extended deterrence which these countries
depend upon. The vulnerability of the United States,
particularly as we have been highlighting it, that is coming
down the road as the North Koreans develop this capability is
threatening to our allies and to the extended deterrence. Can
they still rely on us when we are vulnerable to the North
Koreans?
I would note that the enthusiasm some have shown to deal
with this through left of launch and other rather exciting
military options, whether or not we could actually pull them
off, should really be considered very carefully. We have lived
with vulnerability to ICBMs for 60 years or more, first Soviet
ICBMs, then Chinese ICBMs, and then Russian ICBMs. At one
point, Russia had 30,000 nuclear weapons aimed at us. Right
now, we think North Korea has about 12. So if we are going to
decide we can deter the Soviet Union and China for decades, but
we cannot manage North Korea because Kim Jong Un may be non-
rational, non-deterrable, we should really examine that
carefully if we propose to go to war as an alternative to
depend upon deterrence. It may be the wise thing to do. I think
everybody would love to have defense at this point. I think
that would make a great deal of sense, but we do not have
defense. We do not have a non-leaky defense.
That leads to the question of what are we most worried
about here and we are worried about two types of developments.
One is an escalation from an incident either at sea, the
shelling of an island, the sinking of a ship, something that
causes a confrontation. Under the current circumstances, we do
not know how the North Koreans think about their nuclear
weapons. We do not know what they think they are good for. They
may think they are good for deterring the South Koreans and the
Americans from responding in that case. They would be wrong,
tragically wrong, but the outcome would not be good.
The second thing we need to worry about I think--and maybe
it is even more important--is transfer. 10 years ago, the North
Koreans transferred a plutonium production reactor to Syria. It
was crushed by the Israelis. If it had not been crushed, that
reactor could be providing plutonium not only to Syrians, but
to others who have traipsed through Syria. And these are pretty
unsavory folks. And that is an image that goes to nuclear
terrorism that we do not like to contemplate. So we need to
somehow impress upon the North Koreans that is not a move we
want to see again.
The prescription. Three boxes typically and for a long
time: containment, military action, engagement.
Containment includes all kinds of things that are good
ideas. It includes sanctions, tougher sanctions, pressure on
the Chinese. It includes all this. Very smart, indeed. It
includes military exercises. It includes cyber activity. All
this is containment. The problem is we do not have any reason
to believe really with any confidence it will bring down the
regime, block the weapons program, or force them to the
negotiating table in a positive frame of mind. So what we can
be sure of is while they are containing them, they will
continue to grow. This is not like fine wine. With the passage
of time, it does not get better.
Military force. I do not need to say much about that except
to say it cannot be cheap, and would it mean a whole war? We
cannot tell, but it cannot be cheap. And we do not want to--I
do not think--move to that unless we really do not have another
alternative to deal with the threat.
Engagement. There is an awful lot of talk about how
engagement always fails or always has failed. I believe that is
too simple a characterization. The deal that some of us were
involved in 23 years ago or so is one that held for about a
decade and froze their plutonium production capability. That
was good as an outcome. Did they cheat? Absolutely they cheated
in the area that we were not watching them in and that was in
the plutonium area. But we certainly caught them at cheating.
Do they understand they cheated? I am fairly certain from
track 2 conversations the answer is no. They believe we failed
to perform. What they have told us in many settings is that
that deal was supposed to create a new relationship, normal
relations between Pyongyang and Washington. It did not. We did
not anticipate normal relations. That regime was not a regime
which we are going to have a normal relationship with.
So the question is, what do we do? Do we go into
negotiations? And what is it that would lead us to successful
outcomes? I only have two points to make here.
One is we had better insist that the outcome of the
negotiations continues to be for us a non-nuclear weapons
state. We cannot legitimize North Korean nuclear weapons by
having an objective, the current program. A freeze could be a
good interim step, but it cannot be the end game.
The second thing is I cannot imagine us addressing the
North Korean concern why it has nuclear weapons to deter regime
change by the United States of America. I cannot imagine
addressing that concern without a normal relationship between
North Korea and the United States, and I cannot imagine a
normal relationship unless they improve their human rights
record in a dramatic way. This will not be easy, but that is
the only way I can see it.
Finally, if I can say a couple words on the nuclear
terrorism issue. The nuclear terrorism issue is one of, most
analysts say, high consequence, low probability as an event in
international security and our national security. High
consequence we do not need to focus on. We all know why that
would be true. Low probability? The short answer to why this
has not happened over decades--and I have always worried about
it--is because it is hard to do, and it is not hard to do
anymore because it is hard to design a weapon, it is hard to
build a weapon, or it is hard to deliver a weapon. It is hard
to get the fissile material to drive the weapon. If that should
change, that would be the game changer, and that is why I have
included it in the hearing today.
For me, the current plan in Northeast Asia, three countries
can produce a game changer in nuclear terrorism. First, the
Japanese have what you might call a plutonium overhang--that is
to say, a stockpile of plutonium they own--of 44 tons. That is
enough easily for untalented designers to make over 7,000
nuclear weapons, probably more than we have. As striking as
that is--and you may wonder what they plan to do with 44 tons.
Well, they plan to make more separated plutonium by running a
new reprocessing plant at Rokkasho. That is not a good idea,
and we need to engage the Japanese over what they plan to do
with this plutonium. After Fukashima, they do not have a huge
operating reactor program. They do not have a breeder program.
They have very little thermal recycle. But whatever thermal
recycle they do will involve the movement of plutonium around
Japan. That is material that can be used to drive nuclear
weapons if it disappears. All this material in transit cannot
be a good idea.
Interestingly, China has contracted with France to build a
plant of the same size the Japanese are intending to open. The
Chinese would be doing what the Japanese would be doing, which
is moving plutonium around their cities and around the country.
More material from which nuclear weapons can be made would be
moving around China, would be moving around Japan.
And the last piece is South Korea, which has a serious
nuclear energy program, would like to do the same thing with
plutonium largely, I would submit, because their neighbors are
doing it.
This is a time in which we have with the Japanese an
agreement for cooperation, which expires next year. We have an
opportunity to talk to them about this, not to terminate the
agreement, but to talk to them about how they plan to use this
plutonium and use it up. This is an opportunity here also to
propose to Seoul, to Beijing, and to Tokyo that they consider--
consider at least--a moratorium on reprocessing and plutonium
separation that would save us from moving into a situation in
which terrorism becomes not only a high consequence but also a
high probability event rather than a low probability event.
Thank you very much.
[Ambassador Gallucci's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert L. Gallucci
I want to thank the Chairman of the subcommittee for this
opportunity to share my views on some of the issues that impact U.S.
national security in the Asia-Pacific region. I plan to limit my
comments to the security dimensions of the U.S.-China relationship writ
large, the threat posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic
missile programs, and the implications for nuclear terrorism of
significant plutonium stocks accumulating in the civilian nuclear power
programs of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
U.S.-China Relations
For the last two decades or so, successive U.S. administrations
have sought to characterize the preferred relationship between China
and the U.S. in a way that recognized China as a great power with
legitimate political, economic and security interests in the Asia-
pacific region. We would expect competition in each of those spheres,
but also cooperation to the benefit of both countries, while avoiding
military confrontation. Successive administrations have placed the
emphasis on different aspects of our relations with China, and used
different catch phrases to capture the preferred image of the
relationship, but all recognized an inevitable tension between the
desired peaceful, constructive competition and cooperation they sought,
and the potential for relations to deteriorate to armed conflict.
Just beneath this imagery lie the interests of nations and
perceptions of leaders in both countries. The U.S. has always had a
vital interest in preserving political and economic access to the
countries of Asia, and thus it has opposed any attempt at hegemony in
the region. It is this concern, that China will try to establish a
sphere of influence which would exclude the U.S., that is the backdrop
to American interpretations of contemporary moves by China in the Asia-
Pacific. China's militarization of its claims in the South China sea,
and in its contest with Japan over the islands both claim in the East
China Sea, give substance to that concern.
From China's perspective, U.S. moves fit a narrative of attempted
containment of China, one where the U.S. looks for opportunities to
prevent China from protecting its legitimate interests, interests that
are proximate to the Chinese mainland and a pacific ocean away from the
continental U.S.. Evidence of the perceived U.S. security strategy is
seen in our alliances with Japan, the ROK, Australia and the
Philippines, our continued support for Taiwan's independence, and
specific military programs which seem to be aimed at undercutting
China's nuclear deterrent, particularly our ballistic missile defense
and the imagined strategic implications of plans for a conventional
prompt global strike capability.
The truth, of course, is that the U.S. does seek to limit Chinese
influence, and we are not at all certain that China is the status quo
power it claims to be. Both countries have reason to be wary. The
alliance structure on which we and our allies depend for our security
is based on extended deterrence, our ability to credibly defend our
allies from aggression, to include the use of nuclear weapons.first.if
necessary. The Chinese, for their part, have evolved over decades from
accepting America's ability to dominate in any critical confrontation
by resort to the threat of a disarming first strike with nuclear
weapons, to asserting their ability to deter the U.S. from nuclear
intimidation by finally achieving a survivable retaliatory capability.
Since the U.S. has not acknowledged that China, like Russia, has an
assured destruction capability vis a vis the U.S., there is then the
possibility of a catastrophic miscalculation in a crisis involving the
vital interests of both parties. That crisis is most likely to occur
not over the Korean peninsular, but Taiwan. Taiwan's status is a core
interest of China, and that it not be changed by China's use of force
is critical to the credibility of American assurances to Taiwan--and to
our alliance credibility everywhere. Scenarios leading to a
confrontation over Taiwan can begin in Beijing if, for example, the
Chinese leadership felt the need to stoke nationalistic fervor to
distract attention from poor economic performance, or in Taipei, if the
leadership there saw an opportunity to get out from under the "one
China" policy of Beijing and Washington. The message here is to be very
careful in a Taiwan contingency, and for the U.S. to keep the nuclear
threshold with China as high as possible by maintaining robust
conventional force capabilities to counter Chinese military and naval
modernization aimed specifically at overcoming a U.S. defense of
Taiwan.
So the effort at a balanced policy with China should continue, one
where we respect its global economic and political importance, and
recognize its growing military capability, but avoid even the
appearance of retreat in its face.
North Korea
North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs
directly threaten our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan, and in a
few years we expect they will pose the same threat to the United
States. Preventing the latter ought to be a policy objective of the
U.S., both for the security of the American people and the credibility
of the deterrent we extend to our allies. That said, we should also
recognize that we have lived with the threat of nuclear armed ICBMs
pointed at us from the Soviet Union, now Russia, and China for many
decades without any effective ballistic missile defense (BMD),
including years in which we were not entirely comfortable with the
rationality of the leadership we hoped to deter with our own strategic
nuclear forces. In short, relying on deterrence to deal with the North
Korean threat is less desirable than an effective BMD, but plausibly
more attractive than a major war to remove that threat in the absence
of such BMD.
In terms of scenarios about which we should be concerned, a strike
out of the blue from the North seems most unlikely, but the escalation
of an incident between North and South at sea or near the DMZ seems
quite plausible, particularly since we really have no idea what North
Korea thinks nuclear weapons are good for. If they imagine that their
ability to strike with nuclear weapons will deter the South and the
U.S. from a conventional engagement following a provocation from the
North, they would be mistaken, and tragically so. We need to remember
that we and other states have lived with our own nuclear weapons for a
long time, and at least some of them have come to appreciate the
delicacy and nuance of deterrent calculations. We should not assume
that the leadership in Pyongyang could be so described.
Among developments we need to be most concerned about in terms of
probability of occurrence and magnitude of impact, is the transfer by
North Korea of nuclear weapons materials or technology to another state
or terrorist group. This occurred a decade ago when the North built a
plutonium production reactor in Syria. Fissile material was denied to
the Syrians, and others who might have gotten their hands on it, by an
Israeli air strike that flattened the facility before the reactor went
critical. But it is this type of activity, selling fissile material,
the equipment or technology to produce it, nuclear weapons components
or designs, or even the weapons themselves, that would create the
nightmare scenario of nuclear terrorism we most fear. Taking an early
opportunity to underline for Pyongyang that such transfers will be met
with a swift retaliatory response would be a good idea.
Policy prescriptions generally fall into three options:
containment, military force and negotiation. The dilemma has been that
containment has been seen as too passive, allowing the threat to grow,
military force to costly, particularly now that the North has nuclear
weapons, and negotiation ineffective, as many judge the North to have
cheated on past deals. But these options should not be regarded as
mutually exclusive, and perhaps a strategy built from each of them has
some chance of success.
Containment has been our default posture, involving sanctions,
pressure on China to allow them to work, and even to apply the kind of
additional pressure on Pyongyang that only China can. Military
exercises and planning with our allies, the ROK and Japan, are an
essential element of this posture in order to keep our alliances
strong. Also included here are "non-kinetic" moves, such as cyber
attacks, from which we should expect retaliation in kind. But so far,
we have no reason to believe that this approach will either block the
accumulation of fissile material and nuclear weapons, or the testing of
nuclear weapons and extended range ballistic missiles, much less cause
the regime to collapse.
Military force to prevent the emergence of a nuclear weapons
capability was seriously contemplated and prepared for in 1994 during
the Clinton administrationand the negotiations that led to the Agreed
Framework. It was not pursued because the North eventually accepted a
halt to its plutonium program that lasted a decade. Now that the North
has had five nuclear tests and manufactured perhaps a dozen weapons,
along with ballistic missiles that could plausibly deliver them to
South Korea and Japan, the stakes are quite a bit higher. As the North
moves to solid fueled, mobile missiles for its ICBM capability, the
"left of launch" option becomes more challenging, and our ballistic
missile defense capability regionally, and for the U.S. homeland, is
leaky at best. While this should not discourage any genuine pre-
emptive strike on the North, that is, to prevent an imminent launch
against the U.S. or its allies, it should cause us to think hard before
attempting regime change or even choosing a preventive strike aimed at
delaying the emergence of an ICBM capability.
Negotiations are seen by many observers as a failed policy,
unlikely to succeed with a regime that cannot be trusted.
Interestingly, the North appears to feel the same way. In fact, there
is no question that the North cheated on the 1994 deal by buying
uranium enrichment equipment and technology from Pakistan, thus
allowing it to produce one kind of fissile material as it stopped
producing another. But there is also no question that the deal stopped
a plutonium production program which, each year, we estimated would
have been producing enough fissile material, by the year 2000, for
forty nuclear weapons. As it turned out, because of the deal, by 2000,
the North had no nuclear weapons. For its part, the North plausibly
thought that the Agreed Framework would result in normal relations with
the U.S., and thus remove the need to acquire nuclear weapons as a way
to deter us from attempting regime change. It may as plausibly be
argued that they hedged that bet with the uranium enrichment deal with
Pakistan and concluded early in the Bush Administration that a hostile
relationship with the U.S. still existed and so nuclear weapons were
still required.
Of course, these propositions may not be accurate and the North may
now, if not decades ago, have less benign reasons for wanting nuclear
weapons. The question is whether or not it would be prudent to find out
by engaging in negotiations. If we decide to explore that route, we
should be carful to keep the object a nuclear weapons free North Korea.
This would not mean shunning interim steps involving freezes of various
types, but it would mean rejecting the North's position that it will
never give up its nuclear weapons. Were we to accept that position and
enter protracted negotiations, we would legitimize the North Korean
nuclear weapons program and create domestic political pressure in the
South and in Japan to follow suit.
We should also recognize that if there is a route to a non-nuclear
North Korea via some sort of settlement, the deal will have to address
the North's concern about a U.S. led effort to change the regime in
Pyongyang. It will have to give the North what it believes it gets from
nuclear weapons. The outcome would have to be the establishment of
normal relations between the U.S. and the DPRK, to include a peace
treaty to replace the armistice, but also establishment of diplomatic,
political and economic ties. And this is only plausible if the North
adopts human rights standards in its treatment of its own people that
are acceptable to the international community. None of this will be
easy.
How these three approaches can be integrated, or deciding if
tougher sanctions need to proceed serious negotiations, or whether
robust military exercises and maintaining the threat of military action
are useful or destructive of engagement are tactical questions worthy
of discussion. It is worth noting, though, that our unwillingness to
move to the negotiating table on the heels of a North Korean nuclear or
ballistic missile test reflects a concern that we not be perceived at
home or abroad as rushing to talk after being threatened. And the
leadership in the North may well take a similar position.
Nuclear Terrorism
It has been said that nuclear terrorism is a very high consequence,
but very low probability event. The first part of the proposition is
certainly true. The technology of seventy years ago produced an event
that instantaneously killed thirty thousand people in one city, and
many times more than that died in the following weeks.Nothing else that
we know of, natural or man made, except perhaps a meteor strike, can do
that: that much death in an instant.
The second part of the proposition is arguably true because, to
begin with, we have not seen a nuclear weapon detonated by a terrorist
over those seventy years. And the reason we have not is certainly not
because there have not been, and are not now, terrorist organizations
that have sought to acquire a nuclear weapon. We know that they have,
and have reason to believe that they will continue to try. The obstacle
to their success has been the difficulty of acquiring a nuclear weapon
or the fissile material to make one--an improvised nuclear device
(IND). This situation, what makes nuclear terrorism a low probability
event, may be about to change because of decisions made in Northeast
Asia about how to pursue electrical power production from nuclear
energy.
Japan now owns forty-four tonnes of separated plutonium, of which
about twenty percent (nine tonnes) is stored in Japan. The rest, eighty
percent (35tonnes), is stored in France and the United Kingdom, where
it was separated from Japanese spent fuel. The plutonium stored in
Europe is supposed to be shipped back to Japan by the end of the
decade. All this plutonium--easily more than enough for seven thousand
nuclear weapons--was separated from spent fuel produced in Japanese
nuclear power reactors so that it might be used in Japan's fast breeder
reactor development program or recycled for use in some of Japan's
current generation of thermal nuclear reactors. But Japan has abandoned
its operation and development of fast breeder reactors and, post-
Fukashima, it will likely only operate a few reactors with a mix of
plutonium and uranium in their fuel. There is, then, no clear plan
about what to do with thousands of nuclear weapons worth of plutonium
that will be stockpiled in Japan.
If this were not bad enough, Japan is currently planning to start
up a new reprocessing plant at Rokkasho that will produce even more
separated plutonium. Since there is already a plutonium "overhang," the
Japanese are considering running the new plant at 20% capacity, which
would still produce one and one-half tonnes of plutonium each year,
enough for at least an additional two hundred and fifty nuclear
weapons.
There are at least two concerns here. First, Japan's neighbors,
China and South Korea, worry that Japan is accumulating all this
plutonium as part of a hedging strategy, aimed at greatly shortening
the time it would take to build a credible nuclear weapons arsenal
should the decision be made in Tokyo to abandon the country's non-
nuclear weapons status and leave the NPT.
Whatever may be thought of that, it is the second concern that
relates to nuclear terrorism. To the extent that Japan seeks to fuel
its nuclear power reactors with a mixture of plutonium and uranium--as
opposed to simply using low enriched uranium--it will be planning on
the regular circulation of nuclear weapons material in civilian
facilities, with civilian security, for an indefinite period. Depending
on how many reactors it eventually so fuels, plutonium will become
vulnerable to theft in multiple locations and in transit around the
countryside. This cannot be a good idea.
The U.S. could choose to try and influence Japanese thinking since
the U.S.-Japan agreement for nuclear cooperation is up for renewal next
year. If neither country objects, it will automatically renew. But
against the backdrop of renewal of the agreement, the U.S. could engage
Tokyo in discussion about the wisdom of a new reprocessing facility
opening in the next few years, and generally about recycle as compared
to other methods of dealing with its growing plutonium stockpile.
At the same time the civil plutonium issue is playing out in Japan,
China has negotiated with France for the purchase of a reprocessing
plant to handle spent fuel form its civilian nuclear energy sector. The
plant would be the same size as Rokkasho, separating enough plutonium
each year to make more than a thousand nuclear weapons. Again, if all
went according to plan, some portion of that plutonium would be mixed
with uranium and be moving about China to fuel China's growing nuclear
power program. This would be another challenge to physical security;
another opportunity for the nuclear terrorist.
Finally, there is the Republic Korea, which has a substantial
nuclear power program and the desire to do what its neighbors plan to
do, separate plutonium from spent commercial nuclear fuel. However,
since the ROK's agreement for nuclear cooperation with the U.S.
requires U.S. approval before reprocessing, the decision to do so has
been put off a bit as both sides consider the "proliferation
resistance" of the technology that the South proposes to use in
reprocessing. But if the outcome is yet another reprocessing plant in
Northeast Asia separating plutonium from spent fuel, it is difficult
not to see this facility as presenting yet another opportunity for the
acquisition of fissile material by terrorist groups seeking to
manufacture one or more nuclear weapons.
Interestingly, when the U.S. Blue Ribbon Commission Report of 2012
considered the economics of reprocessing, it found no good argument for
separating plutonium from spent fuel. Not even waste management
concerns would justify reprocessing, especially if dry, cement storage
were adopted until a politically acceptable long term storage site
could be found. This all suggests that perhaps if the three counties
involved here, Japan, China and South Korea, all of whom are watching
the decisions taken in the other capitols, were to agree on a
moratorium on reprocessing of spent fuel for civilian purposes, it
would make the region and the world a safer place.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ambassador, and thanks again to
both of you for your testimony.
Ambassador Gallucci, I have to give you a little bit of a
hard time. We have a typed copy of your presentation. I think
you have a handwritten copy of your presentation. Is that
correct? Good job. All I am saying is I could not even read my
handwriting that I am writing now, let alone get through----
Ambassador Gallucci. I have suffered for decades with
boards and others telling me that I am supposed to type out my
remarks. But I have a fountain pen here, Mr. Chairman.
[Laughter.]
Ambassador Gallucci. And that is what I write my notes
with.
The Chairman. Very good. Well, again, thank you for your
testimony.
And I will start with this. Congressman Forbes, in your
testimony you talked about the spectrum of reactionary and to
the strategy. And in your testimony, you say I believe the most
important thing this subcommittee and this Congress can do is
to build a new culture of strategic thinking. You go on to say,
so too is the time when our strategy can be dictated--gone is
the time when our strategy can be dictated by our budget.
And so part of the effort that I want to put behind this
initiative, this ARIA initiative, is to make sure that working
with the administration, we are laying out a clear strategy
that transcends any timeline of a two-term presidency but goes
to the long-term strategic thinking of this country that can be
filled out with the policies and the tactics that then follow.
So I appreciate your comment and testimony on that.
One of the things that we need include, of course, in the
Asia Reassurance Initiative is a conversation about how to
address and deal with North Korea. Two weeks ago, Secretary
Tillerson said the following in Seoul: ``The U.S. commitment to
our allies is unwavering. In the face of North Korea's grave
and escalating global threat, it is important for me to consult
with our friends and chart a path that secures the peace. Let
me be very clear. The policy of strategic patience has ended.
We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security, and
economic measures. All options are on the table. North Korea
must understand that the only path to a secure, economically
prosperous future is to abandon its development of nuclear
weapons, ballistic missiles, and other weapons of mass
destruction.''
You are in the Oval Office. Secretary Tillerson is there
with the President. What do you tell the Trump administration
that they should be pursuing? What should their policy be
toward North Korea and how will it differ than that of
strategic patience?
Mr. Forbes. Well, I would tell them a number of things, and
I would begin with exactly what you said on a comprehensive
strategic plan. That comprehensive strategic plan does not
exist right now. I do not think we have a culture of even
strategic thinking right now, and I do not think we have had it
for years. So it is not just the Trump administration versus
the Obama administration.
I think it is absolutely crucial that we get out of this
mode that I think we have kind of slipped into as a Nation
where we are reacting to situations and things as opposed to
getting that comprehensive strategy. And it is not just from
the Pentagon. I think we need a cross-agency review to make
sure that we have a comprehensive strategy on our agencies.
And so what I would tell anyone with the administration is,
let us develop that. Let us put a priority on that. And I would
suggest to each of you that when someone comes over from the
Pentagon or from an agency and they tell you this is our guy
for a strategy, they have got a problem because it needs to be
a culture that we create and not just individual designations.
And then you also need behind that the assumptions that go into
that strategy.
Now, let me move forward to say what should that strategy
look like. I think one of the things that Bob said that I
absolutely agree with is that words matter. And I think our
rhetoric needs to be just as strategic as our military
operations. And we need to walk in with goals that we want to
accomplish with our rhetoric and what we say, and we need to
realize who we are talking to. Even when we are talking to an
actor like North Korea who, as Bob mentioned, most of us think
is irrational, his words matter, and we have to listen to those
words. Even if we do not believe the words, we have to see what
the words are representing to us. So the first thing that I
would say is we do not want to create a crisis situation by
narrowing down timelines. And so I think we have to be very
careful on our rhetoric.
The second thing is I think we have to realize that when we
are trying to communicate resolve to the North Koreans, it is
not just what we do to the North Koreans, but it is what we do
to the Chinese and everyone else in that region. And one of the
things that I was very concerned about is when we had, first,
the pivot to the Asia-Pacific area, and then the rebalance to
the Asia-Pacific area, it was never resourced. So when I talk
to our allies or our competitors in that region, they all saw
different things in that. And I think it is very important for
us to communicate to North Korea the resolve that we have.
I think the other thing I would tell the Secretary is that
he needs to go in and we need to continue talks. Regardless of
whether North Korea said they do not want talks, it is to their
benefit to have those talks. I think we need to continue to
explore them. And when we go in, I think it is important that
we have a mixture not just of sticks but also of incentives as
well because I think you have to realize that when we go in, we
need to do that.
And the final thing I would say is I think we need to
continue with the sanctions and to recognize these two things
about sanctions. Sanctions are not always easily measurable
because sometimes you can only measure sanctions over a longer
period of time, and sometimes they have effects that were not
our desired effects but were still beneficial effects.
But the other great thing about sanctions, if we are going
to succeed in North Korea, we have got to have and create
partnerships in that area to help us with that. Sanctions
sometimes are a very low-cost admission into that partnership
world where we may not get some of our allies, some of our
partners to say we want to walk in on a military basis, but
they will say we will walk in and support sanctions to get
there.
The Chairman. Ambassador Gallucci, I am out of time. Did
you want to add anything to that, or do you want to come back
and address that?
Ambassador Gallucci. There is one point I would like to
make and it is a question of tactics right now. It is I think
much in discussion in this town. And that is if we think
negotiations may eventually be where we want to end up as
opposed to military confrontation, is it wise, prudent for us
to get there by first launching a new round of tougher
sanctions because there are things and sanctions we can do that
we have not done. These sanctions that we have in place are
nontrivial, but they are not as tough, for example, as some of
what we did in the case of Iran. And there are things we can
imagine, particularly financial sanctions, that would put more
pressure on Pyongyang.
The question I would like to put before the committee is,
is it wise to say let us do that first? Let us have a period of
tougher sanctions, more pressure, and then go to negotiations.
I think that is a dominant view. What I would like to suggest
is that if that were us on the other end, we, for example, do
not really particularly want to go to the negotiating table on
the heels of a nuclear test or on the heels of a long-range
ballistic missile test because it appears both domestically and
internationally as though we are being pressured to the table.
And that is not the way a negotiator likes to go to a table.
Not surprisingly, the North Koreans have a similar view, and
they would like for us not to introduce our effort at
engagement by first starting with sanctions.
So as we consider whether we want to have a tougher round
of sanctions, recognize that if we decide we do, there is going
to probably have to be a period in which nothing happens except
their programs continue to build. We have to recognize that
when nothing happens, something happens. That is all.
The Chairman. Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ambassador Gallucci, over the past several years, I have
been concerned about the risk of inadvertent nuclear war on the
Korean Peninsula. Statements about plans to target North
Korea's leaders and its nuclear arsenal heighten that risk. For
example, last September, the South Korean Defense Minister
revealed South Korea's plan to, quote, use precision missile
capabilities to target the enemy's facilities in major areas,
as well as eliminating the enemy's leadership.
South Korea has a legitimate desire to defend itself
against the prospect of an unprovoked North Korean nuclear
strike. Nevertheless, plans for preemptive force create
pressure on all actors to go first in a crisis. As your
colleague, Victor Cha recently said, everyone is put in a use
it or lose it'' situation.
How would you recommend, Mr. Ambassador, the United States
and South Korea balance the need for robust deterrence with the
need to reduce the risk of miscalculation and inadvertent
nuclear war?
Ambassador Gallucci. Thank you.
I think it would be wise to begin by making a distinction,
although it sounds a tad academic, between a preventive strike
and a preemptive strike because it is really not so academic.
I think that if the DNI were to walk into the Oval Office
and tell the President that there is a missile on the pad and
it has got a nuclear warhead and it has either got Tokyo or
Seoul or Washington or New York, everybody would expect the
United States of America to do what it could to strike that
missile before it was launched. And international law and
ethics would endorse the move because preemption is legitimate,
prudent, wise, just, et cetera.
But that is typically not what we are talking about and
probably not what the South Koreans were talking about. They
were talking about an emerging or evolving capability which we
would rather not see in an enemy and we would rather strike
before that capability is actually achieved. That is a
preventive strike.
The distinction, if people are uncomfortable with this, was
quite important at the time of the second Gulf War when that
was not preemption. That was a preventive strike. And law and
ethics were not on our side. Neither, by the way, was politics
or prudence in my view.
Similarly now, I would be very careful about the idea that
simply grabbing onto the words ``that is not going to happen''
and strangling that baby in the crib before it becomes capable
of threatening us with real capability is not something that we
should leap to do. It will not be free. You cannot expect there
will not be a response from the North and that that response
will not ultimately involve a second Korean War.
So the first point I want to make about this is that that
enthusiasm to block the threat one has to focus on. And that is
one of the reasons why I think we ought to be clear about what
our true defense--defense as in defense by denial--capability
is. And it is quite limited. Even though it is a layered
defense in the region, it is leaky. If you talk about
continental ballistic missile defense, it is even more leaky.
And we have to understand that is not something we can rely on,
I do not think, at this point. Maybe some day in the future, we
can. That is driving us back to ask, well, do we want to launch
a preventive strike?
Senator Markey. So a preventive strike strategy in your
opinion leads more likely to miscalculation and accidental
nuclear war.
Ambassador Gallucci. You are putting pretty good words in
my mouth I would say, which is to say that I believe that----
Senator Markey. I know what I did. All I did was just ask
my question.
Ambassador Gallucci. I understand. [Laughter.]
Ambassador Gallucci. I understand.
But what I think is possible is that notwithstanding the
fact that we do not know what North Koreans think nuclear
weapons are good for, one of the things they probably are good
for is a way of deterring an attempt at regime change. And
whatever we decided to do or the South decided to do, if there
was ambiguity over that point, then an accident certainly could
happen.
Senator Markey. And again, just so I can get back to this
kind of theological question, do you believe the United States
should continue to demand that North Korea agree to
denuclearize before we talk, or do you think we should launch
exploratory talks while continuing to bolster deterrence and
strengthen the existing sanctions?
Ambassador Gallucci. I have a colleague who put it this
way, that we should have no conditions on talking about talks.
So we should agree to meet without conditions. At that point,
before getting into protracted negotiations, I think we need to
be clear that if those negotiations succeed, for us that would
have to mean that North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons
and nuclear weapons program. It does not mean that they have to
agree to that in the beginning. That is the outcome of the
negotiation. But we cannot, in my view, wisely enter a
negotiation in which we will regard it as successful if we
ended up with a nuclear weapons state in North Korea. I think
that would not be good for the alliance with Japan or the
alliance with the Republic of Korea, nor would it be good for
the United States of America.
Senator Markey. And how do we convince Kim that
denuclearization is not the same as regime change?
Ambassador Gallucci. In my experience, which is----
Senator Markey. Saddam, Qaddafi, no nukes.
Ambassador Gallucci. I understand.
Senator Markey. You die. So how do you deal with that
dynamic?
Ambassador Gallucci. In fact, because there is this
history, that history has been thrown at us in track 2 and
track 1 and a half meetings at least, which is to say look what
you did in Libya, look what you did in Iraq. How can we be sure
you will not do that to us? So quite on point. I get that.
The answer is that the only way you could be sure--you,
North Koreans could be sure--is if we succeeded in normalizing
relations. In other words, that outcome, which is not
structurally prohibited here--there is no reason why we could
not. There is an obstacle to it and it is the character of the
regime. So if you want to characterize the change that has to
take place to allow normal relations to exist between our two
countries as regime change, yes, you have defined it that way.
But I would submit that this does not mean that North Korea
has to become a Jeffersonian democracy. We have relations with
countries whose values on these issues are quite different than
our own. It is just that North Korea is so far from even
minimally meeting international standards on human rights that
it seems to me implausible that we would have a normal
relationship----
Senator Markey. Again, my time is expiring.
So would you say that if they, as part of those talks,
agreed to denuclearization, that we could also agree
simultaneously at that early stage of the negotiations that
regime change would not be a part of our agenda?
Ambassador Gallucci. Yes. A change in the regime but not
regime change. In other words, we need the regime to change the
way it treats its own people, but not a regime change.
Senator Markey. But Kim could stay.
Ambassador Gallucci. To me, that is not the problem.
Senator Markey. That is not a problem. Interesting.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Portman?
Senator Portman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Professor, thank you for your insights. And, Randy,
good to see you.
These are tumultuous times all over the world. Are they
not? And Asia is no exception.
I want to focus a little on the South China Sea and what is
going on there. There was a map provided. You may have been
responsible for this, but it was part of our prep. And it shows
where China claims territorial waters, which really comes right
up to the borders, of course, of many of our allies, including
the Philippines and Malaysia, right up next to Indonesia,
Vietnam, of course. We have heard a lot about China creating a
military base out of a coral reef in disputed waters. I saw in
your testimony you both addressed this a little bit, but I
would like to drill down a little bit more.
First, what concerns you the most about what they are doing
in the South China Sea and the East China Sea for that matter?
What is the greatest threat to our national security interests?
Maybe, Congressman Forbes, you could start.
Mr. Forbes. The thing that concerns me the most, Senator,
is the new boldness and aggression that we are hearing not just
from their leadership but the second tier of leaders that are
coming back. I think we have left a vacuum there over the last
several years. And that is why in my recommendations I said one
of the things that we have to do minimally about those
territories, first of all, we have to reach a legal conclusion
which we have not reached as a country yet as to the status of
those features.
But the second thing is we have got to routinize the FONOPS
operations that we are doing. One of the wonderful things about
what we all do is we get to work with some wonderful people on
both sides of the aisle. And most of the people that I work
with, whether Democrat, Republican, or Independent, agree that
we make huge mistakes when we have allowed that vacuum to go
because then when we actually do take action, all of a sudden
you risk a much greater conflict than you would have had
before.
The second thing that I would say is that we have got to
increase not just our presence but the readiness especially of
our Navy. Almost anyone who looks at this believes that the
next decade or two decades, it is going to be the Navy. Let me
just give you one picture, Senator, that I think says it.
In 2007, we could meet 90 percent of the validated
requirements of our combatant commanders. Last year, we met
less than 42 percent. That is a big concern and a big problem
when we see China building up the way they have been and us not
keeping up the pace with what we need to do with the Navy
because if we have that vacuum, they look at the same reports
we do. They can be very concerned when we have got surge
problems, when we have carrier gap problems that are out there.
I think we have to turn that around and turn it around quickly.
Last thing. We have got to make sure it is not just number
of ships but it is the readiness of those ships in terms of
munitions and those kinds of things that I think we need to do
in very, very short order and very quickly.
Senator Portman. So let me just try to summarize quickly.
One, we need a strategy, and that strategy has to include what
our goals are for the region. And as you said, even
definitionally, what does this mean? Is what they are doing a
violation of international laws or not? And I assume you would
also add to that working with our allies in the region who have
considerable interest in this and are very concerned about the
direction.
And then second is we have to have the capability to
respond, which that capability has been eroded, and PACOM would
I think agree with you on your sense that we just do not have
the readiness even if we have some of the ships. And they are
not adequately represented in the region.
Maybe, Professor, you could talk a little about what--I
mean, why does this matter? What are our interests in the South
China Sea?
Ambassador Gallucci. Congressman, it appears to me that I
could separate the response into two pieces. One is what are
the intrinsic military and naval implications of what the
Chinese did and how does that affect our operations in the
region. And the second is the political significance.
On the first, it occurs to me that I should note that I
spent 3 years on the faculty of the National War College
learning that I should never do what I just said and that I
should recognize the limits of my own experience. So I actually
do not want to speak to that, but I believe there is a
statement that could be made, not by me, about how this might
complicate operations, the militarization of those pieces of
territory. I do not want to call them islands.
Politically, though, I feel much more comfortable saying
that the image of the Chinese doing this and behaving in other
ways that suggests they are unconcerned about judgments about
their consistency with international law, they are prepared to
press the Japanese on islands, which everyone seems to regard
are properly administered at least by Japan if not owned by
Japan. The willingness to challenge the United States'
commitment and the mutual security treaty to extend to those
islands--that all this paints a picture of a China that is
moving out in the region and presenting an image of threat to
not only our allies, but I would say also our friends in
Southeast Asia. So this is in my view ominous and deserves to
be met by the United States.
I was kind of general in my comments because I am really
uncertain about how far to push this except politically I feel
confident that the image we wish to project is as a country
continually maintaining a commitment to the region and to our
presence in the region, and that we are not going to be pushed
off by hegemonic moves by China, to put it bluntly.
Senator Portman. And to the consequences, keeping those sea
lanes open obviously has a major impact on international
commerce and the possibility that China could control those sea
lanes obviously is a commercial, as well as a national security
threat. Would you not say?
Ambassador Gallucci. Sure.
Senator Portman. And so we have a longstanding interest in
this not just in the South China Sea but the Straits of Hormuz.
Wherever we are in a position, we have been able to help all
countries to be able to engage in international commerce.
I guess the final question I would have--and my time is
expiring here. Thank you, guys, for indulging me. Is it too
late with regard to the South China Sea? We talked about North
Korea earlier. Is it too late for us to take action and to
address these concerns that both of you raised and deal with
the threats that the allies in the region feel?
Mr. Forbes. Senator, I absolutely do not think it is too
late. If we had more time, I could tell you that in 1970, 1972,
1973, 1974, we would have felt the same way about the United
States military, and then we look at what happened to them by
1990 and 1991 when we went into Kuwait and we had turned it all
around. And this Congress did that with three major things. We
put stealth airplanes in, guided munitions, and jointness, and
that gave us air dominance which was a huge turnaround. We can
do it now.
But the reason that I emphasized the strategic thing--
everybody talks about strategy. It is something we all agree we
need to do it. But why it is so important is if you look at
what we had just a few years ago, we had the 2012 defense
guidelines. That is what we were resourcing things from. And if
you remember, there was a push to take up the landmines along
the DMZ. Can you imagine any of us sitting in this room today
and saying, oh, my gosh, I wish those landmines had been taken
up on DMZ. We would have thought that was ludicrous.
The same thing when you did not have that strategy and we
looked there. We were going to take our cruisers out. If we
took our cruisers out, it was because the 2012 guidelines were
based on the fact that they did not think China would do what
it has done now. But, Senator, here is what would have
happened. We do not just need those cruisers. We need twice as
many because we will be in a 360 degree fight. This is what
Americans do.
If we will sit down and create those strategies, I still
think we can begin to turn this around. And our allies are
looking to us to develop that strategy and show that resolve so
they can embrace us and come around too. But I think we can
certainly do it.
Senator Portman. Professor, you had a comment? I am over
time.
Ambassador Gallucci. It sounds to me, on the face of it,
wrong to think that there is nothing we can do in the face of
the Chinese move and to simply accept it as a fait accompli.
Again, I have to say I am not really competent to go into the
detail of what exactly we need to do. But I think certainly at
the political level there are things we can do to reassert our
presence in the region. Mr. Forbes has put forth in his remarks
the importance of freedom of navigation exercises, and that is
absolutely critical and we need more, not less of that.
Senator Portman. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, and we will go ahead, if you do
not mind, and continue this conversation and questioning.
And to Senator Portman's point, thanks to CSIS and a great
Colorado-headquartered company, DigitalGlobe, we have some
incredible, incredible visuals of what is happening in the
South China Sea. I mean, this picture here--I know you cannot
see it here, but it shows construction of hangars at Firey
Cross Reef, enough to accommodate 24 combat aircraft, three
larger planes, such as ISR, transport, refueling or bomber
aircraft. There is a series of radomes here and a large
collection of installed radomes north of the airstrip
representing a significant radar sensor array. That is
happening now. It is not being built. It is built. It is up. So
I think that is exactly what we face in the South China Sea.
And I am concerned as well about the issue of freedom of
navigation operations and would like to see and encourage the
administration to continue to--as they continue their
development of an Asia policy, to work on the routinized
freedom of navigation operations and other efforts within the
South China Sea to continue to reiterate our point that China
has violated international law and is in violation of
international law with its activities on reclamation of the
South China Sea islands--or excuse me--of the South China Sea
reefs.
I want to shift again back to the Asia Reassurance
Initiative. With Secretary Mattis and Secretary Tillerson
visiting Asia over the last several weeks, visiting Japan,
Korea, China, and our conversations about making sure that the
new administration is developing a robust Asia policy, talk a
little bit about, if you would, the--you mentioned it in your
opening statement, Congressman, that the rebalance policy--we
supported it. We were excited about the rebalance or pivot,
however you want to call it, whatever it changed to, that we
believed it was the right thing for a very consequential
region. And talk about where that fell short--we have talked
about resource issues. We have talked about the budgetary
concerns--and how the Trump administration can do better. And
also talk about assessments of the first months of what we have
seen with the administration, where we need to go from here.
Mr. Forbes. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think one of the things
that was important is the Obama administration needs to be
applauded for at least recognizing the importance of this
region. They did when they first came out and called this a
pivot. But then they became confused with themselves and were
kind of pushed back to change it to rebalance.
I had more leaders from around the world who are allies
that came in to me and said, what in the world does this mean?
What is your strategy? And oftentimes what you have is world
actors, whether they are our competitors or our allies, will
look to how we resource something to kind of draw out a road
map of what that actually means. Well, if they looked at how we
resourced it, we did not do a very good job. And much of what
we do is not just the rhetoric of a policy, but then how we
implement that policy with the resourcing.
And let me just give you kind of the picture of what our
allies saw and what China saw. They saw us saying, okay, we are
going to turn and move into the Asia-Pacific area, but then
they saw this, having a budget that was proposing to take and
delay a carrier, actually cut out our cruisers, reduced our
naval capacity significantly, reduced our Army, reduced our Air
Force. And so all of a sudden, you have them beginning to say
we do not really know whether you are committed to this region
or not.
And I had an interesting thing from one of our allies who
came to me, the head of that country, and he said this. You
know, we used to think you guys knew how to make the trains run
on time. We are not sure you do anymore. And therefore, what is
happening to a lot of the countries around me is they are
looking to make deals with China and other places.
So I think the thing that I would emphasize to this new
administration is this. You need to come out with a strategy
that you can articulate. Mr. Chairman, this concept that
somehow we cannot talk about strategy because it is like a
secret football play that we are going to pull out--that is
just bogus. That is an excuse for not having one. Strategies
are important. They need to articulate it to you so you know
how to fund it. But we need to be able to tell it to our allies
so they know how to come around us and embrace it. And then the
third thing, our competitors need to know where are the lines
and whether we step across those lines.
So I would say to them, develop that strategy. And one of
the big parts of that strategy that you are going to
communicate is your presence and how you resource it. And I
would say one of the top things that they can do is begin to
say to the military, we are going to rebuild the presence that
we have in the Asia-Pacific area.
The Chairman. Ambassador, do you care to comment?
Ambassador Gallucci. The only thing I would say--and it
goes to some of the general propositions that Congressman
Forbes has in his written statement about our need to improve
analytically our military naval capabilities and air
capabilities. I would also like that to be sensitive to if not
driven by scenarios.
There is a reason why I picked out the Taiwan case because
I think that is particularly worrying going to a core issue for
the Chinese and one in which I do not think--I certainly hope
we would not walk away from. So that involves, if you look at
that scenario, some very special needs in terms of
capabilities. The Chinese have played to that game, and I know
we are aware of that in our military thinking and naval
thinking, but I would like expansion and modernization to be
sensitive particularly to that scenario.
The Chairman. Thank you.
And so with the upcoming summit that President Xi and
President Trump are going to be hosting, meeting, I guess, next
week, what will this summit cover? What should the agenda be?
What do you believe will be discussed? And you are at the
United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee. What would
you ask us to tell the administration as it relates to this
summit?
Mr. Forbes. Well, one of the things that I would point out
that we have not really talked about here--I would never take
off the table intellectual property rights. It is still an
important thing. We need to keep it on the table.
I think you need to continue to talk about human rights
issues, even though they may not be at the top of the agenda,
that you cannot stop talking about those issues. And I think
they are very important to say.
And I think the overall thing is not just the words that
are spoken, but I think you need to communicate two things with
the Chinese. First of all, respect. You do not want to be
obnoxious to them. But I think they do appreciate strength. And
so I think we need to communicate our resolve, and I think
nothing says resolve like saying that we are going to increase
our presence in the Asia-Pacific area. And I think that should
be communicated to them. And I think we should talk about this
reclamation of property and, most importantly, the
militarization of what they have reclaimed and say it is wrong
and you need to stop those actions.
The Chairman. Ambassador?
Ambassador Gallucci. I think the chapeau is really the
respect for China as a great power, the chapeau of the cliches
that have driven the remarks of Americans about China for quite
a long time now to be repeated with feeling about China's
presence, about China's interests, and the legitimacy of that
about China's role in the world, even beyond the region, but to
have no ambiguity about America's position. We are not in
retreat. We have important alliances. Those alliances are for
us guaranteeing the security not only of the ally with whom we
extend our deterrent and commit ourselves, but they are
important to our own security. And we are not retreating from
any of those, and we are going to maintain the capabilities to
make good on the commitments contained in those alliances. That
is more important than anything.
Second, I would look for an opportunity--it has to be done
carefully--to restate the American commitment to the idea that
Taiwan's status, independent status, not be changed by the use
of force or the threat of the use of force, that we are not
moving away from a One China policy, but we are not moving away
from our commitment to Taiwan either.
Third, I think the North Korea case should be on the
agenda. I do not think we lead with that, but I think it should
be on the agenda and that we really do expect more from the
Chinese. It is easy to say that we would like them to abide by
the sanctions resolutions that emerge from the U.N. Security
Council, but more than that, everybody knows that North Korea
has one patron and it is Beijing. And Beijing needs to take
care of its client.
I do not know whether this needs to be brought up by us,
but if it is brought up by the Chinese, we should make no
apologies about THAAD deployment in South Korea. I mean, the
outrageous--and it is outrageous--proposition that we would
provide defense for an ally, a treaty ally, who suffers
ballistic missiles being shot in its direction by a client of
China and then China complains to us about providing that
defense is almost too much to bear.
I would not spend a whole lot of time, as some have
advocated--I do not see the wisdom of this--trying to persuade
the Chinese about the limited intentions we have for the
radars. That was like trying to persuade the Russians not to
worry about our deployments in the Atlantic. It falls on deaf
ears and it does not sound very good going down. So I would not
worry too much about that, but I would certainly be assertive
about what we will do and put it in the context of supporting
our alliance.
The Chairman. Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
So let me follow up on that. The Defense Authorization Act
that Congress passed last year contains a provision that
expands the scope of the U.S. national missile defense.
Previously missile defenses were meant to remain limited such
that they would not threaten or undermine Russia's or China's
strategic deterrence. But the new law sends a signal that the
United States could seek to build a national missile defense
system that could blunt China's retaliatory capacity.
What consequences, Mr. Gallucci, could a policy aimed at
undermining China's strategic nuclear deterrent have on U.S.-
China relations and on strategic stability in the Asia-Pacific?
Ambassador Gallucci. Congressman Markey, this is----
Senator Markey. For the last 3 years, I know keep calling
myself ``Congressman Markey'' as well. [Laughter.]
Ambassador Gallucci. This is really well-trod ground,
again the idea of presenting China with a threat that they will
lose a deterrent that they have worked very hard to build to
persuade the United States that we cannot threaten to go up an
escalatory ladder in a way they cannot because we have what is
in the trade called a first strike capability able to disarm
them to the degree that they could not respond and cause us
sufficient damage to hurt us and discourage the act in the
first place, have real deterrence.
And the idea that one would want to do this, however--and
we have wanted to since the 1960s, as I am sure you know--is
natural because we know that deterrence is a psychological
phenomenon and we would prefer mettle to psychological
phenomenon. And so defense has mettle, and it means denial and
it means we can actually shoot down, if you have an effective
defense that does not leak nuclear weapons, then that would be
desirable. I understand that.
But the reason arms controllers have for a long time not
come out in favor of defenses is because it obviously leads to
an arms race, as the Chinese will continue to try and maintain
if they, indeed, have it now or gain it if they do not, the
ability to threaten the United States even after they have been
attacked. And we do not make them feel better by telling them,
oh, this is only a defense aimed at new powers like North Korea
because once they have been struck by the United States, the
scenario that they have would make them a really weak power at
the strategic nuclear level. And it would look as though our
defense was geared precisely to what they are worried about.
They would try to overcome this, and that is then again in the
trade called an offense/defense arms race.
And the question to ask before one goes into that is how
much does an increment of offense cost to overcome an increment
of defense, and is that a race you want to get into. Or would
you like to agree that we are not going to do that?
Senator Markey. Meaning it costs a lot less for offense
than it does for defense.
Ambassador Gallucci. Indeed.
Senator Markey. Okay. So that I think has to be out on the
table.
And in your testimony, you discuss the significant security
threat emanating from plans in Japan and China to conduct
large-scale reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. And you say it
is the same French company, Areva, which is providing that
technology in both countries. And you note that these plans
could result in the stockpiling and transportation of enough
plutonium to produce hundreds or evaluation thousands of
nuclear weapons. If these plans proceed, they could increase
incentives for South Korea to follow as well.
And that plutonium arms race in East Asia could increase
the risk not only of nuclear terrorism but also of additional
nuclear proliferation, as all three countries eye each other
with suspicion.
The United States has a civil nuclear cooperation agreement
with all three of these countries. This may give us a measure
of influence over their reprocessing plants. How would you
suggest that we use our influence to contain the risk of
nuclear terrorism and proliferation in East Asia?
Ambassador Gallucci. It seems to me at least plausible
that we could engage the Japanese first since they have the
overhang of civil plutonium right now.
Senator Markey. What is their thinking? Why do they want--I
think you said 44 tons?
Ambassador Gallucci. 44 tons. 20 percent of it is now in
Japan. The other 80 percent is divided between France and the
UK.
Senator Markey. And I think as you said, post-Fukashima,
the nuclear future as an electrical generating source is going
to be quite limited.
Ambassador Gallucci. It is hard to know even for Japanese.
I was just in Tokyo talking to them about this. They do not
know either. But it is certainly clear that the breeder reactor
program, which might have absorbed a bit of this plutonium, has
been shut down.
Senator Markey. Exactly. So what are they thinking? Why do
they need it?
Ambassador Gallucci. Well, as you know, the concern in
Beijing and in Seoul was that it was precisely for what we
would rather not have it be for, namely a hedge against a
decision that they might have to take, they would think, to
acquire nuclear weapons. And they would have the fissile
material with which to do it. That is one reason. For some, it
may be a reason. For others, it was part of a nuclear
engineering solution to the nuclear fuel cycle either for fast
breeder reactors or what is called thermal recycle in the
current generation of reactors and also for radioactive waste
management.
Our own blue ribbon commission in 2012 concluded that there
really was no good reason for reprocessing spent fuel. Spent
fuel is quite adequately dealt with for hundreds of years by
dry cask storage. So there is not a good answer to the question
except political type answers, not technical answers.
Senator Markey. So you are saying--I am just trying to----
Ambassador Gallucci. Please.
Senator Markey. Are you saying that the conclusion has to
be at this point that it is really just to have a stockpile in
the event that they move to a nuclear weapons production
strategy in the years ahead and that under this new Prime
Minister, the likelihood of them giving up those 44 tons of
plutonium are very low, but that that induces a certain
paranoiac reaction in the Chinese who hire the same company to
do the same thing, which makes it very difficult to then
complain that another country is doing the same thing with the
same company that you are doing? And the South Koreans just sit
there and they say, well, maybe we should hire the same company
in order to do that same thing.
So how do we talk to the Japanese about this because they
are clearly the first domino in this ever-escalating nuclear
production capacity?
Ambassador Gallucci. I would not dissent from that
characterization of the situation. I do believe the place to
start is Japan. We have an agreement of cooperation that does
expire in 2018. It does not expire if neither side poses an
objection to its continuation. What we could do is start with
the Japanese and be clear here that not everybody in Japan is
looking to hold onto that plutonium as a hedge against the need
for nuclear weapons eventually. I think that view certainly
exists in some quarters in Japan, but I think engaging the
Japanese is not a bad idea, not one that is bound to fail. They
have a plutonium problem. As you know, we have a plutonium
problem too. We have to dispose of plutonium that we are not
going to dispose of as we had originally told the Russians we
would, and we need to find another way. So we could have a
technical consultation with the Japanese about this, and it
could be very fruitful.
If there was any success in that, engaging the Chinese and
pointing out--I mean, some are concerned about the Chinese
having plutonium from the civil area leak into the military
area. That is to me not as consequential as the concern about
terrorism, and I worry about that substantially more. But for
the Chinese to understand that they are an attractive nuisance
in a sense with their own recycle program and that their
security would be enhanced by joining with the Japanese and the
Koreans who right now would be giving up nothing because they
do not have a reprocessing capability. It is possible to
imagine here, without an enormous diplomatic heavy lift, a
moratorium at least on reprocessing and creating more separated
plutonium. And that is what I would recommend.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And thank you to the witnesses. I am especially glad to see
my old friend, Congressman Forbes, here. I was really happy to
see you would be testifying today. And let me actually start
with you, and I will bring you back to your Seapower days in
the House. He was ranking on Seapower and one of the main
leaders on the Armed Services Committee.
I just came from being the lead Democrat on a Readiness
Subcommittee on our side on SASC, and we were talking about
naval readiness. I understand earlier you testified that the
greatest threat in the South China Sea was our readiness
issues. And I think there was a quote around something you said
from one of my staffers that readiness was not just the number
of ships, but their condition. Could you elaborate on that a
little bit so that we can take that advice as we are starting
to work on the NDAA here in the SASC committee in the Senate?
Mr. Forbes. Yes, sir. Well, first of all, it is always
great to see you. And thanks for allowing me to be here today.
I think that one of the things that we need very
desperately is to make sure we even get a new metrics on how we
measure fleet strength. Numbers matter. But what I am very
concerned about right now, as we sit here and we look at all of
the threats in the Asia-Pacific area, it is very concerning
when top leaders in China say they think that we could very
easily have a military conflict with the United States within 2
years. And top leaders in the United States are saying we think
we may have a conflict with China within 2 years. When you have
that rhetoric out there and you see the nature of what is out
there, we cannot build the ships we need, as you know, in 2
years, 3 years, or whatever.
And one of the concerns that I have is right now we have a
huge shortfall in munitions. We need to fix that and fix that
rapidly. We have shortfalls in training that we need to fix,
and we need to fix that rapidly. And I think we are going to
have to change some of our operational concepts. For example,
we may need to move to something like distributed lethality as
opposed to the current situation we have with our carrier
groups. And I think we need to be sending a message out there.
And, Senator, I had a lot of people talk to me about this
350-ship Navy or 355-ship Navy. That is not particularly a
goal. But it is a neon sign saying to the world that the United
States is going to be prepared to play.
And I can take anybody and I ask them, tell me what you
remember about the military in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s,
or the first 10 years of this century. They will say in the
1960s, Vietnam. That is about all they remember. In the 1970s,
maybe we hollowed out the force. The 1990s, they cannot really
say much of anything. And 10th, they cannot say what we did to
the military. It is just where we put it. But in the 1980s,
they know we built a 600-ship Navy.
So that is why I think, in addition to creating the
readiness, we need to at least send a signal out there that we
are on a direction to rebuild this Navy. I know when you look
under my name, you see Naval War College, so I am going to be
prejudiced. But I am not reaching these conclusions because of
my prejudice. I am reaching my prejudice because of my
conclusions. It is just the fact that that is where we are
going to be for the next decade or two decades.
Senator Kaine. Let me ask you both a question that dealt
with another hearing that we had earlier today in the Foreign
Relations Committee. The Western Hemisphere Subcommittee met
earlier today, and one of the items that we heard about from
witnesses is increasing Chinese presence and investment in the
Americas, including Venezuela. We see this all throughout
Africa as well. So the title of this hearing is our leadership
in the Asia-Pacific, but the biggest nation we are concerned
about in the Asia-Pacific is really spreading their influence.
We are about to maybe dramatically cut aid to Africa, our
global aid programs in the Americas. It does not seem like that
is what China is doing. Talk a little bit about how we could
address this broadening Chinese influence into the Western
Hemisphere especially. What are the kinds of things that we
should be looking to do if we want to counter that?
Ambassador Gallucci. I honestly do not know how we counter
what is now substantial but also growing Chinese investment and
presence below the equator in Africa and Latin America.
For a time, I was the President of the MacArthur
Foundation, and we did work in both Latin America and in
Africa. And we would see the footprints of the Chinese in areas
in which we were working. We worked in species preservation,
biodiversity particularly. So we were very concerned about how
the Chinese used the investments, what they did with their
fishing, and how they behaved generally, and were they--this is
a phrase that is used in a different context, but were they a
responsible stakeholder in the development of those countries.
And the answer was not sufficiently and not to the level that
the United States or our colleagues in Europe were moving to.
And they were not meeting standards in those areas. And we
worked together--foundations did--to try to figure out ways of
persuading the Chinese that this was not a good footprint. So
all that is by way of saying that I think you are exactly right
to be concerned about this.
The problem you raise, though, is that if we are not going
to pay the money to have access to the table, it is hard for me
to see how at the governmental level, which would be the more
important level, we will have much to say. Just to put it
simply, we will lose influence.
Mr. Forbes. Senator, one thing I would say is we sometimes
have to crawl before we can walk. And one of the things that I
have advocated--I did it in my testimony here. I have actually
tried to get this accomplished with legislation last year. But
we need to have a cross-agency review of what our actual
policies are so that we do not have one agency working against
another agency, which with China that happens in a lot of
situations. I think that is important.
And the second thing that I think this subcommittee and
other committees in Congress can do is we still do not have a
good picture of exactly what all of that soft power is doing
around the world with China. And I think the more we can just
shed light on here is where they are investing, here is what
they are doing, but here is the impact of what they are doing,
I think that in itself leads then to policies that can help at
least begin to get responses to their actions.
Senator Kaine. I will just say this, Mr. Chairman. I am
done. The great thing about being o this committee is we often
have foreign leaders come and sit down in our business room
over in the Capitol and we just trade ideas. And when we have
leaders from Latin countries--about a year and a half ago, we
had a South American president who came and basically said
this. We would rather do a lot of work with you all because, I
mean, there is just such a cultural connection. Whether it is
families in the United States or people who have done Fulbright
scholarships, the connections are so intense. We all call
ourselves Americans, North, South, or Central, and we feel
that.
But we are doing a lot more with China now even though we
are a little suspicious of their motives. They do not
necessarily do business in the way that is going to elevate
standards or speak to much concern about our country, but they
are just present and you are not. So we have a preference, but
we cannot push on a string. If you are not going to be here,
then we are going to be doing a lot more with China. And that
was a pretty sobering lesson to hear. And, Ambassador Gallucci,
I kind of understand you cannot change that with words. You
have to change it with dollars and with actions.
But thanks to both of you for your ongoing work in this
area.
And, Mr. Chair, thanks for having this hearing.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Kaine. And I think it is
a good point that you bring up because in conversations with
different think tanks, research that has been done, public
polling that has taken place in Asia, even Asian nations across
Asia, they talk about the U.S. norms and that they would rather
do business in an environment that is based on U.S. norms than
one that is ruled by China and where they are heading. But you
are right. Presence matters and our ability to continue to
pursue American values and interest through, whether it is
resource allocation or strategic implementation of initiatives
this committee puts forward, it is important that we do that so
that we can actually give them that leg to stand on, so to
speak.
So thank you to both of you for being here. I have
additional questions. This is a hearing that could go all day,
but much to your relief, it cannot. So I did want to let you
know that I will be submitting a question to both of you on
Southeast Asia and terrorism. As part of this Asia strategy, I
think we have to address concerns in Southeast Asia over
terrorism, what we can do to counter growth of ISIS, the threat
of ISIS, radical Islam, and make sure that we are providing
whether it is FMF type assistance throughout the region,
whether it is counterterrorism training, continue the
conversations that we have had, also conversations about what
we can do to increase and strengthen our alliance with New
Zealand, Australia, India throughout the region. So I look
forward to that.
And with that, I guess I have a closing script that I have
to read here. But as we move forward on this strategy and this
new legislation, the Asia Reassurance Initiative, I would love
to continue to receive your feedback and comments. But thank
you, first and foremost, for attending the hearing, for your
time and work that went into the testimony. Thanks to the
members who participated today.
And for the information of members, the record will remain
open until the close of business on Friday, including for
members to submit questions for the record. And I just would
kindly ask the witnesses to get your homework done as promptly
as possible, if you would, and we will make that a part of the
record. But it is truly appreciated--your service to our
country and the work that you are doing today.
And with that and the thanks of the committee, this hearing
is adjourned. Thanks.
[Whereupon, at 3:50 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN
THE ASIA-PACIFIC--
PART 2: ECONOMIC ISSUES
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and
International Cybersecurity Policy,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:18 p.m., in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Cory Gardner,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Gardner [presiding], Risch, Markey, and
Kaine.
Also Present: Senator Portman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORY GARDNER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
The Chairman. This hearing will come to order. Thank you.
Let me be the first to welcome you all to the second hearing of
the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the
Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy in the 115th
Congress. I welcome you all to today's hearing on U.S.
leadership in the Asia-Pacific.
These hearings that we have held, the first hearing that we
held and this hearing, will focus on informing new legislation
that we are leading, the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, or
ARIA, that will seek to build out a long-term vision for United
States policy toward the Asia-Pacific region.
At our first hearing on March 29th, we focused on the
growing security challenges in the Asia-Pacific, including
North Korea, the South China Sea, and terrorism in Southeast
Asia. At that hearing, Randy Forbes, a former Congressman from
Virginia and chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on
Seapower and Projection Forces, observed the following: ``In
the coming decades, this is the region where the largest armies
in the world will camp. This is the region where the most
powerful navies in the world will gather. This is the region
where over one-half of the world's commerce will take place and
two-thirds will travel. This is the region where a maritime
superhighway linking the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia,
Australia, Northeast Asia, and the United States begins. This
is the region where two superpowers will compete to determine
which world order will prevail. This is the region where the
seeds of conflict that could most engulf the world could be
planted.''
That is a very important statement that we hold in mind as
we focus on this hearing.
So today, we will talk about the importance of U.S.
economic leadership in the Asia-Pacific. By 2050, as
Congressman Forbes mentioned, experts estimate that Asia will
account for over half of the global population and over half of
the world's gross domestic product. We cannot ignore the
fundamental fact that this region will be critical for the U.S.
economy to grow and create jobs through export opportunities.
We have two distinguished witnesses joining us today to
shed light on this very important topic. Ms. Tami Overby, who
serves as the senior vice president for Asia at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, and Dr. Robert Orr--there are a lot of
Orrs in Colorado, so I do not know if you have some Orrs in
Colorado that you are related to or not, but certainly, there
are a lot of Orrs there, too--a professor and dean at the
School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland.
Thanks to our witnesses for being with us today. I
certainly look forward to your testimony.
But I will first turn to Senator Markey, our ranking member
of the Asia Subcommittee, for his opening comments.
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. We
thank you so much for holding this very important hearing.
In essence, I think what you are saying here, Mr. Chairman,
is that you are abiding by the philosophy of Wayne Gretzky when
he was asked--by the way, the second greatest hockey player of
all time--[Laughter.]
Senator Markey.--when he was asked, how do you score goals?
He said, ``I do not go to where the puck is. I go to where the
puck will be.''
So that is really what we are talking about here. How do
we, from an economic perspective, get to where the puck will
be?
One of the witnesses here at the table knows that the
correct answer of the greatest hockey player is Robert Orr,
Bobby Orr from the Boston Bruins. That is one person in the
room who knows that answer, the greatest hockey player of all
time.
So from my perspective, this hearing kind of goes right to
how important it is going to be for us to work with like-minded
countries toward a high standard, inclusive, and rules-based,
regional economic order.
The areas of economic leadership in the Asia-Pacific is
especially critical to our future prosperity. One good area is
the race to create clean energy jobs. More than half of all new
electric-generating capacity installed worldwide last year was
renewable. This will only grow further in the future.
I am concerned that China is rapidly overtaking the United
States in this critical sector. Last year, China increased its
foreign investment in renewables by 60 percent to reach a
record of $32 billion in one year. This includes 11 new
overseas investment deals worth more than $1 billion apiece.
In 2015, China invested over $100 billion in clean energy,
twice that which we invested here in the United States. That
same year, China overtook the United States as the largest
market for electric vehicles, with over 200,000 registrations.
Two Chinese companies, BYD and CATL, are a growing
challenge to Tesla's leadership in the global electric car
sector. Tianqi lithium, a Chinese company, is now the world's
largest manufacturer of lithium ion, a key element for electric
car batteries. Five of the world's six largest solar module
manufacturers are Chinese.
The list goes on and on. We could go to other areas of the
economy as well.
What it says to me is that they have a plan. We need a
plan. We need a plan that we can articulate. And that is the
job that the chairman has given us, to kind of think through
what the economic vision for the future of the United States in
this region is going to be.
I am very much looking forward to this hearing, and I yield
back to you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
We are also joined by Senator Portman from Ohio. Thank you,
Senator Portman, for being here today. If you care to add
anything at the beginning of the comments, if not, we can wait
until questions.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROB PORTMAN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM OHIO
Senator Portman. No, I am just honored to have Bobby Orr
among us. And he is from Colorado, too, which is amazing.
Seriously, thank you both for holding this hearing. I am
here not as a member of the subcommittee, but as someone very
interested.
I am not going to stay for the entire hearing, but I really
want to talk more about some of the issues that were raised
already by the chair and ranking member, particularly what is
the ``One Belt, One Road'' initiative going to mean for us?
Should we be more engaged in it? What are the implications of
the United States not being as involved in the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank, as an example, and some of the
trade negotiations ongoing in the region?
I just would like to hear you all talk about that. I think
it is important to raise awareness of what is actually
happening in terms of China's interests and expanding its
influence, its economic influence, and what you recommend we do
in response to that.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you having this
hearing.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Portman.
Our first witness is Ms. Tami Overby, who serves as senior
vice president for Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As I
mentioned, in this role, Ms. Overby is responsible for
developing, promoting, and executing all Chamber programs and
policies relating to U.S. trade and investment in Asia.
Ms. Overby lived and worked in South Korea for 21 years,
and led the U.S.-Korea Business Coalition and the successful
congressional ratification of the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade
Agreement.
Welcome, Ms. Overby. Thanks for being with us today.
We are also joined by Senator Kaine. I allowed Senator
Portman to say a few words. If you would like to say a few
words? Thank you.
Ms. Overby, if you would like to proceed, and then I will
introduce Dr. Orr.
STATEMENT OF TAMI OVERBY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR ASIA, U.S.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ms. Overby. Thank you very much for this kind invitation.
The Asia-Pacific region is critical to current and future
U.S. economic growth, competitiveness, and job creation. Asian
countries want an active, robust U.S. presence in the region.
They want to be our trading partner.
But Asian economies are not waiting or standing still after
the U.S. withdrawal from TPP. I was just in Hanoi for the
meetings of the APEC ministers responsible for trade. APEC
economies, including the TPP countries, are moving forward
without us.
We also heard in Hanoi several cases in which countries
explicitly said they are backtracking on their commitments they
were prepared to make under the TPP, which would have helped
U.S. companies.
The U.S. and China share a highly interdependent, complex
relationship that is critically important to each other and the
world. Congress and the executive branch should recognize that
without a coherent policy vision and our own concrete measures,
it will be exceedingly different for the United States to
compete regionally, given China's overwhelming presence and
influence.
China has captured much of the share of the Asian import
market over the past 15 years while the U.S. share has declined
from 12.2 percent to 6.6 percent even as Asian imports have
increased more than threefold. U.S. companies continue to see
significant economic opportunity in China but are increasingly
concerned about their future there due to China's policies in
critical areas ranging from IP to cloud computing.
Concerns confronting our members are real and critically
important. Business and government must work together to
resolve these challenges.
We are hopeful the new comprehensive economic dialogue will
not only drive time-fixed, tangible outcomes, but also
persistent and systemic issues, including asymmetries in market
access, a range of industrial policies tied to Made in China
2025, overcapacity, IPR, cybersecurity, data, and antitrust.
U.S. companies are operating in a fiercely competitive
environment in Asia. China is not only expanding its trade, it
is aggressively spreading its economic influence through ``One
Belt, One Road,'' the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and
Silk Road initiatives.
Other countries as well as the EU are aggressively pursuing
trade agreements, infrastructure, and other deals.
Here are five major ways we can engage in the region to
increase U.S. competitiveness.
First, we need to move quickly, as quickly as possible, on
a regional trade strategy. With the U.S. withdrawal from TPP,
our Asian partners are openly questioning the U.S. commitment
to the region. With only three FTAs in Asia, U.S. exporters are
at a significant disadvantage as other countries aggressively
pursue bilateral and regional FTAs, most notably the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership. There is a critical need
for the U.S. to find pathways and platforms to pursue improved
market access for U.S. goods and services that reflect the high
standards of TPP and conform fully to trade promotion
authority.
Further, we need to recognize that our existing FTAs in the
region are keeping us competitive. Without them, the U.S. would
be lagging even further behind. I want to underscore the
Chamber's strong support for the U.S.-Korea Free Trade
Agreement. KORUS is a good agreement as negotiated and
concluded, the most advanced U.S. FTA yet, and we should push
for better implementation, not renegotiation.
Second, we need a fully armed and empowered U.S. export-
import bank to help maintain U.S. export competitiveness in the
region. China, Japan, Korea, the EU, and others provide export
and project finance that support their companies in Asian
markets. We need to reauthorize and fully empower the EXIM
Bank.
Third, we need to ensure adequate funding and support for
the Foreign Commercial Service. FCS officers are valuable
assets for American businesses, particularly small- and medium-
sized companies seeking to expand their export sales.
Fourth, we need to maintain and reprioritize U.S. foreign
assistance. U.S. foreign assistance could be a much more
important and effective means of concrete support in the
region.
Fifth, we need to use regional organizations to pursue U.S.
economic interests. In Asia, showing up is very important. It
will be especially important post-TPP to have the U.S.
Government leaders travel to the region regularly to register
high-level U.S. interest and engagement in addition to hosting
leaders here.
Ambassador Lighthizer's participation in APEC was
positively noted by our partners. And it is commendable that
President Trump has already committed to attending APEC, the
East Asia Summit, and ASEAN meeting. We need to show
constructive and full engagement by U.S. and Cabinet and sub-
Cabinet officers to ensure U.S. business and economic interests
are well-represented. Getting such people appointed and
confirmed is critical in this regard.
Lastly, given the tense security situation in Northeast
Asia, the need for close cooperation with our strong allies in
Japan and South Korea on all fronts is greater than ever,
including economic engagement.
Thank you.
[Ms. Overby's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tami Overby
Thank you for this opportunity to testify on American leadership in
the Asia-Pacific. I am Tami Overby, Senior Vice President for Asia at
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (the ''Chamber''). I am pleased to be here
on behalf of the Chamber to address U.S. economic relations with the
critical Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is well
aware of the linkages between strong economic ties and our political
and geostrategic interests in the region. They cannot be easily
separated.
U.S. Economic Engagement in the Asia-Pacific
I was just in Hanoi for the meeting of the APEC Ministers
Responsible for Trade. The Chamber and American business community are
very pleased Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, the new U.S. Trade
Representative, made such an effort to get there the week of his
confirmation.
In Asia, ``showing up'' is very important. So this was noted
positively by our APEC partners. But as much as Ambassador Lighthizer's
message of commitment to the region is welcome, our APEC partners have
questions about the direction and substance of U.S. international trade
policy, particularly in light of the U.S. withdrawal from the Trans-
Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Asian countries want an active U.S. presence in the region. They
want to be robust trading partners with the United States, but Asian
economies are not waiting or standing still after the U.S. withdrawal
from the TPP. They are moving forward across a number of fronts, from
trade and aid to investment and infrastructure.
The Asia-Pacific region is critical to current and future U.S.
economic growth, competitiveness and job creation. U.S. exporters-
whether large or small companies producing goods and services or
farmers and ranchers exporting commodities-need access to these fast
growing economies and the rising pool of consumers. According to the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the global
middle class will expand from 1.8 billion in 2009 to 3.2 billion by
2020 and 4.9 billion by 2030. Most of this growth is in Asia: In fact,
Asia's middle-class consumers will represent 66% of the global middle-
class population and 59% of middle-class consumption by 2030, doubling
these shares since 2009.
Unfortunately, the United States is falling behind, as the charts
below indicate. Trade between Asian countries is surging, but even as
total Asian imports have risen more than threefold, the U.S. share of
the pie has dropped dramatically in the past 15 years.
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
There are four primary reasons for this:
First is China's dramatic rise. China, not the United States, is
the dominant regional economic power. China is the top trade
partner for most Asian economies-from Japan and Korea in the
northeast to Indonesia and Malaysia in the southeast.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Second, the United States has only three free-trade agreements
(FTAs) in the region, with Australia, Singapore, and South
Korea. At the same time, according to the Asia Regional
Integration Center of the Asian Development Bank, Asian
countries have signed 140 bilateral or regional trade
agreements, and 75 more are under negotiation or concluded and
awaiting entry into force. One notable pact now under
negotiation is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
(RCEP), involving the 10 ASEAN economies, Japan, Korea,
Australia, New Zealand and India.
While RCEP is an ASEAN initiative, China is making efforts to
drive negotiations to a conclusion this year. RCEP is a lower-
standard agreement than the TPP, but is one of two pathways
toward the APEC goal of an eventual Free Trade Agreement of the
AsiaPacific (FTAAP), the TPP being the other.
Third, our regional and global competitors aggressively support
their exporters in Asian markets. Leaders of these countries
take trade delegations to the most promising markets in search
of commercial deals. They provide export credits and low
interest loans for their companies through aggressively funded
export credit agencies. Furthermore, they tie foreign
assistance to commercial opportunities.
China's support via One Belt One Road and the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is accelerating and will
take this activity to a new level. Meanwhile, we have not yet
restored the Ex-Im Bank to full capacity, and are arguing over
whether we should reduce our foreign assistance budget, which
is less than 1% of GDP, and of which only 2% of that goes to
Southeast Asia.
With regard to the U.S. withdrawal from the TPP, the clear takeaway
from Hanoi is disappointment that the United States has
withdrawn from the agreement. Ambassador Lighthizer conveyed
the administration's intention to negotiate bilateral FTAs in
the region at some point.
Japan and New Zealand, which have ratified the TPP, are
pushing forward with a possible ``TPP-11'' arrangement. TPP is
in many respects the most advanced trade agreement yet
negotiated. In addition to opening markets for goods and
services, the TPP sets high standards for digital commerce,
competition with state-owned enterprises, regulatory coherence,
and in a number of areas relating to intellectual property
protection-all of which matter enormously for U.S. exporters of
all sizes, but particularly small and mid-sized companies. It
is clear their objective is to advance the TPP in some form, so
that the strong rules and high standards contained in TPP
survive. These rules, not those in RCEP, would then set the
benchmark for regional trade and a possible FTAAP.
The Chamber has not yet taken a view on any prospective bilateral
FTAs. Our position is that for any new bilateral FTA sought by the
United States, Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) sets the right
negotiating priorities and the proper process, and it should be
followed scrupulously.
Whether bilateral FTAs can deliver much for American exporters is
open to question. In an era of global value chains, the TPP had the
advantage of cutting through the ``Asian noodle bowl'' of divergent
trade rules under multiple agreements.
In any event, the United States is running out of time. Bilateral
FTAs, even with small economies, will take years to negotiate and enter
into force. Our exporters will continue to be at a competitive
disadvantage.
To illustrate, Australian beef exporters have a 10 percentage point
advantage over American beef exporters in Japan due to the Australia-
Japan FTA. The TPP would have eliminated the relative disadvantage of
U.S. cattlemen. The difference means $400,000 a day in lost sales for
U.S. exporters. A bilateral FTA with Japan could potentially close this
gap, but according to Japanese officials in public comments, the United
States should not expect to get more than we would have with the TPP.
Further, negotiating a bilateral FTA with Japan would still take
several years.
We also heard in Hanoi several cases in which countries explicitly
said they are backtracking on commitments they were prepared to make
under the TPP that would help U.S. companies. This problem is
especially acute with regard to business priorities that are
inaccurately but commonly viewed as primarily beneficial to the United
States, such as stronger intellectual property protections and
enforcement.
In sum, the United States has withdrawn from the TPP, but the
challenges it was designed to address remain. These challenges include:
1. The Asia-Pacific region is growing, and it will soon be home to
two-thirds of the world's middle class consumers;
2. Made-in-America products are too often shut out of those promising
markets by steep tariffs and other barriers; and
3. U.S. exporters' disadvantages in the region are likely to mount as
Asian economies clinch new trade pacts that benefit Asians but
shut us out.
The Trump administration will need to devise a strategy to address
these challenges. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is committed to working
with the administration to devise one.
U.S.-ASEAN Relations
U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia, and with ASEAN as an
institution, will be essential to achieving U.S. objectives in the
broader Asia region. American economic interests in Southeast Asia are
vast; ASEAN is the fourth largest U.S. export market globally.
It was therefore encouraging that Vice President Pence visited
Indonesia-the largest ASEAN country-so early in his tenure, and that he
confirmed that President Trump will meet with his ASEAN counterparts as
a group later this year. This is a reassuring message both to American
business and to a region that seeks U.S. engagement.
Notwithstanding this engagement, a key challenge will be to
continue to promote economic openness in the region. Four ASEAN
countries were members of the TPP, and made substantial, and often
politically difficult, reform commitments in order to be part of it.
Others, including the Philippines and Thailand, were very interested in
the TPP, and studied the agreement in detail to determine the types of
reforms they would need to undertake if they were to join it in the
future.
In the TPP's absence, Singapore remains the only ASEAN country with
which the United States has a free trade agreement. The dilemma for the
U.S. now is to determine the means by which to recapture the important
gains that TPP would have provided in those countries, particularly in
Malaysia and Vietnam.
Vietnam has sent encouraging signals about its willingness to
negotiate bilaterally with the United States. Others have not. It is
worth noting that in the 2000s, the United States attempted to
negotiate bilateral FTAs with Malaysia and Thailand, both of which
faltered in part because of the political difficulty for each in
accepting U.S. demands for comprehensive market access in the context
of a bilateral agreement. The lessons of these previous failures should
be borne in mind should the United States decide to pursue bilateral
FTAs with either.
In the meantime, ASEAN is moving forward. The RCEP is an ASEAN, not
Chinese, initiative. In addition, individual ASEAN members have
negotiations going on simultaneously with other key trading partners.
For example, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand are all
negotiating with the European Union, and Singapore and Vietnam have
both completed (but not yet implemented) deals with the EU. All of
those countries individually have FTAs with numerous other markets
around the world.
U.S.-China Relations
In addition to China's growing regional role, the United States and
China share a highly interdependent yet complex relationship that is
critically important to each other and the world. U.S. industry
continues to see significant economic opportunity in the China market,
which is worth half a trillion dollars annually to U.S. companies-and
could be worth considerably more.
Together, the U.S. and China represent around 40 percent of the
global economy. China is the third largest goods exports market for the
United States. And the American Chamber of Commerce in China 2017 China
Business Climate Survey reports that the majority of U.S. companies
experienced revenue growth in 2016.
Challenges to American Companies
At the same time, U.S. and other foreign companies active in the
China market have become more concerned about their future there.
Nearly four years after the Third Plenum Decision, positive rhetoric on
market reforms has yet to materialize into policy that significantly
impacts the investment or business environment.
Rather, the legacies of China's command economy are continuing to
impact its economic policy and hamper its complete integration into the
global economy. These policies are increasing the role of the state in
the economy and creating an uneven playing field for U.S. companies.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China and the European Chamber
of Commerce in China report in the their latest annual surveys that an
overwhelming majority of member companies-80 percent in the case of
AmCham China-feel less welcome in the Chinese market than previously.
These headwinds are curbing enthusiasm for U.S. investors. The AmCham
2017 Business Climate Survey finds signs that companies' are now
deprioritizing China in investment plans.
A number of policy issues contribute to American company concerns,
among them:
An investment regime that is the most restrictive among G20
countries and limits market access in service sectors such as
banking, insurance, securities, telecommunications, and cloud
computing;
Cybersecurity, information communication technology (ICT), and data
policies that pose challenges for global connectivity;
An Anti-Monopoly Law that is enforced in a discriminatory manner
and used to advance industrial policies;
IP enforcement that, while improved in recent years, is
insufficient to protect against high levels of counterfeiting,
piracy, and trade secret theft; and
Industrial policies like Made in China 2025 that aim to use state
resources to create and alter comparative advantage in global
markets.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued a series of reports over
the past years assessing Chinese barriers to U.S. exports and
investments as well as industrial policies that are relevant as the
administration examines foreign trade barriers. They are listed in an
annex to this statement.
An uncompetitive China market raises serious concerns not only for
its domestic economy but its economic partners. Chinese industrial
policies precipitate market inefficiencies and spark overcapacity,
resulting in lower prices for global commodities and the potential for
predatory pricing-which has forced non-Chinese companies out of
business in steel, solar, aluminum, and other industries.
Having a competitive market in China is critical to minimizing
these market distortions globally from China. In addition, American
companies need to be able to succeed in China to ensure sufficient
economies of scale to compete in the global economy against Chinese and
other firms. Our two countries need to work together to address these
issues and create a level playing field.
Bilateral Engagement
The Chamber welcomed the announcement of a new bilateral
Comprehensive Economic Dialogue and the commitment by both governments
to a 100-day plan to make progress on our trade relationship, as well
as the recently announced interim outcomes. President Trump, Secretary
Ross, and Secretary Mnuchin deserve credit for their efforts to address
the business community's concerns.
The outcomes on agricultural products and credit ratings agencies
are a positive first step. But these initial outcomes should be
regarded as a modest down payment for more far-reaching outcomes on
market access, subsidies, procurement, and cyber/ICT. It is
particularly important to secure outcomes on cybersecurity, ICT, and
data, as China is currently issuing sweeping policies that are acting
as new barriers for American companies.
Next Steps
The concerns confronting our member companies are real, and
significantly important. The Chamber believes a high-standard Bilateral
Investment Treaty (BIT) could address many, although not all the
business community's concerns with China. As a result, we have long
supported supplementing the U.S. Model BIT with robust provisions on
state-owned enterprises, cross-border data flows, standards, as well as
limitations on the use of excessively broad national security
provisions as a pretext for discrimination against our companies.
The U.S. Chamber is doing what we can to track and analyze Chinese
polices, but larger, more systematic, efforts are needed. As China
advances industrial policies that are distorting global markets, we
urge the U.S. government to set up a robust monitoring and forecasting
initiative to assess how Chinese industrial policies like Made in China
2025 as well as other policy decisions are impacting critical sectors
of the U.S. economy.
The Chinese government is making policy decisions with long-term
goals, and the U.S. government has an obligation to approach it in
similar terms. Moreover, it is vital for the U.S. government to set
clear expectations with China on our trade and investment relationship,
and to publicly and dispassionately defend our commercial interests.
The new Comprehensive Economic Dialogue can be used to secure and drive
time-fixed, tangible outcomes, like those on beef.
It is also critical that the U.S. government develop metrics to
assess China's progress on its commitments to ensure full and even
implementation. When commitments and dialogue are unable to adequately
address unfair trading practices, the U.S. government should enforce
our trade laws, consistent with WTO obligations, and consider new tools
that would be consistent with WTO rules that begin to address
asymmetries in market access and other policies that prohibit or
restrict the ability of U.S. companies to compete in China.
U.S.-Japan-Korea Cooperation
Clearly North Korea's escalation of missile testing is something we
all need to be focused on. Nowhere else are our economic and strategic
interests connected as with Japan and Korea, our two main allies in
Northeast Asia. Trilateral cooperation on North Korea is essential, and
obviously China's role here is critical.
But the three countries need to find areas of economic cooperation
as well. In particular, the United States, Japan and Korea can use fora
like APEC to continue to push for good rules and best practices with
regard to regulatory transparency, intellectual property, competition
policy, and digital trade.
We are having encouraging discussions in the business communities
around issues like the digital economy and cybersecurity. To this end,
we urge the governments to prioritize policies and concrete measures
that support high-standard, internationally harmonized rules in concert
with the private sector.
U.S.-Korea Relations
The U.S.-Korea bilateral relationship should not be taken for
granted. With the election of their new President, Moon Jae-In, there
is a good opportunity to further strengthen our partnership-both in the
security and economic spheres-but we must be smart and careful.
The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, or KORUS, remains the
cornerstone of our bilateral trade and investment relationship, and
importantly, it underpins our vital security alliance. We cannot
overstate how intertwined these relationships are, and need to be
prudent and careful not to disrupt them.
U.S. industry has expressed frustration with the unsatisfactory
enforcement of KORUS in a number of areas in the five years since it
was implemented. Some areas of concern include customs verification,
non-tariff measures in the automotive sector, transparency in
pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and the process surrounding
numerous competition policy cases most notably.
In this regard, the Trump Administration should redouble U.S.
efforts to press the Korean government to fully respect the letter and
the spirit of the agreement. KORUS established a comprehensive
committee structure that allows governments to review progress and
problems at regular intervals, and this structure should be employed
vigorously. The Chamber regularly provided input to the Obama
Administration on these matters and will do the same with the Trump
Administration going forward.
The Chamber urges the Trump Administration and the Congress to
focus on ensuring full and faithful implementation of KORUS rather than
negotiating an entirely new agreement with Korea or a renegotiation.
The agreement as it stands set a high bar, and in a number of areas
includes the strongest rules yet achieved in U.S. trade agreements.
It is important to note that KORUS has led to sharp increases in
U.S. service exports while exports of many U.S. agricultural and
industrial goods have increased since KORUS went into effect five years
ago. KORUS has helped maintain a steady if unspectacular level of U.S.
goods exports at a time when Korea's overall imports have dropped
dramatically due to domestic economic difficulties.
These important gains for U.S. companies should not be overlooked,
nor should KORUS be alternately be credited or blamed for changes in
trade patterns in sectors where it had no impact (more than half of
U.S.-Korea goods trade was already duty free before KORUS). The U.S.
bilateral trade deficit in manufactured goods should not be viewed as
the proper measure of the agreement's quality. KORUS has increased
opportunities for U.S. exporters and will continue to do so as tariff
cuts take full effect over the next few years.
In short, overall implementation of the agreement can be better.
That should be our collective focus and goal-to ensure this high-
standard agreement is implemented fully and faithfully so that it is
truly a win-win. We are confident that if the Korean government does
this, U.S. exports will continue to expand.
Conclusion
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce appreciates the opportunity to testify
today and the leadership of this committee on these critical commercial
and strategic issues. U.S. economic engagement with Asia is not a
luxury but a necessity for any efforts to spur economic growth and job
creation here at home and secure a prosperous region for posterity. We
look forward to our ongoing engagement with you.
Annex: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Reports on
U.S. Economic Relations with China
Made in China 2025: Global Ambitions Built on Local Protections
(March 2017) \1\ examines China's plan to become an advanced
manufacturing leader in industries critical to economic growth
and competitiveness. The report catalogues China's policy
efforts to use a number of tools, including subsidies,
standards, procurement, financial policy, and government-backed
investment funds, to reach ambitious domestic and international
targets. By leveraging the power of the state to alter
competitive dynamics in global markets, MIC 2025 risks sparking
economic inefficiencies affecting China and overcapacity
affecting the global economy.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. Chamber of Commerce China Center, Made in China 2025:
Global Ambitions Built on Local Protections, March 2017.
Cultivating Opportunity: The Benefits of Increased U.S.-China
Agricultural Trade (November 2016) \2\ reveals that reducing or
eliminating relevant tariffs and other behindthe-border
barriers between the United States and China could result in
$28.1 billion in additional cumulative gains in two-way
agricultural sector trade over 2016-2025. The United States
would realize gains of $17.6 billion-a nearly 40% increase over
baseline projections.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ U.S. Chamber of Commerce China Center, Cultivating Opportunity:
The Benefits of Increased U.S.-China Agricultural Trade, November 2016.
Preventing Deglobalization: An Economic and Security Argument for
Free Trade and Investment in ICT (September 2016) \3\ examines
threats to the global economy from emerging policies
restricting open trade and investment in the information and
communications technology (ICT) sector and attempts to quantify
their impact. While the report is global in scope, Chinese
industrial policies feature prominently.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Preventing Deglobalization: An
Economic and Security Argument for Free Trade and Investment in ICT,
September 2016.
Competing Interests in China's Competition Law Enforcement: China's
Anti-Monopoly Law Application and the Role of Industrial Policy
(2014) \4\ examined China's use of its Anti-Monopoly Law to
advance industrial policy and boost national champions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Competing Interests in China's
Competition Law Enforcement; China's AntiMonopoly Law Application and
the Role of Industrial Policy, September 2014.
China's Approval Process for Inbound Foreign Direct Investment:
Impact on Market Access, National Treatment and Transparency
(2012) \5\ detailed China's inbound investment approval process
and identified challenges for potential foreign investors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ 5U.S. Chamber of Commerce, China's Approval Process for Foreign
Inbound Direct Investment: Impact on Market Access, National Treatment
and Transparency, October 2012.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
China's Drive for `Indigenous Innovation': A Web of Industrial
Policies (2010) \6\ highlighted China's efforts to use its
powerful regulatory regime to decrease reliance on foreign
technology and develop indigenous technologies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ U.S. Chamber of Commerce, China's Drive for Indigenous
Innovation: A Web of Industrial Policies, June 2010.
The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Overby.
Our second witness today is Dr. Robert Orr. He serves as
professor and dean of the School of Public Policy at the
University of Maryland. Prior to joining the University of
Maryland, Dr. Orr served as the Assistant Secretary General for
Strategic Planning in the Executive Office of the United
Nations Secretary-General from 2004 to 2014. He has served in
senior posts in the Government of the United States, including
deputy to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations
and director of global affairs at the National Security
Council.
I will have to read his hockey bio I guess at a different
part of this, Senator Markey.
Welcome, Dr. Orr. Thank you for being with us today.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT ORR, PH.D., PROFESSOR AND DEAN, SCHOOL OF
PUBLIC POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND
Dr. Orr. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator Markey,
Senator Portman, Senator Kaine.
This is an incredibly important subject that we are
discussing here today. In 2017, we face a global economic
landscape that is changing with lightning speed. Nowhere is
this more evident than in the Asia-Pacific region. If the
United States does not engage, compete, cooperate, and lead
across the width and breadth of the Asia-Pacific region, we
stand a very real possibility of squandering the unique leading
economic and geostrategic role we have carefully crafted over
many decades.
The United States is well positioned to take a central role
in shaping the global economy of tomorrow, continuing its long
tradition of advancing innovation and competition as the
pillars of progress. To do so will require full engagement by
the United States across three distinct but related spheres of
economic policy in the region: first, trade; second,
development assistance; and third, investment in business
development across the region.
On the question of trade, there can be little doubt that
the U.S. pullout from the Trans-Pacific Partnership has left
America's friends and allies in the region frustrated--indeed,
befuddled--and looking for partners.
They continue to seek trade partnerships among themselves
with the 11 remaining countries of the TPP agreeing to explore
how to move forward absent the U.S. at the recent APEC meeting.
If the U.S. does not find a way to fill the vacuum and demand
for economic partners in the region, it is clear that China
will attempt to.
The Asia-Pacific, despite decades of growth, remains a
developing region with the largest numbers of poor people in
the world. While the U.S. has pulled back from the Asia-Pacific
region, China has systematically increased its development
assistance through both bilateral and multilateral mechanisms.
The establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
reflects the increased role China sees for itself in the
region, successfully securing capital commitments totaling $100
billion from leading nations worldwide, including many U.S.
allies.
In the face of China commanding a greater role for itself,
cuts to our economic development tools in the region--USAID,
OPIC, EXIM Bank--will only quicken our retreat.
Numerous studies show disproportionate economic and
political returns on U.S. development assistance dollars. The
Trump administration's budget proposal eliminates USAID's
development assistance account, winds down the activities of
OPIC, seeks no new funding for EXIM Bank activities, and zeros
out all climate-related funding across the Federal budget.
Congress must exercise its authority to completely reverse
these draconian and self-defeating cuts. Given global
competition, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, we cannot
afford to be penny wise and pound foolish.
Perhaps the most important economic dynamic in the Asia-
Pacific region is the sheer scope and speed of sustained
economic growth, creating massive and growing markets for both
goods and productive investment.
The geo-economic and geostrategic game of the 21st century
will increasingly play out in the Asia-Pacific region,
especially on issues of energy, infrastructure, natural
resources, changing consumer demands, and various forms of
economic transformation in the face of climate change. These
sectors will shape global markets for decades to come, and how
businesses and countries respond to these opportunities and
challenges will directly affect their standing--indeed, their
relevance.
China is already moving to take advantage of the
opportunities posed by these defining issues, seeing them not
just as vehicles for economic development at home and abroad
but also to command regional and global leadership. It is
aggressively pursuing renewable energy development, as noted by
Senator Markey, to address domestic energy needs, having been
the world's largest investor in the technology since 2012, and
is prepared to invest more than $360 billion over 4 years.
China's State Grid Corporation has proposed and is now
taking a leading role in envisioning a global energy
interconnection, which would fundamentally transform the world
energy system by creating a global grid to drive clean energy
development.
Innovation is occurring in the finance space with China
clearly signaling its intent to be a leader in the field. It is
moving toward the rollout of its national emission trading
scheme following a several-year trial of seven regional trading
schemes. From the outset, this national market will cover over
7,000 firms accounting for nearly half of China's emissions,
reducing inefficiencies in their economy and making themselves
more competitive in the process.
Recent global growth in green bonds is also being driven by
China, which has gone from almost zero bond issuance in 2015 to
accounting for 39 percent of the global total in 2016, in 1
year.
In this context, the U.S. can do a number of things to
ensure its interests, as well as those of its allies and
partners in the Asia-Pacific region.
First, work with allies and partners to construct a global
trading regime with the United States at its center. I would
also concur with Ms. Overby's comment on the regional trading
scheme.
Secondly, fully and strategically fund the key instruments
of economic development in the region, including appropriate
USAID accounts, OPIC, EXIM Bank, the World Bank, Asian
Development Bank, and the U.N. system.
Third, stay in the Paris Agreement and make adjustments to
climate policy within that flexible and universally agreed
framework.
Fourth, accelerate our own energy transition to cleaner and
more cost-effective fuel sources, and build commercial
partnerships around the Asia-Pacific region based on
cooperation in this area.
Fifth, focus on smart infrastructure and smart energy grids
at home and around the Asia-Pacific region with friends and
allies.
Sixth, advance work at home and abroad on climate-smart
agriculture, where the U.S. remains highly competitive.
Seventh, put a price on carbon and, in so doing, squeeze
inefficiencies out of our economy to make it as competitive as
it can be. Nothing within the global climate agreement prevents
a conservative climate policy involving carbon taxes, the likes
of which former Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and
George P. Shultz, as well as former Secretary of the Treasury
Henry M. Paulson Jr., have put forward.
Eighth, support U.S. Federal financing for science,
technology, and innovation, and for bringing those innovations
to market.
And finally, pay close attention to human capital flows and
how they are affected by exclusionary visa policies.
The United States has long demonstrated economic leadership
in the Asia-Pacific region, advancing a vision of innovation
and competition to achieve progress. Countries are only
prepared to hook their fate to a global leader who has shown
that it understands their interests and their views. It would
be the height of folly for the United States to give up that
leadership role it has played on addressing the climate
challenge, an issue seen by all countries in the region as
central to their security and prosperity.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Dr. Orr's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert C. Orr
Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to testify before you on
this very timely and important topic.
My name is Robert Orr, and I am the Dean of the School of Public
Policy at the University of Maryland. Born and raised in California,
and having studied, lived and worked in Japan, Taiwan, and China, I
have had decades of exposure to, and engagement with, the Asia-Pacific
region. In addition, my work as a U.S. government official at the
National Security Council and the State Department, combined with a
decade at the United Nations, has given me long-term first-hand
experience with how the United States is positioned and perceived in
the region.
In 2017 I see both huge opportunities and very real threats to U.S.
interests. Both can be fundamentally shaped by what policy decisions we
take today. We face a global economic landscape that is changing with
lighting speed. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Asia-Pacific
region. If the United States does not engage, compete, cooperate and
lead across the width and breadth of the Asia-Pacific region, we stand
a very real possibility of squandering the unique leading economic and
geo-strategic role we have carefully crafted over many decades. If we
do not take the long view and invest our resources accordingly, we face
the real possibility of ceding our leadership role to others in the
region who would welcome the windfall.
The Asia-Pacific region is exceedingly diverse in the economic
sphere, among others, with competing visions and economic models,
distinct geo-economic spheres of influence, and dynamic on-the-ground
competition that will define nations' economies, their prosperity, and
their relations with each other. The United States is well positioned
to take a central role in shaping the global economy of tomorrow,
continuing its long tradition of advancing innovation and competition
as the pillars of progress. To do so will require full engagement by
the United States across three distinct but related spheres of economic
policy in the region: trade; development assistance; and investment and
business development across the region.
On the question of trade, there can be little doubt that the U.S.
pullout from the Trans-Pacific Partnership has left America's friends
and allies in the region frustrated, indeed befuddled, and looking for
partners. They continue to seek trade partnerships amongst themselves,
with the eleven remaining countries of the TPP agreeing to explore how
to move forward absent the U.S. on the sidelines of the most recent
APEC meeting.\1\ If the U.S. doesn't find a way to fill this vacuum and
demand for economic partners in the region, it is clear that China will
attempt to.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Ananthalakshmi, A. & Nguyen, M. U.S. and Pacific Rim Countries
at odds in heated trade meeting. Reuters (2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are already seeing this in the discussions regarding the
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which have been spurred on
by the U.S. withdrawal from TPP. This agreement would cover nearly half
the world's population, almost 30 percent of global GDP, include China
and India, and would see no U.S. seat at the table. The U.S. needs a
cogent trade policy to respond to the vacuum we ourselves have created;
preferably by advancing multilateral trade agreements, but at a minimum
through a well-designed set of bilateral trade arrangements with
various partners in the region.
The Asia-Pacific, despite decades of growth, remains a developing
region with the largest numbers of poor people in the world. While the
U.S. has systematically pulled back from the Asia-Pacific region, China
has systematically increased its development assistance through both
bilateral and multilateral mechanisms. The establishment of the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank reflects the increased role China sees
for itself in the region, successfully securing capital commitments
totaling $100 billion from leading nations worldwide including many
U.S. allies. This is only part of China's strategy, with various
bilateral agreements used to build relationships and cement economic
and political objectives in the region. In the face of China commanding
a greater role for itself, cuts to our economic development tools in
the region--USAID, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC),
and EXIM Bank--will only quicken our retreat. Numerous studies show
disproportionate economic and political returns on U.S. development
assistance dollars. The Trump Administration's budget proposal
eliminates USAID's Development Assistance account, winds-down the
activities of OPIC, seeks no new funding for EXIM Bank activities, and
zeros out all climate-related funding across the federal budget. In
this situation, Congress must exercise its authority to completely
reverse these draconian and self defeating cuts. Given global
competition, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, we cannot afford to
be penny wise and pound foolish.
Perhaps the most important economic dynamic in the Asia-Pacific
region is the sheer scope and speed of sustained economic growth--
creating massive and growing markets for both goods and productive
investment. The geo-economic and geo-strategic game of the 21st Century
will increasingly play out in the Asia-Pacific region, especially on
the issues of energy, infrastructure, natural resources, changing
consumer demand, and various forms of economic transformation in the
face of climate change. These sectors will shape global markets for
decades to come, and how businesses and countries respond to these
opportunities and challenges will directly affect their standing, and
indeed their relevance.
A few statistics give an idea of the most dynamic, and highest
value opportunities:
More than US$1.6 trillion has been invested in renewable energy
capacity since 2010,\2\ with some US$7.8 trillion forecast to
be invested through 2040.\3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Frankfurt School-UNEP Centre & Finance, B. N. E. Global Trends
in Renewable Energy Investment 2017. (2017).
\3\ Bloomberg New Energy Finance. New Energy Outlook 2016 Executive
Summary. (2016).
US$90 trillion is expected to be invested globally over the next 15
years to replace ageing infrastructure in developed economies
and to build out emerging economies.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ The New Climate Economy. The Sustainable Infrastructure
Imperative--Financing for Better Growth and Development. (2016).
Investors with more than US$10 trillion under management are moving
to recognize the risk posed by holding carbon-associated assets
through performance reporting,\5\ and individuals and
institutions with more than US$5 trillion in managed assets
havecommitted to some form of divestment from fossil fuel
assets.\6\ These trends are accelerating.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Marchais, M. & Blanc, D. Montreal Carbon Pledge--Accelerating
Investor Climate Disclosure. (2016).
\6\ Arabella Advisors. The Global Fossil Fuel Divestment and Clean
Energy Investment Movement. (2016).
Innovation in markets is occurring to finance plays in these areas,
with a total of US$694 billion in climate-aligned, outstanding
bonds in the markets in 2016.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Climate Bonds Initiative. Bonds and Climate Change--The State
of the Market in 2016. (2016).
These are the moves that economic actors are making globally on the
issues that matter to them, and the opportunities of the new 21st
Century economy run right through the Asia-Pacific region.
China is already moving to take advantage of the opportunities
posed by these defining issues, seeing them not just as vehicles for
economic development at home and abroad, but also to command regional
and global leadership.
It is aggressively pursuing renewable energy development to address
domestic energy needs, having been the world's largest investor in the
technology since 20122 and is preparing to invest more than US$360
billion over four years.\8\ This domestic activity has translated to
global competitiveness in renewable energy, with Chinese companies,
manufacturers and technology firms claiming the dominant share of large
public companies worldwide that generate 10 percent or more from clean
energy revenues.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Ferris, D. As U.S. wavers, China prepares to invest $360B in 4
years. Energy Wire (2017).
\9\ As You Sow & Corporate Knights. Carbon Clean 200: Investing in
a clean energy future 2017 Q1 Performance Update. (2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
China's State Grid Corporation has proposed and is now taking a
leading role in envisioning a Global Energy Interconnection, which
would fundamentally transform the world energy system by creating a
global grid to drive clean energy development.\10\ This is in addition
to continued strong investments in domestic electricity infrastructure,
including an expected expenditure of US$62 billion on smart grid
technology through the period 2009 to 2020.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Minter, A. China Wants to Power the World. Bloomberg View
(2016).
\11\ Xiufeng, F. Smart Grids in China: Industry Regulation and
Foreign Direct Investment.Energy Law J. 37, 135-176 (2016).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Innovation is occurring in the finance space, with China clearly
signally its intent to be a leader in the field. It is moving towards
the rollout of its national emissions trading scheme, following a
several year trial of seven regional trading schemes. From the outset
this national market will cover over 7,000 firms accounting for nearly
half of China's emissions,\12\ reducing inefficiencies in their economy
and making themselves more competitive in the process. Recent global
growth in green bonds is also being driven by China, which has gone
from almost zero bond issuance in 2015 to accounting for 39 percent of
the total global issuance in 2016.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ Chun, Z. China prepares to open national carbon market.
chinadialogue (2016).
\13\ Climate Bonds Initiative. China Green Bond Market 2016.
(2017).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not only furthering its economic rise, China is increasingly being
seen as a credible leader on the the 21st Century transition to a
cleaner, more efficient economy. Countries throughout the region
understand that their future is directly linked to global climate
outcomes, and they are investing and striking regional and global
alliances accordingly. For the island states this is a matter of
survival. For China and India, this is a matter of an economic model
that can sustain their populations and reduce poverty without the
crushing health effects of the exclusively fossil fuel-based model; for
U.S. allies like Japan, Korea, and various members of ASEAN, it is as
much an issue of economic competitiveness as it is one of enlightened
leadership on the global stage. For all these countries, it is about
markets for new technologies to mitigate climate change, but it is also
about the need for physical and economic resilience in the face of
rising seas and highly disruptive weather events. U.S. moves and
pronouncements in recent months aligning itself with fuels and
technologies of a bygone era instead of fuels and technologies of
tomorrow, make the U.S.a much less attractive and reliable partner.
Friends, competitors, and those in between have all begun to respond
accordingly: by betting on China.
In this context, the U.S. can do a number of things now to ensure
its interests, as well as those of its allies and partners in the Asia-
Pacific region:
1. Work with allies and partners to construct a global trade regime
with the United States at its center;
2. Fully and strategically fund the key instruments of economic
development in the region, including USAID, OPIC, EXIM Bank,
the World Bank; the Asian Development Bank; and the UN system;
3. Stay in the Paris Agreement and make adjustments to climate policy
within that flexible and universally agreed framework. Even
having the discussion about whether to pull the United States
out of the Paris Agreement is a self-inflicted injury. The
Administration should signal its clear intent to stay within
the Paris framework given the flexibility offered under the
agreement to pursue national policies of its own choosing, not
to mention the universal and strong support for the agreement
throughout the Asia-Pacific and the world.
4. Accelerate our own energy transition to cleaner and more cost
effective fuel sources, and build commercial partnerships
around the Asia-Pacific region based on cooperation in this
area;
5. Focus on smart infrastructure and smart energy grids at home and
around the Asia-Pacific region with friends and allies;
6. Advance work at home and abroad on climate smart agriculture, where
the U.S. remains highly competitive;
7. Put a price on carbon, and in so doing squeeze inefficiencies out
of our economy to make it as competitive as it can be. Nothing
within the global climate agreement prevents a "conservative
climate policy" involving carbon taxes the likes of which
former Secretary of States' James A. Baker III and George P.
Shultz, and former Secretary of Treasury Henry M. Paulson Jr.
have put forward;
8. Support US Federal financing for science, technology, and
innovation, and for bringing those innovations to market; and
9. Finally, pay close attention to human capital flows, and how they
are affected by exclusionary visa policies. In my university
and in those across the country, we are seeing shifts in
willingness by the best and brightest students from around the
world to come to, and ultimately stay in the United States.
Signals from Washington D.C., both the Administration and
Congress, can be very helpful or be very harmful in this
regard.
The United States has long demonstrated economic leadership in the
Asia-Pacific region, advancing a vision of innovation and competition
to achieve progress. As the nations of the region turn their attention
to the opportunities and impacts posed by climate change, China's
leadership on the issue is offering an attractive alternative.
Countries are only prepared to hook their fate to a global leader who
has shown that it understands their interests and their views. It would
be the height of folly for the U.S. to give up the leadership role it
has played on addressing the climate challenge, an issue seen by all
countries as central to the security and prosperity of all.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Orr.
Again, thank you, Ms. Overby.
We will begin with questions now. You both laid out a
series of themes or principles, goals, that perhaps we should
focus on.
Ms. Overby, you talked about the five things, a regional
trade strategy, empowered EXIM Bank, adequate funding for FCS,
reprioritizing U.S. foreign assistance, and using regional
organizations to pursue regional economic opportunities.
Dr. Orr, you laid out nine goals or ideas talking about
trade, renewable energy, climate agreements, and a number of
others.
As we approach legislation to set a long-term strategy, not
just a 4-year presidential term or an 8-year presidential term,
but a long-term strategy when it comes to the economy and the
region, should a strategy be focused on let's enter into a
trade agreement, a bilateral trade agreement, with Japan, a
bilateral trade agreement with another nation, Vietnam, you
name it? Or should it be more encompassing than that, an
overall regional strategy getting to the idea of a TPP type, a
2.0? Or should it be focused on China, on balancing China? On
what goal, overall, should we focus our strategy economically
in the region for the next 10 to 20 years?
Ms. Overby. From my perspective, I think focusing on
writing the rules. Right now, you have the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership. It is a China-led, 16-
country negotiation going on, and the U.S. is not at the table.
In Hanoi, we heard the TPP 11 trade ministers talk about a
commitment to finding a way forward with that agreement. The
U.S. is not at the table.
So we are not participating in the two largest agreements
in what we think is the most important part, which is getting
the rules right.
But, of course, the U.S. business community supports any
agreement that will open markets and allow our firms to
compete. So whether it is bilateral or multilateral, our answer
would be yes, we need to get in the game and increase our
activity there.
The Chairman. Dr. Orr, I do not know if you want to add
anything to that. I do not want to cut you off. I am sorry.
Dr. Orr. I would concur. It really is a question of getting
in the game. There are key bilateral discussions on the table,
and those can be very positive. But the dynamic is a
multilateral dynamic.
The fact that the 11 countries that were negotiating TPP
are still talking with each other, still working together,
provides an opportunity, if the United States is ready to seize
that.
The Chairman. You both mentioned that the 11 other nations
in TPP are having conversations with each other without the
United States. You mentioned the RCEP and China getting
together and setting rules. As far as you are aware, what is
the status right now of conversations on bilateral trade
agreements in Asia and other dialogues that we are having
throughout the region?
Ms. Overby. There is increased activity. The European Union
has vastly accelerated their bilateral FTA negotiations with a
myriad of countries in Asia. And the Chinese have been very
clear about their indication to try to move RCEP to a
conclusion this year. The 11 TPP countries also are looking to
try to do something with the high standards and the strong
rules in TPP.
They reaffirmed in Hanoi that the reasons they entered TPP
even without the U.S. participation are still valid. So from an
American business perspective, we see the region moving on
without us.
The Chairman. Could you talk about the political and
economic consequences of a successful RCEP and the U.S. not
entering into any substantive----
Ms. Overby. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
is viewed as a much lower standard agreement than TPP.
Basically, it appears to be a group of tariff agreements that
are going to be cobbled together. Although the Chinese have
said that they are pushing for higher aspirations, some of our
friends in the RCEP countries indicate that they do not expect
it to be high-quality.
So on the political side, we are deeply concerned with
China's Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, their ``One Belt,
One Road,'' and their Silk Road Initiative. They are putting
enormous financial resources and political capital behind
making friendships, building connectivity in Asia. And the
United States is on the outside.
Trade agreements, by definition, are preferential. The
countries in the agreement benefit from them. The countries on
the outside are excluded from those benefits. So we are deeply
concerned about the direction.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Dr. Orr, if I could come back to you, this is a quite scary
prognosis you are making for the gap that could be opened in
clean energy job creation between the United States and China.
You also mentioned that they are now in the process of
beginning to plan for a global grid in order to accommodate a
renewable energy revolution, which, of course, could be a part
as well of their massive investment in electric vehicles as
part of their economic plan for the future. Those are two huge
sectors, the energy and the automotive sector, for the United
States, but for the whole planet.
Can you expand upon that a little more, so that we can
understand what you are telling us is going on in that country?
Dr. Orr. Thank you, Senator Markey.
The Chinese have a very strategic intent with their
investments in the clean energy sector. I have been traveling
to China at least twice a year for the last decade. I have
watched year-over-year the players in China broaden and thicken
and deepen that are working on clean energy at home in China
and around the world.
They intend to dominate this space. They are doing a very
good job of it right now. The investment numbers are
staggering. They are creating markets at home and using that to
be able to project those markets into other countries.
Senator Markey. In Asia?
Dr. Orr. In Asia primarily, not exclusively. They are also
making investments in Latin America and other regions as well.
But because they have such a deep market for renewables in
their own country, they can produce them at very cost-effective
rates.
I mentioned the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, but
we best not forget other instruments that they are using. The
China Development Bank is being capitalized for big efforts in
this area. There are other instruments.
The ``One Belt, One Road'' initiative is not just an
economic initiative. It is a geostrategic initiative. They are
binding countries into their orbit. They have just held a
summit that the President of Turkey declared that their plan
was to link up with the ``One Belt, One Road'' initiative and
provide the channel of all these products to Europe. This is a
geostrategic order that is designed by China to do exactly what
we do not want to see, which is a pivot away from a move into
the Asia-Pacific, instead cementing their dominance on markets
on the other side.
Senator Markey. Could you just, conceptually, talk about
what a cross-national smart grid, using renewables for the
basis for it, in the Asian region, just those countries that
are abutting China, could mean in terms of the deepening roots
that they could create by binding those other countries to an
energy, electricity, all-electric vehicle future for an entire
region, not just that one country?
Dr. Orr. Every country I visited in the region, every
global conference I have been to in the last decade, either as
a U.S. or U.N. official, I have seen the State Grid Corporation
of China. They have a presence. They are projecting it. I was
in Houston just a year ago. And at U.S. energy conferences, the
State Grid Corporation of China is one of the leading players.
So they are looking at this as a regional move, but they
are not hiding their ambitions for a global grid that is driven
by the Chinese State Grid Corporation. They are starting with
conversations and, in fact, investments with countries abutting
China to begin a smart grid that would be able to take onboard
renewables of all kinds.
This is something that is part of their kind of
neighborhood strategy. But they are not going to stop there.
Senator Markey. You mentioned in your testimony $60 billion
in Chinese smart grid investment just through 2020, just 3
years from now, $60 billion. So what do you project that could
explode to become by 2030?
Dr. Orr. In fact, you need to take even the announced
numbers with a grain of salt. The Chinese have a way of
understating the numbers when they are talking about their
stated objectives. I think their stated objective of $60
billion in smart grid by 2020 will probably be achieved well
before that. I would expect the numbers by 2020 to be higher.
I think how high it goes depends on how many takers they
get. But if the indications are correct that all of their
neighbors are talking with them, and they are starting to talk
to a number of U.S. partners and allies as well, so it moves
very quickly from the economic realm to the strategic realm in
terms of building relationships and dependence on that grid.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was always
one of the visions of Buckminster Fuller, this cross-national
grid that would bind people together, that would show the
interconnectivity of all of us on the planet. But I do not
think any of us ever envisioned that it would be the Chinese
that would implement such a strategy.
But it is something that actually makes a lot of economic
sense, and it requires us to be thinking through what the
implications are.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses. Just a topical issue.
Talk a little bit about the risk factors in the Chinese
economy. I saw the news this morning about the Moody's bond
credit rating downgrade in China. Just share with us a little
bit your perspective on what that means and some of the risks
that they are facing.
Dr. Orr. Senator Kaine, I think, as you well know, there
are many risks in the Chinese economy. While they are a
juggernaut of growth over decades and have amassed huge amounts
of capital that can be deployed strategically, there are still
huge inefficiencies in their economy. There are still huge
dangers for instability in the Chinese economy, and they are
very conscious of that. Many of the decisions they make on the
economic side are about that.
Interestingly, one of the reasons, after years of trying to
argue with Chinese officials that they need to invest more in
clean technologies, they got religion not because of global
environmental goals or the like. They got religion because of
the political pressures arising out of the pollution in their
biggest cities. But once they got religion, the investments
started to flow dramatically.
So I think these inefficiencies in various sectors of China
remain there. There are some risk factors there, but I would
say that the experiment on seven regional carbon markets is a
very interesting exercise. Some of their carbon markets failed.
Some of them succeeded wildly. And others came in between. They
are now moving to a national carbon market.
They will systematically squeeze inefficiencies out of
their production processes with this national carbon market. We
are not pursuing anything of the like here. Our inefficiencies
in various sectors will not benefit from that treatment.
So I think while the risks are there, they are aware of
them, and they move money to try to address them. I do think we
do need to be concerned not just about Chinese success but
about Chinese failure, should some of these risk failures blow
up in their face.
Senator Kaine. Ms. Overby?
Ms. Overby. Thank you, Senator Kaine.
This year, China will have their 19th Party Congress, which
is a very important milestone for President Xi Jinping. So I
think, notwithstanding the instability and the potential risk
factors, he will be driven to ensure as much stability as
possible so that he can make it through that party congress
successfully.
As Dr. Orr mentioned, there are enormous inefficiencies in
their system, excess capacity. But I think they are going to
be, this year, as much as ever before, focused. To the outside
world, it is going to look calm and secure.
Senator Kaine. The second question, we have a funny way of
doing jurisdictional divisions within the Foreign Relations
Committee. I am the ranking member on the Near East, South, and
Central Asia, which includes India. In talking about other
nations in the region and ways to position bilaterally with
other nations, I spend a lot of time thinking about the U.S.-
India relationship.
Talk about the U.S.-India relationship in this sense of
sort of the Indo-Asian economy and what are some opportunities
that the U.S. may have there, either directly with India or
even vis-a-vis or contra some of the Chinese activities.
Ms. Overby. Sir, I will start. India is part of RCEP, the
Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. That is made up of
the 10 ASEAN countries, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand,
China, and India.
From what we know about the RCEP negotiations, India and
China have a challenge agreeing on much. So while the Chinese
have been very clear that they want to drive these RCEP
negotiations to a conclusion this year, there is a question in
the region whether that will be minus India or whether they
perhaps will lower their standards even further to accommodate
India.
I do think there is, between those two great powers, there
is an opportunity for the United States. But we must engage.
And I will stop there.
Senator Kaine. Dr. Orr?
Dr. Orr. India is moving quite quickly in a number of areas
as well. Again, on renewable energy, which is kind of a golden
thread running through this hearing, India is thinking big and
moving big. They have big goals on solar and wind. They are
meeting them. They are surpassing them. And they will keep
attracting investment, both domestic and international.
Their Smart Cities initiative of the Prime Minister has
many components, but I think it is a strategic vision that is
both at once developmental and economic.
I had the privilege of traveling to India with Michael
Bloomberg last year. We met with a number of the top business
leaders in India, talking with them about what they were going
to be doing in the climate and energy space. Virtually the head
of every conglomerate in India, whether or not they are coal-
based, oil-based, or anything else-based, are making
investments now in the sector.
So while I described China as putting these huge dollars,
$360 billion over the next 4 years, India is going to be
mobilizing a lot of internal capital in this area as well.
This race is on, and it is something that the United States
has a technological lead, has a potential market that we could
be extremely competitive globally. But right now, we are not
making the decisions we need to compete with these giants.
One final issue I would mention, Senator, with respect to
India, the Indians are coming from a lower baseline in terms of
their economic development. They know they have a lot of
catching up to do. They are being quite strategic in certain
sectors. They are heavily dependent on the IT sector.
Just in my role as dean of a school of public policy, I
have been engaging with a number of Indian officials. They are
extremely interested in cybersecurity right now. This is
important to them. They see this as important to their key
industries, and they know they are lagging behind. So I think
you see a strategic intent on the part of the Indian
Government, like the Chinese Government.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Kaine, for that. I
completely agree with you. In fact, I have had a number of
discussions with various Asia experts and others in India about
how we can, through some form of adverse possession, do a
hostile takeover of the other committee's jurisdiction and just
take India. [Laughter.]
The Chairman. Is this a proper forum for a business
meeting? I am open to a motion to add India to our title, if we
want to do that. I do not know if Senator Risch is listening.
Senator Kaine. Noting the absence of a quorum----
The Chairman. That is right.
On a serious point though, I do think that our Asia
strategy, which includes opportunities to work with India, the
Indo-Asia area, the alliances that we create, the ANZUS
alliance, we have to make sure that we include India in these
discussions. So, I think it is very important that we do this.
So on a serious note, thank you. Maybe next Congress, we
will accomplish that. Sorry, Jim Risch.
Ms. Overby, I want to talk about two of the points you made
in your list of five. You talked about reprioritizing U.S.
foreign assistance and using regional organizations to pursue
regional economic interests.
Could you further elaborate on that? I think you said
reprioritizing U.S. foreign assistance and using regional
organizations. Just talk a little bit more about those two
points.
Ms. Overby. Sure, Mr. Chairman.
What we mean by reprioritizing U.S. foreign assistance,
U.S. aid is such a small percentage of the 150 account. Used
effectively, we think it can help expand America's influence in
Asia, by using regional agreements or regional organizations
better. We are referring to APEC, the U.S.-ASEAN summit, the
East Asia Summit. These are all opportunities where the U.S. is
participating.
As I mentioned in my testimony, Asians are very nervous.
The withdrawal from TPP that, prior to this election, the U.S.
was leading and we were pushing hard to ensure high standards,
comprehensive rules, which are very important to American
businesses, as we talk about China and India and what they are
doing in clean energy, the U.S. has very strong innovation
capabilities, but we need those high standard rules to ensure
that our innovation is rewarded and, frankly, protected.
The Chairman. I want to get to that, too, because these
rules, these high standards that we have, when we talk about
the goals for economic opportunity in Asia, should any economic
approach that we set out, any goal that we set out, what do we
need to include in terms of rule of law, IPR, intellectual
property rights kind of conversations? How do we address that?
Ms. Overby. I think we start with a digital economy. Inside
TPP, the e-commerce chapter for the first time clarified cross-
border data flow and data server location rules that made it
easy for data to flow across borders and prevented countries
from demanding that servers be located within their
jurisdiction.
Also, of course, strong IP protection, the U.S., the most
innovative country on Earth, we need to be able to protect that
innovation and be rewarded for it.
The Chairman. So like in the bill, this concept that we
have that focuses on national security issues, economic
security, human rights, democracy elements, if you have an
economic component that talks about the importance of the
alliances, that talks about the importance of trade and
opportunity, do you need a standalone segment in there on these
issues of standards, as it relates to intellectual property
rights and those kinds of things?
Ms. Overby. We think so.
The Chairman. Legislation that is short of a trade
agreement in and of itself, you should still include that?
Ms. Overby. I would support that, absolutely, because rule
of law is still being developed in Asia. Those rules of the
road for trade are being written as we speak. Right now, we
have a hodgepodge of spaghetti bowl rules, different bilateral
agreements, different regional agreements. TPP was seeking to
raise the standards significantly.
I should point out that the U.S. was the driver. When Japan
joined the negotiation to be the 12th country, then it became
the U.S. and Japan as the demandeurs of high standards for most
of these comprehensive rules and standards. So it is our belief
that we absolutely need to have clear rules, comprehensive and
high standards.
The Chairman. Dr. Orr, anything you would like to add?
Dr. Orr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just on your initial question about foreign assistance, in
my testimony, I name not only our bilateral vehicles that are
proposed to be fully defunded, which I think would do us great
damage, but I also named some of the multilateral vehicles that
we need to use.
As Ms. Overby just mentioned, the rules of the road are
extremely important. We have codified rules of the road that
make sense and that reflect American values and interests
through various institutions. We need to use some of those
institutions.
Here I would point out that while questions have been asked
about the Asia Infrastructure and Investment Bank, we do have
vehicles that are quite active in the region. The Asian
Development Bank and the World Bank do have a portfolio in the
region that is quite important to ensuring the kind of
development along the rules as we describe, and the IFC is
quite important in that.
Just the last thing that I would mention is that we have
talked about China a lot, and India has come up. It is striking
to me that we have not yet touched on major countries like
Indonesia. Let's maybe think about Southeast Asia as a region.
This is a region that very much wants to work with, trade
with, get investment from, and invest in the United States. We
do need to think about the other subregions of the Asia-Pacific
region as important players in and of themselves, and to engage
with them on the rules creation, because there is not a purist
stance on that within the ASEAN countries.
So working with them, I think a lot is possible. So as you
give thought to your legislation, and I would agree that the
rules-based system is important, we should base our work
through institutions that help secure those rules, but then
work with constituencies like ASEAN that are winnable.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Orr. A vote has been called,
so we will just kind of go back and forth, and then probably
conclude the hearing, so nobody has to wait.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Beautiful. Thank you.
I would like both of you to kind of expand upon the
question of the role that these key instruments of economic
development in the region play, including USAID, OPIC, EXIM
Bank, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the U.N.
system itself in terms of its full funding to make sure that we
are on the ground and competing in this region.
Could both of you take that question, in terms of the
importance of these American institutions and their funding
levels?
Dr. Orr. Thank you, Senator. All of these institutions play
a different role, but the United States has always been the
driver in every single one of those institutions you just
mentioned. We get a tremendous bang for our buck.
I have served the United States Government in various
capacities, and I have served at the U.N. While at the U.N., I
was extremely struck by how strong the United States is in the
system. Conventional wisdom within the Beltway notwithstanding,
when the United States wants something to happen through the
United Nations, it happens. The rules reflect that. The various
areas within the U.N.'s purview, everything from the
international postal system, to trade issues, to investment
rules, are codified with a disproportionate U.S. voting share,
and that is to our benefit.
The one other thing that I would mention in terms of
institutions that we do need to think about, there are a number
of informal institutions that engage on economic issues. Here,
by working on climate change issues through formal mechanisms
in the U.N., I became deeply associated with various energy
networks around the world, various sectoral, agricultural
sectoral organizations. These kinds of tools are ones that we
also need to think about in our strategy.
The one place where it has come together was in the Paris
Agreement. The Paris Agreement is now being debated in
Washington, about whether or not we should pull out. I cannot
imagine a greater self-inflicted wound than walking away from
an agreement that we shaped, that is in our interests, that
every country in the world is supporting, and that provides the
framework for those various sectors to coordinate around the
rules of the road that we have set.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
Ms. Overby?
Ms. Overby. Yes, I would refer to EXIM and OPIC. Those are
the two that intersect our members the most. Having those
institutions available are additional arrows in our quiver of
helping American companies compete in a region that is so
dynamic.
I should note that other governments are doing more and
more in that regard. And we saw--forgive me for using the only
word I can think of--the debacle of not having a fully funded,
fully operational EXIM Bank the last couple years. We need to
get in the game and stay in the game.
Our companies need support. We need to at least have the
same level of support that other countries are providing to
their companies. For many of our companies, it is the small-
and medium-sized companies that are being hurt the worst.
Senator Markey. Is there a reason why you did not mention
the Asian Development Bank?
Ms. Overby. The Asian Development Bank, I think it is
important, but I think we see more activity among our companies
with EXIM and OPIC.
Senator Markey. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. I think due to the vote, we will
just go ahead and wrap up the hearing now. Thanks to both of
you for attending today's hearing, for your time and testimony,
thanks to all the participation today. Those of you who
attended the hearing as well, thank you.
For the information of members, the record will remain open
until the close of business on Friday, including for members to
submit questions for the record.
I would kindly ask the witnesses to respond as quickly as
possible to those questions. Your responses will be made a part
of the record.
With the thanks of this committee, this hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:09 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN
THE ASIA-PACIFIC--
PART 3: PROMOTING DEMOCRACY,
HUMAN RIGHTS, AND THE RULE OF LAW
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 12, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and
International Cybersecurity Policy,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:19 p.m., in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Cory Gardner,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Gardner and Markey.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORY GARDNER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
Senator Gardner. This hearing will come to order.
Let me welcome you all to the fourth hearing of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on East Asia, the
Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy in the 115th
Congress. I truly appreciate your willingness to participate in
today's hearing.
It is the third hearing in our four-part series, though, in
the subcommittee to address various aspects of U.S.-Asia policy
in the Pacific region, from security challenges to economic
engagement to today's topic, which is, of course, projecting
our values of democracy, human rights, and accountability
throughout the region.
These hearings will also inform new legislation called the
Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA, which will seek to
build a long-term vision for United States policy toward the
Asia-Pacific region.
At our first hearing on March 29, we focused on the growing
security challenges in the Asia-Pacific, including North Korea,
the South China Sea, and terrorism in Southeast Asia.
At that hearing, Randy Forbes, a former Congressman from
Virginia and the chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee
on Seapower and Projection Forces observed the following: ``In
the coming decades, this is the region where the largest armies
in the world will camp. This is the region where the most
powerful navies in the world will gather. This is the region
where over one half of the world's commerce will take place and
two-thirds will travel. This is the region where a maritime
superhighway linking the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia,
Australia, Northeast Asia, and the United States begins. This
is the region where two superpowers will compete to determine
which world order will prevail. This is the region where the
seeds of conflict that could most engulf the world will
probably be planted.''
We agreed at that hearing that we must strengthen U.S.
defense posture and increase engagement with our allies to
counter these threats. At our second hearing on May 24, we
focused on the importance of U.S. economic leadership in the
Asia-Pacific.
At that hearing, Tami Overby, senior vice president for
Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, observed the following:
``The Asia-Pacific region is critical to current and future
U.S. economic growth, competitiveness, and job creation. U.S.
exporters, whether large or small companies producing goods and
services, or farmers and ranchers exporting commodities, need
access to these fast-growing economies and the rising poll of
consumers.''
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, the global middle class will expand from 1.8
billion in 2009 to 3.2 billion by 2020 and 4.9 billion by 2030.
Most of this growth is in Asia. In fact, Asia's middle-class
consumers will represent 66 percent of the global middle-class
population and 59 percent of middle-class consumption by 2030,
doubling these shares since 2009.
We agreed at that hearing that, while the administration
and Congress might differ on global trade strategy, we cannot
ignore the fundamental fact that it is the Asia-Pacific region
that will be critical for the U.S. economy to grow and for the
American people to prosper through trade opportunities.
Today's hearing will examine perhaps the most
underappreciated part of our presence in the Asia-Pacific and
worldwide: promoting our values of human rights, the rule of
law, and accountability.
On December 10, 1986, President Ronald Reagan, in his
speech declaring Human Rights Day, said the following, ``At
birth, our country was christened with a declaration that spoke
of self-evident truths, the foremost of which was that each and
every individual is endowed by our Creator with certain
unalienable rights. And our creed as Americans is that these
rights, these human rights, are the property of every man,
woman, and child on this planet and that a violation of human
rights anywhere is the business of free people everywhere.''
I believe that statement still holds true today as it did
then, and it must form an integral part of our Nation's foreign
policy. I look forward to our distinguished panel addressing
how we can advance these American values in the Asia-Pacific.
Now I will turn it over to our ranking member, Senator
Markey, for why the Red Sox and Rockies World Series may or may
not occur. [Laughter.]
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Markey. I look forward to that prediction coming to
pass, and I look forward to this hearing.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is a very important
subject and a fantastic panel that you put together here today
for us, because, for decades, the United States has promoted
democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. This reflects our
values and strengthens our security.
So today, we take stock of this effort in Asia, the world's
most dynamic region. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan demonstrate
that democratic values do not thrive only in the West, but
wherever societies protect the rights and dignity of all
people, East to West, North or South. But, while Japan, South
Korea, and Taiwan prove that progress is possible, we see a
mixed picture elsewhere in the region.
Indonesia is both a Muslim-majority country and a democracy
that values social tolerance. Yet, work remains before
Indonesians move toward a full embrace of diversity and freedom
of expression.
Myanmar, with strong U.S. support, has made extraordinary
progress in overcoming decades of dictatorship. It now faces a
turning point. Will reforms continue or will a failure to
address sectarian and ethnic tensions undermine this country's
great potential?
What will the Filipinos do about a President who tramples
all norms of human rights and the rule of law with an
extrajudicial killing spree masquerading as a counter-drug
campaign?
And, of course, North Korea is a unique case, a closed
society where horrific violations of human rights occur
countless times every single day of the year.
Looming over the entire region is China, which questions
whether democracy and the rule of law are relevant to economic
development. In these circumstances, we must urgently ask, will
China's rise undermine democracy, human rights, the rule of
law, and regional prosperity? And what can America do to
support Asia-Pacific countries seeking progress on these
issues?
I look forward to exploring these issues with our witnesses
today. Once again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for this great
hearing.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Markey.
I will introduce all three of our witnesses, and then we
will begin the testimony and the question time.
Our first witness is Mr. Murray Hiebert, who serves as
senior adviser and deputy director of the Southeast Asia
Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Prior to joining CSIS, he was senior director for Southeast
Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and also worked as a
journalist in the Wall Street Journal's China bureau.
Thank you very much for being with us today.
Our second witness is the Hon. Derek Mitchell, who serves
as senior adviser to the Asia Program at the U.S. Institute of
Peace. Prior to joining the U.S. Institute of Peace, he served
as the U.S. Ambassador to Burma from 2012 to 2016, and also
served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Asian and Pacific Security Affairs from 2009 to 2011.
Welcome, Ambassador Mitchell.
Our final witness today is the Hon. Robert King, who serves
as senior adviser to the Korea Chair at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies. Ambassador King previously
served as the Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights
Issues at the U.S. State Department from November 2009 to
January 2017.
I encourage everybody to read the report that Ambassador
King was author of. He was the longest serving envoy for human
rights abuses in North Korea since the creation of the position
under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. I welcome
Ambassador King.
Thank you very much for being with us today.
Mr. Hiebert, if you would like to begin the testimony,
please do.
STATEMENT OF MURRAY HIEBERT, SENIOR ADVISER AND DEPUTY
DIRECTOR, SOUTHEAST ASIA PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Hiebert. Thank you, Chairman Gardner and Ranking Member
Markey.
Congratulations to the committee for holding this hearing
on the important issue of promoting democracy, human rights,
and rule of law in the Asia-Pacific. Promoting these values
sends a clear signal to authoritarian governments that the
United States is watching how they treat their citizens. The
U.S. promotion of human rights and democracy has often made a
difference when there is coordinated government and civil
society effort to promote increased political space.
Senator Markey already alluded to what happened in Myanmar/
Burma, where U.S. policy played a critical role in promoting
reforms when the ruling military junta realized that this was
the only way to end decades of sanctions and isolation.
And, similarly, in Vietnam, which remains an authoritarian
government, the U.S. has played a role in getting political
prisoners and imprisoned religious leaders, bloggers, et
cetera, out, as Vietnam has looked to deepen ties with
Washington, as it faces increasing assertiveness from China.
Generally, I would say over the last five or so years,
human rights and democratic reforms in Southeast Asia appear to
have slipped. There have already been several references to the
Philippines where, since the election of President Duterte a
year ago, police and vigilantes have killed more than 9,000
suspected drug dealers and users, as the government has pursued
a policy aimed at eradicating illegal drug use and sales.
Duterte has very sharply rejected any criticism of these
killings from foreign governments, including the United States.
One of the most exciting developments, as also has been
alluded to, is what happened in Myanmar, the elections in 2015,
which were fairly credible, I think, in reflecting the wishes
of the people. Yet, despite the improvement of human rights, we
continue to face a couple of major problems. One is the abuse
and restrictions on the Rohingya Muslim population, of whom
about 150,000 or so are still in austere camps in Rakhine
State. The second issue is human rights problems continue in
ethnic minority areas wracked by conflict with the military.
Then there is Thailand, where the military government
installed after 2014 has sharply limited civil liberties. The
government continues to restrict and censor online content. It
monitors and blocks thousands of websites critical of the
monarchy. And dozens of people have been charged and sentenced
to long prison terms under Thailand's strict lese-majeste laws
intended to protect senior members of the royal family.
Since President Trump came into office, he has taken a
couple steps, which indicate that there has been at least some
change in attitudes toward human rights in the region. In a
phone call to Duterte in late April, Trump congratulated him
for the ``unbelievable job on the drug problem,'' and invited
him to the White House. In another call to Prime Minister
Prayuth of Thailand the next day, he congratulated him for the
2014 coup doing a good job of stabilizing the situation after
toppling a democratic government.
In both cases, the President appears to have been trying to
mend fences with countries that have been treaty allies of the
United States had really faced a bit of a drift apart from the
United States and had moved closer to China, as a result of
tensions with the U.S.
Secretary Tillerson, a couple months ago, also made it
clear that, when it comes to foreign policy, national interests
and economic interests are going to trump human rights. He
added that promoting values are often an obstacle to advancing
other interests.
I am going to make a few comments about the question of
what tools the U.S. has.
One of the clearest tools that has been used recently,
actually by my partner here to the right, Ambassador Derek
Mitchell, who, as Ambassador, instituted a full Embassy, USAID,
all parts of the Embassy coordination of efforts targeting rule
of law, transparency, civil society, the media, et cetera, in
preparation for the elections. The sad part is that, since the
new administration took office in January, Myanmar has
appeared, at least in Washington, to have fallen off the U.S.
radar, opening the door to stepped up Chinese engagement.
Because of the tensions between human rights and other
aspects of foreign policy. One of my colleagues at CSIS,
Shannon Green, has recommended that the U.S. Government create
an interagency decision-making process that helps officials
decide how to balance tensions that arise between short-term
security interests and longer term human rights interests. She
suggested maybe housing this coordinating function in the NSC.
The other tool that you see making a pretty big difference
in Asia is the Leahy amendment of 1997, which prohibits aid to
military forces that violate human rights. This happened in the
case of Indonesia after the violence in 1999 in East Timor.
Under the Leahy amendment, the Kopassus special forces were
sanctioned. As the government, as the military, wanted to get
out from under sanctions, they instituted some reforms, at
least in some units of Kopassus.
The other development that is really interesting is the
role of the Philippine military. Although President Duterte has
suggested several times that they ought to get involved in the
drug war, they have really stayed out. Officers, when you talk
to them, say they recognize they need the United States
particularly now in Mindanao for the fight against Islamic
militants. They need intel-sharing and coordination with the
U.S. They need U.S. military hardware. The Leahy amendment has
had an indirect effect, at least in the Philippines, the Leahy
amendment.
Another useful tool is the Trafficking in Persons
legislation. We saw this in Thailand. The government, despite
all the criticisms of its human rights violations, took
particular umbrage at its Tier 3 status in the Trafficking in
Persons Report and made a yeoman's effort, I think, at stepping
up investigations, prosecutions, and convictions of
traffickers, to the point that they were elevated a few months
ago to Tier 2.
Trade agreements can also play a role. With the Vietnamese
negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, they agreed to some
pretty sizable labor concessions by agreeing to let laborers
have freedom of association in unions independent of the
governments, to get more access to the United States and the
U.S. market.
I think that the Vietnam example demonstrates that there
can be countries that have human rights problems, but yet they
are improving economic and security cooperation with the United
States. Therefore, it is possible to walk and chew gum,
criticize human rights and yet improve in other areas.
Finally, with the administration sort of missing in action
on the human rights front, I think it does give Congress a much
bigger role, and we look to all of you to help carry the flame
for democracy and human rights overseas in the next few years.
Thank you very much.
[Mr. Hiebert's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Murray Hiebert
Congratulations to the committee for holding this hearing on the
important issue of promoting democracy, human rights, and the rule of
law in the Asia-Pacific.
1. Why is it important to promote American values of democracy, human
rights, and the rule of law as part of comprehensive U.S.
policy toward the Asia-Pacific?
For starters, the promotion of U.S. values of democracy, human
rights, and the rule of law has long been part of the U.S. national
identity. Promoting these values sends a clear signal to authoritarian
governments that the United States is watching how they treat their
citizens, while defenders of human rights and democracy are assured
that they will not be abandoned by Washington.
U.S. support for these principles can help serve as a brake on the
worst inclinations of authoritarian leaders. Because these values are
at the core of U.S. foreign policy, many regimes are more cautious in
committing abuses and flouting power.
Second, democratic and human rights respecting governments often
make the most reliable and stable partners for the United States
overseas, while authoritarian governments often mistreat their citizens
in their effort to cling to power. Democracies do not go to war with
each other, create refugees, have more open and successful economies,
and respect international law, Ted Piccone argued in a recent Brookings
blog.
Third, the United States has been a major beneficiary of the
liberal world order and the institutions built on the principles of
democracy, human rights, and the rule of law since World War II. The
U.S. promotion of human rights and democracy has often made a
difference when government officials, members of Congress, and human
rights organizations have launched concerted efforts to promote
increased political space, says CSIS colleague Shannon Green.
U.S. policy toward Myanmar/Burma played a critical role in
promoting reforms when the ruling military junta realized that this was
the only way it could end decades of sanctions and isolation. U.S.
promotion of human rights has played a role in getting political
prisoners and imprisoned religious leaders, political activists, and
bloggers released in Vietnam as the government has sought to deepen
ties with Washington as a hedge against increased assertiveness from
China.
2. What are the main challenges of adhering to these values and where
should U.S. efforts and resources be better focused to achieve
most effective outcome?
Support for human rights and the democratic reform in Southeast
Asia appears to have slipped in recent years even as the region's
growing middle class, thanks to increased education, money, and
technological innovation, is hankering for more freedom, more
transparency, and a greater role in decision-making.
Some examples:
In the Philippines, since the election of Rodrigo Duterte a year
ago, police and vigilantes have killed more than 9,000
suspected drug dealers and users as his government has pursued
a policy aimed at eradicating illegal drug activity. This has
added to the problem of extra-judicial killings, which have
been a concern in the country for years. Duterte has sharply
rejected any criticism of these killings from foreign
governments, including the United States, and has said the
authorities would investigate any actions taken outside the
law. Other human rights and rule of law problems in the
Philippines include corruption, abuse of power, abuse of
prisoners by security forces, harassment of political
activists, and the killing and harassment of journalists.
One of the most exciting developments in Southeast Asia in recent
years was the 2015 elections in Myanmar that were widely viewed
as a credible reflection of the wishes of the people. Aung San
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy took office in March
2016 and soon began releasing hundreds of political prisoners
remaining from the previous military government. Although there
has been a general improvement in freedom of speech in the
country, Myanmar still faces three major human rights problems.
First, the abuses against and restrictions on the Rohingya
Muslim population of which over 120,000 remain in austere camps
in Rakhine State. Second, human rights problems continue in
ethnic minority areas still wracked by conflict with the
military. Third, many political prisoners continue to face
restrictions following their release and, at the end of 2016,
some 66 political detainees were facing trial on various
charges. The authorities also continue arresting and detaining
some citizens for expressing political views critical of the
government.
Numerous decrees in Thailand by the military government installed
after a 2014 coup have limited civil liberties, including
restrictions on freedom of speech, assembly, and the press. The
military gave itself sweeping powers to limit ``acts deemed
harmful to national peace and stability.'' The government
continues to restrict and censor online content, and it
monitors and blocks thousands of websites critical of the
monarchy. Dozens of people have been charged and sentenced to
long prison terms under Thailand's strict lese-majeste laws
designed to protect senior members of Thai royal family from
insult or threat. Separately, abuses by government security
forces continue against the Malay-Muslim insurgency in the
south. In the most recent State Department Trafficking in
Persons report, Thailand was upgraded from tier 3, the lowest
ranking on the list, to tier 2, prompted by what the report
says were ``significant efforts'' made by the Thai government
to eliminate human trafficking. The report cited increased
investigations, prosecutions, and convictions as reasons for
Thailand's improved status.
In Vietnam, the most serious human rights problems are severe
restrictions on citizens' political rights, including arbitrary
arrests of political activists and bloggers. The U.S.
government estimated at the end of 2016 that Vietnam was
holding 94 political prisoners. In 2016, the government
sentenced an estimated 12 activists for exercising their
internationally recognized human rights. The government
restricts speech criticizing the ruling Communist Party, limits
some internet access, and blocks some websites such as Radio
Free Asia and Voice of America. Facebook is generally not
blocked, except when activists are using it organize protests.
Cambodia under Prime Minister Hun Sen has increased restrictions on
the freedom of speech and press freedom in recent years.
Violence and intimidation are used to silence civil society and
political opponents of the ruling Cambodia People's Party. From
time to time, political motivated killings are used to silence
critics as happened in July 2016 when commentator and activist
Kem Lay was gunned down at a convenience store.
3.What tools are available to U.S. to incentivize governments to adhere
to these values and principles? Has the Trump administration
used these tools effectively?
In a phone call in April, Trump congratulated Duterte of the
Philippines for his ``unbelievable job on the drug problem'' and
invited him to visit the White House. In another call around the same
time, Trump lauded Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha for restoring
order following the 2014 coup that toppled a democratically elected
government after months of disruptive protests. Trump's goal in both
cases was to mend fences with two U.S. allies in Southeast Asia that
had been alienated from Washington following human rights and democracy
criticisms and had moved closer to China in the process. Deteriorating
U.S. relations with Bangkok and Manila were undermining the U.S.
position in Southeast Asia and opening the door to an increased Chinese
role among traditional American friends.
The Trump administration has made clear that it intends to downplay
the promotion of human rights, democracy, and rule of law as tools of
U.S. foreign policy. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said that
when it comes to foreign policy, national interest and economic
interests trump human rights, adding that promoting values are often
``an obstacle'' to advancing other interests.. The Trump
administration's views on human rights have disrupted a bipartisan
consensus favoring the promotion of rights and democracy that has dated
back at least to the end of the Cold War.
The U.S. government has a vast array of tools to promote human
rights and democracy:
One U.S. tool was on display in Myanmar ahead of the 2015
elections. To be sure, the leaders and people in Myanmar
deserve the credit for pulling off reasonably free and
inclusive elections. But aid by foreign partners, including the
United States, was also critical. The U.S. Embassy and USAID
played key roles through projects targeting rule of law,
transparency, civil society, the media, and preparations for
elections. Even before the military launched reforms, the
United States helped keep the flame alive by training Myanmar
civil society organizations outside the country. (Since the new
U.S. administration took office in January, Myanmar has largely
fallen off the U.S. radar, opening the door to stepped up
Chinese engagement, although there are efforts underway to
bring Aung San Suu Kyi to Washington in September).
My CSIS colleague Shannon Green has recommended that the U.S.
government create an interagency decision-making process,
perhaps housed in the National Security Council, to overcome
tensions that arise between U.S. short-term security interests
and longer-term human rights goals. This process could help
ensure that security cooperation resources and training bolster
democratic institutions, civilian protection, and the
professionalism of security forces.
The so-called Leahy amendment of 1997 that prohibits U.S. aid to
military forces that violate human rights is another useful
vehicle. Under this legislation, the Indonesian army special
forces (Kopassus) were barred from receiving U.S. training and
equipment due to their abuses in East Timor in 1999. Over the
years, these forces were somewhat reformed leading to a lifting
of the ban on one counter-terrorism unit in 2011.
Interestingly, the Philippine Armed Forces have stayed out of
Duterte's war on drugs despite his frequent calls for the
military to aid the police. It's not clear if the Leahy
amendment has played a role in the generals' thinking, but
clearly many Philippine officers, many of whom have trained in
the United States, recognized that they need U.S. intelligence
sharing, equipment, and advice in dealing with threats like the
Islamic militant uprising that erupted in May.
Another tool is the annual Trafficking in Persons report.
Frustration with being relegated to the last tier prompted the
Thai military government to step up its investigations,
prosecutions, and convictions of traffickers to the point where
it was elevated to tier 2 in this year's report.
Trade negotiations can also provide an opportunity to promote human
rights reforms. Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
which was jettisoned by the Trump administration, U.S.
negotiators were able to press Vietnam's Communist Party, which
has long viewed itself as the patron of laborers, to grant
workers freedom of association through independent labor unions
in exchange for increased access to the attractive U.S. market.
One of the oldest human rights debates in Washington swirls around
private diplomacy versus public criticism for violations of
human rights. In the case of both Thailand and the Philippines,
U.S. public criticism raised hackles among leaders creating
anger and rejection of the message and the messenger, and
prompted moves to deepen ties with China. More recently, U.S.
officials have switched to private diplomacy in the
Philippines. Although so far we have not seen much change in
the levels of violence in the drug war, Duterte has drastically
toned down his anti-American rhetoric and is looking for U.S.
support in the battle against Islamic militants in the southern
province of Mindanao. At the same time, Washington even when it
uses private diplomacy needs to ensure that Filipinos are aware
that the U.S. government is not embracing Duterte's policies
uncritically.
In Vietnam, U.S. aid to help develop a legal system and train
judges as Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization a decade
ago laid the cornerstones to open the door for Washington to
provide advisers to the National Assembly on revising the
country's criminal code. U.S. relations with Vietnam are an
example that it is possible for Washington to deepen trade
relations and security cooperation while at the same time
keeping a focus on human rights problems.
Because the administration seems to have largely abandoned its
important role in human rights promotion, it might mean that
the United States will have to look to Congress to promote
democracy and human rights overseas in the next few years.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Hiebert.
Ambassador Mitchell?
STATEMENT OF HON. DEREK MITCHELL, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE ASIA
CENTER, U.S. INSTITUTE OF PEACE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Mitchell. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman,
Ranking Member Markey.
First of all, thank you for inviting me to speak at this
hearing. I am very honored to be joined by my good friends,
Murray Hiebert and Bob King, to my left and right.
As a citizen, let me also extend my gratitude for the
series of hearings the subcommittee has organized in recent
months to examine U.S. interests in East Asia, beginning with
examinations of security, economic affairs, and now human
rights governance and rule of law. Too often, these interests
are looked at independently, as distinct from one another, when
they are, in fact, closely linked.
It has been my observation and experience that commitment
to values of human rights and democracy is not merely an
idealistic goal or an ideology, but quite proven in practice.
When countries promote individual human dignity and protect
civil liberties, they tend to be more highly functioning and
stable societies. They create conditions for peaceful
interaction within and among states. They provide platforms for
individual achievement. They also become more appealing
destinations for business investment, and are able to prevent
their territory from being a source of international
instability or transnational challenge, like those that Murray
just listed.
The perception persists, nonetheless, that somehow
promoting human rights and democratic governance is, at best, a
luxury and, at worst, an obstruction to protecting U.S.
economic and national security interests around the world.
Asian and some non-Asian commentators over the years have
advanced a theory of Asian exceptionalism that ``Western''
values of democracy and human rights are somehow alien to Asian
culture, lack foundation in Asian history, and, thus, are
unnatural to Asian society.
But over the past 30 years, the region has enjoyed a rush
of democratic change and advancement of human rights
accompanied by relative stability and dynamic economic growth.
When presented the opportunity, the people of East Asia, like
others around the world, have demanded that their voices be
heard and respected, and that they have the right to hold their
governments accountable. The United States has benefited
materially as a result in economic, political, and national
security terms.
Progress has been hardly linear, without setbacks, or
shared among all nations in the region. But those who claim
Asia as a whole is uniquely immune to the yearning for
individual rights, personal freedoms, and accountable
governance have had to reassess.
I saw that personally in Burma. I witnessed firsthand the
deep respect the Burmese people had for the United States due
to our strong and sustained commitment to stand with them
instead of exploiting the country for economic or geopolitical
gain. I should note that that commitment was bipartisan,
reflected in congressional legislation and the policies of
successive presidential administrations.
U.S. policies then and since then were geared to supporting
Burma's success. The promotion of human rights and democratic
processes is a central and fully integrated component. We
understood, without that component, peace, stability, security,
and overall development in Burma could not be achieved to the
detriment of our interests.
Of course, the transition in Burma is not complete, as you
say. Enormous challenges remain in northern Rakhine State,
Kachin, northern Shan State, and all around the country. Future
success is not certain.
But even as we must recognize the most important factor in
Burma's success no doubt will come from within, Burmese people
told me often that principled support of external partners,
most importantly the United States, would remain essential for
their morale and continued progress.
In terms of recommendations for U.S. policy, the first must
critically be, as Murray suggested, for the current U.S.
administration to recognize the importance of human rights and
democracy promotion to U.S. interests and return it to U.S.
foreign policy. The U.S. Congress should do what is necessary
to reassert its traditional prerogative as conscience of the
country in this regard.
Secondly, from my experience, an effective values-based
policy requires thoughtful implementation by U.S. missions
overseas. U.S. Embassies should tightly knit all their
components--State Department, USAID, DOD, et cetera--into a
coherent strategic whole to ensure consistency. That is the
cliche known as the one-mission approach.
Third, given that human rights and democratic gains take
hold gradually, and that political transitions transcend single
moments in time such as elections, the U.S. Government,
including Congress, must remain patient, manage expectations,
and provide resources on a consistent basis to support the
institutions and processes that promote human rights,
democracy, and rule of law around the world. Such support
should not wane due to premature assumptions of success,
disappointing setbacks, or periodic shifts in political whims
in the United States.
To be specific and blunt, Congress should fully fund both
the State Department and USAID, and leading institutions that
conduct related work in Asia, such as the National Endowment
for Democracy and its sister organizations, NDI and IRI, Radio
Free Asia, Voice of America, Peace Corps, The Asia Foundation,
the East-West Center, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Let me just say, in conclusion, that human rights,
democracy, and rule of law are fundamental components of who we
are as a Nation, essential to America's founding idea and
meaning as a country. The United States may not always be
perfectly consistent in application. All foreign policy, after
all, is a matter of balancing competing priorities and making
choices based on context. But without a principled element to
our foreign policy, we unilaterally throw away our unique
advantage among peoples of the world as a generous and
attractive great power, one that is committed to the overall
well-being of others as equally worthy to the inalienable
rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
More fundamentally, the defining challenge of the 21st
century will be preserving and adapting, as needed, the norms,
rules, and values of the post-World War II international system
in the face of rising powers who may be uncomfortable with that
status quo. If the United States does not lead in shaping those
norms, rules, and values, including on human rights, democracy,
and rule of law, no one else can or will quite take our place,
and others will just as assuredly fill that void with their own
version of values promotion to our lasting detriment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Ambassador Mitchell's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Derek Mitchell \1\
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\1\ The views expressed in this testimony are those of the author
and not the U.S. Institute of Peace.
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Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey, and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify this afternoon. I am
grateful for the opportunity to provide my own perspective on this
important topic.
As a citizen, I am also grateful for the series of hearings this
Subcommittee has organized in recent months to examine U.S. interests
in East Asia, beginning with examinations of security, economic
affairs, and now human rights, governance and rule of law. Too often,
these interests are looked at independently, as distinct from one
another, when they are in fact closely linked.
I am reminded that when I moved from the National Democratic
Institute to the Pentagon's Asia division 20 years ago this month,
friends in both communities would commonly question how I could
transition from democratic development to international security
affairs. I never understood the inconsistency. While the communities
may be rather segregated, the connection between them to me was clear:
that safeguarding international security creates necessary space for
political and economic reform, and the stability created by economic
growth and democratic governance contributes to international peace and
security in return.
Indeed, it has been my observation and experience that commitment
to values of human rights and democracy is not merely an idealistic
goal or an ideology but quite proven in practice. When countries
promote individual human dignity and protect civil liberties, they tend
to be more highly functioning and stable societies. They create
conditions for peaceful interaction within and among states. They
provide platforms for individual achievement. They also become more
appealing destinations for business investment, and are able to prevent
their territory from becoming a source of international instability or
transnational challenge. Stable democratic nations rarely become the
source of refugee flows, or the epicenter of pandemic disease, human
trafficking, and the like.
Nonetheless, the perception persists that somehow promoting human
rights and democratic governance is at best a luxury and at worst an
obstruction to protecting U.S. economic and national security interests
around the world. American ``moralism'' is hypocritical, arrogant or
just unwelcome, according to this view. This view contends the United
States would do better to tone down if not eliminate promotion of human
rights and democracy as a central component of its international
relations, the better to promote other more salient national interests.
East Asia
East Asia in fact is particularly open to such a perspective. The
region has been traditionally dominated by ``realist'' attitudes that
prioritize the importance of power balances and economic growth over
liberal political values. To a degree that makes sense given the
region's diverse mix of large and small powers, where historical
legacies weigh heavily on relations among states, and where national
power and political legitimacy of leaders has rested increasingly on
the ability to deliver public economic goods.
Given this context, America has maintained its power and
credibility in East Asia largely due to its contributions to regional
security and economic affairs. Regional governments and elites have
often denigrated U.S. efforts to prioritize democracy and human rights
in the region. One factor is Asia's colonial past. Sensitivity over
external involvement in their internal affairs runs deep in many
countries, reflected in Southeast Asia's foundational ``Five Principles
of Peaceful Coexistence.''
Asian (and some non-Asian) commentators over the years have also
advanced a theory of Asian exceptionalism: that ``Western'' values of
democracy and human rights are somehow alien to Asian culture, lack
foundation in Asian history, and thus are unnatural to Asian society.
Those who asserted a distinction between inherent ``Asian'' and
``Western'' values contended that while Western traditions put a
premium on individual rights, personal liberties, and democratic
governance, Asian culture and history led to prioritization of
collective responsibilities, strong central governance, social harmony,
and economic over political rights. According to this view, attention
to individual rights and popular democracy in an Asian context is an
invitation to instability and division if not chaos.
East Asia's history since the late 1980s has challenged this notion
of Asian exceptionalism, however. Over the past 30 years, the region
has enjoyed a rush of democratic change and advancement of human rights
accompanied by relative stability and dynamic economic growth. When
presented the opportunity, the people of East Asia like others around
the world have demanded that their voices be heard and respected, and
that they have the right to hold their governments accountable.
Progress has been hardly linear, without setbacks, or shared among all
nations in the region. But those who claim Asia as a whole is uniquely
immune to the yearning for individual rights, personal freedoms, and
accountable (democratic) governance have had to reassess.
Soft Power
It is of course not uncommon for autocrats anywhere to assert that
democracy and civil liberty must be restricted in their country, that
suppression of political and social rights is necessary for national
security, stability, and economic development. But citizens have a
different idea, and it is to them that the United States looks when
promoting principles of human rights and democracy. America's
reputation as a source of support for freedom fighters and democratic
activists around the world is expected and widely respected, even among
many of those who may decry American naivete and question U.S.
intentions and consistency.
That reputation and commitment to liberal values and principles has
been a critical source of American power and influence around the
world. ``Soft power'' is perhaps an unfortunate term given those who
instinctively associate something called ``soft'' as akin to ``weak.''
But power is power whatever form it takes. We forego that advantage at
our peril. Touting the nobility of U.S. budgets that reflect interest
in ``hard power'' alone, therefore, is not strategic thinking but
narrow, shortsighted and disconnected from the totality of ways to
protect one's interest and exercise influence in today's world.
The United States should also consider engaging business in the
effort. While some U.S. businesses chafe at the U.S. Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act and other regulations on its global activity, their
existence and U.S. business's overall leadership in exemplifying
corporate social responsibility around the world are further examples
of U.S. soft power, and can offer U.S. business advantages when
branding themselves to customers and communities overseas in turn.
In East Asia, trade may also serve as a lever for promoting our
values given its role in underwriting the region's growth. The Trans-
Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement was a landmark achievement to
promote labor rights and good governance in countries where such rights
and practices have historically been weak. While recognizing the need
to take account of effects of trade agreements here at home, foregoing
the TPP frankly damaged both our credibility and our values in Asia.
The U.S. military can also help demonstrate to regional militaries
that (hard) power and principle are not mutually exclusive, and that
the values of transparency, accountability, and civilian control have
strategic benefit. Providing opportunities for U.S. servicemen and
women to engage with counterparts (and others) in East Asia to this end
can create lasting partnerships, and help promote responsible,
professional militaries that will underwrite regional stability over
the long term.
In the end, human rights and democracy must result in practical
outcomes for peoples' lives: ``democracy must deliver,'' as former
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright likes to say. Demonstrating the
benefits of connecting countries to the United States, and to its norms
and values, has long-lasting strategic value if only to prevent nations
from aligning with the values and norms of others with less interest in
contributing to the general welfare.
Expectations Management
Time and patience are required in the realm of human rights and
democracy promotion. In very few instances is measurable progress
achieved quickly or completely. Steps back are inevitable, with
realization of our fondest hopes a work in progress in virtually all
cases (including here at home). Imperfect outcomes are the natural
outcome of imperfect systems and the imperfection of human beings.
Likewise, many countries may seek democratic change in the belief
that doing so will inevitably and quickly lead to economic development
and national power like the United States. Expectations there too must
be managed. Transitions are difficult and protracted, with setbacks
normal. Disappointment and disillusion are the common result when
outcomes do not match expectations, leading often to reaction and
regression.
The United States thus must not only be patient with the course of
change, but also should counsel other countries on the difficulties
that come with reform. We ourselves must not succumb to the notion, for
instance, that successful elections mark the end of the process, but
remember that developing new institutions, processes and mindsets are
the most essential components to fortify and sustain a free society
over time.
State of Play in East Asia
Asia's tremendous diversity prevents a one-size-fits-all approach.
Spanning the world's largest country (China), largest Muslim-majority
nation (Indonesia), last remaining totalitarian state (North Korea),
and medium-sized nations that run the full gamut of democratic
progress, human rights protection and authoritarian rule, the region
has resisted categorization. Nonetheless, as noted above, democratic
transitions in East Asia over the past generation have affirmed that
people throughout the region, regardless of culture, ethnicity,
religion, etc., seek and desire basic human dignity, rights, and
freedom.
It is no coincidence that the U.S.'s two allies in Northeast Asia--
Japan and Korea--are both democratic success stories. They demonstrate
the positive impact of U.S. engagement historically in the advancement
of democratic principles and human rights in East Asia. They remain
essential partners of the United States and core contributors to global
development and stability.
The U.S.'s two Southeast Asian treaty allies pose more of a
conundrum. Thailand's regression following the 2014 military coup and
the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's violent drug war (and
apparent personal aversion to the United States) have led to a chill in
both bilateral relationships in recent years. In each case, the United
States has profound regional security interests in maintaining stable
bilateral relations. We must not sacrifice all that we have built with
such historic friends. Nonetheless, as a matter of principle and
interest, it is appropriate that the United States not conduct business
as usual even with such long-time allies to demonstrate our support for
upholding the most basic tenets of human rights, due process and
accountable governance and as a warning to others considering a similar
path. Thailand's long-delayed plan to hold national elections in 2018,
for instance, must occur to help put that relationship back on sound
footing.
While not involving an ally, the United States should also not
ignore national elections in Cambodia in 2018. Cambodia's political
opposition, despite severe harassment, achieved better-than-expected
results in recent local elections, suggesting growing political
strength. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hun Sen has suggested he intends to
hold onto power past 2018 through any means necessary. The situation
requires close watching--and international engagement--to ensure
democratic processes are safeguarded, human rights protected, and the
popular will respected so Cambodia does not fall further back.
In Southeast Asia more broadly, despite traditional sensitivity
toward issues of national sovereignty, nations are beginning to pay
more attention to the effect of internal affairs of neighbors on their
interests. ASEAN has established a Human Rights Council, while the
ASEAN Charter affirms principles of democracy, human rights, good
governance, and rule of law as essential to building an ``ASEAN
Community,'' the region's vision for promoting future economic
development.
Burma's abuse of the Muslim Rohingya population on its soil, for
instance, has led to furious responses from (Muslim) populations in
Indonesia and Malaysia. (Abuses against the Rohingya elsewhere in the
region, including within Muslim-majority nations, get rather less
attention from local populations.) Burma's neighbors also resent the
refugee flows and human trafficking networks that contribute to
regional instability.
Outside of Burma, other ethnically and religiously diverse nations
of Southeast Asia increasingly struggle to balance majoritarian
nationalist attitudes and minority rights. Hate speech disseminated
through social media afflicts the region as elsewhere in the world, and
in many cases has inflamed sectarian tension. In majority-Muslim
Indonesia, the ethnic Chinese Christian former governor of Jakarta not
only lost his re-election bid but also faces extended jail time over a
political comment considered blasphemous towards Islam. The majority-
Catholic Republic of the Philippines has struggled for decades (as did
Americans before them) with unrest in its Muslim-dominated southern
islands. The implications of rising chauvinism in Southeast Asia is
affecting relationships among neighbors, where one nation's majority is
another nation's oppressed minority, threatening regional cohesion and
integration.
The hardest East Asian cases of course concern China and North
Korea. While China's human rights record is no longer akin to North
Korea's, its antipathy to rule of law, civil and political rights, and
accountable democratic governance hardly stands up to minimal levels of
scrutiny. Nonetheless, given overriding interests of American national
security, attention to human rights in both countries has receded in
both cases. That is unfortunate and need not continue, even if it
cannot override the urgent priorities of national security.
case studies: the republic of korea, taiwan, and burma
Three specific cases exemplify the value of U.S. promotion of human
rights and democracy in East Asia.
Korea: Imagine if the Republic of Korea were not a democracy. Seoul
recently underwent a political crisis punctuated by mass street
demonstrations and a legal challenge that resulted in the removal of a
sitting president, a new election, and a peaceful transition of power
to a new president. The process was a model of democratic efficiency
and rule of law.
It was not always thus. Prior to its democratic transition 30 years
ago, the ROK had a history of assassinations, civil unrest, and violent
repression. We might consider how different our security situation
would be today, in the face of an escalating threat from a nuclearizing
North Korea, were the ROK experiencing political unrest in a non-
democratic rather than democratic context. What if the Korean people's
support for the U.S.-ROK alliance were not at all-time highs but akin
to years ago when the United States was viewed as a friend of the
nation's autocrats? What if ROK society were not united and stable, and
confident in U.S. good faith interest in their rights and success? How
do we calculate the value of today's democratic ROK to our national
security?
In Korea, we have a case of ``the dog that did not bark,'' where
one takes for granted the absence of a crisis due to the stability of a
democratic society. We should in fact never take such for granted.
Taiwan: We should also consider the example of Taiwan. Due to
geopolitical factors, Taiwan is often considered a potential negative
factor in regional security rather than what it is: an East Asian
success story. That China demands the world ignore the island due to
its own nationalist attitudes should not obscure the fact that Taiwan's
political, economic, social, and cultural achievements are substantial,
and deserve to be recognized and cherished, not isolated and ignored,
for their contributions to the region and beyond. What Taiwan has
constructed for itself--a peaceful, stable, developed democratic
society--also challenges the notion that ``Chinese culture'' is
inconsistent with democracy.
The United States thus has an interest to preserve and protect
Taiwan's accomplishments, and promote the island's participation in
world affairs given its potential contributions. Taiwan's stable
development is a reflection of what we want to see throughout Asia. To
give up on them, or to take what they have achieved for granted,
undermines in turn America's interest and credibility in seeking a
stable, secure, and prosperous East Asia.
Burma: U.S. policy toward Burma during my tenure as special envoy
and then U.S. ambassador to Burma between 2012 and 2016 essentially
continued long-term U.S. policy of promoting human rights and democracy
in the country, if increasingly through engagement rather than
isolation. I witnessed first-hand the deep respect the Burmese people
had for the United States due to our strong and sustained commitment
over many years, reflected in Congressional legislation and the
policies of successive presidential administrations of both parties, to
stand with the nation's democratic and human rights activists instead
of exploiting the country for economic or geopolitical gain. The
transition in Burma is not complete, future success is not certain, and
debates continue in some quarters over the appropriate U.S. policy to
maintain leverage for change going forward. But there is no question in
my mind that the application of a combination of U.S. pressure and
engagement in support of Burma's reform in recent years had tangible
impact on the political evolution there, and contributed to the current
moment of hope and opportunity, the first the Burmese people have had
in decades.
On the walls of the U.S. embassy in Yangon, we listed five goals of
our work to remind everyone of how we might measure strategic success
for the country and of our work: an end to the civil war through a just
peace; human rights and democracy; economic development; ``resilient
communities'' (defined essentially as health, education and protection
against natural and man-made disasters); and transnational security
(nonproliferation, human and drug trafficking, pandemic disease, etc.).
The logic of this list was simple: a sustainable end to the world's
longest-running civil war, and maintenance of unity in a country of
such immense diversity and extended trauma, could not occur without
respect for the rights and dignity of all, and in turn human rights and
democracy could not take hold absent internal peace and reconciliation.
Economic development is essential to demonstrate that reform can
deliver tangible dividends to the people. Local resilience is critical
for internal stability during what will necessarily be a long and
difficult transition. And Burma's conformity with international norms
is essential for broader U.S. interests in regional security.
In every case, U.S. policies were geared to supporting Burma's
success, with promotion of human rights and democratic processes a
central and fully integrated component. We understood without that
element, peace, stability, security and overall development of the
country, and the region, could not be achieved, to the detriment of
U.S. interests.
We also understood the stakes, that the region was watching, that
during a period of overall political regression in Southeast Asia,
success of Burma's reform efforts could serve as an important model for
others. While we well recognized that the most important factor in
success would come from the remarkable courage, resilience and
sacrifice of Burma's people, we also knew--and heard often -- that the
continued support of friends on the outside, most importantly the
United States, was welcomed by the Burmese people and would remain
essential for their continued progress.
Clarifying and Communicating Intent
Since World War II, U.S. foreign policy has been based on a belief
in the value of a common series of norms, rules, standards, and values
for international conduct that will be applied equally and serve the
common good. The United States has believed its success and security
are linked to the success and security of others, on the assumption
that we are all acting consistent with these rules and norms. That
strategy served the United States well during the Cold War and has
continued to animate our approach to international affairs into the
21st century.
Those who favor promoting human rights and accountable democratic
governance around the world will have to continually make the case for
why those norms are an essential component of international peace and
security. They will also need to reassure cynics and skeptics both at
home and abroad who may misunderstand the such a policy.
That in supporting values of human rights and democracy, the United
States does not seek perfection, does not take an attitude of moral
superiority, recognizes the complexities of individual national
contexts, and maintains a healthy dose of humility about itself and the
work yet to be done here at home.
That the United States does not seek to remake the world in its own
image. That there are many forms of democracy, for instance, that do
not precisely conform to that of the United States (although certain
basic principles are essential, such as civilian control of the
military, free media and civil society, an independent judiciary,
etc.).
That U.S. interests when promoting democracy are focused on a fair
and free process rather than seeking any specific political outcome.
That the United States does not seek to go it alone. That we
continue to pursue partnerships with allies and other like-minded
nations in Asia and elsewhere who also see the benefits of human rights
and accountable governance to international peace and security.
That contrary to the assertions of autocrats--who clearly have a
conflict of interest in such matters--U.S. intentions are not to
undermine a nation's strength or unity but to enhance the country's
long-term stable development, and enhance regional stability by
extension.
And that we recognize the fundamental human truth that there is
more to life than politics or economics. That human beings
fundamentally crave the dignity of controlling their own futures and
expressing themselves in their own voice in whatever form they find
most comfortable. To contend otherwise is to deny human nature, and
create social, civic and political tension internally that will
inevitably cross borders and affect the interests of other states.
recommendations/final observations
Several recommendations follow:
Consistent Commitment and Messaging within the U.S. Government: The
most urgent requirement is for the current U.S. administration to
recognize the importance of human rights and accountable governance to
U.S. interests around the world, and to return it to U.S. foreign
policy. Concurrently, the U.S. Congress should assert its traditional
prerogative as conscience of the country. Ideally, State Department
diplomats, Defense, Treasury and Commerce Department bureaucrats, and
members of Congress should all get on the same page to ensure
discipline, consistency and integrity in word and action over time,
even if perfect consistency is impossible. Policies should be
coordinated to the greatest extent possible to prevent dilution of the
impact and credibility of a values-based approach.
Attention to National Context: Demonstrating due respect for local
contexts is essential for U.S. credibility and integrity of effort.
That means ensuring one understands history, culture, the unique
touchstones, interests, sensitivities, and qualities of both a nation's
government and people to ensure one is speaking in a language
consistent with the nation's own conception of national interest. This
is not a matter of compromising on principle but of constructing an
attitude of respectful partnership to avoid damage to international
relationships. Country specialists and qualified diplomats who can
navigate this terrain are critical.
U.S. Embassy Leadership: More specifically, a successful values-
based policy requires creative and proactive leadership of U.S.
embassies overseas, starting with the ambassador. As the ambassador
goes, so goes the embassy. Ambassadors should cultivate and enforce a
``one mission'' attitude that integrates and shapes the work of not
only State Department components but also USAID, the Defense Attache
Office and others into a coherent strategic whole to advance human
rights, democracy and other goals on the ground.
Demonstrating Openness and Humility: As noted, it is essential that
the United States assume a tone of humility about its own challenges
when promoting human rights and democracy overseas. When I was
ambassador, I discovered I was most successful when I was as open and
candid as I could be about the difficulties of democracy in general,
and the challenges the United States itself has faced on racial,
ethnic, religious, and other lines throughout our history--and that we
continue to struggle with today. By providing lessons, good and bad,
from our experience, and being open ourselves to constructive criticism
and lessons from outside, we can be a positive example for others, as
well as disarm those who have self-interested reasons to dismiss U.S.
human rights and democracy promotion as cynical or hypocritical.
Patience, Constancy, Resources: Given that human rights and
democratic gains take hold gradually and that political transitions
transcend single moments in time such as elections, the U.S.
government, including Congress, must maintain attention and provide
resources on a consistent basis over time to support the institutions
and processes that promote human rights and accountable governance
around the world. Such support should not wane due to premature
assumptions of success, disappointing setbacks, or periodic shifts in
political winds in the United States. Congress should sufficiently fund
both the State Department and USAID to this end, as well as other
leading institutions that conduct related work in Asia, including the
National Endowment for Democracy (and the National Democratic Institute
and International Republican Institute by extension), Radio Free Asia,
Voice of America, The Asia Foundation, the East-West Center, and the
U.S. Institute of Peace.
Partnerships: Promotion of human rights and democracy is no longer
the unique province of the United States or even governments. As more
nations go democratic, interest in integrating human rights and
democracy into their foreign policies has grown, including in Asia. The
United States should build partnerships with governments and civil
society organizations alike with Asian democracies such as Japan,
Korea, Taiwan and Australia, which will have the added benefit of
potentially defraying costs as well as putting a helpful regional face
on the work of human rights and democracy promotion in Asia. The U.S.
government should also consider how to integrate U.S. business into
such activities given their global leadership in corporate social
responsibility.
Conclusion
Finally, this testimony has omitted perhaps the most common
rationale offered for why the United States has an interest in human
rights and democracy, whether in Asia or elsewhere: because it is a
fundamental component of who we are as a nation, that it is essential
to America's founding idea and meaning as a country.
The United States may not always be perfectly consistent in
application, and will compromise on these principles at times when an
overriding national interest is at stake. All foreign policy after all
is a matter of setting priorities and making choices based on context.
But the United States boasts a tradition extending at least to Woodrow
Wilson's 14 Points, FDR's Four Freedoms, Ronald Reagan's Westminster
speech, if not to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of
Independence, that impels us forward.
Without a principled element to our foreign policy, the United
States becomes just another self-interested major power, of which there
have been many that have risen and fallen throughout history with few
mourning their departure. We also unilaterally throw away our unique
strategic advantage among peoples of the world as a generous great
power, one that generally inspires admiration and respect not fear and
anger, and one that is committed to the overall well-being of others as
equally worthy to the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.
The defining challenge of the 21st century will be preserving, and
at times adapting, the norms, rules, and values of the post-World War
II international system given the rise of new major powers who may be
uncomfortable with the status quo. If the United States does not lead
in helping shape these norms and values, including on human rights,
democracy and the rule of law, no one else can or will quite take our
place. And others will just as surely fill that void with their own
version of values promotion, to our lasting detriment.
Senator Gardner. Thanks, Ambassador Mitchell.
Ambassador King, I gave you credit for Judge Kirby's
report. You were special envoy. I still want people to read
that report while you were special envoy, so thank you.
Ambassador King?
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT R. KING, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE KOREA
CHAIR, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES,
WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador King. Thanks very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Senator Markey. Thank you for the invitation to appear before
the subcommittee today, but thank you also for holding this
hearing.
As you know, my special interest and focus for the last 7
years has been promoting human rights, rule of law, and
democracy in North Korea, and my comments today are going to
focus primarily on North Korea.
Today's hearing is particularly appropriate and timely. In
the last few months, the United States has given particular
attention to security issues involving the North. This
attention is fully warranted. I am concerned, however, that, in
giving proper attention to security issues, we not lose sight
of the critical importance of human rights in our policy toward
North Korea.
It is important to keep in mind that a country which
brazenly and openly violates the human rights of its own
citizens is a country that will not hesitate to use weapons of
mass destruction against neighboring countries. A country that
sends agents to murder the half-brother of its leader will have
no reluctance to use similar tactics against the citizens of
countries it fears.
Mr. Chairman, I want to mention, in particular, the
critical role that Congress has played in pressing
administrations, both Republican and Democratic, to give
attention to human rights in our policy toward North Korea. The
overwhelming support for adoption and reauthorization of the
North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004 reflects the bipartisan
consensus and the importance of this issue.
Congressional interest in North Korean human rights is the
principal reason that progress has been over the last decade in
pressing North Korea on its abysmal human rights record, and I
am delighted to see that this committee is continuing that
role.
One of the most important recent steps was the creation of
the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on DPRK human rights, which you
mentioned. That ground-breaking report was, indeed, a major
step forward. The commission of inquiry concluded that the
North's human rights crimes involved: extermination, murder;
enslavement, torture, imprisonment; rape, forced abortions and
other sexual violence; persecution on political, religious,
racial and gender grounds; the forcible transfer of
populations; enforced disappearance of persons; the inhumane
act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.
Mr. Chairman, it is important that we continue to press the
North on these human rights violations, and there are several
steps that I would urge the administration and Congress to
pursue with regard to North Korea.
First, we need continue our active leadership efforts at
the United Nations. The Human Rights Council in Geneva has
played a critical role on human rights, creating the commission
that we have talked about. We need to continue our active
leadership and participation in that forum.
We have found broad support in the U.N. General Assembly in
New York. By substantial majorities, the General Assembly has
approved resolutions critical of the violations of human rights
by the North. We need to continue our effort there as well.
The U.N. Security Council has discussed North Korea's human
rights abuses for the last 3 years. That would not have
happened if it had not been for the United States playing an
active leadership role. It is important that we continue our
engagement and involvement with the U.N.
Second, we need to continue to encourage the free flow of
information into North Korea. The availability of accurate
information about events beyond the borders of the North limits
the ability of the dictatorship to manipulate its own people.
We need to continue robust American support for the Voice of
America, Radio Free Asia, and other programs to increase access
to digital information, including increased appropriations to
support these programs. The impact is long-term, but it is
vital to press the North Koreans in directions that are
positive.
Third, we need to continue to support refugees who flee
North Korea at great personal risk to their own and their
families' lives. Only a few of these refugees have chosen to
come to the United States, but we should aid those who have
chosen to settle here.
We must also support the South Korean Government in its
humane and generous refugee program for those from the North.
And we need to continue to press China to permit refugees from
the North who seek to escape through their country to move on.
Refugees repatriated by China are among the most vulnerable to
imprisonment, torture, and execution by the North Korean
regime.
Fourth, we must not ignore the humanitarian needs of the
North Korean people. Admittedly, the brutal conditions in the
North are the result of a government policy that places the
needs of the bulk of the people well below the priority for
luxuries for the leadership and the development of nuclear
weapons and missiles.
If we can determine the legitimate humanitarian needs of
the people, we should assist in providing aid, if we can ensure
it goes to those most in need. We should also assist private
American humanitarian organizations that provide such aid.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, we need to think carefully about
travel by American citizens to North Korea. Over the past
decade, more than a score of American citizens have been
detained. They have been held in isolation and have suffered
from their imprisonment. The most tragic and heartrending case
was the American student who died recently, shortly after his
return to the United States.
Many hundreds of Americans visit North Korea each year;
most return without a problem. Some of these are engaged in
important medical and other humanitarian efforts, but many go
to get bragging rights for participating in the Pyongyang
Marathon or for other adventures.
If the Congress or the administration should consider a ban
on U.S. citizen travel to the North, an exception should be
permitted for travel by Americans involved in humanitarian and
other worthy efforts in North Korea.
Thank you very much for this hearing, and thank you for the
opportunity to participate.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Ambassador.
Again, thank you to all of you. We will begin with the
questions.
Just to start with a question following up on what you just
said, that you would support a travel ban, with the exemption
that you talked about. Is that correct?
Ambassador King. As long as there is an opportunity to
provide a license or permission for people who meet certain
criteria doing humanitarian and other kinds of work, yes.
Senator Gardner. Thanks, Ambassador.
Ambassador Mitchell or Mr. Hiebert, would you like to
comment on that travel ban, a North Korea travel ban, at all?
No? Thank you.
Mr. Hiebert, one of the topics you brought up in your
opening statement, I think Shannon Green you mentioned was
behind an idea that would develop an interagency decision-
making body to help resolve the tension, I think is the word
you used, between a security decision and a human rights
decision.
Earlier this year, Secretary Tillerson said, and I quote,
``In some circumstances, if you condition our national security
efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably cannot
achieve our national security goals or our national security
interests.''
I think it is very clear on the panel that the national
security interests and human rights, they do go hand-in-hand,
and economic development interests in those nations that are
spurring economic growth respect human rights.
Could you describe maybe in a little bit more detail such a
panel? Would it be something that could actually help us
resolve that tension? Would it result in, perhaps, overreliance
on a panel that could lead more favorably on security concerns
and neglecting human rights concerns?
Mr. Hiebert. That is always the problem, right? It would
need a good moderator to referee between the different
priorities of the Pentagon, of the State Department, of the
economic agencies, and of the human rights officials in the
State Department.
The idea is not necessarily to override security concerns,
but in such cases as we have now in the Philippines, where you
have the militant Maute group operating and occupying a city
for almost 2 months, not to ignore human rights concerns.
Obviously, there are times when security has to take a tough
position. But the goal here is really just to keep the
importance of human rights concerns within that debate alive
rather than just letting them be totally missing.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
One of the comments made during the testimony was concern
that Burma may have fallen off the radar in terms of the
attention it is receiving from the administration and
Washington right now. One of the elements of the bill that we
are developing in the ARIA legislation, one of the components
of that bill, addresses Burma by learning from what we did in
Africa with the Electrify Africa Act, the Power Africa Act, the
last administration successfully pursued and would sort of take
that idea of Power Africa and put it into Burma to have like a
Power Burma initiative where the U.S. private sector and
government can work together to try to develop a more stable
energy supply in Burma.
The reason that idea came forward is because, in a
conversation with one of the close advisers to Aung San Suu
Kyi, was a concern that three things needed to be accomplished
during the new government. That was progress made on the
strife, the civil war, and progress made on electricity.
So if we can take that kind of policy initiative and put it
in place in Burma, Ambassador Mitchell, I would like your
opinion on whether something like that could work and help
achieve the goals that they need to, to help make this new
civilian government more successful.
Ambassador Mitchell. There is no doubt that they need to
demonstrate that democracy delivers, and electricity generation
powers everything. It affects education. It affects
agriculture. It affects all the development they will look for
in that country. I do not know specifically what was done in
Africa to know how you can transfer that context to a Burmese
context.
The problem with Burma is that they have a problem with
peace. They are fractured. It is very difficult to get access
to lots of locations. You can go and get access to the center,
but getting access to some of the periphery is more difficult.
Their systems and their power generation is 30 to 40 years
old, so the whole infrastructure needs to be regenerated. The
World Bank is working this. They also need a plan, first of
all, of how they want to do this. So do you work at a national
level? Do you do it locally and then build a network among
these localized initiatives?
If we can put extra funds and extra thinking in to assist
them with this, then absolutely, it is the long pole in the
tent for Burmese development. But we have to be very careful to
act according to their context and not try to transfer entirely
what worked in one place and assume it will work in Burma.
Senator Gardner. And, of course, this is a human rights-
focused hearing. That is an economic focus. But explain to me
the connection between that again. I think it is important to
note.
Ambassador Mitchell. Well, I mean, for one thing,
democracy, we used to have a list of things that we were
seeking to achieve in Burma. We put it on the wall in the
Embassy. It was peace and then human rights and democracy,
because you cannot have peace without human rights and
democracy. Frankly, you cannot have human rights and democracy
without peace.
But then democracy needs to deliver. She has been voted--I
mean, what people have been seeking is a credible election.
There was a credible election in which Aung San Suu Kyi has now
gained most of the power, and all of the power, in the country.
The military still has control of some pretty important levers.
But she needs to deliver, and electricity is one of those
things that is very tangible to people in that country that
they are looking for. It is not going to happen nationally
immediately, but as long as there continue to be brownouts and
blackouts, then people will say, democracy, why is this
different or any better than what we had before? And we have
seen that movie before in Eastern Europe. The expectations are
very high.
So in terms of democracy, it is very, very important.
In terms of human rights, in terms of equitable
development, enabling people all over the country to have
access to education and information, it is very important.
So in a number of ways, you can make the connection there
between seeing the development occur under this new system and
seeing this new system, frankly, succeed and persist in a very,
very difficult environment.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Ambassador King, President Moon and various members of the
administration have made comments in recent weeks appearing to
invite North Korea to cohost the Olympics and other statements.
Could you talk a little bit about perhaps what you see and hear
out of South Korea, and whether or not that is helpful in terms
of holding North Korea accountable for human rights?
Ambassador King. The expectation was that there might be
problems with South Korea with the election. My sense is that
the President, President Moon Jae-in, has been very careful in
terms of what he said about human rights. He is a human rights
lawyer. He has appointed as his foreign affairs minister the
former deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United
Nations. They both made statements expressing concern and
support for human rights.
I think there is a commitment in South Korea to human
rights, rule of law, and democracy. And while there is a desire
at the same time to move towards reconciliation with the North,
I do not think that it is going to be at the cost of pressing
on human rights.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Ambassador King.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Mr. King, when there is a criticism of human rights policy
in North Korea, they consider it an attempt externally to begin
a process of regime change, to get rid of this whole Kim
dynasty and start all over again. So we kind of get into a
situation where you have to try to find a pathway forward.
So I am of the opinion that we have to begin a process of
direct negotiations with the North Koreans around their nuclear
program. But as part of that discussion, of course, human
rights would ultimately be implicated.
Can you talk about this rise in the threat of an
intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead on
top of it, and how we deal with that issue, and how we deal
with it in the context of human rights? We had to basically
deal with that same squared circle back in the 1980s where
there was an out-of-control nuclear arms race going on with the
Soviet Union, and, simultaneously, there was a Jewish
population inside of Russia that was being oppressed.
Ultimately, it turns out that the arms negotiation is what led
to the total freedom that was then created.
So how do you view it, given your long experience in this
area?
Ambassador King. Russia was a lot easier than North Korea.
Senator Markey. Yes, but not viewed that way at the time.
Ambassador King. No, certainly not.
The first thing that I think we need to emphasize is that a
policy of encouraging respect for human rights is not a policy
that is aimed at regime change.
I would say that what we want to do is encourage leaders to
be responsive to their own people. Increasing information in
North Korea about what is going on elsewhere will put pressure
on the regime to take into account what its people are
concerned about.
I think we need to continue to press on human rights. We
need to continue to press the North Koreans in the United
Nations because this raises questions about the legitimacy of
the regime, which has had some effect in terms of changes,
mostly around the edge rather than fundamental changes, but we
need to continue to press them.
I think when we are dealing with the questions of human
rights and security, this is not an either/or. I think both are
related.
In the case of the Soviet Union, I think our nuclear policy
and our human rights policy worked together in a positive
direction. I think the Soviets were far more willing to discuss
the question of nuclear weapons with us than the North Koreans
have been. The difficulty we face is a reluctance, at this
point, on the part of the North Koreans to talk at all.
Senator Markey. If you remember back then, though, Reagan
was not willing to sit down with the Soviets. He pulled out of
all talks. And so it was just the opposite. We had walked away
from all talks, having been at the table since the Eisenhower
administration.
So then, ultimately, it was the United States engaging with
Gorbachev that began the discussion of reaching an agreement,
which then created an atmosphere where human rights could be
more respected. But before that, not so.
So how do we deal with this issue of managing expectations
about human rights in North Korea with the world community in a
context of trying to engage in direct negotiations with the
North Koreans regarding their nuclear program which, to certain
extent, it seems to me, is a sine qua non with regard to
ultimately being able to affect human rights?
Ambassador King. Yes, it is not an easy one. On the one
hand, I think we need to continue to press on human rights. We
should not back off on pressing them on that.
On the other hand, I think we need to continue to make the
cost of acquiring nuclear weapons and improving those nuclear
weapons greater by the sanctions we impose, by working with
other countries.
The one thing that I think is critical in this whole
process is that this is not something the United States can do
by itself. This is something that requires us to be involved
and engaged with other countries. We need to work through the
United Nations both on security and human rights issues. We
need to work with other countries in terms of the sanctions
that are imposed.
U.S. sanctions against North Korea are very limited.
Sanctions that are imposed by the United Nations in cooperation
with the Chinese can and do make a difference, and we need to
continue to press the Chinese in terms of that effort.
It is not an easy way to go forward, and there is no silver
bullet that is going to solve the problem.
Senator Markey. The problem as it exists is that, from the
first quarter of 2016 to the first quarter of 2017, there was a
37 percent increase in trade between China and North Korea. And
simultaneously, there was a $10 billion hit on the South Korean
economy, as the Chinese imposed tougher controls on tourism
going to South Korea.
So that is the law of unintended consequences, where the
country we are trying to help gets a $10 billion hit on their
economy, and there is an increase in trade in North Korea, all
as a result of U.S. policy on THAAD and other areas.
So that, to me, is something we have to re-examine, so that
you do not engage in a repetition syndrome, trying to get a
different result from a policy that ultimately has to require
the Chinese to be participating, but, under the existing
circumstances, it is highly unlikely that will be the case, no
matter what we do.
Ambassador King. It is a mixed picture because, recently,
the price of rice in North Korea has gone up significantly.
There are indications that there may have been some cut-off of
some petroleum products. We do not have perfect information
about North Korea, but the information we have suggests it is a
mixed picture.
I think part of what we have to do is continue the effort
of working with others to try to move this forward.
Senator Markey. I agree with you that it may be a mixed
picture, but if that number was accurate, the 37 percent
increase in trade, that is the overarching, larger environment
within which North Korea is now existing, and there may be some
sub-stories within that, maybe in rice or other areas.
But the totality of it is just something that does not
appear to be a stranglehold at all in any direction of the
North Korean economy.
So to me, it just raises difficult questions in terms of
how we progress from here to get the result we want, which is a
denuclearized North Korea and an increase in human rights in
that country.
Ambassador King. Like I said, the Soviet Union was easy by
comparison.
Senator Markey. No, I appreciate that. But at that point,
we were 40 years into that and had not been able to square that
circle. So it only began, really, when we had the direct
negotiations, only when they began to sit down in Reykjavik.
Ambassador King. It also began because there were changes
taking place in the Soviet Union. It was the advent of
Gorbachev, and the changes that he made in terms of moving the
economy toward a market economy, allowing greater freedom in
terms of----
Senator Markey. And I agree with that 100 percent, but that
was the actuarial table at work. That was Gorbachev dying, and
Chernenko, another septuagenarian getting named and him dying,
and Andropov being named and him being a septuagenarian and him
dying. So the actuarial table did work in our favor in 1983 in
1984. In 1985, Gorbachev got the job.
But the Kim dynasty, even if the actuarial table affects
him, it is unlikely to result in this opportunity, which Reagan
ultimately got. But it was not through a plan. It was through
something that happened internally in that country.
So he was not going to change unless that happened. I just
think relying upon that to happen inside of North Korea is
exceedingly optimistic. I just think that we have to have an
external strategy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gardner. Thank you. We will just continue back and
forth, if you do not mind.
One of the focuses of the bill, of course, is human rights
and rule of law.
We see in North Korea continued violation by many nations
accepting labor out of North Korea, both a rule of law
challenge to both nations involved, as well as a human rights
concern.
So how would you address, in legislation, the labor abuses
taking place in China of North Korean workers, the continued
acceptance of labor from North Korea around the globe?
Ambassador King. There has been some success in dealing
with North Korean employed working abroad. Diplomatically, we
have pressed countries in Europe, in the Middle East, and
elsewhere, to urge them to move beyond using North Korean
workers, and we had some progress in several areas.
The problem is, the largest number of workers are in China
and in Russia. This is the most difficult of areas to deal
with, but we need to continue to press. We need to continue to
work on it. But there is not an easy solution.
Senator Gardner. Could you apply something like the Global
Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to a Chinese official
if you knew that they were part of allowing labor into China?
Is there a path there that you could use?
Ambassador King. It might be something that could be done.
Identifying individuals and applying sanctions to individuals
in cases like this could be helpful. It is difficult to get
information, particularly at the levels where these decisions
are being made about workers. It might be worth looking at, but
I do not see it as the silver bullet.
Senator Gardner. When we see news reports about something
like soccer stadiums being built with North Korean labor, how
should we address that?
Ambassador King. The way we have. We have raised it with
the Middle Eastern country involved. We have raised our
concerns with them. They understand those concerns, and they
have moved in different directions.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Ambassador Mitchell, you mentioned in your statement that
changes in human rights gradually take place, that the U.S. has
to be patient and that we need to support programs that support
that nation but also, I think, made it clear with patience.
Can you talk about your experience in Burma? I know there
were some sanctions that were lifted in Burma, and, as a result
of those sanctions, I think there was an anticipation that
there might be greater changes. There was anticipation under
the new government that we might see greater progress on the
Rohingya. Talk a little bit about that experience and whether
or not we have been too patient, whether we should have more
patience, and how to balance that patience with additional
actions to try to have better results.
Ambassador Mitchell. Are you referring specifically to the
Rohingya or generally?
Senator Gardner. In general.
Ambassador Mitchell. In general. Well, in general, the one
thing as I mentioned there as well is that democracy does not
start and end with elections, really end with elections, that
it is a process.
And we knew, I knew, that even though we had this
remarkable moment in 2015 where Aung San Suu Kyi's party wins,
she becomes, effectively, the leader, that she just inherited
the same structural problems in this country that existed
before the election, 50 years of systematic degradation of
every institution in this country except for one, except for
the military.
I mean, civil society worked underground. The best and the
brightest either left or were killed or were imprisoned. So
human capacity, the legal infrastructure, the physical
infrastructure all needs to be built, and trust needs to be
constructed as well among this remarkably diverse population
that is the longest running civil war in the world, 70 years
since independence they have been fighting themselves. So we
always had to have very managed expectations of how quickly
things would move on the ground and how we would see progress
proceed.
Having said that, yes, of course, we should expect things
to go and to see progress, to see more measurable progress, and
including things like electricity, as you mentioned. It has
probably gone slower than we would have expected, than they
should have moved.
Aung San Suu Kyi, I think many people when I was there just
a few months ago were criticizing her for not paying enough
attention to the economy. I think people have tried to suggest
to her, you do need to deliver on these things for people so
that they feel there is a result from democracy.
So we do have to be patient. On things like just the human
rights side of things, there are legacy laws. There are laws in
place from the British colonial days that deal with unlawful
associations, people getting together unlawfully, which are
just 100 years old, more than 100 years old, and need to be
gotten rid of and brought up-to-date. There are new laws in
telecommunications that regard people who criticize the
military or even Aung San Suu Kyi on Facebook as a criminal. So
you are having new political prisoners or new people brought up
on charges for free speech.
This should not be happening. Again, it is a legacy of old
mindsets, a legacy of the past, a legacy of lack of capacity.
That needs to be done quicker, and I think we should be holding
them to account for those things.
Finally, what I will say on the Rohingya, which we can talk
extensively about, I always say it was sort of a black spot on
my time there.
As you said, it was a remarkable, extraordinary period. I
was fortunate to be there and present and part of the change,
but that situation only got worse when I was there. These
people were kept in pens, their humanity and dignity taken away
from them.
And I think what I tried to suggest to everyone there is
that it is not working for the country. The status quo in
sustaining that situation is not only terrible for the Rohingya
and affecting their reputation writ large in the international
community but, more importantly, frankly, for them, is that it
is not helping them.
It is setting the Rakhine people back, the Rakhine State
back where this is happening. And the whole country is
attracting the attention of the worst actors in the world. And
now there is concern about an extremist group that may be
acting there.
So even in their own interests, they need to be thinking
differently and acting differently to give these people a
certain degree of justice, of due process, their humanity and
dignity, so that they can stabilize the situation and then move
forward as a country.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Mr. Hiebert, if you wanted to talk about Burma, please feel
free to, but a question to you about Thailand. The U.S., do we
have an opportunity to persuade the military there to lessen
the restrictions it has placed on freedom of expression on
Thailand? And what leverage do we have in terms of rights in
Thailand?
Mr. Hiebert. They have not accepted criticism very well. We
have seen various people in the previous administration try to
go and talk a little bit about that.
It was hoped that the Prime Minister would be coming here
in mid-July. That had been planned. However, the Thais have now
asked for that trip to be delayed. They think they could not
get ready for all the stuff that you have to do for having a
head of state visit here.
There is also a lot of sensitivity as we are in the midst
of this change in the monarchy. The former King will be
cremated in October, and a new King will be coronated probably
in December. In this transition, everybody is being very
cautious and no one wants to change the status quo. So, they
really have been pretty tough on stuff happening on Facebook
and social media generally, very critical of anybody posting
stuff that is even hinting at making fun of the monarchy.
So it is in a very sensitive period. I guess the hope was
that, if we could get the Prime Minister here, that, gradually,
relations could improve at all kinds of levels--we could get
some trade deals to start happening. We could have some mil-to-
mil cooperation resume at a higher level. And then they would
move toward elections.
I wish when President Trump called the Thai Prime Minister
that, he could have said, ``It is great that the country is
more stable but,'' without offending him in the least, he could
have said, ``But it would be really helpful if you would start
moving toward elections, which you have said you want to hold
next year. We are watching. I hope we can do it,'' kind of
thing, which would have been fine.
But just generally, Thailand is a little stuck. It needs
some way to break the logjam. I guess that is why many of us
were hoping the Prime Minister's trip to Washington would
happen soon.
Senator Gardner. Any outlook for the elections?
Mr. Hiebert. We have had elections on the horizon a few
times. I guess, we do not know when they will happen.
When you talk to Thais, some will tell you, yes, it will
happen this time. Others say, well, they have postponed it two
or three times already, they may do it again.
That would be another advantage of having the Prime
Minister come here. I think it would be a way to start talking
about some of these things and nudge them a little bit about
why this matters.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Mr. Hiebert, what is your assessment of the threats to
Indonesia's democracy coming from rising religious and ethnic
intolerance inside of that country? Is this something that is
becoming more serious as a concern that we should have in our
country?
Mr. Hiebert. You will have seen what happened with the
treatment of the governor, the mayor of Jakarta, during the
election campaigning he made an offhanded sort of joke about
whether Muslims could live under non-Muslims.
Senator Markey. And he was an ethnic Chinese Christian.
Mr. Hiebert. Yes.
Senator Markey. So an ethnic Chinese Christian is making
this joke. Right.
Mr. Hiebert. So it was not received very well. His comments
were recorded, and then conservative Muslims really played this
up and eventually he was charged with blasphemy. And they had
two giant protests late last year that really highlighted that
was on the ascendancy and would play a greater political role.
In the election process, we saw Ahok not only lose the
election. He had been charged with and was on trial for
blasphemy. When the prosecutors urged that the courts sentence
him only to probation and not jail, the panel of judges
actually called for him to be put in jail, and he is now
serving a 2-year sentence in prison.
Senator Markey. So again, the crime that he committed as an
ethnic Chinese Christian, again, was?
Mr. Hiebert. Blasphemy.
Senator Markey. And the blasphemy was?
Mr. Hiebert. That he raised questions in a joking way about
whether a Muslim could live under a non-Muslim, could be ruled
by a non-Muslim.
Senator Markey. So he has 2 years in prison right now for
saying that.
Mr. Hiebert. Yes. I was going to add, just today, President
Jokowi, initiated some legal measures, which will allow the
government to be able to ban certain radical Muslim groups. We
could start to see that.
But during the election campaign for Jakarta governor, a
lot of Ahok's political opponents were using these conservative
religious groups to build opposition to Ahok among voters. Even
though these politicians were not part of these movements, they
used those protests, actually, to discredit Ahok.
Senator Markey. So you are saying, after the fact, after
the election, after the conviction, now the President of the
country is getting concerned?
Mr. Hiebert. Getting concerned because he has his own
elections in 2019, and he wants to make sure that these groups
are somewhat reined in. And some of the more moderate Muslim
groups have endorsed efforts to rein in the more conservative
groups thinking that this is probably a good idea.
Senator Markey. So what could the United States do? What
could this subcommittee do in order to send a message that that
kind of behavior is unacceptable? What would you recommend?
Mr. Hiebert. That is a tough one. Obviously, you can keep
talking about the concerns about what happened. I think Members
of Congress can visit and raise concerns about this.
It is really tough in a country that is running a fairly
good democracy. You cannot sanction them. Former President
Obama on a just completed visit to Indonesia did a very good
job of this, as somebody who had lived in Indonesia, by talking
about diversity and how you live with people of different
opinions.
I think Members of Congress and the administration need to
find ways to just keep talking to President Jokowi and his
Cabinet about why some of the activities by radical Islamic
groups are dangerous for Indonesia's democracy.
Senator Markey. He was a Christian going to a Catholic
school in a Muslim nation, President Obama, so that is
something that I think is lost on people.
Let me move on. I think we would like to pursue with you
this issue, because I think it is something that is important
for the United States to have a view on this.
Mr. Hiebert. We can think about it some more and come up
with some ideas for you.
Senator Markey. I think it would be helpful to us, if you
can have a recommendation for us.
Mr. Hiebert. Okay.
Senator Markey. The question of Internet freedom, I will
just give you the grades here. In 2016, Freedom on the Net
survey, the Freedom House ranked China, Vietnam, Myanmar, and
Thailand as ``not free.'' Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Singapore, and South Korea come out as ``partly free.''
And our challenge promoting free expression of the Internet
in Asia is complicated by the fact that China vigorously
promotes strict state control of cyberspace across the region.
What are your perspectives, any of you, on how the United
States can meet this challenge to be driving the Internet in
terms of a more open model, rather than what is increasingly
happening in country after country?
Ambassador Mitchell. Well, I think you have to make the
case, as we do everywhere, that what we are trying to achieve,
and it goes to what you were discussing with Murray, is taking
a positive tack on this, that we are seeking your success. And
from our experience, the lessons that we have learned on this
in a diverse place like Indonesia, a diverse place like
Myanmar, you are going down a very, very risky path of division
that ends badly, and why we believe this. I think that is the
first level of discussion.
On the Internet, you have different levels of control of
the Internet, or access to the Internet. In Vietnam, they are
going after bloggers, but there is actually pretty good access
to the information otherwise, and people are free to speak on
Facebook.
Myanmar, I think, similarly, it is a Facebook country. My
Embassy had over 1 million followers, so whatever we put up
there, we had 1 million people reading it. But if you say the
wrong thing, if you criticize somebody the wrong way, then you
get thrown in prison because you have denigrated somebody, with
the libel laws and that kind of thing.
So I think we have to, first off, convey the positives of
free information, that the absence of this will create more
instability, more problems for your democracy, more division in
your society, more problems for you. And, certainly,
condemnation, a bad reputation in the U.S. Congress. And those
who really want to work in partnership, that it will have an
effect on the partnership we want to have with these countries.
Senator Markey. In the early hearings that the chairman
had, the witnesses all agreed that continued American
engagement is absolutely essential, economically,
diplomatically, militarily in this region. But we have this
China model, which is also competing with us now.
So I would like if I could, if you do not mind Mr.
Chairman, just your views on this dynamic tension and very
aggressive strategy that the Chinese have put together, which
ultimately helps to create a different ideation with regard to
what a successful governance model could look like in countries
in Asia.
So could you talk about that, what you believe the United
States has to do if we are going to be effective in countering
that message?
Ambassador Mitchell. If I can say, if you are an autocratic
government or single-party government, you are going to favor
doing this. You want to control information. That is your idea
of what security or stability looks like.
What we need to do is support those actors to open up the
country and allow more voices through civil society, through
free media, through our engagement, through NGOs and our own
work, Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, et cetera, to try to
demonstrate that open flow of information is what a free
society looks like, and that free societies succeed.
China has enormous challenges internally. And when I talk
to people in Burma about the China model, they say we do not
want to be like China, which is good that they do not want to
be that model of governance. They want to be their own model of
governance. They talk about democracy, and they are willing to
try this.
Now, Vietnam, you hear that, over time, we want to open up
gradually. I think we make it clear to them this matters to us,
and that we will hold them to account whether this continues in
a gradually progressive way or not.
The challenge I always found in Burma was trying to measure
what progress looked like. How do we know if we are still on
track but going slower or slowly, or if things have gotten off
track? That is something that is an art, not a science. There
is no easy way. The people of the country will make their own
judgments, according to their own interests.
But I think what we should do as much as possible to
empower the people of the country, empower a diverse array of
voices in the country, get information in. They will make their
own decisions, but that will be the best way to empower those
that we think will help.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
If the United States retreats--which the budget proposals
of this administration would indicate is one alternative path
that we could go down--if we do retreat, what does that mean in
terms of the Chinese ability to propound an alternative of an
authoritarian model, which could also be successful because of
the additional benefits that will flow to those countries that
would embrace it?
Mr. Hiebert. Certainly, if the U.S. is missing in Southeast
Asia, it is pretty obvious, right now, as the U.S. sort of
seems to be withdrawing, and China has been putting a lot of
pressure on its neighbors to drift back toward China, you do
have the situation where their more authoritarianmodel, in many
cases, is now being looked at.
But I was going also to make the point, economically, that
Vietnam, which has Intel in there, it has Samsung, which is by
far their largest exporter, that Vietnam realizes they need to
keep the Internet open for economic development. So therefore,
it does not need to be the State Department human rights guys
who come and thump on the table. It can be USTR people doing it
in Trade and Investment Agreement talks. That starts changing
the dynamic.
So countries like Vietnam, I would not put in the same
category of China. If I go to China, I cannot access the New
York Times or the Wall Street Journal. I cannot access my Gmail
account. In Vietnam, I can access everything.
In Thailand, we saw the recent case where they were
pressing Facebook and other social media companies to monitor
what people were putting up on these platforms. By U.S.
officials talking economically ahead of the Prime Minister
visit that was supposed to happen next week, and is now not
going to, it prompted the Thais to postpone some of the
decisions about how to implement some of these social media
regulations.
So economically, we do have some leverage at times also in
countries that want to be part of the global supply chain.
Senator Markey. Mr. King, before I go to you, I just want
to say that Vietnam has just announced a $1 billion deal with a
company in Massachusetts to purchase scanning equipment,
detection equipment that can detect nuclear contraband coming
into their country, or fentanyl, or drugs coming into their
country.
So that is a pure capitalist deal that advantages that
company and also reflects openings that could be a precedent
for other United States cooperation with that country.
Mr. King?
Ambassador King. One of the things that is interesting is
that Chinese information is not permitted in North Korea,
because it is far too open.
Senator Markey. Say that again.
Ambassador King. It is illegal to listen to Chinese radio
in North Korea. Compared to what you get in North Korea,
Chinese radio is far more open than what they are getting
domestically. One of the things that is interesting is that
sources of external information include listening to Chinese
radio as well as South Korean- and American-funded broadcasts.
One of the things that I think we need to do, and where we
can make a difference, particularly in a place like North Korea
where access to the Internet is basically not available, is do
what we can to get information into North Korea on thumb drives
and particularly through radio, which is somewhat old-fashioned
but still effective, so that there are alternative information
sources that are available to the people in North Korea.
Senator Markey. That is very interesting.
I went with President Clinton for 9 days to China on his
trip in 1998, and we did one public event, the President and I,
in an Internet cafe. The President said, well, in addition to
the Chinese-controlled government press, I want to get
additional information about the trip that I am making to the
country, where would you go? And then these three very, very,
very, very, very smart Beijing University students, they had a
conversation, and then you could hear one of them go, ``But
President Clinton, President Clinton.''
So, all the sudden, they are going to the keyboard and up
comes ABC News, ``Clinton Visits Beijing,'' not possible in
North Korea.
Thank you all very much for your great testimony.
Senator Gardner. Thanks, Senator Markey.
A couple questions.
Mr. Hiebert, you mentioned in your comments as well that
perhaps the new administration is trying to mend fences with
some of our treaty allies in Southeast Asia, but yet we know
that the extrajudicial killings that have taken place in the
Philippines create a very significant obstacle for the United
States and for a Nation that wishes to respect human rights, as
we do, and the challenge that presents us in how to deal with
the Philippines.
How do we address extrajudicial killings in the
Philippines, violations of human rights, and what is occurring
in the Philippines?
Mr. Hiebert. This was tried by Ambassador Goldberg late
last year and also by President Obama on a few occasions, and
they got dinged really badly by Duterte.
It is a tough situation. He does not take criticism.
Although I talked recently to the current Ambassador Sung Kim,
and he says you can talk to him privately, but Duterte does not
want to hear about this stuff publicly.
And so maybe you have to keep talking privately at a time
when, obviously, Duterte, was democratically elected and
remains very popular. He hears the criticism from the United
States. He calls the President all kinds of nasty names, and
then goes to Beijing and says I am going to separate from the
United States, which, for a treaty ally to say that to the
United States in Beijing, is pretty tough news. Then on top of
that, in mid-May, he gets a new war in Mindanao, where Islamic
radicals took over Marawi, a medium-sized city.
So the U.S. has challenges. What we had in working with the
previous Aquino government, on the Enhanced Cooperation
Agreement to give the U.S. access to five bases on a rotating
basis that would help them to be able to gather some maritime
domain awareness of what China is up to in the South China Sea.
Now they have this crisis with Islamic militants in Mindanao
where Aquino had a peace agreement a couple years ago. It did
not work. Now they suddenly have a war breaking out again. And
a lot of the young soldiers who were in the MLF, the key group
in the peace process are suddenly saying, there is no peace
dividend for us, so what the heck?
We are now starting to get external fighters from
Indonesia, Malaysia, people coming from Iraq and Syria. So you
have a situation that is quite dangerous.
So this is the tension that you were asking about. How do
you balance human rights versus security concerns?
I think we need to keep trying to talk to President
Duterte. We have to recognize he has only five more years in
office. There will be a transition. We cannot just isolate the
whole country, I think, because of him.
The military, as I was alluding to in my references to the
Leahy amendment, the military is still, roughly, minding its
P's and Q's, following general rules of engagement that we can
accept, in that it is not doing the human rights violations and
not participating in the drug war.
This is a walk-and-chew-gum kind of situation where we need
to try to keep pressure on, but we can only do so much in the
larger context of a president who is very mercurial, and with
whom we have other issues to deal with.
This is one that the U.S. has been struggling with a lot. I
do not know how you go deeper with him when he cannot take
criticism at all.
Ambassador Mitchell. If I could just add one thing, he is
not just mercurial. He is also very popular at home, which even
complicates it even further, if you are thinking about popular
opinion and democracy and the rest.
Human rights are human rights, and they are inviolable,
regardless if it is supported by the majority of people. But it
is much more difficult when someone feels politically he is
getting advantaged, or at least no disadvantage, from doing
this. And people even support him for his strong hand.
Senator Gardner. Ambassador King, would you like to address
anything in the Philippines?
Ambassador King. Not really.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
I do want to follow up to talk about communication within
North Korea. The North Korea sanctions act that this Congress
passed last Congress authorized additional dollars to go toward
finding new ways to communicate to try to reach out to the
people of North Korea. Those grants have been put forward. They
have been authorized, appropriated.
Is that effective? We have talked about some of the
programs that have taken place, making sort of reality TV shows
about North Korean defectors living in South Korea, living in
the United States, what that is like, what that means. Is there
a more effective way? What are hearing from defectors? Is there
new technology that we ought to be thinking about that we can
utilize? Or is it radios and thumb drives still? Is there an
additional avenue? Are there additional avenues for
communication?
Ambassador King. Radios and thumb drives are still one of
the key elements, in terms of that.
There is a real effort to try to use programs that will
reach out and will provide opportunities for getting
information in. It is not easy. The North Koreans are very
savvy on cyber issues.
The cell phones in North Korea are incredibly difficult to
use illegally. You cannot make calls outside of the country on
the phones. There is no access to the Internet inside North
Korea. There is intranet, which is basically state propaganda.
So it is a very difficult kind of process.
In spite of that fact, people are interested in knowing
what is going on elsewhere. People do watch South Korean films.
South Korean films are very popular in North Korea. South
Korean soap operas are popular all over Asia, and they are very
popular in North Korea.
So some information is getting in. We just need to continue
to work at it. We need to continue to probe. It is not a cheap
process, and we need to continue to support those efforts to
see that that happens.
You mentioned questions about life of defectors and how
that affects what is going on. Based on polling of defectors
from North Korea, and also people who are temporarily in China
who are willing to talk to people they do not know who are
tallying results, it indicates that there is great interest in
life of defectors in South Korea and in the United States.
So the programs are geared to the kinds of things that
North Koreans are interested in, and I think they have had some
success, in terms of dealing with that.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Senator Markey, I do not know if you have any questions or
if you wanted to continue the conversation?
Senator Markey. No, I am fine. Thank you.
Senator Gardner. I think it is important, as we talked
about Senator Markey's last question, we talked about U.S.
engagement and concerns over U.S. withdrawal. All of us, I
believe, supported the previous administration's stated
objectives of a rebalance or pivot, or whatever word they
wanted to use. But what we have lacked in this country, I
believe, is a long-term strategy when it comes to Asia. It is
something that exceeds a 4-year or 8-year term of a President.
So what we are trying to develop, and with your help, we
will develop, that policy through ARIA, the Asia Reassurance
Initiative, that really does place U.S. interests back into
play in the region, because of nations, as you have described,
that are desperately looking for that partnership with the
United States, desperately looking for somebody other than
China, whose rules and norms are not in the interests that they
want to pursue for trade, for security, for democracy.
So as we look at ways to strengthen the rule of law and
democracy, this information has been invaluable, and I
appreciate it. But know that that is the entire purpose of
these hearings, to pass legislation, put it in a law that
develops 10, 20 more years of strategy, presence, leadership in
Asia. Now is our chance in an area of the world that has
growing populations, growing economic power. It is something
that we cannot turn our backs on.
So, Senator Markey, thank you.
Senator Markey. If you do not mind?
Senator Gardner. Yes, please.
Senator Markey. Just one more question. It is only on this
question of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines and who
they are, and what their funding sources are, and whether or
not an American cut-off of security assistance targeted at the
groups that are engaged in the extrajudicial killings and those
that are responsible for capturing vigilantes but are not doing
so, is there a role that the U.S. can play in trying to at
least specifically target those funds that we provide to the
Philippine Government as a carefully calibrated attempt to
impact that kind of conduct that we are unhappy with?
Does anyone have a recommendation?
Mr. Hiebert. Probably about a third or so, or 40 percent,
of the killings are by the police. Then about 60 percent are
being done by these vigilante groups. They are just
freelancing.
On the police, the U.S. has at least once in recent months
stopped the sale of weaponry, of guns. Obviously, providing
weaponry would be something that we could look at.
Senator Markey. What part of the Philippine security
apparatus is actually implicated in vigilantism?
Mr. Hiebert. The National Police. The vigilantes, boy----
Senator Markey. Failing to pursue--inside of the
government, there is obviously a failure to pursue these
vigilantes. So what part of the security apparatus inside of
the Philippines is actually turning a blind eye to the
vigilantes, are basically part and parcel of the problem?
Mr. Hiebert. It is the police who are turning a blind eye
and just letting these guys operate, because they are sort of
doing their work for them, without getting their hands dirty.
But I think, obviously, cutting off the provision of
equipment to the police might be one thing.
But looking for ways to cut the flow of drugs might be
something the U.S. could help with. I am not sure to what
extent the government is open to this, they took some aid from
the Chinese to set up detox camps for 10,000 people at a time,
but it is kind of ironic that most of the drugs that are coming
to the Philippines are from China. If China just cut off the
supply, it might help.
But maybe there would be ways, I know this is happening
already, but to do more showing what other alternatives there
are for dealing with drug addicts, rather than just gunning
them down on the side of the road and claiming they were drug
dealers. There might be some openness to that. Senator de Lima,
a former Justice Secretary, has taken on Duterte on the
violence of the drug war. She does not sit quite as comfortably
as you guys do, with all due respect. She is sitting in prison
because she criticized him too much, and he just found ways to
get rid of her.
So it is tough, but I think we could probably find ways to
offer some alternatives for dealing with drug addicts.
Senator Markey. You raise the China question. They are the
source of fentanyl in the United States. In Massachusetts, it
is now killing 75 percent of our opioid overdose victims. That
comes right out of China. It will be two-thirds to three-
quarters of all Americans in another very brief period of time
who will be dying from that. That is a Chinese issue as well.
So you are right. The Chinese have an ability to kind of
control that spigot, to a very large extent, in an
authoritarian country, and they are not doing so. So I thank
you for pointing out that issue in the Philippines as well.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Thanks to everyone for attending today's hearing, and to
the witnesses for providing your testimony.
This is the homework assignment. For the information of
members, the record will remain open until the close of
business Friday, including for members to submit questions for
the record.
I just ask you kindly to respond to those questions as
quickly as possible, so that they can be made a part of the
record.
Senator Gardner. Again, thanks to all of you for being
here, and this committee is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:43 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN
THE ASIA-PACIFIC--
PART 4: VIEW FROM BEIJING
----------
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2017
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and
International Cybersecurity Policy,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:40 p.m. in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Cory Gardner,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Gardner [presiding], Barrasso, Markey,
Murphy, and Kaine.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORY GARDNER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
Senator Gardner. This hearing will come to order. Let me
welcome you to the fifth hearing for the Senate Foreign
Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and
International Cybersecurity Policy in the 115th Congress.
Thanks to my colleague, Senator Markey, for working with us
on what I think has been a very good series of hearings this
Congress. It is the fourth hearing this year in the
subcommittee that is specifically dedicated to building out
various aspects of U.S. policy challenges and opportunities in
Asia from security threats to economic engagement to human
rights.
President Trump has just concluded a landmark visit to the
region, the longest by a U.S. President in over 25 years. His
attendance of the APEC summit in Vietnam and the ASEAN summit
in the Philippines I believe sends an important reassurance
signal to nations in the region that the United States remains
engaged and willing to lead.
These hearings are also informing new legislation that we
are working on that I am leading called the Asia Reassurance
Initiative Act, or ARIA, which will seek to build out a long-
term vision for United States policy to ensure a free and open
Indo-Pacific region. I look forward to working with Senator
Markey and other colleagues to introduce this legislation very
soon.
At our first hearing on March 29th, we focused on the
growing security challenges in the region, including North
Korea, South China Sea, and terrorism in Southeast Asia. We
agreed at that hearing that we must strengthen U.S. defense
posture and increase security engagement with our allies in the
region.
At our second hearing on May 24th, we focused on the
importance of U.S. economic leadership in Asia. We agreed at
that hearing that while the administration and Congress might
differ on global trade strategy, we cannot ignore the
fundamental fact that it is Asia and Asia will be critical for
the U.S. economy to grow and for the American people to prosper
through trade opportunities.
At our third hearing on July 12th, we focused on projecting
U.S. values in the region, including the promotion of
democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. We agreed that
the active promotion of these fundamental values only
reinforces American leadership in Asia and reflects our core
beliefs as a nation that human rights are universal rights,
without exception.
Today's hearing will consider the U.S. relationship with
the Peoples Republic of China, the region's rising power and
our closest near-peer strategic competitor. We will examine
Beijing's views of U.S. actions and intentions in the Indo-
Pacific and how these perceptions will shape the strategic
landscape for the next generation of policymakers in both
capitals.
We already know that, as once hoped, China's rise--our
concern may be less than peaceful. Economic growth and the
emergence of a middle class has not tempered the Communist
Party's hegemonic and nationalist impulses, including the
recent destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas,
continued belligerence toward Taiwan and the bullying of
China's neighbor, South Korea.
As President Xi Jinping consolidates power domestically, it
is clear that China also increasingly views its increasing
economic and military power in the region as a zero sum game
with the United States.
I hope our distinguished witnesses today can shed light on
a U.S. policy toward China that avoids conflicts but also meets
key U.S. national and security goals of a free and open Indo-
Pacific region.
I will turn it over to Senator Markey for his opening
comments and again thank him for working in this committee to
make these hearings a success. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
this very important hearing and thank you for the tremendous
lineup of witnesses which you have gathered here today.
The alliance framework in the Asia-Pacific has allowed the
United States to benefit from the economic dynamism in the
region and safely address the pressing security challenges in
the region. For this reason, continued American leadership in
the region is essential for global peace and security.
But to lead in the Asia-Pacific, we must understand China's
strategic intentions and their impact on the United States. To
do this, we must look back at history.
Out of the ashes of World War II, the United States led a
broad effort to create a new global system, one that would not
only promote U.S. interests, but also benefit the entire world,
one that would reduce the likelihood of devastating global
conflict, while helping those around the world prosper, and one
that would uphold respect for national sovereignty and freedom
from coercion.
The system's ability to overcome the unique characteristics
of the Asia-Pacific has proved its staying power. Longstanding
American security alliances have deterred threats and helped
establish a balance of power. Through American development
programs and institutions like the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund, the United States helped unleash
unprecedented economic growth and stabilize a fragile Asia-
Pacific, all the while promoting democracy, human rights, and
the rule of law in the region, core values for all people.
China particularly benefited tremendously from this system.
With a stable security environment and access to global
markets, China's economy has grown to $9.5 trillion, a 15-fold
increase over the past 30 years, lifting 800 million of its
citizens out of poverty.
China's rapid development has helped spur closer people-to-
people relations with the United States. In 2016, there were
over 300,000 Chinese students studying in U.S. universities.
And we have cooperated for the global good in a number of key
areas, including on the successful conclusion of the
multilateral deal to restrict Iran's ability to develop nuclear
weapons.
And as China seeks to play a larger international role,
President Xi wants it to construct a fairer global governance
system. But while all countries helped shaped the international
system, they and especially China should work through existing
institutions and in support of the system's key tenets that
have benefited countries across the globe.
Unfortunately, China is challenging the very underpinnings
of the global order that has brought peace and prosperity.
First, China has not lived up to its international
obligations to help denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. No
country has greater leverage than China, which is responsible
for approximately 90 percent of North Korean trade. Oil still
flows over the border, which I saw firsthand during my trip to
Dandong on the Yalu River in August. China must cut off these
shipments to get Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table.
It has done so before, including in 2006, and it must do so
again.
But China is challenging the international system elsewhere
as well. It has constructed, in violation of international law,
military bases on artificial islands in disputed areas of the
South China Sea.
Through economic coercion, Beijing undermined the
sovereignty of its smaller neighbors. Countries including South
Korea and the Philippines face Chinese retaliation for taking
legal and sovereign actions in their own defense.
And China's signature Belt and Road initiative, which aims
to position China as the uncontested leading power in Asia, may
further coerce its neighbors through loans they cannot repay.
U.S. companies face the threat of intellectual property
theft, with the media reporting that China has been stealing
cutting-edge research, as well as sensitive trade secrets from
the United States. And that includes companies working in the
clean energy sector who cannot compete with state-backed firms.
So this is a very important hearing. We must ensure that we
protect both U.S. economic and security interests, as well as
the broader international system that has helped provide peace
and stability in the Asia-Pacific and beyond.
And I look forward to exploring those issues with our
witnesses today. Again, an incredible panel you have put
together.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Markey. I agree with
you on the incredible and outstanding quality of our witnesses.
So, I thank the witnesses for your public service, all of you,
and thank you for being here today.
We are joined as well by Senator Barrasso and Senator
Murphy. Thank you very much for being a part of this committee
hearing today.
We will now turn to witness testimony. I will introduce all
three witnesses and then you can proceed with your testimony.
We will begin with Ambassador Baucus and then Dr. Pillsbury,
and Dr. Allison will be third. Thank you very much.
Our first witness is the Honorable Max Baucus who most
recently served as United States Ambassador to the People's
Republic of China from 2014 to 2017. Obviously, no stranger to
the United States Senate. He served as a Senator from Montana
for 36 years from 1978 to 2014, including as chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee from 2007 until his departure to
become Ambassador. Welcome, Ambassador Baucus. Thank you very
much for your service.
We will also introduce the next two witnesses. Dr. Michael
Pillsbury serves as the Senior Fellow and Director for the
Center for Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute. Dr.
Pillsbury is a distinguished defense policy advisor, former
high-ranking government official, and author of numerous books
and reports on China. He served as an Assistant Under Secretary
of Defense for Policy Planning in the Reagan administration and
has also served on the staff of four U.S. Senate committees
from 1978 to 1984 and from 1986 to 1981. Welcome, Dr.
Pillsbury. Thank you as well.
Our final witness today is Dr. Graham Allison who serves as
the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard
Kennedy School. Dr. Allison is a leading analyst of U.S.
national security and defense policy. He is probably the one
that rejected my application to Harvard. As Assistant Secretary
of Defense in the first Clinton administration, Dr. Allison
received the Defense Department's highest civilian award, the
Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Allison has
also served as special advisor to the Secretary of Defense
under President Reagan. Welcome, Dr. Allison.
To all three of you, thank you.
Ambassador Baucus, if you would proceed with your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. MAX BAUCUS, FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR
TO THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, BOZEMAN, MONTANA
Ambassador Baucus. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is
sort of serendipitous to be back here in this position. Thank
you very much for calling this hearing. Senator Markey, Senator
Murphy, Senator Barrasso, I served with two of you, did not
serve with the other two of you, which is some indication of
how quickly times change around here. But it is an honor to be
here.
I have just got a couple things to say and I will summarize
my statement.
First, I loved this job representing the United States in
China. It is the best job I ever had. I loved serving Montana
in the United States Senate, Chairman of the Finance Committee,
but I got to tell you representing the United States in China
was terrific for two reasons.
One is the people. Chinese people are so energetic. They
are so practical, pragmatic. They are positive. They are
competitive. They are almost survivalists. There is such energy
there, frankly more than we find in the United States. Chinese
people believe more in their future than we Americans generally
do in ours.
Second is just the reward of working on this relationship,
U.S.-China. I very much believe--it has been said many times
before and said many times in the future--that this is the most
important relationship in the world, U.S.-China. It is going to
determine so much. Whether we work well together or do not, it
is going to affect the qualify of lives of our people, our kids
and our grandkids, as well as the quality of lives of Chinese
people, their kids and their grandkids. In many respects we are
very similar. Chinese leadership is worried about its people;
American leadership is concerned about our people. We are
similar in that respect.
But there are major, major differences. One is this. I
think we Americans get indulged in this concept of
exceptionalism. We Americans assume that if we just keep
working with other people, other countries, the Chinese, they
are going to be just like us. They would be more like us. Just
keep working. That is the assumption. And I can tell you that
is an incorrect assumption. China is China. The United States
is the United States. We are very different countries, very
different forms of government, and we have to recognize that.
We think ours is superior; they think theirs is superior.
I remember talking to a good number of Chinese leaders who
I could quote to great length saying that their socialism with
Chinese characteristics is vastly superior to ours. Why? Well,
look, in one of your statements, how far China has come in the
last 30-40 years, saying to me that they believe that they
could never have progressed as quickly, as far under
capitalism, under democracy. It never would have happened. And
there is probably some truth to that.
They do believe they are superior. They think they are the
model for other developing countries, Africa, wherever in the
world because they are so much more efficient. They can get so
much more done so much more quickly. We have to recognize that
and deal with that.
We pride ourselves as Americans in our Judeo-Christian
ethic, in our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, separation of
powers, independent judiciary. It is our way. We think it is
the right way. We assume too much it is the right way. We think
it is right for us. We do think it is right for others, but we
cannot assume that others are going to adopt it if they have a
different point of view. In this case, China has a very
different point of view.
You have to remember, as has been said many times--and I
think there is a lot to it--China is so proud of its history,
thousands of years of history. We are such a young country,
really 240-250 years. That is all we are. They are thousands of
years. And the Middle Kingdom was the center of the universe
for thousands of years. They would ask people to come and pay
tribute, not to trade with them, just pay tribute, to kowtow to
the emperors of the Middle Kingdom, but not do deals, just
other countries would be subservient to them.
Do not forget, about 1830, 32 percent of the world GDP was
Chinese. America at that year was about 2 percent. They were 32
percent. Look at what has changed during the Industrial
Revolution and then China subsequently went inward. They now
think after 200 years of humiliation controlled by the
Japanese, French, Americans, Brits, and so forth that now their
time has come. Their time has come to regain their rightful
position as, if not the world leader, at least a major leader
in the world. And it is very difficult to know how far that is
going to go.
I was in Beijing just a couple weeks ago. I was surprised
to learn from a number of Chinese who believe that, gee, you
Americans, you pursued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. You
Americans wanted to keep the Europeans out of your sphere.
Well, we Chinese--you know, it is our turn now. You should not
interfere with what we are doing. Basically they are trying to
set up a duality where China controls this part of the world.
They want the United States to control this part of the world.
Of course, that is never going to work. Times have changed so
much. But that is a lot of their thinking right now as they try
to figure out what makes best sense for them.
China, remember this, is authoritarian, one party rule. The
party is everything. It is involved in all parts of Chinese
society. The 19th party congress enhanced President Xi's power
but also very much it enhanced the role of the party in Chinese
society. Xi's thought is embedded in the constitution. So if
you question President Xi, you are not questioning him. You are
questioning the party because his thoughts are in the
constitution. It was a very, very major change.
They are doing this in part--the party is--to maintain
control. Part of the Faustian bargain, the party believes, we
take care you, we take care of the people, and you do not
question our legitimacy. That is part of the deal.
But in addition they believe with much greater party
control, they then can control their destiny. They can decide
what direction they want to go as a country free from internal
discord. If the party has control, they are able to control
what happens. That came through in spades to me just in the
last couple weeks when I was over there talking to some Chinese
officials.
This became crystallized for me in November 2014. President
Obama was visiting President Xi at a summit meeting there in
Zhongnanhai. And President Xi, you could tell--he was worried
about American involvement in Hong Kong thinking we Americans
are fomenting unrest in Hong Kong. President Obama said, oh,
no. We do not do that. But he did say, you have got to remember
that human rights is very much in our DNA. It is in our
Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of
Rights. So when Members of Congress stand up on behalf of human
rights in Hong Kong, you got to remember that is in American
DNA. He also said it is in my DNA too.
President Xi then responded by saying talking about the
role of emperors in China. And emperors in Chinese history take
care of the people. And if people are happy, they could stay in
power. He said the role of the party now is to take care of the
people. It even trumps human rights, he said. All is taking
care of the people irrespective of human rights or anything
else. So he believes and the government believes they can
people happy by more income--income is rising--address air
pollution, water pollution, food safety, more health care.
People will be happy and then they will stay in power and they
can do what they think makes sense for them tapping into the
strong nationalism that occurs in that country.
So the question is what do we do. What do we do about all
this?
Number one, I believe--and this is kind of a fanciful
recommendation--if we could load up a 747 full of Members of
Congress, members of the executive branch, media, business
people, fly over to China, go around China for a couple of
weeks, go to different provinces, talk to the party
secretaries, talk to the business people, Chinese business
people, American business people doing business in China,
seeing is believing. We know that. 80 percent of life is
showing up. If more Members of Congress and more American
officials spent a lot more time in China, tasting it, feeling
it, smelling it, know what it is, this could make a huge, huge
difference. There is just too much abstract thinking about
China, not enough concrete because we are just not there
enough.
Second, we all know that China thinks long-term. China is
strategic. They have kind of got a plan. It is opaque. It is
behind closed doors, but it is a plan. We Americans are just so
ad hoc in our decision-making it is embarrassing. During the
last 3 years when I was there, I was part of many discussions,
the administration, what do we do about this, what do we do
about that. It was all reactive. It was all reactive. There was
no paradigm. There was no structure. There was no plan that the
various parts could potentially be part of.
It is very hard in our form of government to develop a
longer-term plan. Congress people come and go. Presidents do.
It is very hard. But I think we have to try. We have to do
whatever we can to develop a longer strategic plan. And I think
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee can play a very good
role here by having lots of hearings on various aspects of
China and keep it up every year so there is a history built up
and there is a record so this is institutionalized if we work
on this question.
Number three, you got to stand up to China. You got to
stand up to them. Do not forget. We are process-oriented--we,
Americans. We are kind of the arbiters. It is kind of neutral.
The similar analogy is when you are treading water, you are
sinking. You know, we do not have a real aggressive plan. We do
not want to take advantage of other people. We do not want them
to take advantage of us. But we do not have a plan that is more
far-reaching that one could put one's finger on that is
tangible and get a sense of. China does. They have got their
plan, and it is more action-oriented. It is more proactive. We
do not do that as Americans. But we have got to stand up to
them because if we do not, they will just keep going. They will
just keep going until finally somebody stands up to them.
I want to mention very briefly two instances where we did
stand up and it really worked.
We are quite concerned, obviously, about the island buildup
in the South China Sea. We watched with great frustration as
China one step at a time--it is similar to the Chinese board
game of wei qi. We play chess in the West. They play go and wei
qi in the East. And they are just salami slicing a step at a
time, and the proof is when the game is over because you have
just surrounded your opponent. You just won. That is just the
way it is. That is what they did in the South China Sea.
President Xi came over one day. It was just before a
summit. And President Obama proudly said to President Xi do not
go there. He was talking about Scarborough Shoal just outside
the Philippines. He said if you occupy Scarborough Shoal, there
will be immense consequences. You will rue the day that you did
this. I am not telling you what the consequences will be, but
do not do it. They stopped. They did not do it.
There were other examples. But you have to stand up in my
judgment not with tweets, not publicly, not with name-calling,
but privately and show, because you have thought through with
your strategic plan, that you mean it. And you have to game it
out. They will retaliate. We will have to figure out what our
counter is, back and forth, but they have to see that we really
mean it. Many times in my experience when we do stand up--but
you got to stand up, you got to know you are standing up--they
will say, okay, I guess we cannot quite go there.
So that is just my basic prescription: spend a lot more
time in China to understand it, develop a plan, and just be
firm. Chinese people are wonderful. It is great potential here
for our two countries.
And I have got one more final point here. Part of the last
point is speaking truth to power. I, after a while, in all the
meetings I had, would ask questions. I would interrupt the
interlocutor who was reading from his talking points. Just ask
questions. Break in mid-sentence. Give me an example of that.
Explain more fully. They liked it. You got to speak truth to
power.
And second, I did this very frequently. I think Professor
Allison will appreciate this. At many, many meetings, I just
asked the Thucydides Trap question. I would say, look, your GDP
is doubling every 10 years. Your military spending is doubling
in 5 or 6 years. We look at the trend line, and what are we to
think, we Americans, we Westerners? It is not only what you
say. It is what you do. What are your actions to show that you
really want to work with us so we can avoid the trap? I would
ask that question constantly. They would always listen. They
would not respond, but they listened. And my judgment is we
have to keep asking that question of the Chinese and of
ourselves because they are rising, established, things are
going to change. And it is another reason for those longer-term
strategic hearings which I recommend this committee pursue at
great length because I think it is really key.
Thank you very much, and I apologize for speaking over my
allotted time.
[Ambassador Baucus's prepared statement is located at the
end of this hearing transcript.]
Senator Gardner. No. Thank you, Ambassador.
I know several of you have family members here. So thank
you for joining us as well.
Dr. Pillsbury?
STATEMENT OF DR. MICHAEL PILLSBURY, SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR,
CENTER FOR CHINESE STRATEGY, HUDSON INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Dr. Pillsbury. I want to agree with all three of Senator
Baucus' recommendations, although I am not sure we should put
all of the Congress on one 747 at the same time. [Laughter.]
Dr. Pillsbury. More knowledge of China, a deeper role, a
bigger role for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the
Senate in general, and number three, standing up to China.
Let me go back to Senator Markey's opening statement. The
Senate Foreign Relations Committee by its visits and by its
legislation--and here I want to specifically praise Senator
John Barrasso for being one of the cosponsors of the
legislation introduced last week to strengthen CFIUS. This is
landmark legislation. It has nine cosponsors already: five
Republicans, four Democrats, including Dianne Feinstein. Your
House parallel legislation sponsors stood up last week and said
this is about China, whereas the Senators so far have been more
tactful. This is about any country whose investments in our
country need to be monitored or restricted.
This particular piece of legislation is an example of I
think what Senator Baucus is talking about: Senate or
congressional leadership on forming a long-term strategy toward
China. The Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution a
really crucial role for the Senate, not just in the
confirmation process, but in the treaty ratification process
which, if you have read some of the early stories of George
Washington and Henry Knox, for the first treaty they thought
they would just show it to the Senate for a few minutes and
then take it back. And the Senators said, no, we need to keep
it overnight. And there was something close to a tug-of-war.
Accounts vary on whether the President would let the Senators
have the treaty overnight. The Senate won.
And the role of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in
particular in its oversight of the State Department, can serve
not just as a kind of source of advice, but also legislation.
And I provide in my paper 10 or 11 examples of some really
specific things that I believe are already being worked on. I
certainly support Senator Gardner's effort at the Asian
Reassurance Initiative.
There is a parallel effort, as you know, with Chairman
McCain over in the Armed Services Committee. I was pleased in
Singapore in June to hear Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis
endorse the McCain initiative. It is not clear what the $300
million or $400 million exactly would be spent for, but the
intent is clear, that our Asian allies and partners do not have
shared situational awareness of what is going on in Asia.
The Indians fairly recently were joking about we want to
make the Indian Ocean, the Indian Ocean, by which they meant
the purchase of several billion dollars worth of American P-8
aircraft which have weapons systems in the back that can sink
ships frankly and other improvements, including maritime
situational awareness and a big new center in Delhi where the
Indians can keep track of both blue hulls and gray hulls going
through the Indian Ocean. The Chinese are very angry about
this. They have criticized the Obama administration for its
effort to, as they say, boost India to a higher rank order in
comprehensive power than the Chinese believe India deserves.
So I think it is a very good thing that Chairman Gardner
mentioned the Indo-Pac region and this new concept which we
have now heard more than 50 times by members of the Trump
administration, including the President himself on his trip, a
free and open Indo-Pacific region.
The Chinese have already attacked this. They do not like
it. It is probably an example of what Senator Baucus mentioned,
standing up to China, because frankly there is quite a long
list of Chinese initiatives to which the United States has not
responded. One of them is the Belt and Road initiative that
Senator Markey mentioned. I completely agree with him that they
are offering low-interest loans to countries that cannot afford
it. We are already faced with the example of Sri Lanka, which
fell behind in its payments, and then was the subject of
coercion that if you transfer the main port here in Sri Lanka
to Chinese control, we will forgive the debt. The Sri Lankans
did it.
A similar operation has occurred recently with assuming the
control, financially at least, of the main port of Greece,
Piraeus, and then asking the Greeks to interfere and block
European Union human rights action.
So we are beginning to see just through the media what the
Belt and Road initiative may mean. However, the only statesman
in the world who stood up to it yet is Prime Minister Modi. He
and his team have been quite outspoken partly because the Belt
and Road initiative includes violation of Indian sovereign
claims. But the United States Government up till now--and this
is a 5-year-old initiative if you count the early part of it--
has been silent. We sent our National Security Council staff,
senior director for East Asia, to the Belt and Road summit who
said something positive about American companies, but he
neither opposed nor supported the Belt and Road initiative.
There are several others. One is the new model of great
power relations that in many ways anticipates Professor
Allison's excellent book. The new model of great power
relations has been proposed by President Xi. He has described
it as a personal signature initiative. A gentleman named Wang
Huning, who is now on the standing committee of the Politburo,
is the scholar allegedly who thought it up. We have had no
answer to it.
Susan Rice, John Kerry, President Obama, all three have
said we should explore it or try to see what it means but have
not endorsed it. Neither did President Trump on this trip.
Frankly, if you ask the Chinese--and I agree with Senator
Baucus about how energetic they are. If you say what is the new
model of great power relations, they say, well, it replaces the
old model. And what is the old model? Well, it is the main
theme of Graham Allison's ``Destined for War.'' In the old
model, the rising power either starts a war with the hegemon or
the hegemon starts a war with the rising power.
So you would think who could be against the new model. But
then it turns out the new model does not explain who a great
power is, whether India, the European Union, or Japan qualify
or it is just a G-2 bilateral arrangement. It does not explain
whether the use of force would ever be justified by the United
States. It sounds in some ways as if the new model of great
power relations, if we would agree to it, is saying we will not
come to the defense of any ally in the region against China.
So the Senate has yet to speak on those two Chinese
initiatives, and there are several others. One is the Asia for
the Asians concept where our embassy asked to be at least an
observer down in Shanghai to go to this confidence building
conference, and we were told no. You can be an observer, but
when we say Asia for the Asians, we do not include the United
States.
There is another vague concept, one I personally love,
called the Community of Common Destiny. This was repeated
several times in President Xi's 3-and-a-half hour speech. No
one quite knows what the Community of Common Destiny is. But
Senator Baucus mentioned the old tribute system, and there is
some reason to believe that that is really what it is. It is
reactivating a common destiny led by China.
And that lets me mention my agreement with Professor
Allison on Lee Kuan Yew. Your first set of four or five
questions for the hearing asked about Chinese intentions. And
there is really no better answer than what Lee Kuan Yew gave. I
will see if I can get the exact quote here. ``It is China's
intention to be the greatest power in the world.''
Now, we used to take that with complacency because of what
was called the China collapse theory, that they are going to
fall apart. They have no chance to be the greatest power in the
world. That book came out, ``The Coming Collapse of China,'' in
2002. 15 years later, China's GDP has not only doubled. It has
almost tripled. So the China collapse theory, which Graham
Allison essentially attacks in his book and I attack in my
book, essentially is no longer credible in my view. They have
problems but they know what to do about those problems.
So just a list, in closing, the 10 steps that I think are
under consideration.
You may think this is trivial, but we have sued China more
than any other country in the World Trade Organization in
Geneva. The experts tell me we could have sued China and should
a great deal more times, but there is a limit on the number of
lawyers on the Department of Justice payroll for designing and
crafting often very complex lawsuits so that the suit succeeds
in Geneva.
Number two, the comprehensive CFIUS reform. I love the
Cornyn-Feinstein bill, but it does not mention the allies. We
have got to coordinate with the European Union and especially
Germany and France about these Chinese investments undergoing
scrutiny. A number of European Union leaders have already come
out for this in the last couple of months. I think we should be
joining them on joint scrutiny of sensitive Chinese investments
that either challenge national security or are opaque because
you cannot tell what a Chinese company is, whether it is part
of the government or not. The fact that Senator Dianne
Feinstein supports this legislation I think is very important.
So does Richard Burr, the chairman on the Intelligence
Committee.
Number three, I mentioned that more coordination with
allies. What I took out of President Trump's trip was that he
spent a lot of time with three multilateral organizations. It
was not just five countries being visited bilaterally. That is
important. It seems to me nothing really of significance along
the lines of what Senator Baucus is calling for can be achieved
in Asia or the Indo-Pacific region without allies and partners.
We cannot underline that enough.
Number four is an old pitch. Professor Allison's book says
China is going to deny us a Sputnik moment because China does
not want us to give a boost to STEM, to federally funded R&D.
We should do it on our own. There are a lot of good ideas from
the Senate Competitiveness Caucus, from what is called the
ITIF, and from another set of groups who work on competition
showing that federally funded R&D is the source of our global
superiority. Yet, we have dropped from 2 percent to about a
half of 1 percent in our federal funds.
I think publishing a list of Chinese companies who engage
in intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices would
not only inform possible litigants but also puts the Chinese on
notice we are watching this kind of behavior that Senator
Markey alluded to.
Finally, measures to provide U.S. companies a better
understanding of state-owned entities is important because when
something like the purchase of the Waldorf Astoria takes place,
on the surface it looks wonderful. It is a good deal for the
Waldorf Astoria. But what is the nature of this Anbang
insurance company? The CEO has now disappeared in China, and
the more people examine it, the more it clearly has very close
relationship perhaps under the control of the Chinese
Government.
I mentioned in passing the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
and the Economic Espionage Act could use revisiting. As you
know, when a state-owned company in China is active here and is
sued, you would think a judge would say, well, we cannot attach
those assets because you do not really have any presence. We
can attach another state-owned company. The judges have been
saying the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act is unclear.
The Economic Espionage Act, if you go to the DOJ website
for last year, it makes you want to cry. Almost 100 cases of
sensitive U.S. trade and national security information
disappearing. And frankly, just to give you one of the most
dramatic examples, a gentleman is now doing 7 years in prison
because he fell in love with a Chinese woman. The judge at his
sentencing--Senator Baucus, the judge at the sentencing said
you fell in love with this woman, you lost control. I am only
giving you 7 years because you did not really harm the United
States. You did not intend to.
Well, what had he done? The FBI and DOJ have put up the
details. He had a highly classified document called the DOD
Strategy for China. Despite Professor Allison criticizing the
government that we have no strategy, apparently we did. It was
published in 2012 and 2 years later apparently is in the hands
of the Chinese. That is not all. There is quite a long list of
documents that he either gave Ms. Lee or were around in his
home while she was there. It is well worth reading, the DOJ
website. You may think what could be more boring than that, but
the cases are dramatic.
Finally, another thing we have not responded to as a
government is the new Made in China 2025 plan, which on its
face is a violation of the WTO. You simply cannot say we will
have government procurement in China to dominate 10 sectors in
violation of the WTO, and they are close to saying that.
Finally, something I sort of brought up as one of my 12
recommendations in my own book, we have never done an inventory
of all the U.S. Government-funded activities for the last 40
years to help China. Some of it is quite stunning. The National
Science Foundation, if you go to its website to apply for a
grant--and by the way, Graham, they have them in political
science too--you get a bonus if you have a Chinese partner. We
have almost 100 agreements with various scientific agencies in
China to provide scientific discoveries immediately to China.
And they have been known in a rather cheeky way to complain to
the embassy in Beijing, hey, we read about this, this new gene
editing device. You have not transferred it to us yet and tweak
the NSF or the embassy minister counselor of science and
technology. That is really possibly a good thing in some areas.
We ought to cooperate in cancer research. We ought to cooperate
in improving weather forecasts with this joint of fleet of
ships we have in the South Pacific.
But I think the Senate should know the total inventory of
these programs, none of which has been blessed with legislative
approval. In many cases, you find weird programs where someone
discovered prairie grass roots can be made deeper and save a
massive area of the country. The relevant government department
simply transferred it to China. There is no sense of
competitiveness with the Chinese in very sharp contrast to
Senator Baucus' invocation of their competitive attitudes.
And finally, the intelligence efforts. The FBI asks every
year for more money for Chinese industrial espionage in
particular, cyber theft as well. The FBI deserves a real
incentive for what they have done so far, but they say more
needs to be done. And part of the reason is again what Senator
Baucus opened up with, Chinese exceptionalism. They seem to
have a very different concept of espionage than we do and than
the Soviets did, not official cover agents in embassies going
to cocktail parties and trying to recruit agents. On the
contrary, something very different that operates not out of
embassies but out of almost anywhere else. And that is very
expensive to cover. But if this list I mentioned of the recent
cases last year is any guide, we are under a real challenge
from a Chinese collection system that takes your breath away.
Thank you.
[Dr. Pillsbury's prepared statement is located at the end
of this hearing transcript.]
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Dr. Pillsbury.
We are joined by Senator Kaine.
Professor Allison, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF DR. GRAHAM ALLISON, DOUGLAS DILLON PROFESSOR OF
GOVERNMENT, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Dr. Allison. Thank you very much. It is a great honor to
appear with distinguished colleagues. I find much in what they
have said to agree with.
Let me commend you and the committee for trying to
investigate this topic because I do not think there is a more
important topic for the U.S. today.
So I will try to summarize my points briefly. They
basically come out of this book that I have recently published
called ``Destined for War: Can America and China Escape
Thucycides's Trap?'' and I think copies of the book were
delivered to your offices previously.
So I will try to make six or seven propositions.
First, the U.S. now faces a rising China that today
constitutes a full-spectrum rival. So the notion of we are not
going to have peer competitors, that was then. This is now.
Never before has a country risen so far so fast on so many
different dimensions. Ambassador Baucus and I were talking. He
said he has been gone for 6 months, and he goes back and he is
shocked again. So I try in the first chapter of the book to
give you a shock that just sort of says behold the rise of
China. I quote Vaclav Havel, the former Czech President. Things
have happened so fast we have not yet had time to be
astonished. So I think you should look at the evidence and it
is just overwhelming. And then I think you should go and look
with your own eyes.
Secondly, we should recognize the structural stress that
occurs when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling
power. This dangerous dynamic I call Thucydides Trap, and
Thucydides had this idea about 2,500 years ago. It is a big
idea. So when a rising power threatens to displace a ruling
power, in general poop happens. So in the book, I look at the
last 500 years. I find 16 cases in which this phenomenon
occurred. 12 of them ended in war; 4 of them in not war. So the
proposition that is acclaimed that says war between the U.S.
and China is inevitable would be wrong on the evidence, but to
say that the odds are not good would be correct.
Third proposition. In this dangerous dynamic, the primary
source of risk is not that the rising power decides I am big, I
am strong, it is time for me to fight you. And it is not
generally the case that the ruling power decides you are
getting so big for your britches, I better fight you now
because tomorrow you are going to be even stronger. Instead,
what happens is in this dangerous dynamic a third party's
action becomes a provocation to which one or the other primary
competitors feels obliged to respond, to which then the other
feels obliged to respond, and you get a cascade that drags
people to a place where neither want to be.
So ask yourself how in the world could the assassination of
a relatively minor archduke in June of 1914 have created a
conflagration that burned down the whole of Europe. I have a
good chapter on this in my book. It is a subject I studied when
I was in college. I still cannot tell you the answer. It still
makes no sense. Nobody wanted war. When they thought about what
a war would mean, they knew it would be catastrophic. At the
end of the war, every one of the principal actors had lost what
he cared about most. So if they had been given a chance for a
do-over, nobody would have judged what he did, but the emperor
in Vienna did, thinking I need to hold together my empire. End
of the war, he is gone. His empire is gone.
The Russian czar is backing the Serbs because they are
Orthodox. He had been overthrown by the Bolsheviks. He is gone.
Kaiser is backing his only ally in Vienna. He is gone.
France, society never recovers as a great player.
And Britain, which has been a creditor for 100 years, is
turned into a debtor on a slow slide to decline.
So you do not have to have people that want war. What can
happen is an external event.
And if I think about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962,
which I have studied very carefully, here you see a competition
between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and the risks that were
created by Castro. And then today, the chief candidate or
provocateur is, as President Trump would say, little rocket
man.
So next question. Is Xi and his colleagues, when they are
talking to each other privately--are they serious about
displacing the U.S. as the predominant power in Asia in the
foreseeable future? And I put that question to Lee Kuan Yew who
was the world's premier China watcher until his death in 2015.
I quote in the testimony his answer. He says, ``Of course. Why
not?'' Who could imagine otherwise? How could they not aspire
to be number one in Asia and in time'' beyond?
So Ambassador Baucus talked about China imagines through
all of history, it was the center of the universe. It was the
great power. There was then this interruption, which occurred a
couple hundred years ago. It created centuries of humiliation.
But that was then. We are back and we are going to be back to
the way things were before.
Next to final, what is going to happen in the current
Korean missile crisis, which is just the most dangerous of the
events that is occurring in the context of this Thucydidean
dynamic? So jump ahead a year from today. We will see one of
three things will have happened. One, Kim Jong-un will have
acquired the ability to reliably strike San Francisco or Los
Angeles with a nuclear weapon. Or two, Trump will have
conducted air attacks on North Korea to prevent that happening.
Or three, there will be a minor miracle. Now, I believe in
miracles. So I am praying for the third, but I am not counting
on it.
I would say it is quite possible--I think the first is more
likely than the second, that is, that Kim Jong-un succeeds,
that he will have trumped Trump. And that is not a very good
world either, as I suggest in the piece that I attached to the
testimony.
The second is that we attack North Korea, and if we do, the
normal game that Michael and I have played many, many times at
Defense ends up with North Korea attacks Seoul. We then
suppress the attacks on Seoul. Pretty soon we have attacked a
couple of thousand endpoints. Then there is a second Korean
war. And as Secretary Mattis has testified, in the second
Korean war, make no doubt, we will win. Korea will be unified.
The Kim regime will be gone. But the one question that he has
not been asked is, what about China? And if we cannot imagine
North Korea dragging China and the U.S. into a war that
everyone knows would be nuts and that nobody wants, we should
remember what happened in 1950.
In 1950, North Korea attacked South Korea. We came to the
rescue. MacArthur was pushing the North Koreans right back up
the peninsula. We went across the 38th parallel where the war
started. We were approaching the Chinese border. He thought we
were going to wrap it up, bring the troops home for Christmas.
It was inconceivable to him that a China, which had only the
year before consolidated control of its own country--Mao was
just barely getting over the long, bloody civil war--would
attack Superman. We had a nuclear monopoly. We had just 5 years
before dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War
II. It just was impossible. China was one-fiftieth our size. It
is going to attack us? Never.
But MacArthur woke up one day and here are 300,000 Chinese
and pretty soon a half million others. They beat us right back
down to the 38th parallel and we had to sue for an armistice.
Tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of
Chinese and millions of Koreans died in that war.
But did Mao want a war with the U.S.? Never. Did the U.S.
want a war with China? Never. We did not want the North Koreans
to take over South Korea, and one thing led to the other.
So I would say Chinese say to me--and I think it is
uncertain what they would actually do, but they say we have
established the proposition there is not going to be a unified
Korea that is an American military ally. Mao made that point in
1950, and we should not have to play that game again. I say to
them if you were to get into war with the U.S., every part of
the China dream goes right to hell. And they say, yes, but if
you were to get into a war with us, what is that going to look
like for you? So I would say this is extremely, extremely
dangerous.
Finally, what for the U.S. to do, Senator Baucus' point. In
Washington, I know that you are supposed to describe the
solution to the problem in the same sentence that you describe
the problem. I think that is one of the problems. Okay? So this
is not a fixable Washington problem. This is a condition, like
a chronic condition, that we are going to have to cope with for
as far as we can see: a rising China, a ruling U.S., the stress
and strain that comes in that circumstance. And what I do say
in the book in the conclusion is we need to get the diagnosis
right first. So the medical idea that diagnosis precedes
prescription is a very good insight.
I tried to get the diagnosis right in the book. That is the
purpose of it. In the conclusion I say, if the diagnosis is
correct, what then is required? So if we are facing conditions
of extreme danger, then we have to be smarter. We have to be
more imaginative. We have to be more adaptive. And I would say
in this current situation, business as usual, which is what I
think we have seen for the last 20 years, Republicans and
Democrats, more or less, will likely produce history as usual.
So my hope is Santayana's line about only those who fail to
study history are condemned to repeat it. And what I would hope
we do now, what I think the Foreign Relations Committee can
play a key role in doing is starting stimulating imagination
beyond the orthodoxy of the current situation.
In the conclusion of the book, I give you something way to
the left of anything anybody ever heard of in Washington that
might make sense--I am not advocating it--and something way to
the right of anything that you have heard in the current debate
and not because I am subscribing to either of these but simply
to say we have not opened up the space for the discussion and
debate.
And my optimism about this is if we go back to the
invention of the strategy for the Cold War, that is
breathtaking. I think most of us have not really looked at it
and appreciate it. I have a description of it in the book.
1946. It is April, so a year after the war. Kennon writes
back this famous long telegram, and he says the Soviet Union is
going to be a greater existential threat to the USA than the
Nazis were. Truman says who is this guy and what in the world
is he saying. This makes no sense. We just got exhausted in the
war against first the Germans and the Japanese. We are bringing
the troops home. We are trying to worry about health care and
about the American economy. Do not tell me we have another
dragon out there.
That stimulated a conversation which 4 years later had
created one of the most imaginative strategies I think in the
history of statecraft forever. So it had an economic strand.
That was the IMF, the World Bank, the GATT, the open training
system, and the Marshall Plan, which was again a breathtaking
idea. It had a military component with both American military
forces but also with NATO. It had entangling alliance. George
Washington said do not do that, but it said Europe and Japan
matter enough to us that unless we are able to rebuild it and
have them as allies, we will not be able to deal with this
competition. It had a political dimension. I mean, the whole
thing is breathtaking.
So the fact that we have done something like that before as
a society would suggest that is not impossible. But I think
that that is the challenge.
[The Dr. Allison's prepared statement is located at the end
of this hearing transcript.]
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Professor Allison.
You have all given us a great deal to think about.
We will go ahead and begin the questions. You have given us
a number of questions. We will probably have some questions for
the record to follow up with, if that is all right. We will
give you some homework.
In your testimony, both verbally as well as in the written
testimony, Professor Allison, you talk a little bit about this
democratic peace hypothesis. And we have talked about how if we
work with China to address human rights, if we work with China
to address intellectual property, if we work with China to
address reforms when it comes to different laws and respect of
the rule of law, that they will eventually come around to our
way. You have talked about how that is simply not going to be
the case.
If that is not the case, then how does the United States
position itself in the region with other nations that obviously
will not like that outcome either? What is the best result for
us to position ourselves with allies in the region to counter
that?
Dr. Allison. Thank you. That is a great question, and it
actually relates to the point that Senator Baucus made before.
So it is a little bit of a caricature but only a little bit
that in 1991 when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union
disappeared, most of the strategic community, most of the
Washington community sort of took a victory lap and was in a
stage of celebration. And there was a very famous book that was
written by a brilliant scholar, Frank Fukuyama. It was called
``The End of History,'' and it declared that now democratic
capital had swept the field and there would no longer be
ideological competitors. And the theory of the case was the
Soviet Union had gone bad because they were trying to run a
command and control economy. Only market capitalism can make
you rich. So everybody is going to adopt that, and as they get
richer, they are going to have a middle class. And if you have
a middle class, it is going to have more political
participation. So it is going to become democratic. And
democratic societies, according to the democratic peace
hypothesis, do not fight each other. And the kind of cartoon
version of that was Tom Friedman's golden arch theory in which
two countries that have McDonald's golden arches cannot fight
each other.
So we imagined China was going to become like us. But I
have a chapter in the book on clash of civilizations. I think
Senator Baucus captured the point. The Chinese think they were
Chinese before we ever arrived. They think they have a
civilization that has its own view of the way things work. They
think that the emperor or a system--I call Xi Jinping, now that
he has been reelected, but without a successor, the new emperor
of China, that basically the emperor through the party, which
is the reach of the Leninist Mandarins, the way the Mandarins
used to give the reach of the emperor, are going to lead the
society. And if you look at the work plan that Xi laid out last
week, it has got the party leading the economy, the party
leading the military, the party leading the society, the party
leading the Internet, the party, the party, the party. So they
believe that a small group of people who are going to be,
quote, more virtuous--that is part of what the anti-corruption
campaign is about--are going to lead their society, and they
are going to demonstrate that they can deliver more of what
people want than we do.
Another one of the shockers for people who thought, oh,
well, they are really going to come around to our way was in
the 19th party congress in Beijing last week and the week
before. Before they had never talked about a China model. They
have always said we do not have a model. We just do for
ourselves. We are a poor developing country. They said I think
we do have a model. I think we have a model of how if you want
to get rich fast, this is the way to go. And this way is an
authoritarian way that is contrary to our view. This is a view
that says the citizens have obligations more than our view that
they have freedoms and rights. This is a view that says we are
going to control the whole information system so we both know
what you are saying and what you are thinking. We can keep
track of you. And we are going to exploit our situation to the
maximum extent that we can get away with.
So I think we should recognize we have a serious peer
competitor who has a different image of how they want to rule
their world inside China and how they want to behave in the
region. And I think that is what makes the competition there
because we are not going to give up who we are being
democratic. Our Constitution says all human beings are endowed
by the creator with inalienable rights. So we are not about to
change that set of views, and they are not, I think, about to
change their views.
Senator Gardner. If I could quickly get an answer from the
three of you actually on the President's visit to Asia. How
would you portray the success or the outcome of the President's
Asia visit? Dr. Pillsbury?
Dr. Pillsbury. I would call it a success in the sense that
it lays the foundation for future trips. There is a number of
themes he brought up bilaterally that you actually will find in
these very detailed bilateral agreements issued at each stop.
For example, the one on the Philippines actually has a section
on human rights. In each one of these agreements, there is a
discussion of security cooperation, arms sales, specific
things. I noticed the press does not cover any of those
agreements, but if you put them together, it is almost 50 pages
of the beginnings of an Asia-Pacific or an Indo-Pacific
strategy. I am talking about the bilateral agreements that the
President issued at each stop.
Secondly, he started some broad themes that we can
integrate better than before possibly security and trade and
economics. If you notice the team with him in the meeting with
President Xi, you saw Bob Lighthizer sitting there from USTR.
That is unusual. You saw four NSC staffers, some of whom cover
strategy in economics, not just the East Asia couple who were
there. So this to me is refreshing, the idea that the pivot
perhaps was a good idea to start with, but it needs to be a
combination of trade and economics with security issues and
arms sales.
And there is another angle to it that the President brought
out. The bilateral meetings can be harmonized at the same time
as the multilateral meetings. There is an old expression that
Senator Markey I am sure knows that they use in the State
Department called multi-bi. It does not mean what you think it
means. It means multilateral and bilateral combined.
So I think Professor Allison has done us all a great
service in this book about the diagnosis of the problem, but he
is a little bit late to the party. A lot of Senators,
Congressmen, White House staff, people in the Defense
Department are already working on very specific, tangible
legislation and other steps that frankly accepts ``Destined for
War'' as being correct in its diagnosis. But it is time to get
down to specifics, and I think we are way beyond the McDonald's
arches theory. We are now into really specific things. Does the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee want to check up or not on
what the entire executive branch is doing to help China be more
competitive? That is like a yes or no.
Senator Gardner. Thank you. I am well beyond my time. Do
you mind if I hear from the other two, just the visit to Asia?
I would appreciate your point of view.
Dr. Allison. I think I agree with Michael mainly, but I
would say it is very hard to tell. I would give it a successful
for as far as I can see from the actions and the words. But the
work that was done was done in private. So without having a
sense for whether Xi and Trump sat down together, what I would
wish and say, wait a minute, here is this jerk, Kim Jong-un. He
could drag the two of us into a war. Let us be serious about
how we are not going to let that happen. Either they made some
real progress on that front or they did not. And I think we
cannot tell at this point. You could see that is what President
Trump was trying to do, and he was trying to work with Xi in
that regard.
But I think if I watch Xi's actions so far, well, you can
see a little bit of hope. I mean, that is the minor miracle
that I am looking for in this situation because I think there
is no question that if Xi says to Kim Jong-un you are stopping,
no more ICBM tests and no more nuclear tests, and if you
violate that, I am squeezing this oil lifeline, it will get his
attention.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Professor Allison.
Ambassador Baucus, I am way over time. Do you mind?
Ambassador Baucus, please.
Ambassador Baucus. I take a slightly different view.
Frankly, I do not think the President accomplished very much in
China. There is no evidence of any movement on North Korea. The
United States has been asking China, almost demanding of China
do more, do more, do more. President Trump did too. No result.
Second, there was this big agreement announced of deals
between American companies and China. If you look down deep,
you will find out there is not much there there. There are MOUs
or there are deals that were agreed to earlier. There is
nothing new.
But more importantly, there is nothing that I could see to
address the fundamentals, the fundamentals being market access,
American companies denied sufficient market access in China,
addressing all the subsidies that China made in China 2025 has
been mentioned. There is nothing addressing those fundamentals.
I think we lost. We looked weak in my judgment because there
was nothing solved.
Then you go further south, the big, glaring problem is that
his presence there and his words withdrawing from the TPP send
a signal to all the countries in the region that we are really
not fully involved and we are starting to withdraw, ceding to
China.
Lee Kuan Yew has been mentioned many times here. Lee Kuan
Yew met with President Obama in 2009. Lee Kuan Yew asked
President Obama, what are going to do about the TPP? Obama
said, well, I do not know. He said, you better go back and put
that together because if you do not, you are going to cede
trade to China.
So as you know, the other countries decided, well, the
United States pulled out of TPP. We will do it ourselves.
Senator Gardner. I want to make sure I get to the others.
Ambassador Baucus. I want to make one point here. The most
important geopolitical matter that crossed my desk during the 3
years I was there was TPP, and we blew it. We absolutely blew
it. And other countries see that, and actions speak louder than
words. There was a lot of talk about this Indo-Pacific. They
are just words so far. Now, maybe we will find it will amount
to more, but so far, I do not see anything that is very
constructive.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Ambassador.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
This is my 41st year in Congress, and it is the first time
a chairman ever allowed all three opening witnesses to speak
for 15 minutes apiece. So we are making history.
Ambassador Baucus. I apologize.
Senator Markey. No. You should not apologize. It is kind of
a course at Harvard. So we are up here and learning. So we
thank you for that.
So let me just go to Professor Allison's point that he just
made about whether or not China will cut off the oil going into
North Korea. 90 percent of all trade that North Korea engages
in is with China, but clearly the most important part of it is
oil because that is the lubricant for all parts of an economy.
So thus far, the Chinese have been unwilling to do it. In
2006, they were willing to do it, and the North Koreans
actually went back to the table in 2006. So we know where the
pressure point is.
So if we could just go across and just ask would you
recommend that the United States insist that the Chinese cut
off the oil not towards the goal of collapsing the regime, not
towards the goal of uniting North and South Korea, but towards
the goal of driving the North Koreans to the table so we can
accomplish the goal of not having them complete their ICBM
hydrogen bomb program. Mr. Pillsbury?
Dr. Pillsbury. Yes.
Senator Markey. Beautiful.
Dr. Allison. I would have them squeeze it maybe by 25
percent to get their attention and then talk to them and say,
what is not going to happen is you are not going to have any
more ICBM tests and you are not going to have any nuclear
tests. And if you do, you are not going to have any oil.
Senator Markey. Well, the Chinese said that they have
already squeezed the 25 percent.
Dr. Allison. Well, I would say I have been trying to watch
and I have not seen it. I have seen a little bit of talking
about it, but I think that Kim Jong-un believes he can get away
with murder. He usually does. So I think it is going to be very
hard to move him.
Senator Markey. Ambassador Baucus, would you cut off the
oil?
Ambassador Baucus. It is not going to happen. It is not
going to happen. China will not do it.
Senator Markey. So if China does not do it, then we have no
real pressure point on the North Koreans. So are you accepting
the inevitability of the ICBM program and----
Ambassador Baucus. No. Professor Kissinger, Dr. Kissinger,
whoever Kissinger, has suggested the beginnings that we explore
kind of a grand bargain with China, Japan, South Korea, and
maybe even including North Korea. I think there is no solution
on the peninsula that does not include China.
Senator Markey. No, I agree. But how can we do it if the
oil is not cut off. That is their role to drive them to the
table.
Ambassador Baucus. Well, they do not do it and they will
not do it. Why will they not do it? I think it is very simple.
They will not because the Chinese have a neuralgic fixation on
the status quo and stability within China and also in the
region. Chinese in many ways have a very conservative
government. So you go to the Korean Peninsula, they are afraid
if they cut off the oil it causes instability in the peninsula.
Senator Markey. No. It would not be towards the goal of
like a long-term cutoff. It would just be, as Dr. Allison is
saying, towards the goal of just saying, as anyone who has ever
been put in a headlock, you know, say uncle.'' It is not
towards killing someone. It is just towards give up. Stop this
fight and let us just resolve it. So if we just did it on a
temporary basis, would that be----
Ambassador Baucus. I am just giving my own personal
opinion. It will not work.
Senator Markey. It will not work.
So let me ask this then.
Dr. Allison. It will not work because they will not do it,
or if they did it, it would not work?
Ambassador Baucus. It will not work because they will not
do it.
Senator Markey. Because they will not do it. So the option
then becomes--unfortunately, we had a hearing in this room this
morning on what General McMaster has been talking about, which
is a preventive nuclear war that the United States might have
to engage in, which would then have us using our military in
order to strike the nuclear sites inside of North Korea. Then
that gets back to Dr. Allison's point of going back to 1950
when the Chinese then entered into the fight.
So I am just going to read here something from the Global
Times, which is a Chinese state-owned publication. On August
10th of this year, here is what--they articulated the
government position. It stated that if the United States and
South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North
Korean regime, China will prevent them from doing so, but that
China would make clear that if North Korea launches missiles
that threatens U.S. soil first and the U.S. retaliates, China
will stay neutral.
So that then goes to the question of us attacking the North
Koreans and the Chinese saying if that is the case, we are
getting in because we are not going to allow the U.S. to
establish a hegemony.
Ambassador Baucus. I know the editor of the Global Times. I
have met many times with him. You got to understand. Sorry. I
did not mean it that way.
Senator Markey. No, no, please.
Ambassador Baucus. He is provocative. He likes to put stuff
out there, and he is somewhat speaking for the government and
somewhat not.
Senator Markey. So you do not think if we did strike in
North Korea militarily that the Chinese would----
Ambassador Baucus. They would find a way to get into the
peninsula themselves so they can control the peninsula.
Senator Markey. They would, yes. And do you agree with
that?
Ambassador Baucus. I do.
Senator Markey. Dr. Allison?
Dr. Allison. I do. And I think, therefore, to be clear, my
prayer for the minor miracle would be that at the meetings,
private meetings between President Trump and Xi recently, they
sat down and said, wait a minute. This guy could drag us into a
war. We do not want a war. That will be crazy.
So we need to figure out what are the terms that we can
live with that we can go to him and say simply that is it. And
I think the ``that is it'' would be you getting them to stop
for a year of any ICBM tests and any nuclear weapons tests.
That is not forever, but it gives us a year just to work on the
forever land, but for the year. And I think if the message from
China and the U.S. was that is it, take it or leave it, and if
there was a little squeezing of the oil to get started, I think
it would get his attention and I think it actually might
succeed.
Senator Markey. But if we do strike, are we falling into
the Thucydides Trap?
Dr. Allison. Well, I think if we strike, we should remember
that is a little bit like what happened in 1950, and the
sequence of events could end, crazy as it seems, with Americans
and Chinese fighting each other.
Senator Markey. Do you agree with, Dr. Pillsbury?
Dr. Pillsbury. No, I do not. I think your question has
provoked a split among your three witnesses.
I happen to agree with you, Senator Markey, that there was
something in 2006 that the Chinese would not quite agree with
you. They say it was an accident. Somehow there was a 1-day
cutoff in the oil pipeline, and somehow the Six Party Talks, as
you said, resumed.
I think it would be a mistake to strike nuclear sites and
missile sites in North Korea without consultation with the
Chinese. A Chinese professor has already written an op-ed piece
that China and the U.S. should initiate contingency planning
about military strikes against North Korea. That is not the
``Global Times'' editor, Mr. Hu. That is a distinguished
professor in Beijing. Other Chinese have been writing about the
need to unload North Korea as an ally. So there has been a
debate over the last 2 or 3 years about what to do about North
Korea.
I think we still have influence with them on steps that can
be taken, and frankly, a sort of a total out-of-the-blue
pipeline cutoff is not the way to go. The discussion of
military options with the Chinese is a first step.
Senator Markey. So if I may----
Dr. Pillsbury. And there are a couple other steps involving
Chinese banks, Chinese parts, the various ways that in an
underground manner China supports the weapons program in North
Korea. These can be squeezed.
There is another whole area I am sure you know about, which
is what you might call the royal family financing in Pyongyang.
Senator Markey. And again, Senator Gardner and I have
introduced legislation----
Dr. Pillsbury. Banco Delta Macao. Need I mention anything
more?
Senator Markey. No. We are dealing with the financing,
dealing with the cryptocurrency, dealing with the drug money,
dealing with the slave wages, dealing with all of it. But at
the tippity top of it and 90 percent of it is the oil. So that
is kind of the binary choice here that China has. In other
words, you are saying that there is a distinguished professor
who is saying that we should coordinate a potential military
strike at some point and that there should be coordination.
And I guess what my perspective would be is that it would
be much wiser to try to coordinate an economic strike against
the North Koreans that the Chinese understand is not meant to
collapse the Kim regime but only to put the pressure on that
brings them to the table before we move to the second
coordinated strategy that might include a military strike that
the Chinese agree with. So it is just getting the sequencing
correct so that we have exhausted the economic pressure that I
do not think we have touched to the extent that we should thus
far.
My time has expired, but I thank all of you so much.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Fascinating testimony.
Dr. Allison, since you distributed your book, I have really
been grappling with the Thucydides question and thinking about
it in the context of the United States' history at the
beginning of the last century. So the U.S. economy became the
largest economy in the world in the 1890s, and then the
military probably became the most powerful when Roosevelt
expanded the Navy and certainly to the test in World War I.
But another element of what became the American century was
the United States grabbing onto a peacekeeping role. President
Roosevelt brokered the end of the Russo-Japanese War and won
the Nobel Peace Prize for that. And then President Wilson was
an architect of the Treaty of Paris and the international
institutions. So great nations are great peace builders. It was
not just military power, and it was not just economic power. It
was also a commitment to peace building.
And China has an opportunity--you know, I have now been in
two hearings today where we are talking about the prospect of
war on the Korean Peninsula. I got a kid in the military. It is
not a particularly pleasant day for me to have to go to two
hearings about this.
But I am a believer in miracles too. North Korea wants some
things. It is not just a matter of what punishments can we put
on them to cause them to give up nuclear ambitions. They want
some things. They have wanted a peace deal to end the Korean
War rather than just an armistice. And they have put that on
the table before. Now, maybe that is just a fake request, but
for a long time, they have wanted there to be a peace deal to
end the Korean War so that they could have some guarantee that
they would have an independent country and that the long-term
goal was not a reunification and an absorption of their country
into South Korea.
China could be--in trying to broker some kind of a peace
deal that would end North Korean nuclearization--would putting
that issue on the table, a peace deal to end the Korean War
that is now 70 years old--should that be on the table?
I noticed China's reaction when the Nobels are given out to
dissidents and artists that they do not like, they do not like
that. But for a Chinese Government to win a Nobel Peace Prize
for brokering a very difficult peace deal, just like President
Roosevelt did in 1905, I mean, that would be a very different
kind of a thing. So I am in the miracle territory here.
But I just want to say that thinking about North Korea just
as what is the right punishment to put on them so they will
stop doing what they are doing, you know, look, they are trying
to get nuclear weapons. There is--if a horrid rationality,
there is some rationality. We want to protect the regime.
Qaddafi gave up nuclear weapons and the regime went away. We
want to protect the regime. But there are some things they want
like a peace deal to end the war. Are those elements--if we
think bigger and bigger picture about what the solution might
be, might China--and you all know. You are experts in China and
I am not. But might China want to, as part of assuming this
global leadership role, assume the leadership including in
being a peacekeeping nation just like the United States did
back at the turn of the 20th century?
Dr. Allison. So thank you. I like the drift of your
comments and the suggestion.
First, TR's role in brokering the Japanese-Russian
agreement as the first Nobel Prize any American ever won. And I
see in the Roosevelt room, that is one of the highlights to see
this fact. So if Xi could become attracted to winning a Nobel
Prize for dealing with the North Korean problem, I think that
would be fantastic.
Secondly, I think you are absolutely right that we have to
think about what we can give North Korea, as well as what we
can get. At this moment, the thing that we need most from North
Korea is that it stop testing ICBMs and nuclear weapons because
if it does not, it is going be into option one, which is a
North Korea that can credibly threaten the American homeland.
And President Trump has said that is absolutely not going to
happen. So I think it is quite plausible that he attacks them
to prevent that even though he knows that might even ultimately
end in a war with China. I think partly he is also trying to
help Xi Jinping understand that that he is prepared to do that
if that is his last resort.
So now if we imagine that the minor miracle that I was
praying for, Xi and Trump would each say let us take one or two
of our advisors, tell them to go off in a corner for a day or
2, and come back with three ugly options. We are not going to
like them. They only need to be better than what is currently
now going to happen. And one of those options would undoubtedly
be the U.S. give some things that we do not want to give.
So is there some magic or something sacrosanct about how
many participate in each of our military exercises? I am an old
Defense Department type. We would say absolutely yes. We would
never make an adaptation at all especially to prevent people
from bad behavior they should not have been doing in the first
place. The answer is, of course, we can make changes. There was
32 and a half thousand; the previous time, there was 27,000. Is
there something sacrosanct about how many troops the U.S. has
in South Korea? Is there something sacrosanct about how
frequently we drive by or fly by? Do we need to have three
carriers nearby or two? So there are a lot of things that we
could be adapting and adjusting.
Senator Kaine. Like removing missiles from Turkey during
the Cuban missile crisis.
Dr. Allison. Absolutely, to take a for example. And that
was ugly. It was ugly, very ugly. But compared to the
alternative--so I would say we would end up in the ugly zone.
On the particular item that you said, the peace treaty, I
think there I slightly disagree. In Kim's cosmology, they
believe they are the legitimate rulers of the whole of Korea.
They think what they are doing is taking back over the whole of
Korea, and the peace treaty is a step in that picture as they
see it. So his idea and his hope is he gets to be a nuclear
weapons state. We lose interest or we back off from Korea.
Pretty soon the South Koreans then are intimidated by him. One
thing leads to the other. So I would work on the short-run
things now rather than the longer.
Dr. Pillsbury. If I can jump in with about 60 seconds, I
tend to agree far more with Professor Allison than Senator
Baucus. Because of the book I wrote, which I failed today to
bring and pass out free copies of, I wrote my book--[Laughter.]
Dr. Allison. He only charges for them.
Dr. Pillsbury. Well, and Professor Allison gave a generous
blurb on the back cover, which I do not know if he regrets or
not.
I tried to go through declassified documents to show that
what you are raising and what Professor Allison essentially is
agreeing has happened before because of the extraordinary high
level of strategic cooperation between the United States and
China, which often is not declassified for as long as 30 years.
Some of it is quite dramatic. Lee Kuan Yew himself--I tell the
story in the book--came to a secret base in Thailand where the
CIA and the Chinese CIA were cooperating with Singapore,
Malaysia, and the Thais to provide weapons, maps, and money to
guerillas to kick the Vietnamese out of occupying Cambodia.
That was only disclosed more than 30 years later. That is
pretty sensitive cooperation.
I have several pages on our working with them on
Afghanistan, a very, very close relationship on solving
strategic problems.
Dr. Kissinger did not allow to be declassified until the
last couple of years one of his most sensitive areas of
cooperation with the Chinese which began in 1973.
So the precedent is there. I do not know if holding out a
Nobel Peace Price to President Xi Jinping could work, but it is
the kind of thing that I suspect would appeal to his sense of
greatness that came through in this 3-and-a-half hour speech. I
do not claim ownership of the idea. This may be a new
initiative you have announced today for how the U.S., China--I
assume you mean North Korea and South Korea, all four would
share in the prize. But, of course, that involves Senator
Baucus being wrong that China would put an oil cutoff on the
table and start to do it. So we have to hope Senator Baucus is
wrong in his forecast.
Ambassador Baucus. On the basic point, I think it is a
creative idea. I am struck with a meeting between President
Obama and President Xi when President Xi was physically upset
with Kim Jong-un, the one time I have heard him, Xi, with an
edge in his voice, clearly frustrated that he does not have
more influence over Kim. And I think that is the case. There is
a real tension there between Kim Jong-un and President Xi.
However, as has been noted, there is more pride now. There
is more a feeling of potential greatness, if you will, on the
part of President Xi. So I think that is an idea that he would
find appealing.
It is hard to know how that would play out because China is
pretty conservative. That would be a major step. It would take
a while for them to figure out how they would do all that. That
would not be something they would just announce without giving
a lot of thought to it, running it through all the various
channels in China that would be necessary to get in touch with.
I think it is analogous to the approach that must be taken,
namely where we more seriously talk to China in an honest way.
In my experience, our discussions with China on this issue have
been very superficial. It is like two ships passing in the
night. So for the ships to meet, not collide, but to meet,
there has to be a very thoughtful approach here and it means a
lot of shuttle diplomacy probably, a lot of back and forth with
lots of officials to try to develop more trust, more confidence
in finding an agreement. And I think it will include a lot of
the points that have been mentioned here, and there are many,
many more that we have not discussed that should be out on the
table. And after a while, if they are all explored in good
faith--and I think they would be in China too in good faith,
although we have to deal with the opacity of that government.
We are open; they are not. We have no choice but to try because
the other alternatives so far are not working, namely military,
I think, is out of the question. We do not want that.
Second, sanctions are not achieving the desired result so
far. I do not see any evidence that is going to really change
very much. So we have to keep the pressure up, keep talking
about the sanctions, all of that, but at the same time maybe
back door, third party, start talking a little more and with
China and with Japan explore this but in South Korea. Then I
think that China might say, well, gee, maybe there is an
opportunity here where they could play a more responsible role,
if you will. It is like Bob Zoellick's point about--I forgot
the phrase he used, but the main point being be responsible as
you rise and have more influence.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Kaine.
And I know Senator Markey has a couple of questions he
would like to ask.
Let me just ask you this. If we are unsuccessful in
denuclearization of North Korea, will South Korea and Japan
ultimately be forced to develop their own nuclear weapon
program? Make this, if you could, a quick answer. Mr.
Pillsbury?
Dr. Pillsbury. I do not think I want to acknowledge the
idea of failure in advance. So I would just decline to answer
the question. It is really not fair to acknowledge failure in
advance. It is just a question of the political will on the
part of allies and ourselves how far are we willing to go with
North Korea. It is already quite obvious all over Asia that the
credibility is going up of an American military strike on North
Korea. That is a really big change from a year ago when I think
probably all of us would go to conferences and everybody would
say, well, everything is on the table, wink, wink, except the
use of force.
Senator Gardner. Let me shift the question then because I
would ask this. And I had a discussion with this with a Chinese
official earlier today.
Would China work with the United States--perhaps the United
Nations is the right body to do this--on a plan for what to do
with the nuclear stockpile of Kim Jong-un should there be a
denuclearization success? Should we get that planned ahead of
time with China? And would that then build enough trust to
actually begin working together in a way that we could achieve
that, sort of back into our goal of peaceful denuclearization?
Professor Allison?
Dr. Allison. Well, it has now become more complicated. It
is a great question.
I cannot imagine the Kim Jong-un regime giving up its
nuclear arsenal in any world. So I understand that is our
stated objective. I even have written once CVID, complete,
irreversible, verifiable, denuclearization, is a complete,
irreversible, verifiable delusion. So it is not going to
happen. I think it will come right after the U.S. and Israel
because Kim Jong-un has a very good reason for wanting to have
nuclear weapons. So that is number one.
Number two, that does not mean that he has to have a
capability to strike San Francisco or Los Angeles. He has
already got 50 nuclear weapons. He has already got missiles
that can deliver these weapons like in South Korea and Japan.
So I could imagine him stopping at this point for a time, and
then we would see.
So then the longer-term solution to this would be if you
could imagine that regime changing, which it could do over
time, or if you could imagine the Chinese coming to play a more
dominant role in the regime or in the region, but I think
stopping the bleeding right now seems to me to be the
overwhelming question. The longer-term problem I think will be
very, very hard.
Senator Gardner. Dr. Pillsbury, how concerned are you about
President Moon and the new administration in South Korea and
their approach toward North Korea and perhaps even their
relationships with China that could result in a softening of an
approach toward North Korea and a distancing of the United
States?
Dr. Pillsbury. I am going to Seoul tonight to see President
Moon's team. He has got a campaign advisor who has published a
lot about North Korea. President Moon seems to have come around
quite a bit. Some of his campaign supporters are in tears. They
are quite angry at him as well. Frankly, the North Korean
military watches the South Korean President's attitude very
closely. So we have made a lot of progress, it seems to me, in
influencing the North Korean military to start thinking
differently. As President Trump said in his speech to the South
Korean assembly, start thinking of nuclear weapons as dangerous
to them, as attracting attack as opposed to guarantors of the
regime.
The military does not seem to have taken the initiative in
the original decision to develop nuclear weapons. It seems to
have been more of a Kim family pledge to the military. You keep
the Kim family in power and we will deliver nuclear weapons. We
will get the resources, the money, all of the ingredients
needed.
So changing the North Korean military's attitude seems to
me is part of the game right now. And President Moon's
cautionary approach has started to include the use of force. He
does not want it. It is his last resort, but he has changed
from his campaign pledges. That to me is quite significant.
And the Chinese have told us in academic settings that the
North Korean military is the real power in that country other
than the royal Kim family itself. So that is why thinking about
the three aircraft carriers concentrating so much power in one
place, this is the kind of thing military leaders pay attention
to. It is their belief in a credibility of what President Trump
is saying that it seems to me everything hangs on. And some of
the sanctions, not the oil pipeline, not the banks, but some of
the sanctions can also affect the North Korean military. And
this is an area where it seems to me the Chinese and think tank
channels have been supportive. They think the North Korean
military is part of the solution, maybe even the solution.
Senator Gardner. Thank you. I know we have not even gotten
into the issues of the South China Sea and other issues that
could go on for a long time.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you so much.
So I want to come back to Senator Baucus because you raised
a very interesting kind of dichotomy here where as the Chinese
move from the era of the emperor to the era of the party, and
what you said was that do not worry about human rights is what
Xi says because we are going to take care of the people. And so
I think it would be helpful for us to understand then are they
just turning a deaf ear to anything that we say about human
rights, that it has no impact on them whatsoever, that it is
not really in our interest to kind of waste capital on an issue
where there will be no progress because we are going to take
care of the people, as you said, is just going to be the
continued mantra that they utter to any U.S. ambassador or
congressional delegation which is visiting them.
Ambassador Baucus. No. I think it is important to talk
about human rights. It is a universal value that all people
understand. It is human dignity that is so essential basically
to life. I think we should press protection of human rights,
but we are only going to get so far but we still should
continue to advocate the value of human rights even with China.
Senator Markey. So do you agree with that, Dr. Pillsbury,
that they are unlikely to give us an answer or respond to our
pressure, our interests, but that we should raise them
regardless?
Dr. Pillsbury. I agree in principle, but they have been
extraordinarily sensitive to human rights issues that are
raised at the presidential level about specific individuals.
And so I was very pleased at this tremendous bipartisan
cooperation going way back. It was Claiborne Pell, Joe Biden,
Jesse Helms, and Orrin Hatch, if you can imagine such a
combination, who supported the legislation to create Radio Free
Asia and have human rights dissidents actually read their
stories and address the issue and then have phone-in telephone
calls from China of people talking about specific human rights
cases and violations.
That legislation President H.W. Bush and his Assistant
Secretary at the time, Richard Solomon, told us they would veto
it. They did not want Radio Free Asia. They did not want
broadcasts in Mandarin on human rights issues going into China.
They were overcome. It passed. It is one of our best programs,
and it is one of many ways that human rights issues can be
brought up in addition to diplomatic dialogue.
As I say in my testimony, the National Endowment for
Democracy, the funds for democracy promotion both at USAID and
at State have a focus already on Chinese democracy and human
rights. More can be done, but that is an area for a Foreign
Relations Committee hearing frankly.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
If I can come back to you again, Max. The point that Dr.
Pillsbury raised earlier about these programs to transfer U.S.
technologies, U.S. innovation to China and that it is a legal
requirement that we do so, did you come across that while you
were there in terms of their insistence to the U.S. Government
that there be a facilitation of that type of transfer?
Ambassador Baucus. In fact, the opposite was just the case.
They kept complaining to us about our restrictions of
technology transfer to China. I did not ever hear anybody in
China advocate the Americans should stick with agreements that
you have to transfer technology.
As you also know, they are very clever. With the Snowden
revelations, China passed a lot national security statutes to
protect their country from espionage.
But at the same time, they used that as an opportunity to
set up discriminatory barriers against U.S. technology firms
selling equipment in China in order to build up their own
industry at foreign expense. And they are pretty successful
with it.
So from my perspective, all I heard is China complaining,
frankly, that the U.S. is not allowing the technology transfer
that they like under the U.S. Export and Control Act.
Senator Markey. Back in 1998, I traveled with Senator
Baucus, John Dingell, and Jay Rockefeller as the congressional
delegation with President Clinton on Air Force One for 10 days.
We were in Shanghai and Xian and Hong Kong and Beijing. And I
just went back in the last week of August, first to go up to
the Yalu River, the border between Dandong and North Korea.
Ambassador Baucus. The bridge of no return?
Senator Markey. Yes, the bridge.
But then I went over to Shanghai, and you are right, Max.
It was non-recognizable just from 1998, just completely built
up in a way that it was non-recognizable from that city that I
visited back then. So it was eye-opening then to see it on the
rise, but now it is just absolutely incredible.
And maybe I would just ask this one final question because
we had a hearing--and maybe one of you knows the answer to
this, but we had a hearing and we had the Dean of the
University of Maryland Graduate School testify, Robert Orr. So
he testified here about the global green grid which China is
now proposing, first starting with it going into the adjoining
countries to China but then expanding beyond that, which is
just a high concept in terms of their insinuation of their
government planning and to the kind of the fundamental part of
each economy of the grid, but using renewable energy. So can
any of you speak to that question if you are familiar with it
at all?
Ambassador Baucus. I am not familiar with it. It just
amazes me. We live in a time. There are so many ideas and some
of them are very grand and one or two are going to come to
pass. It is just fascinating with all the technologies, et
cetera.
I know the head of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, has a similar
concept, not green but a conventional network grid for the
region.
But I also smile a little bit because I visited one
province there, and there are lots of solar panels, lots of
wind power. And the party secretary of the province was just so
happy, but he was unhappy too. Why? Because the coal industry
had such a near lock on the purchase of power that they in the
coal industry were still able to preempt renewables. That is,
renewables was so ineruptable that the province could not sell
enough of their wind power to the grid as they really wanted
to.
So it is going to take time. I hear a lot about the green
renewable. It would be great if it develops, but realistically
it is slow.
Dr. Pillsbury. Could I jump in for a second? It comes out
of an initiative that I praise in my book ``The Hundred Year
Marathon.'' It dates back to the Reagan administration where
the United States decided, you know, we have an Environmental
Protection Agency. Some people do not like it; some people do.
We need to create one in China. And there was an outreach to
find partners. They acknowledge us sometimes in speeches. But
the shift of China away from coal, away from cars, a whole
series of green initiatives date to this group of people who
are identified. Later they became, in one case, minister. They
give cabinet rank to their EPA now. And it is an example of an
American success story, which George Shultz talks about in
terms of empowering or building the capacity inside China
sometimes is the problem. They will agree with us rhetorically
on something, but they cannot actually do it.
Something similar happened in the nonproliferation area.
They would say, yes, we are against nuclear proliferation. We
are against exporting advanced weapons. But we knew they could
not keep track of what they were doing. So U.S. money, the U.S.
embassy helped them create an export enforcement system. This
is way back before Ambassador Baucus.
But we have gone a little bit too far in so much
cooperation that, frankly, I do not think is brought to the
attention of the ambassador. It is so routine now. I saw a
briefing last year of the National Science Foundation
transferring advanced manufacturing techniques to the Chinese
Ministry of Science and Technology. It is done in a routine way
because of all of these agreements. So nobody would bother the
ambassador, whereas he would definitely hear from the Chinese
about you are not selling us high-tech equipment and what about
this restriction. That is what I am calling for a hearing on,
all this cooperation.
Senator Markey. Great. What an all-star panel.
Ambassador Baucus. If I might. You have got to take your
hat off to China too in renewables in the sense that China will
have more electric vehicles produced than any other country
soon. They are electrifying. There are so many of their cities
with EVs. When you are in Beijing, they are not combustible
scooters. They are all electric. It is stunning. They have
ideas they think they need to pursue, and they tend to be ideas
of the future getting ahead of the game.
Senator Gardner. Thank you to all of you for your time and
testimony today. I truly appreciate the opportunity to have
this important dialogue and conversation as we inform our
legislative work tour, our legislative goal of creating long-
term policies in the United States toward Asia.
For the information of members, the record will remain open
until the close of business on Thursday, including for members
to submit questions for the record. Again, your homework
assignment. If you could return those as quickly as possible--
the answers to those questions--I would greatly appreciate it.
With the thanks of the committee, this hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
----------
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Prepared Statement of Hon. Max Baucus
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak today on U.S.
policy on China. I believe it's one of the more important questions
facing our country today.
I loved the serving as U.S. Ambassador to China. One of the most
rewarding jobs I've been honored to have.
I won't rehash all the relevant points in the relationship. China's
amazing rise and the points of tension we are dealing with. Instead,
I'll offer some suggestions.
I think it's important for Americans to be aware of what I call the
American exceptionalism trap where we assume that if we keep working
with another country, in this case China, American exceptionalism will
prevail. They'll be more like us and differences will be manageable.
It's an assumption I think we need to examine.
Although China and the U.S. both strive to enhance the well-being
of their people in profound ways our two countries are very different.
We Americans pride ourselves on our western Judeo-Christian values
and democracy. On our democratic elections. Our constitution. Our bill
of individual rights. Freedom of speech and press. Separation of powers
where power is spread among three different branches. Our independent
judiciary free from influence by the government.
We're proud people. We're Americans. We have the world's best form
of government. We've kept the peace since WWII. We lead. We help solve
disputes between countries, upholding our values and our approach to
government. We think, no, we assume that our way is best and with
patience and perseverance others will see that, too. They'll agree with
us.
China has another view. China is just as proud if not more so than
we Americans. After all it has had thousands of years of history. Its
Middle Kingdom was the center of the universe up until the last two
centuries when China was invaded and controlled by Japan, U.S., UK,
France. Otherwise known as the two hundred years of humiliation. They
now see their rightful place in world history returning.
China is authoritarian. It has one party rule. There are no
elections. Very weak independent judiciary. Little free speech or rule
of law. Instead, the party is everything. The party sees its role as
taking care of the people. So long as they can keep people happy with
rising incomes, addressing air and water pollution, food safety and
health care, they believe they will indefinitely stay in power. It's
the Faustian bargain that both the people and the party have upheld
since they came into power in 1949. We take care of you and you don't
question our legitimacy.
At the recent 19th party congress, the party strengthened its reach
in virtually every area of society. China believes that a very strong
party is necessary not only to maintain control but necessary to grow
and develop their country. The party is everything.
I'll never forget President Obama and President Xi explaining each
country's role in November 2014. President Obama explained that human
rights is absolutely fundamental to our democracy. It's in our DNA as
well as our constitution. President Xi explained that the party is
absolutely fundamental to their government. The party is everything and
it is the duty of the party to care for the people trumping human
rights.
It's not too simplistic to note that whereas we Americans believe
in fairness and dispute resolution procedures enshrined in our
constitution and laws, China, without those protections, is more
results oriented.
While the United States tends to be ad hoc in its foreign policy
decisions, China takes the long view. It has a vision. China is
patient. China's One Belt One Road, it's Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank, it's Free Trade Agreements with countries it wants to
do business with are all examples of China's vision to turn itself into
a major, if not the major, economic power in the world.
This long view enables them to take small steps at a time. South
China island building is reminiscent of its board game, Weiqi, taking
one small step at a time so no one notices until the game is over.
China is opportunistic. They saw an opportunity when we pressed for
an agreement on Climate Change, enabling them to pour immense resources
into renewables such as solar and wind power at the expense of our
solar and wind industries.
They saw another when Eric Snowden revealed U.S. espionage efforts,
enabling them to pass national security statues under the pretext of
protecting their security interests but also allowing for
discrimination against our foreign technology.
China is very different from the United States. We each have
interests and different philosophies of government. Neither, at least
in the indeterminate future, will persuade the other that it's better.
We're different. We must understand and respect that.
So, what do we do? What should our U.S. policy be with regard to
China.
First, I urge each of you to go there. See China. Develop personal
relationships. 80 percent of life is showing up. Load up a 747 with
members of congress, the executive branch, some businessmen, NGO's and
the media and fly to China. For at least two weeks. Visit as many
provinces as you can. Talk to party secretaries and leaders as well as
to the cab drivers. Then go back at least once a year. After a while
you'll start to learn about China and develop personal relationships.
You need to see it for yourselves to properly understand the scale and
magnitude of China's rise in the last 40 plus years.
I know that sounds fanciful, but if that plane were to take off I
guarantee you'd see productive results.
Second, the U.S. must develop a strategy. A strategic plan. One
that defines our long-term interests. Provisions that show how we will
execute it. China has a plan. We need one, too.
The plan should include U.S. engagement not withdrawal in the
region.
The most important geopolitical matter to cross my desk while I was
in Beijing was the Trans Pacific Partnership. It was so important that
I took it upon myself to fly to DC two months before the election to
explain its importance to members of congress, both sides of the aisle
and both parties.
Many SE Asian ambassadors pleaded with me to stay in the agreement
so that they could play China off against the U.S.
Singapore icon, Li Quan Yew, personally urged president Obama to
join TPP when they met in 2009 saying that otherwise the U.S. would
cede trade to China.
It was a huge mistake for the United States to pull out.
Economically and geo-politically.
It's no wonder that the remaining TPP countries are going ahead
without the United States.
Third, after we develop a plan, a course of action for the region
the U.S. must press its views and stand up to China when their actions
are against our interests.
The Chinese understand and respect strength better than any other
people I know. They can sense weakness better, too.
We did stand up and protect our interests at least several times
while I served. Two involved our national security. One our economic
interests.
It was with great frustration that we watched China dump sand on
submerged reefs in the South China Sea converting them into features
which they called islands.
During President Xi's visit to the U.S. in March of last year
President Obama in a very small group privately told President Xi that
it would be a mistake for China to invade a specific South China Sea
island. It worked. China didn't occupy it. We stood up.
Another time, when the U.S. threatened sanctions on China over
Chinese hacking of the Office of Personnel files, China quickly sent
over their top party national security official to negotiate a
settlement with the U.S.
There are other examples I could mention if we had more time.
Standing up to China or having self-respect means being candid and
speaking truth to power.
When I first arrived in China I would listen to the official across
the table read his or her prepared talking points verbatim. The
interpreter and everyone on his or her side of the table would be
reading the same points.
After a few months of this formality I decided this was a waste of
time. So, I Interrupted him or her mid- sentence. Broke right in. Could
you give me an example, or explain that more fully? I would ask. They
liked it. It was more honest, more real.
I would also often ask the Thucydides Trap question. Your GDP will
double in ten years, your military spending in six, I would say. The
trend line shows that your economy will exceed that of the U.S. in ten
years. What are we to think? I'd ask. What are your intentions? In
fact, deeds are more important than words, I'd remind them. What
actions or deeds can you point to that show you want to work with U.S.?
I thought it was important to speak truth to power. Speak honestly,
directly. Not with an edge or condescension but constructively. It was
the basic question that had to be asked. They just listened. They never
answered or addressed the question.
I asked it so often that soon President Xi Jinping raised it at a
meeting with a cabinet secretary saying there's no trap. Later
President Obama raised it with President Xi at a summit in 2015, also
saying the trap isn't real.
My view is that we have to constantly keep asking that question
both for China and for ourselves to better assure the trap doesn't
spring shut.
That's my prescription. First, go to China. Often. Second, develop
a long range strategic plan. Third, be strong with China in the best
sense of the term. Show there will be consequences if they take actions
that are not in our best interest. It'll better assure that we'll find
agreed upon solutions.
It's the best way to avoid the Thucydides Trap for the well-being
of the peoples in both our countries.
__________
Prepared Statement of Dr. Michael Pillsbury
Chairman Gardner and Ranking Member Markey, thank you for the
opportunity to testify in your series of hearings on American
leadership in the Asia-Pacific. I understand today's subject is Part 4,
``The View from Beijing.'' Your letter of invitation raised seven
specific questions. When I was a Senate staffer for the Budget
Committee, the Labor and Human Resources Committee and the Foreign
Relations Committee, I noticed Senators appreciated not only short
answers but also information that would be relevant to legislation or
possible initiatives. In that spirit, I address your seven questions
first, then I want to provide you with some background reading that
supports my answers, not for today but for your next long flight
overseas--a new view of the declassified evidence of ``how we got
here'' in terms of today's U.S.-China relationship. My thesis in The
Hundred-Year Marathon is while Americans have the illusion we have been
managing China's rise, the truth is the other way around--China has
been doing a much better job of managing America's decline. I agree
with both Henry Kissinger and Professor Graham Allison's effusive
praise of the assessment of China by former Singapore Prime Minister
Lee Kuan Yew. Allison wrote, ``The rise of China is the issue about
which Lee undoubtedly knows more than any other outside observer or
analyst.'' However, both Allison and Kissinger do not pay sufficient
attention in my view to the implications for us of Lee Kuan Yew's most
important finding. Lee wrote, ``It is China's intention to be the
greatest power in the world.'' Of course, we should never overestimate
China's power or ability to surpass us, but more and more of allies are
saying quietly, ``that the way to bet.'' My book advocates 12 steps for
a new strategy toward China, which I will not elaborate today. I have
read the testimony of your three prior hearings and largely agree with
your earlier witnesses on both the economic side and the security
issues. As well, Chairman Corker held an insightful hearing on how to
improve security cooperation with both General Charles Hooper, head of
DSCA and a mandarin-speaker who served twice in Beijing, as well as
State Department witnesses on the difficulty of coordinating State and
Defense when so many senior positions are still vacant.
Your first four questions concern China's intentions in the Asia-
Pacific, what is President Xi Jinping's vision, what are the main
takeaways from the recent 19th Party Congress, and how does the Chinese
leadership view the United States and its role in the region.
The answer to all four questions is, in one word, ``continuity.''
China's leaders are continuing to implement a largely secret set of
policy decisions made about 40 years ago. The Chinese leadership
abandoned its earlier strategies of first allying with the Soviet Union
in the 1950s and then going it alone in the 1960s. Some of their policy
ideas were uniquely Chinese, especially about the slow pace they would
follow, and others were derived from their deep relationship with the
World Bank beginning in the 1970s. In the 1980s, the World Bank opened
its largest office in the world in Beijing. China's leaders sought and
followed advice from World Bank and IMF officials, and from many Nobel
prize winners in economics, and even from Goldman Sachs, as told in
detail in former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's book Dealing with
China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower. They set up a
national policy which has been correctly labeled mercantilist and even
predatory. Many have criticized them, and an innovative report from
ITIF called the World Mercantilist Index has consistently scored China
to be Number One. China's response has been ignoring this criticism and
to imply that reforms are coming--someday. Some Chinese authors cite
American history in the century from 1820 to 1920 as their model for
government-assisted growth through these predatory practices.
Your second set of three questions focuses on U.S. policy, asking
specifically how U.S.-China policy should take into account China's
intentions, whether the Obama administration's Asia pivot or rebalance
policy succeeded in deterring Chinese destabilizing activities, what
policy the Trump administration should pursue to improve U.S. policy
toward the Asia-Pacific and China, and how to assess President Trump's
recent visit to the region. I thought the President's Asia trip was a
success, particularly in its focus on multi-lateral and alliance
relationships with ASEAN, APEC and our military allies in Japan, South
Korea and the Philippines. He laid an excellent foundation for his
future visits to the region.
I would also answer your three questions about U.S. policy with
just one word, ``innovation.'' My own advice to the Trump
administration as a transition adviser has been simple. We need a
holistic approach led by the President himself who alone can coordinate
the Defense Department, USTR, Commerce, Treasury, and important
elements in the State Department in designing new strategies to deal
with the issues of trade, security cooperation, and multilateral
coordination.
In my view, it is way too soon to judge whether the Trump
administration will have the leverage to significantly change Chinese
predatory practices, a concern that has been publicly raised by USTR
Ambassador Bob Lighthizer. My view has been that we need to press the
Chinese toward reforms by working with our allies, not alone. We also
need to be aware of our allies inside China who have been frustrated or
even punished for their advocacy of real reforms. Cato Institute has
honored an economic reformer named Mao Yushi, but it was not widely
reported. Too few know the specific reforms advocated by the late Liu
Xiaobo whose writings were made available in a book by Professor Andy
Nathan of Columbia.
There are specific policy areas where a holistic strategy should be
designed. I recommend that the State Department take the lead in
advising the President on how to coordinate the timing and
implementation of all the components that a new strategy for the Indo-
Pacific will need. Many do not include all these components, and many
areas too often go uncoordinated such as the democracy promotion funds
at USAID and State, and the Asia program of the National Endowment for
Democracy. Pacific Command is not just a DoD combatant command, but
often offers ideas in overall strategy, civil aspects of security
cooperation, and the rule of law.
In the long term, one of first challenges is Congress should
require the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research
[together with the entire IC and DoD] to present to the Congress a
genuine assessment of the U.S.-China military balance, [to include
future technology issues]. An outline of how to assess this balance has
been suggested in an alarming Rand report called The U.S.-China
Military Scorecard, 1996-2017. The current annual DoD report to
Congress that has been required since 2000 under the NDAA does not
directly compare the military ``scorecard'' of the U.S. and China, yet
many textbooks teach us that the underlying military balance has a
decisive impact on our diplomacy and on deterrence.
We do not want our allies to doubt that the Indo-Pacific military
balance favors us in the long term. Andy Marshall at the DoD Office of
Net Assessment studied this issue at the initial direction of Henry
Kissinger in 1973. One of his findings was that perceptions of a
declining military balance can be as important as a real decline. We
took many initiatives based on Andy Marshall's insights largely about
the Soviet Union. Congress needs to request similar studies of the
future military and technological balance with China. The trend may be
against us if the forecasts are correct Chinese economic growth in PPP
has already surpassed us.
The second set of State Department led policies must include
specific steps in the fields of trade and technology protection that
fall to many different departments and agencies:
1. more lawsuits at the WTO,
2. comprehensive CFIUS reform,
3. a mechanism through which we can coordinate restrictions on Chinese
investment with our European allies,
4. a large increase in federally funded R&D to return to the level of
three decades ago,
5. publishing a list of Chinese companies engaged in IP theft and
unfair trade practices to inform potential litigants of
possible legal targets,
6. measures to provide U.S. companies and U.S. government regulators a
better understanding of Chinese state-owned entities in the
U.S.,
7. amendment of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and the Economic
Espionage Act to protect ourselves,
8. developing comprehensive responses [particularly with India] to
China's Belt and Road Initiative and [with the European Union]
to the new ``Made in China 2025'' plan,
9. an inventory of the official programs and activities we undertake
to assist China's growth, and
10. intelligence efforts to reduce industrial espionage and cyber
theft.
All of these steps face a challenge. Americans tend to assume
falsely that we have been in charge of relations with an essentially
benign and economically inferior China. One of the great lessons of
history Americans have been taught over the years is that President
Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger took a brilliant strategic initiative
to ``open'' a backward, internally-focused China. But what if China has
been more successful in taking initiatives against us--from the start?
In a little-noticed sentence in his book On China published in
2011, Dr. Kissinger has correctly changed the dramatic narrative of a
unilateral American diplomatic initiative. Instead, he revealed new
Chinese materials and admitted there was a ``parallel'' effort inside
China to ``open'' America. Indeed, he lists five times when he and
Nixon actually turned down the earliest Chinese initiatives. My book
3The Hundred-Year Marathon presents even more evidence. I was permitted
by the CIA, the FBI and the Defense Department to use both new American
declassified documents and new Chinese materials to show that the
foundation of U.S.-China relations is very different from what has been
taught in earlier historical accounts. This new history has been well-
received--The Hundred-Year Marathon was a # 1 national best seller and
translated into Japanese, Korean, and two different Chinese editions in
both Taiwan and China. One reaction to this newly history is that the
prospects for future U.S.-Chinese cooperation are much greater than
most had assumed. Conversely, the prospects for a U.S.-China war are
more remote. Strangely, there are at least six American or British
books about the growing likelihood of an American war with China. There
are none about the likelihood of a ``G-2'' style era of strategic
cooperating with China. The books are all useful, with dramatic titles
like The Coming Conflict With China, The Coming China Wars, The Next
Great War, China's Coming War with Asia, and my personal favorite by
Graham Allison, Destined For War: Can America and China Escape the
Thucydides Trap?
My own view is that President Trump is on the right track to pursue
strategic cooperation with China. He has even acknowledged in his own
books and speeches a deep admiration for how smart Chinese strategy has
been.
But the problem of complacency threatens us. Too many believe China
will not be a challenge because it will collapse long before surpassing
us. Others claim we have been in charge of China since 1969 and that
China has no strategy, but is merely muddling through. Is this true?
How Did We Get Here? The Hundred-Year Marathon since 1969:
Nixon and Kissinger have admitted that in their first months in
office, their focus was on improving relations with the Soviet Union.
They had no desire to provoke the Soviets' ire by dallying with China.
Indeed, in many ways, it was not Nixon who went to China, but China
that went to Nixon. In the case of each American president, Beijing's
strategy seems to have been a product of brilliant improvisation--
constant tactical shifts combined with shrewd assessments of the
internal differences among the main players in Washington debates. In
their assessment of shi vis-a-vis the United States, China's leaders
benefited from something considered to be of critical importance during
the Warring States period: a well-placed spy in the enemy's ranks.
A forty-year employee of the CIA, Larry Wu-Tai Chin, was accused in
1985 of engaging in decades of espionage on behalf of China. Chin was
accused of providing countless classified U.S. documents regarding
China to the Chinese government, charges to which Chin pled guilty in
1986. While confessing to a judge, Chin declared that he acted as he
did to promote reconciliation between the United States and China.
Shortly thereafter, he was found by a guard asphyxiated in his prison
cell. Larry Chin seemed to admit to the judge he revealed our planning
and weaknesses to the Chinese government so Beijing could have been
highly effective in getting all it wanted.
America, in contrast, has not had similarly placed informants to
provide direct insight into Chinese strategic thinking. Because we also
lack access to internal Chinese policy documents, this chapter attempts
to unearth the motivations of China's leaders during the time of
renewed relations with the United States through the end of the Reagan
administration by examining U.S. accounts of what appeared to be
driving China, as well as another open-source information that has
emerged since.
Unlike the United States, China has not released, nor is it likely
to ever release, official internal records showing how Chinese leaders
were able to obtain essentially all of the major economic, military,
and diplomatic-political assistance it sought from the last eight U.S.
presidents, from Richard Nixon through Barack Obama. However, there do
appear to be consistent strategic approaches followed by Beijing that
have been acknowledged in general terms in interviews of and articles
by Chinese scholars. The nine elements of Chinese strategy (introduced
in chapter 2) help us to better make sense of China's past and
prospective actions. The use of deception, shi, patience, and avoiding
encirclement by the Soviet Union are all apparent. In particular, the
nine key elements of Chinese strategy have guided China throughout its
decades-long campaign to obtain support from the United States to
increase China's strength.
There is wide agreement that in the late 1960s, with their outsize
ambitions exposed to the Soviets, with whom they were on the brink of
military confrontation, China sought out a new benefactor. For ideas
about how to make America a friend--or, to be more precise, a temporary
ally--Mao turned to the military rather than to his diplomats.
Many Americans discounted the influence of China's hawks. They were
surprised to learn that the military secretly designed China's opening
to America. In the spring of 1969, Mao summoned four hawkish army
marshals who wanted to end China's decade of passivity and instead to
stand up to the threat of the Soviet Union--Chen Yi, Nie Rongzhen, Xu
Xiangqian, and Ye Jianying. These marshals summed up the American
strategy toward the Soviet Union and China in a Chinese proverb of
``sitting on top of the mountain to watch a fight between two tigers.''
In other words, they believed America was waiting for one Communist
country to devour the other, and they thought in terms of ancient
lessons from the Warring States period.
In May 1969, Mao asked them for further recommendations. According
to Kissinger, the marshals' private secretary recorded that the group
discussed ``whether, from a strategic perspective, China should play
the American card in case of a large-scale Soviet attack on China.''
Marshal Chen Yi suggested that the group study the example of Stalin's
nonaggression pact with Hitler in 1939.
Another marshal, Ye Jianying, cited the ``Red Cliff strategy''
pursued by Zhuge Liang, the southern commandeer who outwitted Cao Cao:
``We can consult the example of Zhuge Liang's strategic guiding
principle, when the three states of Wei, Shu, and Wu confronted each
other: `Ally with Wu in the east to oppose Wei in the north.''' In the
marshals' view, America feared a Soviet conquest of China: ``The last
thing the U.S. imperialists are willing to see is a victory by the
Soviet revisionists in a Sino-Soviet war, as this would [allow the
Soviets] to build up a big empire more powerful than the American
empire in resources and manpower.''
Chen Yi pointed out that the new president, Richard Nixon, seemed
eager ``to win over China.'' He proposed what he called ``wild ideas''
to elevate the United States-China dialogue to the ministerial level,
or even higher. Most revolutionary, according to Kissinger, was Chen
Yi's proposal that the People's Republic drop its long-held
precondition that Taiwan be returned to mainland China.
Foreign Minister [and retired general] Chen Yi argued:
First, when the meetings in Warsaw [the ambassadorial talks]
are resumed, we may take the initiative in proposing to hold
Sino-American talks at the ministerial or even higher levels,
so that basic and related problems in Sino-American relations
can be solved. . . .
Second, a Sino-American meeting at higher levels holds
strategic significance. We should not raise any prerequisite..
The Taiwan question can be gradually solved by talks at higher
levels. Furthermore, we may discuss with the Americans other
questions of strategic significance.
China still called the United States its enemy, describing a
possible visit by Nixon as an instance of China ``utilizing
contradictions, dividing up enemies, and enhancing ourselves.'' In
other words, the United States was merely a useful tool for China, not
a long-term ally. Operating on this principle, Beijing sent a secret
message to Nixon and Kissinger: since President Nixon had already
visited Belgrade and Bucharest--capitals of other Communist countries--
he would also be welcome in Beijing. The message contained no hint of
trust or future cooperation.
China has not released internal documents to substantiate the
reasons for the decision to reach out to America, but several Chinese
generals have told me that Mao's subtle approach to the Nixon
administration was a striking example of identifying and harnessing
shi, with some telling me that there was one moment that caused Mao to
redouble his efforts: a major battle at the border of Xinjiang in
northwestern China on August 28, 1969. Beijing mobilized Chinese
military units along China's borders. By then, Kissinger concludes,
resuming contact with the United States had become a ``strategic
necessity.'' At the United Nations in New York, I heard the Soviet
version of their attack and quickly passed it to Peter and Agent Smith
to inform the contentious NSC debate about the risks of reaching out to
China.
In 1969, Mao was able to assess correctly the shi that was driving
China out of the Soviet orbit and toward a new alliance with the West.
Mao had taken two actions to accelerate this shift. The first was his
invitation of Nixon to Beijing. The second was to test two massive
hydrogen bombs without warning within days of each other near the
Soviet border. The act served both as a show of force and as a signal
to America that China sought to move away from the Soviet orbit.
Realizing the Americans still weren't quite getting the message,
Mao did something on October 1, 1970, quite unusual for the committed
and anti-Western Communist: he invited the well-known American
journalist and author Edgar Snow to stand with him on the Tiananmen
reviewing stage, and arranged for a photograph of both of them to be
taken for all of China to see. Mao gave his guest a message: President
Nixon was welcome to visit China. This was an astonishing invitation--
the latest of several overtures by the Chinese government. Kissinger
admits that Washington still did not get the message, or at the very
least did not appreciate its sincerity. The U.S. government was too
preoccupied with its own interests and strategies to care about
China's. Thus the history of normalized Sino-American relations started
off with a myth. Nixon did not first reach out to China; instead,
China, in the person of Mao, first reached out to Nixon. The Americans
just didn't realize it. Nor did Washington yet know that Chinese
documents called America the enemy and likened it to Hitler.
As Nixon and Kissinger considered their grand strategic approach to
China, I was playing a much smaller role in this drama. In the autumn
of 1969, my interlocutors within the intelligence agencies, Peter and
Agent Smith, requested that I brief Kissinger's staff about the
information I had gathered while working as an intelligence asset at
the United Nations. In my meetings with Kissinger's top advisers, I
detected a sharp split on China. Two National Security Council
staffers, John Holdridge and Helmut Sonnenfeldt, wrote memos that
seemed to favor an overture, with neither fearing a Soviet
overreaction. But two others, Roger Morris and Bill Hyland, were
opposed. Morris and Hyland feared that any U.S.-China alliance would
needlessly provoke Moscow and severely damage the administration's
emerging policy of detente with the Soviet Union. Four senior American
ambassadors had already met in person with Nixon to warn him that
Moscow would respond to any U.S. opening to China by halting movement
toward detente and arms control. These clashing memos help to explain
why Nixon and Kissinger delayed the opening to China by two years. They
had to be prodded by China, and by my own reports from the Soviets at
the United Nations that Moscow would not call off detente and actually
expected America to accept China's deceptive offers of an alignment.
Shevchenko and Kutovoy had said exactly this to me.
My evidence seemed to play a modest role in breaking this deadlock.
I relayed what I had gathered so far: that the Sino-Soviet split was in
fact genuine and that the Soviets expected us to open relations with
the Chinese. I reported, and others verified, that senior diplomats
such as Arkady Shevchenko already assumed that Nixon would improve
relations with China to some degree. Their fear was only that he would
go ``too far'' and establish military ties--something that was not then
on the table. I was a strong--and, I hoped, persuasive advocate for a
Sino-American alliance. Kissinger even sent me a thank-you note later.
But there were additional factors at work that persuaded Kissinger
and ultimately President Nixon to move toward Beijing. While Kissinger
was still attempting to discern Chinese intentions, Senator Ted Kennedy
was seeking to visit China. The Chinese even mentioned this possibility
to Kissinger during his secret trip to Beijing in July 1971, consistent
with Warring States concepts about manipulating hawks and doves. Nixon
reacted as anticipated and instructed Kissinger to ask the Chinese to
invite no other U.S. political figure to visit China before Nixon.
Nixon believed, with good reason, that Kennedy was attempting to steal
his thunder and become the first American politician to travel to
Beijing. Raising the possibility in public speeches of renewed
relations with Communist China, Kennedy was putting together what
looked to be a foreign policy platform for the 1972 presidential
election.
Another factor was China's involvement in the Vietnam War.
Beginning in the 1950s, China had been supplying North Vietnam with
weapons, supplies, and military advice. China had recently reduced
military aid to North Vietnam and had even drastically reduced Soviet
shipments through China, which further persuaded the Nixon
administration to side with the pro-China camp.
The Americans would receive reassurance on this front during
Nixon's visit to Beijing when Mao told the president that he was eager
to remove any threat from China to the United States: ``At the present
time, the question of aggression from the United States or aggression
from China is relatively small; that is, it could be said that this is
not a major issue, because the present situation is one in which a
state of war does not exist between our two countries. You want to
withdraw some of your troops back on your soil; ours do not go
abroad.''
Kissinger asserts that this sentence indicating that Chinese troops
would not go abroad reduced the U.S. concern that China would intervene
in Vietnam, as it had done in Korea in 1950. Mao correctly recognized
that this fear featured prominently in American thinking and wanted to
induce complacency.
In July 1971, Kissinger made his historic secret visit to China,
the first tangible realization of Mao's long-held plans. The Chinese
were coy about the Soviet threat that had driven them to reach out to
the Americans. Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai referred only obliquely to
``our northern neighbor'' and ``the other superpower.'' Nor did the
Chinese side initiate any further discussion on the issue of the Soviet
threat. Were they really so terrified of an attack?
During Kissinger's subsequent trip to Beijing, in October, Zhou
placed the Soviet Union on a list of six key issues on the substantive
agenda, although he listed it last. After the Chinese declared that
they were not opposed to improvements in American-Soviet relations,
Kissinger concluded that they were displaying bravado and concealing
their fear of the Soviet threat. Kissinger warned Zhou of Moscow's
``desire to free itself in Europe so it can concentrate on other
areas.'' ``Other areas'' meant the People's Republic of China.
But there were glimpses even then that the Chinese saw the United
States not as an ally but as an obstacle. Referring to the United
States, Zhou offered a hint of how the Chinese really felt about their
new prospective friend.
``America is the ba,'' Zhou told Kissinger's interpreter,
Ambassador Ji Zhaozhu of China's Foreign Ministry, repeating a term
that would be frequently used by Chairman Mao and his successor, Deng
Xiaoping.
U.S. government officials who understand Mandarin--a small but
growing group--have long known that many Chinese and English terms
cannot be fully translated between the two languages. Choices must
often be made by the interpreters about what each side really means.
Kissinger's translator told Kissinger that Zhou's statement meant,
``America is the leader.'' This seemed to be an innocuous remark, and
when taken in the context of the Cold War even a compliment. But that
is not what the word ba means in Mandarin--at least that is not its
full context.
Ba has a specific historical meaning from China's Warring States
period, where the ba provided military order to the known world and
used force to wipe out its rivals, until the ba itself was brought down
by force. The ba is more accurately translated as ``tyrant.'' In the
Warring States period, there were at least five different ba. They rose
and fell, as each new national challenger outfoxed the old ba in a
contest of wits lasting decades or even a hundred years. One wonders
how U.S. policy toward China might have shifted had Kissinger been told
that day that the Chinese saw Americans not as leaders, but as
wrongdoers and tyrants. To this day we still have to sort out and live
with the consequences of that key mistranslation.
Some years later, I had the privilege of talking to Ambassador Ji
Chaozhu. He omitted any discussion of how he translated the concept of
ba to Kissinger in his otherwise chatty memoir The Man on Mao's Right,
which provides a rare insider's account of how China's Foreign Ministry
viewed the opening to the United States. I asked if the word ``leader''
he used in English had originally been the Chinese word ba.
``Did you tell Dr. Kissinger what a ba was?'' I asked.
``No,'' he replied.
``Why?''
``It would have upset him.''
If Kissinger had realized what Zhou meant by ba--if he had realized
how China really viewed the United States--the Nixon administration
might not have been so generous with China. Instead, the administration
soon made numerous offers of covert military assistance to China--all
based on the false assumption that it was building a permanent,
cooperative relationship with China, rather than being united for only
a few years by the flux of shi. Perhaps if U.S. analysts had gained
access to views of the anti-American hawks, China's perception of
America as a tyrannical ba would have alerted Washington. A RAND study
in 1977 warned of evidence since 1968 that there was a strong anti-
American group within the Chinese leadership that used proverbs such as
America can ``never put down a butcher's knife and turn into a
Buddha.''
Two months after Zhou's conversation with Kissinger, with Nixon's
visit just around the corner, Kissinger made the first of many covert
offers to the Chinese. Unbeknownst to a public that would have been
shocked to see the United States aiding and abetting the People's
Liberation Army, Kissinger gave China detailed classified information
about Indian troop movements against Pakistan, as well as America's
``approval of Chinese support for Pakistan, including diversionary
troop movements.'' In return, Kissinger asked for Chinese troop
movements on the Indian border to distract India from its efforts to
invade and then dismember eastern Pakistan. China's troops did not
move, but that did not dampen American expectations.
In January 1972, Nixon authorized Kissinger's deputy Alexander Haig
to make another covert offer to China. Heading an advance team to China
just a month before Nixon's historic visit, Haig promised substantial
cooperation with China against the Soviet Union. Haig told Zhou that
during the crisis between India and Pakistan, the United States would
attempt to ``neutralize'' Soviet threats along China's borders and
``deter threats against [China].'' As far as covert deals go, these
first two offers by Kissinger and Haig were tactical. But they
represented a sharp turn after two decades of a complete American
embargo on China. And, most significantly, they were a sign of larger
offers to come.
China played its role to perfection once Mao sat face-to-face with
Nixon in February 1972. Mao assumed the same role with the Americans
that he had early on with the Soviets--portraying China as a harmless,
vulnerable supplicant desperate for aid and protection. ``They are
concerned about me?'' Mao once asked, referring to the Americans.
``That is like the cat weeping over the dead mouse!'' Mao even put the
Americans on the defensive by claiming that they were standing on
China's shoulders to get at Moscow.
Years later, Kissinger reflected on the palpable uncertainty he
perceived when coordinating with Chinese officials: Was America's
commitment to ``anti-hegemony'' a ruse, and once China let its guard
down, would Washington and Moscow collude in Beijing's destruction? Was
the West deceiving China, or was the West deceiving itself? In either
case, the practical consequence could be to push the ``ill waters of
the Soviet Union'' eastward toward China. To counter these possible
perceptions, Nixon promised Mao that the United States would oppose any
Soviet ``aggressive action'' against China. He stated that if China
``took measures to protect its security,'' his administration would
``oppose any effort of others to interfere with the PRC.''
On the same day Nixon met other leaders in Beijing, Kissinger
briefed Marshal Ye Jianying, the vice chairman of the military
commission, and Qiao Guanhua, the vice minister of foreign affairs,
about the deployment of Soviet forces along the Sino-Soviet border. As
Yale Professor Paul Bracken first pointed out in a 2012 book, The
Second Nuclear Age, China was given nuclear targeting information in
the briefing, which Marshal Ye considered ``an indication of your wish
to improve our relationship.'' Discussion during the briefing included
details about Soviet ground forces, aircraft, missiles, and nuclear
forces. Winston Lord, Kissinger's key aide on China, knew that the
White House assumed that the Soviets might well ``get to hear of'' this
exchange of information. Indeed, Moscow soon did.
Mao asserted that the United States and China should cooperate in
dealing with the Soviet ``bastard'' and urged that Washington should
work more closely with its allies, particularly to maintain NATO unity.
Mao also urged the United States to create an anti-Soviet axis that
would include Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Japan. A counter-
encirclement of the Soviet hegemon was a classic Warring States
approach. What the Americans missed was that it was not a permanent
Chinese policy preference, but only expedient cooperation among two
Warring States. Mao's calculations in 1972 were not clarified until the
Chinese released a memoir two decades later.
This played well with Kissinger, who told Nixon ``with the
exception of the UK, the PRC might well be the closest to us in its
global perceptions.'' There seemed to be little suspicion of China's
strategy.
Yet the Chinese remained suspicious of the United States. They did
not share Kissinger's view that the Shanghai Communique, the document
of understanding that was signed at the end of the summit, suggested
that ``a tacit alliance to block Soviet expansionism in Asia was coming
into being.'' The communique stated: ``Neither [the United States nor
China] should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, and each is
opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to
establish such hegemony; and neither is prepared to negotiate on behalf
of any third party or to enter into agreements or understandings with
the other directed at other states.
If the Nixon administration wanted a quasi alliance with China,
China's message seemed to be that the Americans needed to offer more.
Thus the Nixon administration's next covert offer of support came in a
February 1973 meeting in Beijing. It also included an explicit security
promise, based on finding a way that the United States and China could
cooperate that would at best deter Moscow and at least get the Soviets'
attention. Kissinger told the Chinese that Nixon wanted ``enough of a
relationship with [China] so that it is plausible that an attack on
[China] involves a substantial American interest.'' This is the concept
of a symbolic trip wire, as used in U.S. troop deployments in South
Korea and previously in West Germany to demonstrate that the United
States has a ``substantial national interest'' in a given contingency.
Kissinger was not promising a permanent deployment of U.S. troops to
China's northern border, but he wanted something that would make a
splash. This is what Mao's generals had proposed he seek from Nixon in
1969: a conspicuous gesture to Moscow.
Kissinger even provided a timeline for this strategy. ``The period
of greatest danger'' for China, he told Huang Hua, China's ambassador
to the United Nations, would be in the period from 1974 to 1976, when
the Soviet Union would have completed the ``pacification'' of the West
through detente and disarmament, the shifting of its military forces,
and the development of its offensive nuclear capabilities. Kissinger
wanted the trip wire in place by then.
The next covert offer--the fourth since Nixon's first meeting with
Mao and the sixth since Kissinger's first trip to China--promised to
offer China any deal America offered to the Soviet Union. In the run-up
to the summit meeting between Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev
in June 1973, Kissinger reaffirmed that ``anything we are prepared to
do with the Soviet Union, we are prepared to do with the People's
Republic.'' In fact, the United States was willing to offer China deals
even better than those made with the Soviets: ``We may be prepared,''
said Kissinger, ``to do things with the People's Republic that we are
not prepared to do with the Soviet Union.''
At about this time, Nixon sent a note stating ``in no case will the
United States participate in a joint move together with the Soviet
Union under [the Prevention of Nuclear War] agreement with respect to
conflicts . where the PRC is a party.'' At the same time, he decided to
circumvent U.S. law and regulations by providing technology to China
through the British.
The seventh covert offer was the most sensitive one, and would not
be revealed for three decades, even to the CIA. It grew out of an
internal debate I witnessed in October 1973 about whether to back up
America's vague promises to Beijing and do something tangible to
strengthen China, or to stay at the level of mere words and gestures.
The United States could establish a ``more concrete security
understanding'' with the Chinese, or instead merely promise significant
progress in the diplomatic normalization of bilateral relations. There
was a strong case for each option.
That year, I was working at the RAND Corporation, where as a China
expert I had been given top-secret access to Kissinger's conversations
with Chinese leaders by Richard Moorsteen, a RAND colleague close to
Kissinger. Andy Marshall and Fred Ikle had hired me at RAND, the latter
of whom soon left RAND after Nixon appointed him director of the Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency. Ikle invited me to see him at his
agency's offices several times in 1973 to discuss my analysis of China,
and to draft a proposal to Kissinger of secret cooperation of
intelligence and warning technology.
I shared Ikle's support for tangible U.S. covert cooperation with
China. Though Ikle told Kissinger that a ``formal relationship'' (that
is, a formal alliance) was not desirable, Washington could unilaterally
provide help of a ``technical nature.'' The United States could set up
a ``hotline'' arrangement that would provide a cover for Washington to
give Beijing secret early-warning information about Soviet military
actions directed against China. ``Given that a large portion of the
Chinese strategic forces will continue to consist of bombers, hours of
advance warning could be used by them to reduce the vulnerability of
their forces significantly,'' Ikle and I wrote in one memo. ``The fact
that the hotline might enable us to transmit warning of a possible
Soviet attack could be a powerful argument.'' We also advocated
Washington's selling to Beijing hardware and technology to alert the
Chinese if the Soviets were about to attack, and we supported providing
America's superior high-resolution satellite images to heighten the
accuracy of Chinese targeting of Soviet sites. Kissinger agreed with
our proposal. Only a few knew that he proposed tangible U.S. covert
cooperation with China. On a trip to Beijing in November 1973,
Kissinger told the Chinese that in the event of a Soviet attack the
United States could supply ``equipment and other services.'' America,
Kissinger said, could help improve communications between Beijing and
the various Chinese bomber bases ``under some guise.'' He also offered
to provide the technology for ``certain kinds of radars'' that the
Chinese could build. In other words, Kissinger secretly offered aid to
the People's Liberation Army. He was proposing the beginnings of a
military supply relationship, both in peacetime and in the event of a
Soviet attack.
To my surprise, the Chinese initially balked at the seventh offer,
asking for time to study the proposals before responding further. They
said that American cooperation with early warning would be
``intelligence of great assistance,'' but this had to be done in a
manner ``so that no one feels we are allies.'' With a mentality
straight out of the Warring States era of ruthlessness and shifting
alliances, China's leaders were suspicious that Kissinger's offer was
an attempt to embroil China in a war with Moscow.
The Chinese perhaps did not recognize the risk Nixon and Kissinger
had taken to make this offer. Kissinger's closet adviser on China,
Winston Lord, had argued strongly against this step in a memo to
Kissinger, saying that it would potentially be unconstitutional (not to
mention widely opposed) and would inflame the Russians. Kissinger had
overruled Lord's objections, though Lord himself was a strong supporter
of improving relations with China.
Sino-American relations went through their biggest improvement in
the late 1970s, as Deng Xiaoping took on increasing power and became
the public face for China's PR offensive with the United States. To
Westerners, Deng was the ideal Chinese leader: a moderate, reform-
minded man with a tranquil, grandfatherly demeanor. He was, in short,
the kind of figure Westerners wanted to see.
But Deng was no docile grandfather. In private meetings within the
Politburo, he raged at aides and advisers over China's lack of progress
against the West. He believed that under Mao and his questionable
``reform'' practices, China had lost thirty years in its campaign to
surpass the American ba.
Deng was enthusiastic about a partnership with the Americans, but
for a key reason not meant for public consumption. He had rightly
deduced that by following the Soviet economic model, China had backed
the wrong horse and was now paying the price. Internal Chinese
documents, which came into the hands of U.S. intelligence officials
long after the fact, showed that Chinese leaders concluded that they
had failed to extract all they could from their now-faltering Soviet
alliance. Deng would not make the same mistake with the Americans. He
saw that the real way for China to make progress in the Marathon was to
obtain knowledge and skills from the United States. In other words,
China would come from behind and win the Marathon by stealthily drawing
most of its energy from the complacent American front-runner.
Within the Politburo, Deng was known for referencing a favorite
admonition from the Warring States, tao guang yang hui (hide your
ambitions and build your capability). Deng, too, sent opponents
messages through seemingly oblique and harmless stories. During his
first meeting with President Gerald Ford in December 1975, he referred
to a story from the classic Chinese book The Romance of the Three
Kingdoms to make what in retrospect was an important point, one
completely lost on Ford. The story again involves Cao Cao, discussed in
the previous chapter, considered in Chinese literature to be one of
history's greatest tyrants. Cao Cao, in fact, probably best exemplifies
the concept of a ba in ancient Chinese literature.
In the particular vignette Deng told Ford, Cao Cao defeats Liu Bei,
a rival challenger, and remains the ba. After their war, the challenger
offers to work for Cao Cao, but Cao Cao remains suspicious of Liu Bei's
loyalty. Deng cited to President Ford Cao Cao's famous quote ``Liu Bei
is like an eagle, which when it is hungry will work for you, but when
it is well fed, will fly away.'' Ostensibly, the ``eagle'' in Deng's
story was the Soviet Union. American attempts to accommodate the
Soviets, Deng warned, would fail. Once they had what they wanted, the
Soviets, like Liu Bei, would pursue their own interests. What the
Americans missed from that anecdote was that the same strategic
sentiment held true for China. Once America built China into an equal,
China would not remain an ally but would ``fly away.''
However, Deng tactfully decided not to tell the most famous story
about Cao Cao and Liu Bei--for if he had done so, he would have
divulged China's true aims in dealing with the Americans. Chinese hawks
had not yet begun to write openly about the allegory contained in these
ancient stories. We would need this key to decode Chinese strategic
allusions. There was no sign that either Ford or Kissinger had any idea
what Deng was talking about.
Entranced as they were by their new relationship with the Chinese,
the Nixon and Ford administrations willingly satisfied many of China's
immediate political objectives.
All these gifts--and more to come--were kept secret from the
American public for at least thirty years. The United States not only
cut off the CIA's clandestine assistance program to the Dalai Lama--
Public Enemy Number One to Communist China--but also canceled the U.S.
Navy's routine patrols through the Taiwan Strait, which had symbolized
America's commitment to Taiwan. American policy became a series of
initiatives to strengthen China against its adversaries.
In 1975, while still at RAND, I wrote an article for Foreign Policy
magazine advocating military ties between the United States and China,
to create a wedge against the Soviets. Richard Holbrooke, the once and
future diplomat, was then serving as the magazine's editor. He was a
strong proponent of the article, labeling my idea a ``blockbuster.'' He
shared my thoughts with other editors, leading to a long story in
Newsweek, ``Guns for Peking?'' Other media outlets picked up the
proposal, while the Soviet press attacked both the arguments I made in
the proposal and me personally. Chinese military officers at the United
Nations had suggested the idea to me. So in 1973 I began four decades
of conversations with China's military hawks, hearing about lessons
from Warring States to deal with the hegemon, which I then assumed
would always mean the Soviet Union.
In early 1976, Ronald Reagan, running against President Ford for
the Republican presidential nomination, read the article. (I had sent
it to Reagan at Holbrooke's behest.) In a handwritten note, the former
California governor said he agreed with the idea of closer ties with
the Chinese as a wedge against the Soviets. But he also cautioned me
about the Chinese, and worried in particular about abandoning America's
democratic allies in Taiwan. After I met with Governor Reagan at his
Pacific Palisades home--where he joked about being ``sixty-four years
old and unemployed''--he encouraged me to keep sending him material
about China that he might use in speeches.
In 1978, relations with the United States moved toward
normalization--that is, official American recognition of Communist
China as the legitimate government of the Chinese people. That year,
Deng focused immediately on what was at the top of his American wish
list: science and technology. This was an example of the Warring States
concept known as wu wei--or, having others do your work. As he
formulated a strategy in 1978, Deng understood, as he put it, that
``technology is the number one productive force'' for economic growth.
The only way China could pass the United States as an economic power,
Deng believed, was through massive scientific and technological
development. An essential shortcut would be to take what the Americans
already had. Deng found a willing partner in that effort in a new
American president, Jimmy Carter, who was eager to achieve the
diplomatic coup of a formal Sino-American partnership.
In July 1978, President Carter sent to China the highest-level
delegation of U.S. scientists ever to visit another country. Frank
Press, Carter's science adviser and a former MIT professor specializing
in earthquake science, led the delegation. Press had been chairman of
the U.S. Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's
Republic of China from 1975 to 1977, and therefore took particular
interest in scholarly exchanges with China. The Press delegation
received great attention from the Chinese. The People's Daily rarely
published speeches by foreigners, but in this case it printed Press's
banquet speech, which stressed the advantages of globalization. And
Michel Oksenberg, a National Security Council official for China policy
who would sit in on some fourteen meetings with Deng, said he never saw
Deng more intellectually curious and more involved in articulating his
vision about China's future than on this trip. Again playing the role
of vulnerable supplicant, Deng spoke to Press's delegation about
China's all but hopeless backwardness in science and technology and
expressed his concerns about American constraints on high-tech exports
to his country. In the past, Beijing kept tight control over the
country's scientists going to the United States, limiting their numbers
in fear that the scientists might defect. Press expected that they
would likewise be cautious about expanding scientific exchanges with
the West. So he was surprised when Deng proposed that the United States
immediately accept seven hundred Chinese science students, with the
larger goal of accepting tens of thousands more over the next few
years. Deng was so intent on receiving a prompt answer that Press,
considering this one of the most important breakthroughs in his career,
telephoned President Carter, waking him at 3:00 a.m.
Like his adviser, Carter gave little thought to the implications of
China's sudden intense interest in scientific exchanges, viewing it as
merely a welcome sign of improved relations. In January 1979, Deng made
his first and only visit to the United States, and he was a hit.
President Carter feted him at a state dinner and, in a sign of the
bipartisan flavor of U.S.-China policy, even invited the disgraced
Richard Nixon to attend, the first time the former president had
visited the White House since his resignation in August 1974. Deng
spent thirteen days in the United States, touring Coca-Cola's
headquarters, the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and even Disney
World. In a sign of acceptance by the American popular media, Time
magazine put Deng on its cover, twice. At the National Museum in
Beijing, one can see displayed a photograph of Deng smiling beneath a
ten-gallon hat he received in Texas, which became the symbol of his
1979 visit. It signaled to the U.S. public that he was good-humored,
less like one of ``those Communists'' and more like ``us.'' But it also
proved a turning point for the Chinese and the Marathon. Deng obtained
far more than had Mao. On January 31, 1979, during his visit to the
United States, Deng and Fang Yi, director of the State Science and
Technology Commission, signed agreements with the U.S. government to
speed up scientific exchanges. That year, the first fifty Chinese
students flew to America. In the first five years of exchanges, some
nineteen thousand Chinese students would study at American
universities, mainly in the physical sciences, health sciences, and
engineering, and their numbers would continue to increase. Carter and
Deng also signed agreements on consular offices, trade, science, and
technology--with the United States providing all sorts of scientific
and technical knowledge to Chinese scientists in what would amount to
the greatest outpouring of American scientific and technological
expertise in history. The Chinese reached out to the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences to send a series of delegations to China to
initiate U.S.-China scientific exchanges in several fields China had
selected. The Chinese strategy was to get the Americans to ensure their
admission to all international organizations dealing with physics,
atomic energy, astronautics, and other fields.
The Americans agreed, thus making an eighth offer to China. The
Americans also agreed to engage in more covert military cooperation.
President Carter provided China with intelligence support to aid
China's war in Vietnam, to a degree that shocked even Henry Kissinger,
as he described in his 2011 book On China. In tones suggesting that
perhaps he'd created a monster by opening the door to ties with
Beijing, Kissinger denounced Carter's ``informal collusion'' with what
was ``tantamount to overt military aggression'' by Beijing--aid that
``had the practical effect of indirectly assisting the remnants of the
Khmer Rouge.'' A visit to China by Secretary of Defense Harold Brown,
Kissinger fumed, ``marked a further step toward Sino-American
cooperation unimaginable only a few years earlier.''
The ninth offer, Presidential Directive 43, signed in 1978,
established numerous programs to transfer American scientific and
technological developments to China in the fields of education, energy,
agriculture, space, geosciences, commerce, and public health. The
following year, the Carter administration granted China most-favored-
nation status as a U.S. trading partner.
President Carter also authorized the establishment of signals
intelligence collection sites in northwestern China in about 1979, as
the CIA operative and future U.S. ambassador to China James Lilley
described in his memoir, China Hands. ``Part of the reason I was
awarded a medal from the CIA was my work setting up the first CIA unit
in Beijing,'' Lilley wrote. ``Another contributing fact was my role in
developing intelligence sharing with China.. It sounded like a far-
fetched idea--the United States and China, who had been fighting each
other through surrogates just a few years earlier in Vietnam, working
together to collect strategic technical intelligence on the Soviet
Union.''
* * * * * * *
In 1978, I was serving as a professional staff member on the U.S.
Senate Budget Committee, and I also worked as a consultant to the
Defense Department, where I continued to read classified analyses on
China and produced reports and analyses of my own. As Ronald Reagan
mounted a second bid for the White House in 1980, I was appointed as
one of his advisers, and I helped draft his first campaign speech on
foreign policy. I expressed a view, common among his advisers, that the
United States ought to help China to stave off the far greater Soviet
threat. After Reagan won the election, I was named to the presidential
transition team. I then advocated still more cooperation. An early ally
in my efforts was Alexander Haig, who knew all about the earlier
efforts with China under the Carter administration, and now as
secretary of state visited Beijing and publicly offered to sell weapons
to China, the next logical step.
National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 11, signed by President
Reagan in 1981, permitted the Pentagon to sell advanced air, ground,
naval, and missile technology to the Chinese to transform the People's
Liberation Army into a world-class fighting force. The following year,
Reagan's NSDD 12 inaugurated nuclear cooperation and development
between the United States and China, to expand China's military and
civilian nuclear programs.
Reagan was deeply skeptical of his predecessor's policies toward
China--a stance that led to a serious policy disagreement within the
administration. Reagan saw China's underlying nature better than I did
and better than most of the China experts who would populate his
administration. On the surface, Reagan followed the Nixon-Ford-Carter
line of building up China--``to help China modernize, on the grounds
that a strong, secure, and stable China can be an increasing force for
peace, both in Asia and in the world,'' in the words of Reagan's NSDD
140, issued in 1984. (Significantly, the NSC staff severely limited
access to NSDD 140--only fifteen copies were produced--probably at
least in part because it outlined the Reagan administration's
controversial goal of strengthening China.)
Reagan signed these secret directives to help build a strong China
and even offered to sell arms to the Chinese and to reduce arms sales
to Taiwan. But unlike his predecessors, Reagan added a caveat that
should have been crucial. His directives stated that U.S. assistance to
China was conditioned on China staying independent of the Soviet Union
and liberalizing its authoritarian system. Unfortunately, his advisers
largely ignored these preconditions, and for whatever reason so did he.
Additionally, the Reagan administration provided funding and
training to newly established Chinese government-run institutes
specializing in genetic engineering, automation, biotechnology, lasers,
space technology, manned spaceflight, intelligent robotics, and more.
Reagan even approved a Chinese military delegation visit to one of the
crown jewels of national security, the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, the research agency that invented the Internet, cyber
operations, and dozens of other high-tech programs.
During the Reagan presidency, America's covert military cooperation
with China expanded to previously inconceivable levels. The United
States secretly worked with China to provide military supplies to the
anti-Soviet Afghan rebels, the Khmer Rouge, and the anti-Cuban forces
in Angola. Our cooperation against the Vietnamese occupation of
Cambodia--including the arming of fifty thousand anti-Vietnam
guerrillas--was discussed in interviews by four of the CIA officers who
revealed the details of this program in the book The Cambodian Wars.
There was a much larger secret that other CIA officers revealed in
George Crile's book Charlie Wilson's War, the story of America's
purchase of $2 billion in weapons from China for the anti-Soviet Afghan
rebels. Kissinger's memoirs reveal that there was covert cooperation in
Angola as well.
Why did China seek to cooperate with the United States on these
large-scale covert actions? We will definitively find out only when
Beijing opens its archives or a very high-level defector arrives. One
thing we know now is that Beijing wanted to use American power and
technology to strengthen China for the long term. The key point seems
to have been the perceived need to play strategic wei qi, to head off
encirclement by the Soviet Union. No one saw this as an effort to make
broader progress in the Marathon. China made itself seem weak and
defensive to us, in need of protection.
In the tenth offer, U.S.-Chinese intelligence gathering along
China's border with the Soviet Union-code-named the Chestnut program--
was approved, according to the New York Times reporter Patrick Tyler.
Later, during an August 1979 trip to China by Carter's vice president,
Walter Mondale, the Pentagon and the CIA airlifted to China the
Chestnut monitoring stations via military transport. Tellingly, Tyler
reported, the Chinese asked the U.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter at the
Beijing airport to park beside a Soviet passenger jet so the Soviets
would see the cooperation.
According to Tyler, these monitoring stations could collect
information about air traffic, radar signals from Soviet air defenses,
and KGB communications, and they could also detect any change in the
alert status of Soviet nuclear forces. Thus China would have an
increase in its warning time in the event of a Soviet attack. This was
a huge advance in Chinese security in the months before the attempted
encirclement that would begin with the Soviet-backed Vietnamese
invasion of Cambodia and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December
1979. Through their patience, the Chinese were getting more than what
Kissinger, Ikle, and I had proposed six years earlier.
According to the requirements of shi, Beijing must have thought it
needed America's help to break up the two ``pincers'' of the Soviet
encirclement of China--in Afghanistan and Vietnam. The circumstances
justified going farther than Mao had; Deng would accept significant aid
from the hegemon.
From 1982 through 1989, the Sino-American Cambodian program was run
out of Bangkok, with the support of the Chinese, the Royal Thai Army,
Singapore, and Malaysia. This constituted the eleventh offer of U.S.
assistance to China. The covert cooperation was effectively masked for
two decades because it was partly overt. USAID provided funds named for
the program advocates, Representative Bill McCollum, a Republican from
Florida, and Representative Stephen Solarz, a Democrat from New York,
for nonlethal humanitarian assistance in Cambodia. Behind these two
overt programs, Reagan ordered the CIA to provide covert assistance
initially in 1982 for $2 million a year, and that was raised as of 1986
to $12 million, as Kenneth Conboy notes. The program was commingled
under a project the Thais called Project 328. China, Malaysia,
Singapore, and Thailand also contributed weapons and funds. Singapore's
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew even visited Bangkok to travel to the
secret camp. I visited in 1985 and 1986, to be briefed by the CIA
station chief, who had transferred to Bangkok after serving as head of
the Far East Division at CIA headquarters. He considered the project
``the only game in town,'' referring to the Cold War, with China
joining up against the Soviets.
Starting in the summer of 1984, two years after the program in
Cambodia began, Chinese covert cooperation to drive the Soviets out of
Afghanistan would become fifty times larger than its effort in
Cambodia.
We did not understand shi and counter-encirclement at that time,
and therefore no one thought the Chinese government would risk Soviet
wrath by becoming a major arms supplier to America's efforts to aid the
Afghan rebels. The discovery was made by a brilliant, Mandarin-speaking
CIA friend, Joe DeTrani. This Chinese connection was a tightly held
secret, and no more than ten people in the entire CIA were aware of the
program, according to Tyler. The Chinese still do not acknowledge that
they provided such arms. In his book Charlie Wilson's War, George Crile
reports that the first order was for AK-47 assault rifles, machine
guns, rocket-propelled antitank grenades, and land mines.
In 1984, Representative Charlie Wilson had drummed up $50 million
to increase support for the rebels in Afghanistan. Crile reports that
the CIA decided to spend $38 million of it to buy weapons from the
Chinese government. The Washington Post in 1990 quoted anonymous
sources that said that the total value of weapons provided by China
exceeded $2 billion during the six years of Sino-American covert
cooperation.
U.S.-Chinese clandestine cooperation reached its peak during the
Reagan administration. Presidents Nixon and Ford had offered China
intelligence about the Soviets. President Carter established the
Chestnut eavesdropping project. But it was Reagan who treated China as
a full strategic partner--albeit in secret.
The three main projects were clandestine aid to the anti-Soviet
rebels in Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Angola. By now, I had been
promoted to the civilian equivalent of a three-star general and made
head of policy planning and covert action in the Pentagon, reporting to
the official in charge of policy, Fred Ikle. Ikle and I were among the
few who knew about Kissinger's 1973 offer to aid China and President
Carter's Chestnut program. He and I were ready to test whether China
was really willing to become a U.S. ally. The affirmative results would
prejudice many senior U.S. officials to favor China for years to come.
My duty was to visit the leaders of the Afghan, Cambodian, and
Angolan rebel groups in Islamabad, Bangkok, and southern Angola,
respectively, to ascertain their plans and needs. I was also sent to
obtain China's advice, approval, and support. We recommended that
President Reagan sign National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 166,
which reflected that there was a chance that escalation in Afghanistan
could provoke retaliation by the Soviets. We needed China's assessment
of the situation and, ideally, its support.
Two decades later, the journalist Steve Coll alleged that ``the
Chinese communists cleared huge profit margins on weapons they sold in
deals negotiated by the CIA.'' If the assertion is accurate that $2
billion was spent on Chinese weapons for the anti-Soviet rebel groups,
then China's purchase of more than $500 million in American military
equipment for itself seems relatively small.
The Chinese not only sold the weapons to us to give to the rebels,
but also advised us how to conduct these covert operations. From their
advice emerged a few lessons about Chinese strategy toward a declining
hegemon, in this case the Soviet Union. First, the Chinese emphasized
that we had to identify key Soviet vulnerabilities to exploit. One
tactic, they explained, was to raise the cost of empire. When I first
proposed the option of supplying Stinger antiaircraft missiles to the
Afghan and Angolan rebels, the Chinese were delighted at the high costs
that these weapons would impose, in the form of destroyed Soviet
helicopters and jet fighters.
The second idea was to persuade others to do the fighting. This was
of course a manifestation of the Warring States-era notion of wu wei.
The third concept was to attack the allies of the declining
hegemon. The Cambodian rebels worked against the Soviets' Vietnamese
puppets. The Angolan rebels expelled the Cubans, who had been flown to
Angola in Soviet aircraft that might also have been shot down with
Stingers, if they had been made available then. The United States, in
cooperation with China, did all this, and more.
I asked the Chinese whether they thought it would be excessively
provocative to take two additional steps: Should we supply and
encourage Afghan rebels to conduct commando sabotage raids inside the
Soviet Union (which had never been done during the Cold War)? And
should we agree to the request to provide the Afghans with long-range
sniper rifles, night-vision goggles, and maps with the locations of
high-ranking Soviet officials serving in Afghanistan in support of what
amounted to a targeted assassination program? My colleagues had been
certain that the Chinese would draw the line at such actions. I had
read enough Chinese history to guess that they would agree, but even I
was taken aback at the ruthlessness of Beijing's ambition to bring down
the Soviets when they answered affirmatively to the two questions.
Steve Coll wrote in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Ghost Wars that
it was the American side that declined these requests. He writes of
``alarms'' among the CIA's lawyers that it was almost ``outright
assassination'' and so the local CIA station chief ``might end up in
handcuffs.'' So the sniper rifles could be approved but not the maps
and night-vision goggles. The commando raids inside Soviet territory,
favored by the Chinese as a way to bring down the Russian hegemon, were
soon curtailed as well, in spite of the Chinese recommendation to us
that this would have a useful psychological shock effect on the
declining hegemon.
In 1985, the aid to the Chinese Marathon expanded to include
American weapons, as the Reagan administration arranged for the sale of
six major weapons systems to China for more than $1 billion. This
program aimed to strengthen China's army, navy, and air force and even
to help China expand its marine corps. And in March 1986 the Reagan
administration assisted China's development of eight national research
centers focused on genetic engineering, intelligent robotics,
artificial intelligence, automation, biotechnology, lasers,
supercomputers, space technology, and manned spaceflight. Before long,
the Chinese had made significant progress on more than ten thousand
projects, all heavily dependent on Western assistance and all crucial
to China's Marathon strategy. The Reagan administration hoped it was
countering Soviet power by giving a boost to the Chinese, and
everyone--from Reagan on down--wanted to believe Beijing's claims that
China was moving toward greater liberalization.
China's strategy to break the Soviet encirclement with help from
its fellow Warring State was succeeding. In 1989, the Soviets announced
they would leave Afghanistan, and Vietnam soon withdrew from Cambodia.
Now, would Washington and Beijing build on this foundation of trust and
therefore become true allies forever? I thought so. But according to
the Warring States' axioms, now would be the time for China to get back
to dealing with the real hegemon, the United States.
__________
Prepared Statement of Dr. Graham T. Allison
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Markey, and members: I thank you for
the opportunity to testify today on critical questions about ``American
leadership in the Asia-Pacific: the view from Beijing.'' My grandfather
was fond of quoting a line from the Old Testament book of Proverbs that
says: ``oh, that my enemy had written a book.'' On the array of
questions that you have posed for the members of this panel, I have
written a book entitled Destined for War: Can America and China Escape
Thucydides's Trap? The book was published on Memorial Day and I have
been gratified by the responses from reviews in all the major
newspapers and journals, including the front page of the Sunday New
York Times Book Review, as well as the speed with which the major
arguments of the book have entered the policy mainstream, both in
Washington and Beijing. Indeed, at the 19th Party Congress that just
concluded in Beijing, Xi Jinping was talking, among other things, about
Thucydides's Trap.
If required to summarize the core argument of the book in a few
bullet points, it is that:
When a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power, alarm
bells should sound: danger ahead. Thucydides's Trap is the
dangerous dynamic that occurs in this interaction. In the case
of the rise of Athens and its impact upon Sparta (which had
ruled Greece for 100 years), or Germany in its rivalry with
Britain a century ago in the run up to World War I, or China
over the past generation as it has come to rival, and in many
areas, surpass the U.S., this dangerous dynamic creates
conditions in which both competitors are acutely vulnerable to
provocations by third party actions. One of the primary
competitors feels obliged to respond and there follows a
cascade of actions and reactions at the end of which the two
find themselves in a war neither wanted. Ask yourself again:
how did the assassination of a minor archduke start a fire that
burned down the whole of Europe at the beginning of the past
century? How did North Korea drag China and the U.S. into war
67 years ago last month?
Destined for War examines the past 500 years and finds 16 cases in
which a rising power threatens to displace a ruling power.
Twelve of these cases ended in war; four without war. Thus to
say that war between a rising China and a ruling U.S. is
inevitable would be mistaken. But to say the odds are against
us would not be.
This book is neither fatalistic nor pessimistic. Instead, its
purpose is to help us recognize that these structural factors
create extreme dangers that require extreme measures on the
part of both the U.S. and China--if we are to escape
Thucydides's Trap. As I argue in the book, business as usual
(which is what we have seen for the last two decades under both
Democratic and Republican leadership) is likely to lead to
history as usual. And in this case, that would be a
catastrophic war that no one in Beijing or Washington wants.
Indeed, every serious leader in both capitals knows that would
be crazy. But none of the leaders of the major powers in 1914
wanted World War I. Neither China nor the U.S. wanted war in
1950. The good news is that, as Santayana taught us, only those
who refuse to study history are condemned to repeat it. We are
under no obligations to repeat the mistakes made by Kaiser
Wilhelm in 1914 or Pericles in classical Greece that led to
war.
In sum, the purpose of the book is to help us diagnose the
condition which we now find ourselves in. My thesis is certain
to frustrate Washingtonians--since the Washington template
demands a solution to a problem in the same sentence in which
the challenge is identified. In my view, that is one of the
major problems with ``Washington solutions.'' We must recognize
that a rising China is not a ``fixable'' problem but rather a
condition that we will have to cope with for a generation.
Success in meeting this grand challenge will require a surge of
imagination and adaptability as remarkable as that demonstrated
by individuals we now celebrate as the ``wise men'' who created
the Cold War strategy that we sustained for four decades until
success was at last achieved.
Your invitation for me to testify identified ten questions. Perhaps
I can be most helpful by summarizing brief answers to each.
1. What is your assessment of Chinese strategic intentions in the
Asia-Pacific region, and globally, over the short, medium, and
long term? How will China advance those intentions?
I posed this question two years ago to the individual who was
unquestionably the world's premier China watcher until his death in
2015. Specifically I asked him: ``are China's current leaders,
including Xi, serious about displacing the U.S. as the predominant
power in Asia in the foreseeable future?''
I cannot improve on his answer. Lee Kuan Yew responded: ``Of
course. Why not? How could they not aspire to be number one in Asia and
in time the world?''
Lee foresaw the twenty-first century as a ``contest for supremacy
in Asia.'' China's leaders see this as what they call a ``prolonged
struggle'' over international order--especially in their neighborhood.
This does not mean that Xi and his colleagues want war. Precisely the
opposite. Instead, they are attempting to follow Sun Tzu's maxim:
``Ultimate excellence lies not in winning every battle, but in
defeating the enemy without ever fighting.'' As Henry Kissinger's
explains, for the Chinese this means that ``far better than challenging
the enemy on the field of battle is maneuvering him into an unfavorable
position from which escape is impossible.'' In economic relations
today, China is doing just that to its Asian neighbors and indeed to
the U.S.
China primarily conducts foreign policy through economics because,
to put it bluntly, it can. It is currently the largest trading partner
for over 130 countries--including all the major Asian economies. As
China's dominant economic market and its ``One Belt, One Road'' plan to
network Asia with physical infrastructure (at a scale 12 times that of
the Marshall Plan) draws its neighbors into Beijing's ``economic
gravity,'' the United States' post-World War II position in Asia
erodes.
2. How does the Chinese leadership view the United States and its role
in the region and the world?
In 2014, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and U.S.
National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft each came back from separate,
extensive conversations with Chinese leaders with identical views of
what they call the striking ``consensus'' in the Chinese leadership.
According to both statesmen, China's leaders believe that America's
grand strategy for dealing with China involves five ``to's'': to
isolate China, to contain China, to diminish China, to internally
divide China, and to sabotage China's leadership. As Rudd explained,
these convictions ``derive from a Chinese conclusion that the U.S. has
not, and never will, accept the fundamental political legitimacy of the
Chinese administration because it is not a liberal democracy.''
Moreover, according to Rudd, this is based on ``a deeply held, deeply
`realist' Chinese conclusion that the U.S. will never willingly concede
its status as the preeminent regional and global power, and will do
everything within its power to retain that position.'' Or, as Henry
Kissinger says plainly, every Chinese leader he has met believes that
America's strategy is to ``contain'' China.
When I asked a Chinese colleague in their security community what
he thought the U.S. role in the region should be, he answered: ``back
off.'' His own colleague proposed a more candid two-word summary:
``butt out.'' As realistic students of history, Chinese leaders
recognize that the role the U.S. has played since World War II as the
architect and underwriter of regional stability and security has been
essential to the rise of Asia, including China itself. But they believe
that as the tide that brought the U.S. to Asia recedes, America must
leave with it. Much as Britain's role in the Western Hemisphere faded
at the beginning of the twentieth century, so must America's role in
Asia as the region's historic superpower resumes its place. As Xi told
a gathering of Eurasian leaders in 2014, ``In the final analysis, it is
for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems
of Asia and uphold the security of Asia.''
Prior to last week's APEC meeting in Da Nang, China persuaded
Vietnam to negotiate their South China Sea dispute through direct talks
without the U.S., and the Philippines to end construction of facilities
on Thitu Island, which China claims. As China's Ambassador to the U.S.
put it: ``I think it would certainly be better if others including the
United States would not try to interfere in this constructive
process.'' At the conclusion of last week's meeting with President
Trump, Xi noted that ``the Pacific Ocean is vast enough to accommodate
both countries'' But as China's aggressive deployment of modern anti-
ship missiles with longer and longer ranges keeps nudging U.S. aircraft
carriers further and further from its shores, one suspects that Xi
hopes to persuade Trump to a division of spheres of influence on either
side of Hawaii.
3. How is China's regional and global posture taking shape under
President Xi Jinping? What is your perspective on the outcomes
of the recent 19th Party Congress?
In his speech at the 19th Party Congress, President Xi was very
clear about China's posture today. He said: ``the Chinese nation now
stands tall and strong in the East; no one should expect China to
swallow anything that undermines its interests.'' Moreover, he was bold
enough to put a target objective and a date together, declaring China's
intention to become ``global leader in terms of composite national
strength and international influence'' by 2050. If, by mid-century,
China achieves a per capita GDP equivalent to that of the U.S., its
economy will be four times larger than ours--since it has four times as
many people.
Anyone who doubts Xi's ambitions for China should listen to the
declaration of his own sense of the march of history captured in a line
that has not been reported by English-language media. He declared:
``History looks kindly on those with resolve, with drive and ambition,
and with plenty of guts; it won't wait for the hesitant, the apathetic,
or those shy of a challenge.'' That should give you an idea about his
posture.
4. How has the United States' view of China evolved over the past
century, and how do you see it evolving in the decade ahead?
To put it in one line, the U.S. has assumed that, as it matured,
China would become ``more like us.'' Particularly after the Cold War
ended abruptly in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of
the American foreign policy establishment took a victory lap in which
we engaged in more than a little triumphalism. Celebrating the U.S.
position as the Unipolar Power, Frank Fukuyama famously declared the
End of History. Democratic capitalism had swept the field and hereafter
nations would follow our lead first in adopting market capitalism in
order to grow rich. As they developed a middle class, they would become
democracies. And according to the ``democratic peace'' hypothesis, war
would become obsolete since democracies do not fight each other. Thomas
Friedman popularized this argument with his ``Golden Arches'' theory,
declaring that two nations that had McDonald's Golden Arches could not
fight each other.
Obviously, this victory lap was premature. Americans are now waking
up to the fact that, as Lee put it, a powerful China will insist on
``being accepted as China, not as an honorary member of the West.''
5. What is your perspective on the Obama administration's ``Asia
Pivot'' or ``rebalance'' policy, and what policy should the
Trump administration pursue with respect to the Asia-Pacific,
and China in particular?
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
This illustration comes from my testimony to the Senate Armed
Services Committee in 2014. It compares the relative weight of the U.S.
and Chinese economies as if they were two competitors on opposite ends
of a seesaw. While we have been debating whether we should put less
weight on our left foot (the Middle East) in order to put more weight
on our right (Asia), China has just kept growing--at three times the
U.S. rate. As a result, America's side of the seesaw has tilted to the
point that both feet will soon be dangling entirely off the ground.
What strategy should the Trump administration adopt to deal with
this challenge? I wish I knew. I wish anybody knew. But truth be told,
I am still struggling to diagnose our challenge. As I argue in DFW,
diagnosis must precede prescription. If when one walks into a doctor's
office, he immediately proposes to put you on the trolley and roll you
into the operating room for surgery, beware. Washingtonians live by the
creed: ``don't just stand there, do something.'' But I believe that we
need first to understand the shape of the challenge we face. There is
no ``solution'' for the dramatic resurgence of a 5,000-year old
civilization with 1.4 billion people.
What America needs most at this moment is not a new ``China
strategy,'' but instead a serious pause for reflection, followed by a
surge of strategic imagination as penetrating as that displayed by
those ``wise men.'' In short, it will demand something far beyond
anything we have seen since the opening to China.
What I will say is that the strategy toward China that America has
followed since the end of the Cold War, known as ``engage but hedge,''
is fundamentally flawed: it is a banner that permits everything and
prohibits nothing. It relies on balancing China while hoping that China
will become a liberal democracy, or at least accept a subordinate place
in the American-led international order. It should now be obvious that
this is not going to happen. If the U.S. just keeps doing what it has
been doing, future historians will compare American ``strategy'' to
illusions that British, German, and Russian leaders held as they
sleepwalked into WWI.
6. What is the current state of China-North Korea relations? How have
they evolved in recent years? Given China's desire to avoid a
collapsed state and/or having the U.S. military close to its
borders, how much pressure can China be expected to apply to
North Korea?
China-North Korea relations are worse than ever before. Outraged by
Beijing's support for sanctions, some North Korean statements have even
begun implicitly threatening China, noting that North Korea's missiles
can fly in any direction. Chinese internet users commonly refer to Kim
Jong Un as ``Little Fatty'' and reportedly Xi Jinping personally cannot
stand him. When Kim tested a missile during Xi's important BRICS
Summit, Xi took it as a serious personal insult.
However, the strategic situation has not fundamentally changed for
China. They see stability on the Korean Peninsula, even with an
antagonistic neighbor, as preferable to any feasible alternative. They
remain unwilling to support any action that would lead to the collapse
of the regime. And they continue to see the biggest anomaly on the
peninsula as the presence of the U.S.
7. How likely is it that a U.S.-North Korea military conflict would
trigger a wider Sino-American war? Under what circumstances
might we expect China to intervene (or not intervene) in an
American conflict with North Korea?
Anyone who finds it hard to believe that a military conflict with
North Korea could drag the U.S. into war with China should remember
1950. In June of 1950, a Communist North Korea lad by KJU's grandfather
attacked South Korea and almost succeeded in reunifying the country
under his control. The U.S. came to the rescue at the last minute and
U.S. troops pushed the North Koreans back up the peninsula, across the
38th parallel, and rapidly approached the Chinese border. McArthur
expected to wrap things up before Christmas so that U.S. troops could
come home. The possibility that China, which just the year before had
consolidated control of its own country after a long, bloody civil war,
would attack the world's sole superpower, who just five years earlier
had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was for McArthur
inconceivable. But he awoke one morning in October to find his forces
attacked by a ``peasant army'' of 300,000 Chinese who beat the U.S.
back down the roads they had come up, to the 38th parallel, where the
U.S. was forced to settle for an armistice. Tens of thousands of
Americans, hundreds of thousands of Chinese, and millions of Koreans
died in that war.
Chinese believe that Mao established the proposition that Korea
would never become a unified state under the control of an American
military ally. As they put it pointedly, if we were prepared to fight
to make that point in 1950 when we were 1/50th your size, it should not
be necessary to test that proposition again with a China that now has a
GDP larger than that of the U.S.China has considered Korea to be its
vassal state since 670AD. And for China the prospect of South Korea
conquering the North and bringing U.S. troops to China's borders is as
unacceptable today as it was in 1950. Expect China to intervene in some
fashion on the peninsula in almost any military scenario?even if only
to seize and hold a buffer zone in the north, as Chinese troops have
recently been drilling to do.
Even if Chinese forces entered North Korea with no intention of
fighting the U.S., there are many scenarios in which war could still
occur through miscalculation, including a ``vertical track meet''
between Chinese and U.S. special forces rushing to secure the North's
nuclear weapons in the event of a regime collapse. These weapons are
held near China's borders, so it is very likely that if and when U.S.
troops arrive, they will find Chinese special forces already there.
8. What diplomatic role can China play to defuse tensions between the
U.S. and North Korea, and advance diplomacy to denuclearize the
Korean peninsula?
The immediate cause of tension between the U.S. and North Korea is
North Korea's drive to develop a credible threat to strike the American
homeland with nuclear weapons, on the one hand, and President Trump's
determination to do whatever is required to prevent that from
happening, on the other. This is the dynamic that will in the next 12
months take us to one of three destinations: (1) North Korea will have
completed the next series of ICBM tests and be able to hold American
cities hostage; (2) Trump will have ordered airstrikes on North Korea
in an attempt to prevent that from happening; or (3) a minor miracle in
which Xi and Trump, working together, convince Kim to halt his nuclear
advance.
China controls North Korea's oil lifeline. If it squeezes that
pipeline, North Korean aircraft, tanks, missile launchers, trucks, cars
and factories will feel the pain. China has been reluctant to exercise
this influence for fear of how Kim might react. But after recent
provocations, Chinese officials have begun signaling that Xi might be
willing to take that risk.
Careful watchers of last month's 19th Party Congress in Beijing
have noted the dog that did not bark. During the coronation of China's
new emperor, the only peep from Pyongyang was a letter of
congratulations from Kim. This caution carried over to the meetings
between Trump and Xi last week, which Kim did not greet with another
nuclear or missile test as some feared he would.
If Trump and Xi seek to hammer out a joint plan for stopping Kim
from further ICBM and nuclear tests, what could that look like? The
Chinese government has offered a formula it calls ``freeze for
freeze.'' North Korea would stop testing for the year ahead and the
U.S. would stop or significantly modify joint U.S.-South Korean
military exercises that Kim despises. The U.S. has rejected that idea
outright. But if Trump recognizes that the only alternatives are the
two previously mentioned, it should be possible to find adjustments the
U.S. could make in exercises, bomber flights and troop levels in South
Korea that, while uncomfortable and ugly, do not compromise anything
vital. Whether that would be sufficient to persuade Xi to threaten
Kim's oil lifeline, and whether Kim would accept a freeze for freeze,
is uncertain. And even if such a deal were possible, this would only
kick the can down the road for another year.
Nonetheless, given where events stand today, if Trump and Xi can
find their way to cooperate to produce this minor miracle, we should
all give thanks.
9. Other than North Korea, what flashpoints do you see that could
trigger military conflict between the U.S. and China?
The dangerous dynamic of Thucydides's Trap leaves both parties
vulnerable to actions by third parties, or events that would otherwise
be inconsequential or readily managed, but that trigger reactions by
the primary competitors that lead to war. Chapter 8 of my book is
titled ``From Here to War.'' It sketches five all--too--plausible
scenarios that could escalate mundane crises into a war that neither
the U.S. nor China wants: North Korea; an accidental collision in the
South China Sea; a move by Taiwan toward independence; a clash between
China and Japan in the East China Sea; and an economic conflict that
escalates into a shooting war.
I am ready to describe each in detail if members are interested.
10. How do you assess President Trump's visit to the region?
One is reminded of Zhou Enlai's response to Henry Kissinger when
Kissinger asked him how he assessed the French Revolution. Zhou said:
``it's too soon to tell.''
Overall, the trip seems to have been more successful than most
observers had expected. Through a twelve day marathon, an individual
known not to like to travel or to participate in big meetings with
foreign leaders played his role and stayed on script. Since his primary
objective was to develop support for stopping KJU's nuclear advance,
the fine words we heard both from Trump and from all his counterparts
are good enough. But the proof of what was accomplished on this front--
or not--will be in actions we see in the weeks ahead.
The Trump administration's choice to focus on Xi and to do whatever
it can to persuade him to rein in KJU was, in my view, the best of the
feasible approaches available--given the realities they inherited in
January. Whether Xi believes that if he fails to stop KJU from
conducting another series of ICBM tests, Trump will order U.S. strikes,
time will tell. As noted above, I am hoping and indeed praying for a
miracle. But as an old Pentagon hand, I know that hope and prayer alone
are not a sufficient plan.
For more on my thoughts about the North Korean challenge, I have
attached two op-eds from the past two weeks that summarize my views.
I trust that I have said enough to be responsive to your assignment
and I look forward to the discussion.
Will Trump and Xi ``Solve'' North Korea?
Dr. Graham Allison, Politico, 11/8/2017
The centerpiece of President Donald Trump's conversation with
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday will doubtless be North Korea.
Before their first meeting in April, Trump's message to Xi was
unmistakable: You solve this problem, or I will, and you won't like the
way I do it. Then, just after he served Xi and his wife chocolate cake
at Mar-a-Lago, Trump excused himself and went to an adjacent room to
announce that the U.S. was launching 59 cruise missiles against Syria.
Message: I'm serious.
Trump has repeatedly complained that his predecessors left him a
mess in North Korea, with an emboldened regime in Pyongyang that
threatens to soon have a credible capability to hit the United States
with a nuclear weapon. ``It should have never been given to me,'' he
told an interviewer in October. ``This should have been solved long
before I came to office, when it would have been easier to solve. But
it was given to me and I get it solved. I solve problems.''
But will Trump really ``solve'' North Korea? The answer is most
certainly no. Indeed, I am so confident in answering no that I am
prepared to bet $100 of my money--against $1 of anyone who wants to
wager--that when Trump leaves office, a nuclear-armed North Korea will
remain a major challenge for his successor.
Why is the North Korea challenge essentially unsolvable? Because of
brute realities that defined the problem before Trump arrived.
Specifically, when he entered office nine months ago, North Korea
already had dozens of nuclear weapons, as well as short- and medium-
range missiles that could deliver them against South Korean and
Japanese cities. Moreover, it stood on the cusp of an intercontinental
ballistic missile capability to credibly threaten attacks on San
Francisco and Los Angeles.
Well before Trump mounted his campaign for the presidency, Kim Jong
Un had concluded that the surest way to protect his regime from an
attack by the U.S. was a sturdy nuclear security blanket. North Korean
leaders listened carefully to President George W. Bush's 2002 State of
the Union address when he famously named an ``axis of evil'': Iraq,
Iran and North Korea. Bush then proceeded to launch a massive attack
against Iraq, the only one of the three that had no nuclear weapons or
serious nuclear weapons program. A decade later, Bush's successor
joined the British and French in an extensive air campaign against
Libya that overthrew Muammar Qadhafi, who just eight years earlier made
a deal with the U.S. to give up his nuclear weapons program. As Bush's
Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman later quipped, we taught bad
guys around the world that ``if you have no nuclear weapons, we will
invade you; but if you give up your nuclear weapons program, we will
only bomb you.''
If these realities make it impossible for Trump to ``solve'' North
Korea, what can he hope to achieve on this Asia odyssey?
Jump ahead a year to November 2018. At that point, we will know
what happened in the current stare-down between Kim and Trump. There
are three possibilities: (1) North Korea will have completed the next
series of ICBM tests and be able to hold American cities hostage; (2)
Trump will have ordered airstrikes on North Korea to prevent that
happening; or (3) a minor miracle will have avoided the first two
possibilities.
The safest posture is to hedge one's bets, or even better, to craft
a Delphic pronouncement that sounds profound but leaves sufficient
wiggle room to allow one to claim to have been right whatever happens.
But if forced to place my bet, I'd wager that Kim wins. He will conduct
the tests, and U.S. intelligence will report that he now has a credible
threat to hit the continental United States. Of course, he would never
do that--or at least almost never. He knows that doing so would mean
committing suicide for himself and his regime. Nonetheless, Americans
will be living in a significantly more dangerous world.
If required to quantify my odds, I put the first option (No. 1
listed above) at 50 percent. For the rest, saving 10 percent for
possibilities beyond the three I am currently able to identify, I would
split the remainder: betting that there is a 25 percent chance of a
U.S. attack and a 15 percent chance of a miracle.
Currently, most of Washington's national security experts are not
only expecting, but even hoping for the first option, since they find
the second unacceptable and the third too remote a possibility to
believe. Unfortunately, most have not yet recognized how dangerous that
world will be.
Why will it be more dangerous than the challenge we face today?
Because Kim will be emboldened by his success. He will have gone
eyeball to eyeball with the leader of the most powerful country in the
world and forced him to blink. He will have trumped Trump.
What can we look for in Kim's next act? If he follows his father's
and grandfather's script, watch for coercive extortion. In response to
Kim's tests, the U.S. will further tighten sanctions to threaten the
regime's economic survival. His response will remind us of former
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's observation: North Korea will
``sell anything they have to anybody who has the cash to buy it.'' A
nation known in U.S. intelligence circles as ``Missiles-R-Us'' will
threaten to become ``Nukes-R-Us.''
Could North Korea sell nuclear weapons to another rogue state? The
U.S. would warn the regime that this would cross an inviolable red
line. But what could we threaten that Kim would believe we would
actually do? He will reflect on the fact that the U.S. was not prepared
to attack North Korea to prevent it from acquiring an ability to strike
the American homeland. For what else would it risk war--other than a
full-scale attack on the U.S. or an American ally?
The second option, particularly if it involves a limited cruise-
missile attack like the one Trump launched in Syria, is operationally
feasible and can interrupt Kim's ICBM tests. The question is: How will
Kim respond? Most U.S. intelligence analysts believe he will shell
Seoul with conventional artillery. Just last week, a high-level North
Korean defector told Congress that this is the plan. North Korea has
long deployed and regularly practiced the use of this threat to Seoul.
Killing tens of thousands of people overnight would not be that
difficult.
In order to stop the firing that could kill hundreds of thousands
more, South Korea and the U.S. would conduct strikes to destroy these
long-range artillery guns and other missiles and rockets poised to hit
the South.
This would mean attacks on several thousand aim points. Even if the
effort was successful in significantly limiting the number of
additional bombs exploding in South Korea, the consequence of the
attack would almost certainly be the initiation of a Second Korean War.
And the further wild card that cannot be wished away is North Korea's
substantial nuclear arsenal and missiles.
When asked about this scenario by Congress, Secretary of Defense
James Mattis has repeatedly insisted that such a war would be
``catastrophic.'' He has reminded members of Congress that in the first
Korean War, tens of thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of
Chinese and millions of Koreans died.
Mattis has also assured Congress that at the end of such a war, the
U.S. would win and the Kim regime would be gone. The question he has
not addressed, however, is what China would do. The Chinese security
community has been as loud and clear as it could be that Beijing would
never allow a unified Korea that is an American military ally. That,
they say, was the big lesson from the first Korean War.
Which brings us to pray for a minor miracle in which Xi and Trump,
acting together, persuade Kim to halt his nuclear advance. This is not
quite as far-fetched as it may seem at first glance. Xi has found Kim
almost as frustrating as Americans have. Repeatedly, Kim has
demonstrably dissed Xi by launching missiles or testing nuclear weapons
to ``celebrate'' major events in Beijing: the BRICS [Brazil, Russia,
India, China, South Africa] Summit, the grand announcement of Xi's
multitrillion dollar One Belt One Road Initiative, the visit of
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to plan for the summit in Beijing with
Trump.
China controls North Korea's oil lifeline. If it squeezes that
pipeline, North Korean aircraft, tanks, missile launchers, trucks, cars
and factories will feel the pain. China has been reluctant to exercise
this influence for fear of how Kim might react. But after recent
provocations, Chinese officials have begun signaling that Xi might be
willing to take that risk.
Careful watchers of last month's 19th Party Congress in Beijing
have noted the dog that did not bark. During the coronation of China's
new emperor, the only peep from Pyongyang was a letter of
congratulations from Kim. Whether this caution will carry over to the
meetings between Trump and Xi on Thursday we will soon see.
If Trump and Xi seek to hammer out a joint plan for stopping Kim
from further ICBM and nuclear tests, what could that look like? The
Chinese government has offered a formula it calls ``freeze for
freeze.'' North Korea would stop testing for the year ahead and the
U.S. would stop or significantly modify joint U.S.-South Korean
military exercises that Kim despises. The U.S. has rejected that idea
outright. But if Trump recognizes that the only alternatives are the
two we have discussed, it should be possible to find adjustments the
U.S. could make in exercises, bomber flights and troop levels in South
Korea that, while uncomfortable and ugly, do not compromise anything
vital. Whether that would be sufficient to persuade Xi to threaten
Kim's oil lifeline, and whether Kim would accept a freeze for freeze,
is uncertain. And even if such a deal were possible, this would only
kick the can down the road for another year.
Nonetheless, given where events stand today, if Trump and Xi can
find their way to cooperate to produce this minor miracle, we should
all give thanks. Indeed, having found out what they can achieve when
the U.S. and China are prepared to be more imaginative and adaptive in
cooperating, they might find ways to go further, and begin rolling back
Kim's nuclear program. And even this partial success would lay a
foundation for managing other arenas where the Thucydidean dynamic of a
rising power's threat to displace a ruling power creates serious risks
of catastrophic war.
Would I bet on this happening? Nope. But I hope it does.
* * * * * * *
North Korea Crisis Presents Risk, But Also
Opportunity for U.S. and China,
Graham Allison and Michael Morell, Cipher Brief, 10/22/17
Most discussions about the North Korea nuclear threat focus on the
risk of conflict between the U.S. and North Korea. Serious as that is,
an even more important issue is what the crisis will mean for the U.S.
and China--the world's most consequential relationship. Great risk and
great opportunity abound.
Will the 21st century be defined by great power war or peace? By
prosperity or poverty? The answers depend largely on the course set by
Washington and Beijing. But as powerful as both are, each is subject to
structural forces not of their own making. Today, as a rising China
threatens U.S. predominance in Asia and the international order the
U.S. has underwritten for the past seven decades, both sides are locked
in the Thucydides Trap. (Thucydides, the ancient Greek historian, was
the first to identify the natural tensions between a rising power and
the ruling power it seeks to displace--in his case, Athens and Sparta--
that can lead to conflict.)
This dynamic leaves the U.S. and China vulnerable to the decisions
of third parties: actions that would otherwise be inconsequential or
easily managed can trigger reactions by the great powers that lead to
disastrous outcomes neither wanted. How else could the assassination of
a minor archduke in Sarajevo in 1914 have produced a conflagration so
devastating that it required historians to invent an entirely new
category--``world war''? In the antics of the erratic (but rational)
young leader of North Korea, whom the Chinese security establishment
calls ``little fatty,'' it is not hard to hear echoes of 1914. The
challenge for leaders in Washington is to deal with the acute crisis
while also developing ways to cope with the underlying challenge in the
relationship.
What is the risk? In the next six to 12 months, either Kim Jong-un
is going to demonstrate that he can reliably put a U.S. city at risk of
nuclear attack and we are going to (reluctantly) accept that, or
President Trump is going to try to prevent that from happening by
ordering U.S. airstrikes on North Korea. Remember: upon becoming
president-elect, Trump vowed that he would not allow North Korea to
develop the capability to hit the U.S. with a nuclear weapon. A cruise
missile attack like the one Trump ordered on Syria after the opening
dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago is not difficult
to execute. The question is what would come next.
No one knows for sure. But the best judgment of North Korea experts
is that the North will respond by raining artillery shells down on
Seoul--the center of which is just 35 miles from the border between
South and North Korea--killing tens of thousands or even hundreds of
thousands of its more than 25 million citizens in just the first 24
hours of fighting. It is simply not possible for a U.S. preemptive
strike to remove all the North Korean artillery along the border before
it can fire on Seoul.
As that is occurring, what will South Korea and the U.S. do? Again,
while nothing is automatic, plans call for the obvious: attacks on the
weapons that are firing against Seoul. In addition to the artillery on
the border, the U.S. and South Korean counterattack would almost
certainly target the several thousand other North Korean rockets and
missiles that could attack South Korea (including missiles that could
carry nuclear warheads). Whether that attack would also attempt to kill
Kim Jong-un and the leadership in Pyongyang involves another decision
by the President. But the critical point is that after a U.S.-South
Korean response against several thousand targets in the North, the
second Korean War would have begun.
Secretary of Defense Mattis has offered his considered assessment
of such a war in recent testimony before Congress. He has warned
candidly that a second Korean conflict would be catastrophic, causing
loss of life, including both U.S. combatants and U.S. civilians living
in South Korea, unlike any we have seen since the first Korean War. But
he has also assured members of Congress that at the end of that war the
U.S. would ``win,'' Korea would be unified, and the Kim regime would be
gone.
The question he has not addressed, and which no member of the
committees before which he has testified has asked him, is: ``what
about China?'' That was the question General Douglas MacArthur
infamously failed to consider in October 1950, when U.S. troops who had
come to the rescue of South Korea pushed the North Korean aggressors
back up the peninsula. MacArthur imagined that he would unify the
country and start bringing American troops home before Christmas. Since
this was just five years after the U.S. had ended World War II by
dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and less than a year
after Mao had won a long, bloody civil war, the thought that a nation
with a GDP one fiftieth the size of America's would attack the world's
uncontested superpower was inconceivable. But Mao did. And his force of
300,000 fighters, followed by a second wave of half a million, beat
American forces back down the peninsula to the 38th parallel where the
U.S. had to settle for an armistice.
As a member of the Chinese security establishment explained to one
of us in a recent conversation, Beijing will not permit a united Korea
allied with the U.S. on its border. From a Chinese perspective, that
point was written in blood when Mao's China entered the first Korean
War. And they will do so again if Beijing believes that is the U.S.
intention or the likely result of a U.S. and North Korean conflict.
Indeed, just last month, the Chinese warned publicly that if the U.S.
preemptively attacked North Korea, China would fight on behalf of Kim
Jong-un.
This is a not a war we would want the U.S. to fight. No one should
forget that the first Korean War claimed the lives of tens of thousands
of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Chinese, and millions of
Koreans. With China's extensive military modernization over the last
two decades, particularly the deployment of weapon systems designed to
deny U.S. access to the battlefield, the Chinese might even win the
war--or force the U.S. to settle again for an equivalent of the
armistice accepted in 1953. Such outcomes would mark a turning point in
the balance of power in East Asia, if not the world. After World War
II, the U.S. emerged as the leading global power. After a second Korean
War, China might wear that mantle.
A similar risk of conflict between the U.S. and China exists in the
other, and perhaps more likely, path that the U.S. could take in the
near-term regarding the North Korean nuclear crisis--acceptance of the
North's nuclear weapons capability along with containment and
deterrence to deal with the threat. The problem with this option is not
only that it leaves Kim with an ability to strike the U.S. homeland
with nuclear weapons but also that Kim could see that capability as a
tool to coerce the U.S. and South Korea to get what he wants--first,
the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Peninsula and second,
reunification on his terms. Kim could calculate that since the U.S. was
not prepared to risk war to prevent it acquiring the capability to
attack American cities, the U.S. would not be willing to trade Chicago
for Seoul. And, in taking provocative actions based on this assumption,
Kim could bring the U.S. and North Korea to war--again with the risk of
China joining the fight.
What then is the opportunity? Our vital national interest in North
Korea is to ensure that Kim Jong-un cannot threaten the U.S. and our
allies and partners with nuclear weapons. China shares this interest
because Beijing understands that as the North Korean threat grows, the
U.S. and its allies will move to protect themselves with missile
defense, a development that would also put Chinese missiles and
therefore China's deterrence at risk. Beijing also knows that South
Korea and Japan may well respond to a North Korea armed with nuclear-
tipped missiles by developing their own nuclear weapons, a serious and
threatening development from China's perspective.
Given these converging interests, can we imagine American and
Chinese diplomats finding common ground on a vision for the future of
the Korean Peninsula--one without nuclear weapons--and developing a
cooperative approach to achieve it that might start with significant
limits on what North Korea has at present? If such cooperation were to
result in eventual denuclearization of the North and enhanced stability
in Northeast Asia, it would act as a bright shining beacon of what the
U.S. and China could achieve working together. It would build trust in
both capitals. It would be a major step forward in managing the
Thucydidean tension in the relationship and pushing the two countries
away from conflict and toward cooperation.
How do we get to a place with the Chinese where we can have such a
conversation about North Korea? It cannot be through threats. We cannot
achieve this by publicly scolding China over not doing more to pressure
Kim Jong-un, by publicly raising the prospect of war between the U.S.
and North Korea in an effort to frighten Beijing into action, or by
publicly offering China a deal whereby they pressure North Korea in
exchange for the U.S. backing away from action on Chinese trading
practices. None of these will move China to act. They are too proud a
nation and a culture to be bullied, bribed, or threatened into action.
Rather, the potentially productive path forward is to sit and talk
turkey with the Chinese--in private, even secretly--about their real
national interests and ours. President Trump and President Xi should
ask one or more of their most trusted senior officials to sit down for
several days of hard conversation and come back with feasible, if ugly,
options for a joint way forward.
For inspiration, they could read the transcripts--now
declassified--of the initial conversations between Henry Kissinger (as
Nixon's national security adviser) and Zhou Enlai (Mao's most trusted
lieutenant). They could reexamine what John F. Kennedy did when he came
to the final fork in the road confronting the Soviet Union over its
attempt to place nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. They could consider
what Obama did in sending Bill Burns and Jake Sullivan to secret talks
that developed a path to prevent (or at least postpone for a decade)
Iran's quest for nuclear weapons.
Critics will shout: ``but in every one of these cases the U.S.
compromised!'' Yes, to achieve what these presidents judged vital for
our country, they sacrificed other interests. To open relations with
China in order to encourage its split from the Soviet Union, Nixon and
Kissinger agreed to de-recognize Taiwan as the government of China and
recognize Beijing (a decision that was officially implemented under
President Carter). To escape the choice between accepting an
operational Soviet nuclear base in Cuba and an attack on the missiles,
Kennedy promised--secretly--that if the Soviet missiles were withdrawn,
six months later, equivalent U.S. missiles in Turkey would be removed.
And as Iran's nuclear program had advanced to a point that it stood
just 2 months away from its first nuclear bomb, Obama signed an
agreement that allowed Iran to keep a limited uranium enrichment
program in exchange for pushing its nuclear program back to at least a
year away from a bomb.
Ronald Reagan was determined to bury Communism. But to advance that
cause, he repeatedly engaged in negotiations with the Soviet Union and
reached arms control agreements that constrained or even eliminated
American nuclear and missile programs as the price of stopping Soviet
advances that threatened us. For this, many conservative supporters
attacked Reagan. For example, George Will accused Reagan of
``accelerating moral disarmament'' and predicted that ``actual
disarmament will follow.'' But as Reagan's Secretary of State George
Shultz noted: ``Reagan believed in being strong enough to defend one's
interests, but he viewed that strength as a means, not an end in
itself. He was ready to negotiate with adversaries and use that
strength as a basis of the inevitable give-and-take of the negotiating
process.''
To persuade China to join us in taking responsibility for North
Korea, and use its leverage to stop Kim's nuclear advance and begin
rolling back his program, what incentives could Trump's secret
negotiators offer as a reward for success? The Trump Administration and
its predecessors have insisted that we will not make changes in our own
military forces to reward North Korea or China for stopping bad
behavior. But there is nothing sacrosanct about the number of U.S.
troops who participate in the regular fall and spring joint military
exercises with South Korea. In fact, the recent exercise included only
17,500 American soldiers, a 30 percent reduction from the 25,000 who
participated in the 2016 equivalent. Though Trump has steadfastly
resisted Xi's call for a ``freeze for freeze''--a freeze in North
Korean nuclear and missile tests in exchange for a freeze in U.S./South
Korean military exercises--some variant of that should be considered as
part of the solution, given the alternatives. Even more enticing to
China, the U.S. could offer to delay or even cancel and roll back
deployment of missile defenses, including the THAAD batteries in South
Korea, if China took actions that mitigated or eliminated the threat.
We recognize serious objections to each of these possible
concessions and others. Indeed, we have often voiced them. But the
brute fact is that, at this point, U.S. choices have shrunk to the zone
between the horrific and the catastrophic. Accepting a nuclear-armed
North Korea that can hold American cities hostage to a nuclear attack
and attempting to live with that threat by a combination of deterrence
and defenses would constitute one of the highest risks that the U.S.
has faced in the seven decades of the nuclear age. Attacking North
Korea to prevent that outcome will likely lead to a catastrophic second
Korean War that could find thousands of Americans and Chinese killing
each other.
Before choosing between these terrible options, we urge President
Trump to explore a third way through candid discussions with the
Chinese of options that heretofore have been ``unacceptable'' but that
are in fact preferable to the alternatives. Kennedy and Khrushchev did.
So, too, did Reagan and Gorbachev. There is no guarantee that such
talks with China or the subsequent joint approach to North Korea would
work--Chinese influence with North Korea may be more limited than most
think--but we owe it to our security and to history to try.
If there is a better way out of the North Korea crisis, it will be
through Washington and Beijing working together. For leaders determined
to construct a productive U.S.-China relationship, North Korea offers a
great opportunity. It also offers perhaps the greatest challenge and
risk to that relationship, and therefore to U.S. leadership in the
world, since the end of the Cold War.
AMERICAN LEADERSHIP IN
THE ASIA-PACIFIC--
PART 5: THE ASIA REASSURANCE
INITIATIVE ACT
----------
TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2018
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and
International Cybersecurity Policy
Committee on Foreign Relations
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
Room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Cory Gardner,
chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Gardner [presiding], Rubio, Markey, and
Kaine.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CORY GARDNER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
Senator Gardner. This hearing will come to order.
And let me welcome all of you to this hearing for the
Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the
Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy in the 115th
Congress.
This hearing is the fifth hearing in a series of hearings
specifically dedicated to building out various aspects of U.S.
policy challenges and opportunities in Asia, from security
threats to economic engagement to democracy and human rights to
U.S.-China relations.
Today we will hear the administration's view on what
constitutes a free and open Indo-Pacific and what we must do to
achieve this goal.
This hearing is the culmination of the intense work between
this subcommittee, policy experts, U.S. businesses, civil
society advocates, and the administration to define U.S.
national interests toward this critically important region of
the world.
The results of these hearings and conversations is the Asia
Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA legislation, which we
introduced with Ranking Member Markey and Senators Rubio and
Cardin 2 weeks ago. This legislation is intended to serve as a
policy framework to enhance U.S. leadership in the Indo-Pacific
region and to demonstrate our shared commitment to a rules-
based international order.
We began this series of hearings nearly 15 months ago. At
our first hearing on March 29th in 2017, we focused on the
growing security challenges in the region, including North
Korea, the South China Sea, and terrorism in Southeast Asia. We
agreed at that hearing that we must strengthen U.S. defense
posture and increase security engagement with our allies in the
region.
Later that year in May, we focused on the importance of
U.S. economic leadership in Asia. We agreed at that hearing
that while the administration and Congress might differ on
global trade strategy, we cannot ignore the fundamental fact
that it is Asia that will be critical for the U.S. economy to
grow and for the American people to prosper through trade
opportunities.
At our third hearing, we focused on projecting U.S. values
in the region, including the promotion of democracy, human
rights, and the rule of law. We agreed that the active
promotion of these fundamental values only reinforces American
leadership in Asia and reflects our core beliefs as a nation
that human rights are universal rights without exception.
In November of last year, our fourth hearing considered the
relationship with the People's Republic of China, the region's
rising power and our near-peer strategic competitor. We agreed
that, as once hoped, China's rise will be less than peaceful.
As President Xi Jinping consolidates power domestically, it is
clear that China also increasingly views its increasing
economic and military power in the region as a zero sum game
with the United States.
So now that this legislation has finally been introduced, I
hope today our distinguished administration guests can shed
light on how we can shape a multi-generational comprehensive
U.S. policy toward the Indo-Pacific region which preserves and
strengthens the rules-based international order but also avoids
armed conflict with Beijing; economically benefits the United
States and sets high standards, but also protects Americans
from unfair trade practices; reflects our nation's longstanding
dedication to fundamental human freedoms, but also provides
long-term tools and mechanisms to advance these goals as part
of the multifaceted policy that includes engagement with
regimes that may not necessarily share these same values.
It is a tough challenge, a tough challenge, indeed, but I
believe it can be achieved when the administration and Congress
speak with one voice. And that is what I hope can happen at
today's hearing.
Now I will turn it over to our ranking member, who I have
enjoyed working with over the past Congresses, his position on
this committee and obviously on the legislation and look
forward to this hearing with him and more work together.
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. And
thank you for convening this incredibly timely and important
hearing.
And I want to thank our administration witnesses for being
here as well and for their dedication to promoting U.S.
interests throughout Asia.
Out of the ashes of World War II, the United States and its
allies set out to create a set of rules, norms, and structures
around the world that would not only promote U.S. interests but
also benefit others as well. These systems, built out of the
devastation of a world war, have been bastions of American
values and influence throughout the world. They have helped
countries flourish and prosper, and in no place that has been
more evident and important to U.S. national security interests
than in Asia.
Whether we call it Asia or the Indo-Pacific, it is clear
that a growing network of countries from the Indian Ocean
through the Pacific yearn to participate in a regional system,
an American system that keeps them secure and allows them to
prosper, a system that reduces the likelihood of devastating
major power conflict while helping others develop and thrive,
one that upholds respect for national sovereignty and freedom
from coercion. This system's ability to overcome the unique
characteristics of the Indo-Pacific have proved its staying
power.
Through American development programs and institutions like
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the United
States helped unleash unprecedented growth and stabilize a
fragile region. We have promoted democracy, human rights, and
the rule of law, core values for all people, all the while
American security alliances have deterred threats and helped
establish a stable balance of power.
This arrangement continues to facilitate our ability to
safely address the pressing security challenges in the region.
But make no mistake. Challenges abound, prominent immediate
ones like North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles,
longer-term or nuanced ones like the Chinese Government's
strategic campaign to weaken the rule-based order. And with
challenge comes opportunity, the opportunity to strengthen
alliances from Japan to South Korea to Australia, Thailand, and
the Philippines, to tackle issues from terrorism to climate
change with longtime friends in Southeast Asia, to empower
American diplomats to help solve vexing and longstanding
foreign policy and security problems, to promote the health and
wellbeing of countless individuals across the most heavily
populated region of the planet, to empower people to seek
freedom and economic opportunity, and the opportunity to show
the region that the United States is no fair weather friend,
that we are devoted to the Indo-Pacific because we, Democrats
and Republicans alike, recognize that the region is more
peaceful when we truly make it a priority.
We are at a unique moment in history, one where we need to
communicate to the region, to allies and adversaries alike,
that the United States is invested literally and figuratively
in Asia.
That is why Senator Gardner and I introduced the Asia
Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA. This legislation makes
clear that it is an important issue, that there are key tenets
that the U.S. regional policy must include: promoting the
rules-based order whether through trade practices or the
freedom of navigation, peacefully denuclearizing North Korea
through diplomacy and economic pressure, prioritizing
reasonable and effective nuclear nonproliferation policies, and
defending human rights and the respect for democratic values.
Our hope and our intent was and remains to ensure that the
region stays at the forefront of people's minds, and in a time
when allies and partners in the region may be unsure where the
United States stands, it is imperative that we provide
reassurance. The region should hear Congress and the executive
branch expressing a shared recognition over the challenges and
opportunities and over the principles by which we intend to
pursue our interests and promote our values. There is no place
in the modern world for powerful countries coercing smaller
neighbors through threat of force, no room for dictators to
discriminate against, falsely imprison, torture, or kill their
own citizens, no room for proliferation of the most dangerous
weapons on earth, and no room for the old ways of might makes
right. But there should be every chance for creative, forward-
looking solutions while preserving the independence and freedom
of action for those living under oppression and for forging
stronger partnerships with likeminded countries towards common
goals.
But the system is increasingly under challenge. So we must
speak clearly about U.S. objectives in the region, and we must
lay out the pathways that will help us reach those goals. And
we must fully fund those activities because a strategy with
insufficient resources is no strategy at all.
That is why our bill would authorize $1.5 billion annually
to address wide-ranging challenges we face in Asia because we
must ensure that we protect both U.S. economic and security
interests, as well as the broader international system that has
helped provide peace and stability throughout the Indo-Pacific
and beyond. The United States cannot afford to cede leadership
in such a critical region. Doing so will only lead to a
resurgence of the behaviors we have for so long fought against.
I look forward, Mr. Chairman, to exploring these issues
with this fantastic panel that you have brought to the
committee today, and I yield back to you.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Markey.
Our first witness will be the State Department witness
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: Mr. Alex Wong,
who returns to the State Department, now serving as Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of East Asian and
Pacific Affairs. Prior to his appointment, he was the foreign
policy advisor to our colleague and general counsel as well to
Senator Tom Cotton. He was the Senator's chief advisor on all
issues related to national security, international relations,
and law enforcement. Welcome, Mr. Wong, and thank you very much
for your service. We will begin with your testimony.
STATEMENT OF ALEX N. WONG, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU
OF EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
STATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator. Chairman Gardner, Ranking
Member Markey, members of the subcommittee, thank you for this
opportunity to appear today before the subcommittee. It is an
honor to testify on the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, on the
U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, and our nation's continued
leadership in the region. And it is also an honor to be doing
so alongside my friend and colleague, Randy Schriver.
The Indo-Pacific region is of chief importance to the
United States. The Indo-Pacific includes half of the world's
population and, by the middle of the century, will likely
constitute half of the world's GDP. 50 percent of global trade
passes through the Indo-Pacific sea routes. Annually the United
States conducts $1.4 trillion in two-way trade with the region
and is the source of over $850 billion in foreign direct
investment annually, making the United States the region's
largest trading partner and largest investor. The region is
home to the world's three largest democracies and some of its
most inspirational democratic miracles and many of its fastest
growing economies.
In all of these ways, the region implicates vital U.S.
interests. And to defend those interests, we have long
exercised leadership in the Indo-Pacific. But as the region
grows in population and economic weight, U.S. strategy must
adapt to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is increasingly a place
of peace, stability, and growing prosperity and not a region of
disorder, conflict, and predatory economics.
The ARIA legislation states, ``Without strong leadership
from the United States, the international system, fundamentally
rooted in the rule of law, may wither, to the detriment of
United States, regional, and global interests.'' While the
administration is still reviewing the entirety of the
legislation, we agree with that assessment.
That is why the administration is pursuing a strategy,
grounded in U.S. leadership that advances a free and open Indo-
Pacific. President Trump introduced the strategic concept of a
free and open Indo-Pacific during his historic trip to the
region in November, which was the longest trip by a President
to the region in a generation. We are now formulating the
implementation of this strategy, and the formulation process is
a government-wide endeavor that includes the Department of
State, Department of Defense, and every other agency that has a
role in the Indo-Pacific.
Our objective is to align U.S. policies and programs toward
strengthening the free and open order that the United States
has fostered in the region for over 70 years.
Now, the modifiers we have chosen to describe the strategy,
``free'' and ``open,'' were chosen with care because they
embody the principles that we seek to embed in the region.
The term ``free'' means first, on the international plane,
that we want the nations of the Indo-Pacific to be free from
coercion from outside powers. Nations should be able to pursue
their own paths in a sovereign manner free from the weight of
spheres of influence. Second, ``free'' means at the national
level, we want the societies of the Indo-Pacific nations to
become progressively more free, free in terms of good
governance, in terms of fundamental freedoms, and in terms of
transparency and anti-corruption.
The term ``open,'' first and foremost, means open sea lines
of communication and open airways. These open sea lines of
communication, particularly those in the South China Sea, are
the lifeblood of the region. Secondly, we mean more open
connectivity in the form of quality, best value energy,
transport, and digital infrastructure that is driven by private
capital investment. Third, we mean more open investment
environments and free, fair, and reciprocal trade. A better
investment environment and an equal and open playing field for
trade benefit U.S. workers, benefit U.S. businesses. But they
also benefit indigenous innovators and indigenous entrepreneurs
who will be empowered to drive economic growth in their home
countries.
Embedding these free and open principles will require
efforts across the spectrum of our capabilities: our diplomatic
initiatives, governance capacity building, economic cooperation
and commercial advocacy, and military cooperation. But we are
not starting from a standing start. The United States has
longstanding programs that support the free and open order. And
we have initiated new efforts in the first year of the Trump
administration toward that end: new energy and infrastructure
partnerships with Japan and India; the delivery of a Coast
Guard cutter to Vietnam; strengthened cyber cooperation with
partners such as Australian, Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand,
Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam; the first U.S.-India
counterterrorism designations dialogue; an effort to speed
foreign military sales to our partners in the region; and we
were very gratified to work with Congress on the Palau Compact.
As the United States pursues our Indo-Pacific strategy, it
is important to note that a number of our partners across the
region are pursuing similar strategies. If you look at India's
Act East policy, if you look at South Korea's New Southern
Policy, if you look at Japan's Free and Open Indo-Pacific
Strategy, if you look at Taiwan's New Southbound policy, and if
you look at Australia's Foreign Policy Whitepaper, they are all
seeking to expand ties across the region, across the Indo-
Pacific and in particular with the nations of Southeast Asia
and ASEAN. As these strategies overlap with our own, they will
form a strong, free, and open fabric that will knit the region
together, preserve sovereignty, and promote prosperity. This is
a vision that the United States has long advanced in the Indo-
Pacific and one we believe will continue to reap benefits in
terms of stability and prosperity.
Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, the Department
of State, together with the rest of the administration, is
making significant progress toward a lasting strategy that will
ensure the Indo-Pacific continues to be a peaceful, prosperous,
and economically dynamic region.
I commend Congress and this subcommittee in particular for
your thoughtful and thorough approach to supporting U.S.
engagement in the region. I look forward to your questions, and
I look forward to working with you and your staff members on
our Indo-Pacific strategy.
[Mr. Wong's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statement of Alex Wong
Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey, and members of the
subcommittee: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
It's an honor to testify on the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA),
the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy, and our nation's continued leadership
in that region. And it's also an honor to be doing so alongside my
friend and colleague, Randy Schriver.
The Indo-Pacific region is of chief importance to the United
States. The IndoPacific includes half of the world's population and, by
the middle of the century, will likely constitute half of the world's
gross domestic product. Fifty percent of global trade passes through
Indo-Pacific sea routes. Annually, the United States conducts $1.4
trillion in two-way trade with the region and is the source of over
$850 billion in foreign direct investment, making the United States the
region's largest trading partner and investor. The region is home to
the world's three largest democracies, some of its most inspirational
democratic miracles, and many of its fastest growing economies.
In all of these ways, the region implicates vital U.S. interests.
And to defend those interests, we've long exercised leadership in the
Indo-Pacific. But as the region grows in population and economic
weight, U.S. strategy must adapt to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is
increasingly a place of peace, stability, and growing prosperity-and
not one of disorder, conflict, and predatory economics.
The ARIA legislation states, ``Without strong leadership from the
United States, the international system, fundamentally rooted in the
rule of law, may wither, to the detriment of United States, regional,
and global interests.''
Although the administration is still reviewing the legislation
itself, we agree with that specific assessment.
That is why the administration is pursuing a strategy-grounded in
U.S. leadership-that advances a free and open Indo-Pacific. President
Trump introduced this strategic concept during his historic trip to the
region in November, the longest trip by a President to the Indo-Pacific
in a generation. We are now formulating the implementation of that
strategy, and the formulation process is a government-wide endeavor
that includes the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and
every other agency with a role in the Indo-Pacific.
Our objective is to align U.S. policies and programs toward
strengthening the free and open order that the United States has
fostered in the Indo-Pacific for over 70 years.
The modifiers we use to describe the Indo-Pacific order--``free''
and ``open''- were chosen with care, because they embody the principles
we seek to embed in the region.
The term ``free'' means first, on the international plane, that we
want the nations of the Indo-Pacific to be free from the coercion of
outside powers. Nations should be able to pursue their own paths in a
sovereign manner free from the weight of spheres of influence. Second,
``free'' means, at the national level, we want the societies of Indo-
Pacific nations to become progressively more free-free in terms of good
governance, in terms of fundamental freedoms, and in terms of
transparency and anti-corruption.
``Open,'' first and foremost, means open sea lines of communication
and open airways. These open sea lines of communication, particularly
those in the South China Sea, are the lifeblood of the region.
Secondly, we mean more open connectivity in the form of quality, best-
value energy, transport, and digital infrastructure that's driven by
private capital investment. Third, we mean more open investment
environments and free, fair, and reciprocal trade. A better investment
environment and an equal and open playing field for trade benefit U.S.
businesses and workers. But they also benefit indigenous innovators and
indigenous entrepreneurs who will be more empowered to drive economic
growth in their home countries.
Embedding these free and open principles will require efforts
across the spectrum of our capabilities: diplomatic initiatives,
governance capacity building, economic cooperation and commercial
advocacy, and military cooperation. But we are not beginning from a
standing start. The United States has longstanding programs that
support the free and open order. And we've initiated new efforts in the
first year of the Trump administration including: new energy and
infrastructure partnerships with Japan and India; the delivery of a
Coast Guard cutter to Vietnam; strengthened cyber cooperation with
Australia, Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and
Vietnam; the first U.S.-India Counterterrorism Designations Dialogue;
an effort to speed foreign military sales to our partners; and we were
gratified to work with Congress on the Palau Compact.
As the United States pursues our Indo-Pacific strategy, it's
important to note that a number of our partners are pursuing similar
strategies. If you look at India's Act East policy, at South Korea's
New Southern policy, at Japan's Free & Open Indo-Pacific Strategy, at
Taiwan's New Southbound policy, and at Australia's Foreign Policy
Whitepaper, they are all seeking to expand ties throughout the Indo-
Pacific and in particular with the nations of Southeast Asia and ASEAN.
As these strategies overlap with ours, they'll form a strong free and
open fabric that knits the region together, preserves sovereignty, and
promotes prosperity. This is a vision the United States has long
advanced in the Indo-Pacific, and one we believe will continue to reap
benefits in terms of stability and prosperity. Conclusion
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, the Department of
State together with the rest of the administration is making
significant progress toward a lasting strategy that will ensure the
Indo-Pacific continues to be a peaceful, prosperous, and economically
dynamic region.
I commend Congress, and this subcommittee in particular, for your
thoughtful and thorough approach to supporting U.S. engagement in the
region. I look forward to your questions, and I look forward to working
with you and your staff members on our Indo-Pacific strategy.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Wong.
Our second witness today is the Honorable Randall Schriver
who serves as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and
Pacific Security Affairs at the Department of Defense. Prior to
his confirmation, he was the CEO and President of the Project
2049 Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to
the study of security trend lines in Asia. Mr. Schriver has
also previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Prior to his civilian
service, he served as an active duty Navy intelligence officer,
including a deployment in support of Operation Desert Shield
and Desert Storm. Welcome, Mr. Schriver, and thank you for your
service. I look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. RANDALL G. SCHRIVER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
ASIAN AND PACIFIC SECURITY AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Schriver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
Markey. I very much appreciate the opportunity to appear before
you today and talk about our Indo-Pacific strategy. I also
appreciate being able to testify alongside my great colleague,
Alex Wong, and appreciate his leadership in developing and
implementing our Indo-Pacific strategy.
Let me say at the outset we are really grateful for your
support for U.S. engagement and leadership in the Indo-Pacific,
and the fact that, as you noted both in your opening
statements, it is bipartisan support in the Congress. That is
very important and empowering for us. So we really commend your
leadership there.
I am also pleased to note at the outset the ARIA
legislation. There seems to be great alignment with our
policies, and as you develop the legislation, we look forward
to supporting it in final form if it comports, as we expect it
will, with our goals.
If I could just provide a few updates to DOD's contribution
to the Indo-Pacific strategy. Secretary Mattis often notes that
the Indo-Pacific is a priority theater. That is certainly
reflected in our National Defense Strategy and in our
engagement with the region. In our National Defense Strategy,
we clearly point out that of significant interest to us is the
reemergence of great power competition and that is being
promoted by the emergence and rise of China, as you both talked
about in your opening remarks. So that demands a
prioritization, and it also involves strategic choices. So we
must maintain a focus on that long-term challenge but also, of
course, deal with the immediate threats and challenges posed by
rogue regimes such as North Korea, as well as violent extremist
organizations, and would very much note the incidents in
Indonesia this week.
So we have crafted a defense strategy that builds a more
lethal, resilient, ready, and rapidly innovating military, and
when combined with our partners and allies, we believe we can
sustain the ability to ensure free, open rules-based order in
the Indo-Pacific.
Strong deterrence is the foundation of our regional and,
indeed, our global approach. And at DOD, our duty is to support
our colleagues at the Department of State and our diplomats,
such as Mr. Wong, as they engage and do their work to ensure
they are doing so from a position of strength.
DOD, therefore, is focusing investment on our combat
capacity, our readiness posture and presence, and other areas
that are unique to the region's warfighting needs. These
include investments in key capabilities to support joint
integrated fires designed to defend U.S. interests and reach
inside potential adversaries A2AD envelope.
A central theme to our National Defense Strategy is also
DOD's approach to strengthening our alliances and partnerships,
and in this, we are very closely aligned with your work on
ARIA. We are committed to working with, by, and through allies
and partners to find ways to address these common challenges in
the Indo-Pacific. We seek to build networks of capable and
likeminded partners, and we are strengthening our abilities to
deter potential adversaries while also using programs like the
Maritime Security Initiative to improve partners' maritime
domain awareness and maritime capabilities. We seek to enable
them to better resist coercion and maintain their autonomy and
independence so that they can contribute to a rules-based order
and to deter and defend against threats.
Our alliances and partnerships are force multipliers for
good. All countries in the region benefit from this order, and
we expect allies and partners to contribute to its maintenance.
Finally, our approach to the region and our strategy to
maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific accounts for our
relationship with China. We are certainly concerned by China's
strategic intentions and their trajectory and certainly
concerned about some of the destabilizing behavior we are
witnessing, for example, in the South China Sea. We will pursue
a constructive results-oriented relationship with China, though
we will not accept policies or actions that undermine the
rules-based order. We will stand up for and defend that order,
and we will encourage others to do the same. We will cooperate
with China where our interests do align, but we will compete
vigorously where our interests diverge. Our aim is for all
nations to live in prosperity, security, and liberty, free from
coercion and able to choose their own path.
The United States is a Pacific nation and has been one for
centuries. We remain committed to maintaining the security and
stability in this all-important region.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Markey,
and look forward to your questions.
[Mr. Schriver's prepared statement follows:]
Prepared Statememnt of Randall Schriver
Good morning Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey, and members
of the committee.
Thank you for this opportunity to update you on the Department of
Defense's approach to the Indo-Pacific region. I would also like to
take this opportunity to thank Deputy Assistant Secretary Alex Wong for
his remarks. We have been engaged in a robust and fruitful interagency
process to develop the U.S. strategy and approach to the Indo-Pacific
region, and it has truly been a sterling example of interagency focus
and cooperation. Furthermore, as we work to develop and implement a
strategy that demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-
Pacific region, and advances a rules-based international order, we have
been aided in our efforts by bipartisan support from Congress. While we
are continuing our review, I was pleased to note that the Asia
Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), currently being discussed by this
committee, appears to align substantially with our approach to the
region.
The United States seeks to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific
region. A region in which nations with diverse cultures and different
aspirations can prosper side-by-side in freedom, peace, and stability.
By ``free,'' we mean that nations will be free from coercion and able
to protect their sovereignty. At the national level, we mean that
societies are increasingly freer in terms of good governance, and
fundamental human rights and liberties. By ``open,'' we mean that all
nations can enjoy freedom of the seas, and that all share a commitment
to the peaceful resolution of disputes. We also mean more open
investment environments and improved connectivity to drive regional
integration and prosperity.
As the region's population and economic weight grow, and as it
faces rising security and political challenges, the U.S. commitment to
the region must keep pace. Our vision for the IndoPacific region
excludes no nation; we seek to partner with all who respect national
sovereignty, fair and reciprocal trade, and the rule of law. Our aim is
for all nations to live in prosperity, security, and liberty in the
same rules-based order. For the Indo-Pacific region to flourish, each
and every State must be free to determine its own course within a
system of values that ensures opportunity for even the smallest
countries to thrive.
Toward these goals, and in alignment with the measures being
discussed by this Committee, the United States is reaffirming our
longstanding security commitments to our allies while broadening and
strengthening our security partnerships. We are encouraging a more
networked approach to security cooperation to counter common threats
and ensure regional stability. We will work with allies and partners to
promote regional institutions and infrastructure, such as the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and trilateral and multilateral
mechanisms of like-minded partners, to protect and advance the region's
rules-based order. Finally, we will support transparent and high-
standard infrastructure financing; pursue free, fair, and reciprocal
trade; and foster sustainable development throughout the region. We
seek to ensure that the Indo-Pacific's commitment to market-driven
growth continues and that new infrastructure knits the region together,
generates local wealth, and leads to sustainable growth.
The Department of Defense is intently focused on supporting the
broader, whole-of-government approach to this crucial region. Indeed,
as Secretary Mattis often emphasizes, the Indo-Pacific is the priority
theater, a point of view that is reflected in our National Defense
Strategy (NDS) and in our robust engagement with the region.
We recognize that we face a diverse array of security challenges in
the Indo-Pacific region. As the NDS acknowledges, the reemergence of
great power competition is the central challenge to U.S. security and
prosperity, and demands prioritization and hard strategic choices. The
NDS also highlights a number of immediate challenges, such as those
posed by rogue regimes and violent extremist organizations.
In light of these challenges, we have crafted a defense strategy
that builds a more lethal, resilient, ready, and rapidly innovating
U.S. military which, combined with a robust constellation of allies and
partners, will ensure we remain capable of safeguarding security,
prosperity, and a free, open, and rules-based order. All States in the
Indo-Pacific region benefit from these collective goods, and we expect
our allies and partners to contribute to the maintenance of this rules-
based order. We each have a role to play and a shared responsibility
for our shared future.
A central theme of the NDS, and one that is predominantly reflected
in both the ARIA and DoD's approach to the Indo-Pacific region, is our
focus on our alliances and partnerships. We are committed to working
by, with, and through allies and partners to find ways to address
common challenges, enhance shared capabilities, increase defense
investment and improve interoperability, streamline information
sharing, and build networks of capable and like-minded partners. We are
strengthening our abilities to deter potential adversaries while also
using programs like the Maritime Security Initiative to improve
partners' maritime domain awareness and maritime capabilities, enabling
them to better resist coercion and maintain their independence,
contribute to the rules-based order, and deter and defend against
threats. Our alliances and partnerships serve as a force multiplier for
good, and further cooperation among us will aid in our collective
efforts to maintain peace and stability throughout the region.
In Northeast Asia, the dynamic security environment continues to
underscore the importance of our robust alliance and partner
relationships, in particular given the immediate challenge posed by
North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Although
recent diplomatic developments are encouraging, the Department of
Defense continues to work closely with our allies and partners to
maintain and improve our readiness to defend against potential threats,
while ensuring that our diplomats engage from a position of strength to
achieve the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization and
the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear, chemical, biological, and
missile programs. Beyond North Korea, we are focused on modernizing our
alliances with both the Republic of Korea and Japan, with each of ally
taking steps to contribute to regional security and stability more
broadly. We are also focused on promoting our defense relationship with
Taiwan, and faithfully upholding our commitments under the Taiwan
Relations Act.
In Southeast Asia, we are working with allies and partners to build
counterterrorism and maritime security capabilities to address region-
wide challenges central to upholding the rulesbased order. We are
reinvigorating our longstanding alliances with Thailand and the
Philippines, while bolstering our enduring partnership with Singapore.
We are expanding strategic defense relationships with important
regional players such as Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. We are also
working to promote ASEAN's centrality in the regional security
architecture and empower it to contribute more effectively to regional
stability. It is important that ASEAN speak clearly and with one voice
on regional issues such as the South China Sea, counterterrorism, and
North Korea. We look forward to working with ASEAN members to
strengthen multilateral defense cooperation, enhance maritime domain
awareness, counter the threat posed by terrorism, and advance
cooperation on humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, among other
initiatives.
In Oceania, our alliances and partnerships are based not only on
shared security interests, but also on deeply shared values and a long
history of shared sacrifice. Australia remains one of the United
States' strongest allies, and we are deepening our defense partnership
with New Zealand. We are modernizing these key alliances and
partnerships to ensure they are as relevant to the security challenges
of this century as they were to the challenges of the last century and
continue to underwrite a free and open Indo-Pacific region and beyond.
In South Asia, we are strengthening our partnerships, particularly
with India. In 2016, the United States declared India a Major Defense
Partner, which opens the door for increased cooperation on a range of
defense issues, most notably defense trade and technology. We are
natural partners across a range of political, economic, and security
issues. With a mutual desire for global stability and support for a
rules-based international order, our two countries have an increasing
convergence of interests, including maritime security and domain
awareness, counter-piracy, countering terrorism, humanitarian
assistance, and coordinated responses to natural disasters and
transnational threats. Our partnership extends beyond the Indo-Pacific
region as well, and as we implement our South Asia Strategy, we welcome
India's continued civilian contributions to stability and
reconstruction in Afghanistan.
We are also stepping up our engagement with European and NATO
Allies, such as the United Kingdom, France, and Canada, with whom we
share enduring interests in the Indo-Pacific region.
As we strengthen our alliances and partnerships we are also taking
the steps necessary to improve our military readiness and capabilities
to reassure our allies and deter potential adversaries. Strong
deterrence is at the foundation of our regional, and indeed, our global
approach, and Secretary Mattis is clear in his emphasis on the
Department's role in supporting our diplomats so they can engage and
negotiate from a position of strength.
Given the long-term, consequential nature of the Indo-Pacific
region to U.S. national security and emerging threats to the region's
stability, the Department is sustaining its focus on the region in
Fiscal Year (FY) 2019. The FY 2019 budget seeks to close gaps within
the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) in U.S. combat capacity,
readiness, posture and presence, and other areas unique to the region's
warfighting needs.
For example, the FY 2019 budget invests in key capabilities
identified as critical to support joint, integrated fires in the Indo-
Pacific region, both in defense of U.S. interests and to reach inside
an adversary's anti-access and area-denial envelope with advanced,
long-range munitions. The budget also invests in posture initiatives to
close gaps in resiliency of joint operations--that is, our ability to
absorb an adversary attack and sustain operations to deny their
objectives--in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly through improved
logistics support. The budget also continues to address shortfalls both
in preferred munitions for ongoing operations, and in more advanced,
long-range munitions needed within the FYDP for high-end warfight
demands in the region.
These investments are one part of the Department's broader efforts
in rebuilding our military to be more ready, capable, and lethal,
particularly for forward deterrent forces.
Finally, our approach to the region and our strategy to maintain a
free and open Indo-Pacific region accounts for our relationship with
China. China should and does have a voice in shaping the international
system, as do all countries. However, in recent years, we have grown
concerned by China's strategic intentions and trajectory, including
some activities in the region that we view as destabilizing and
counterproductive-in the South China Sea, for example. Although the
United States will continue to pursue a constructive, results-oriented
relationship with China, we will not accept policies or actions that
threaten to undermine the international rules-based order, a system
that has benefited everyone in the region, including China. We will
stand up for and defend that order, and we will encourage others to do
the same; and although we are committed to cooperating with China where
our interests align, we will compete, vigorously, where our interests
diverge.
Our vision for the Indo-Pacific region excludes no nation. We seek
to partner with all nations that respect national sovereignty, fair and
reciprocal trade, and the rule of law. Although we accept that States
will make some decisions that are not in our interests, we recognize
that for the Indo-Pacific region to flourish, each nation in the region
must be free to determine its own course within a system of values that
ensures opportunity for even the smallest countries to thrive, free
from the dictates of the strong. Our aim is for all nations to live in
prosperity, security, and liberty, free from coercion and able to
choose their own path.
The United States is a Pacific nation and has been one for
centuries. We will remain committed to maintaining the security and
stability in this all-important region. This is a view that has
transcended political transitions and has maintained strong bipartisan
support. During my tenure as Assistant Secretary, I have been
encouraged by the leadership demonstrated by Congress, and I look
forward to working with you on the specific measures you propose to
enhance U.S. leadership in the Indo-Pacific region.
Chairman Gardner, Ranking Member Markey, members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning. I look forward
to your questions.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Schriver. Thanks, Mr. Wong,
again for your testimony.
And we will begin with the question portion of this
hearing. I think the hearing title, of course, to receive
testimony on American leadership in the Asia-Pacific--what is
exciting I think right now in the United States Senate, the
number of people who are now engaged Asia policies that are
relatively new to the Senate: Senator Markey's participation in
his first term in Asia as ranking member of the Foreign
Relations Committee; Senator Sullivan, Senator Daines, Senator
Perdue, Senator Schatz, all relatively new members of the
Senate to provide leadership in Asia.
One of the striking conversations that I have with policy
leaders around the region is their fond recollection of
interactions with Congress led by Senator Dole, Senator Inouye,
Senator Stevens. That is a generation that, obviously, is no
longer with us in the Senate. And so this new generation of
leaders needs to step up to the plate to provide that new
generation of leadership for Asia. And I think that is what
ARIA tries to get at the very heart of, is an attempt to
provide new leadership in a region that desires a continuation
of a rules-based system that has benefited every nation who has
wished to participate and even those nations who wish now to
change the rules.
So a question for both of you. In the bill, ARIA, it sets
the following policy goals. It is the policy of the United
States to develop and to commit to a long-term strategic vision
and a comprehensive, multifaceted, and principled United States
policy for the Indo-Pacific region that, one, preserves peace
through strength by securing the vital national security
interests of the United States; two, promotes American
prosperity by advancing the economic interests of the United
States; three, advances American influence by reflecting the
values of the American people and universal human rights; and
four, accords with and supports the rule of law and
international norms.
Could you talk a little bit about whether you agree with
these policy goals, and will the administration's Indo-Pacific
strategy reflect these same goals and perhaps a strategy to
embrace those four goals?
Mr. Wong. Thank you for your question, Senator.
I will say the administration does agree with those goals
because they reflect not just the right goals and the right
objectives in our strategy, but the longstanding interests and
enduring interests the United States has in the Indo-Pacific.
Along all of those lines in our formulation of our
implementation plan for the strategy, we are discussing all of
our efforts on security, on governance, on fundamental rights,
as well as on diplomatic initiatives and economic initiatives.
So I would agree with the policy laid out there in the ARIA
legislation.
Mr. Schriver. Thank you, Senator.
I also would endorse those goals. At the Department of
Defense, we are in the process of implementing our National
Defense Strategy, which is a very forward-looking strategy and
has long-term challenges very much in mind, which is why we
talked about the emergence of great power competition and the
challenges posed by China. And with the help of Congress and
the funding provided, we are trying to build a force that is
appropriate for that, the longer-term challenges dealing with
China and their military modernization program and trying to
work with partners and allies also to be adequately equipped
and prepared for those long-term challenges. So we very much
endorse your long-term view in this legislation.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Dr. Graham Allison, the Douglas Dillon Professor at
Harvard, Kennedy School of Government, testified at one of our
hearings last November, and I quote. As realistic students of
history, Chinese leaders recognize that the role the U.S. has
played since World War II as the architect and underwriter of
regional stability and security has been essential to the rise
of Asia, including China itself. But they believe that as the
tide that brought the U.S. to Asia recedes, America must leave
with it. Much as Britain's role in the western hemisphere faded
at the beginning of the 20th century, so must America's role in
Asia as the region's historic superpower resumes its place.
This is Graham Allison's testimony.
Could you talk a little bit about this statement, whether
you agree with it, disagree with it, how we address this
challenge of China, whether it is the strategies we have talked
about here or others that we need to include in the legislation
and what specific tools the United States could utilize to
offset military and economic coercion as you stated in your
testimony? Either one of you.
Mr. Wong. I did not see the full testimony of Dr. Allison.
I assume he is describing the viewpoint perhaps of some Chinese
scholars or strategists that he is aware of.
I would disagree with that description in the sense that
the United States is not ebbing and flowing from the region. We
are not a nation that comes and goes from the Indo-Pacific. We
have long been an Indo-Pacific nation. We are an Indo-Pacific
nation and we will continue to be an Indo-Pacific. And this
policy survives from administration to administration. It does
not come and go.
I think that is borne out by the President's pronouncement
of the free and open Indo-Pacific strategy and the commitment
he exhibited in his historic trip last year, capping his first
year with such a trip. I think it is exhibited in the
discussions Congress is having on the ARIA legislation. That
the legislative branch and the executive branch are focused on
the Indo-Pacific talking about a long-term strategy and our
long-term commitment to the region is a very strong message to
our partners in the region about our staying power and the fact
that we have never left and we will not leave.
Senator Gardner. Mr. Schriver?
Mr. Schriver. I agree with that, meaning I disagree with
Dr. Allison's assessment, my former professor. But I think we
are committed to developing and implementing a defense strategy
that will be suited for the long-term challenges that China
poses so we can ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific remains.
Beyond that, I think working with partners and allies who
share not just affinity with the United States but share values
and interests--and so countries are not necessarily choosing
between the United States and China. They are choosing to
embrace a rules-based order, embrace freedom of navigation,
free flow of commerce, protection of sovereignty, et cetera. So
when you ally and partner with countries who share those
values, I think we are in very good standing when you talk
about Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, and
many other countries that will sign up for those values. That
puts us in very good standing.
Senator Gardner. Very good.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, and thank both of you for your
service.
Over the weekend, President Trump said in a tweet that the
Commerce Department should find a way to give Chinese telecom
company ZTE, quote, a way to get back into business fast. And
that is despite the serious security concerns voiced publicly
by U.S. officials about ZTE, as well as its violation of
American sanctions and widespread bribery committed by the
company to expand its footprint.
Mr. Wong, do you believe that China as the largest
shareholder of ZTE has responsibility to operate in good faith
within the laws and norms of the international system,
including by stringently enforcing sanctions?
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator.
A major component of our Indo-Pacific strategy is to
bolster the rule of law both in the nations of the Indo-
Pacific, as well as internationally. So we support all nations
of the Indo-Pacific, China included, abiding by controlling
international law and international norms and obligations to
which they have signed up for on trade and on security and on
particularly maritime law.
Now, with regard to the tweet you mentioned on ZTE. I
understand the President issued guidance over the weekend on
the sanctions related to ZTE. I understand that the Commerce
Department is now reviewing that guidance and implementing the
President's guidance in accordance with applicable laws and
regulations and the particular facts of the ZTE case. I
respectfully defer to the Commerce Department on the particular
implementation of that guidance.
Senator Markey. So from your perspective, you are not in a
position to be able to give testimony with regard to the
concessions from your perspective, your agency's perspective
that the United States abandon its insistence on adherence to
the rules-based international system.
Mr. Schriver. Senator, the main component, a foundational
component of the Indo-Pacific strategy is to bolster the free
and open order and the rules-based system. But with regard to
the ZTE case, I do defer to the Commerce Department on the
implementation of the President's guidance and on the sanctions
on ZTE.
Senator Markey. Inside of the legislation we address a
broad range of U.S. foreign policy toolkit items from diplomacy
to economic pressure to trade and development. General Dunford,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, quote, there is no
challenge that I am currently dealing with that the primary
factors in our success will not be diplomatic or economic.
Do you agree with that, Mr. Schriver?
Mr. Schriver. I do. And as I said, we very much view our
role as supporting our diplomats and giving them the ability to
operate from a position of strength. And that is true whether
it is North Korea contributing to the maximum pressure campaign
so our diplomats can work a solution there, but also challenges
associated with China and other challenges in the region.
Senator Markey. Great.
The administration's fiscal year 2019 budget request
proposed cutting the State Department by approximately 30
percent with Asia-related cuts of about 50 percent.
Mr. Wong, what kind of signal does it send to our allies
and partners if we say that the Indo-Pacific is important but
the President recommends significant funding cuts?
Mr. Wong. Senator, we believe the fiscal year 2019 budget
allows us to implement and achieve the objectives that we are
seeking to achieve under the free and open Indo-Pacific
strategy. And I think the core of your question is whether we
are able to implement the strategy, implement our policies and
reassure our allies with the resources that we have. And if you
look at the first year of the Trump administration, we have had
a number of achievements, a number of, first of all, trips to
the region by cabinet members, by the Vice President, and
capping the year with a historic trip by the President himself.
We have greatly improved relations with Vietnam, and we have
greatly made progress on the maximum pressure campaign with
North Korea.
Now, I would note that the fiscal year 2019 budget requests
I believe on the order of nearly three-quarters of a billion
dollars for our East Asia diplomatic operations, as well as our
foreign assistance. That is a 10 percent increase over our
fiscal year 2018 request, and we had targeted increases in our
request on certain areas to provide us seed money to implement
the free and open Indo-Pacific strategy, namely monies to
bolster international institutions such as ASEAN, APEC, and our
Lower Mekong Initiative, which is key to strengthening the
rules-based order. We have asked for increases in our foreign
military financing to bolster the military capabilities and
partnerships we have with our partners in the region.
We have also requested increases in our regional governance
fund. This will allow us to implement the types of governance
capacity building we would like to seek across the region to
improve the abilities of the nations of the region, as well as
the provincial governments of the region, to adopt the types of
procurement systems, bid systems, life cycle cost evaluation
systems, and civil society programs that will improve the free
and open order.
Senator Markey. My hope is that the recommendation for next
year's budget kind of reflects that in terms of the goals which
the administration has.
And just to move on to North Korea for a second, Mr. Wong,
how are you working to ensure that the United States does not
fall for false concessions, those actions that do not
substantively reduce the nuclear threat to the United States in
its bid to eliminate North Korea's nuclear and other
destabilizing weapons?
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator.
As you know, we have gotten to this point where we have the
conditions for these talks by applying over the past year a
strong maximum pressure campaign on the DPRK together with our
allies and together through UN Security Council resolutions.
And the President and the Secretary have stated that we are
walking into these negotiations with clear eyes, fully
understanding the track record of past efforts to discuss the
nuclear program with North Korea, fully understanding the track
record of the North Koreans themselves. And they are very
focused. Our negotiating team is very focused on our ultimate
goal, which is complete, verifiable, and irreversible
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gardner. Senator Rubio?
Senator Rubio. Thank you both for being here.
I have a document in my hand. This is an unclassified
document from the National Intelligence Council, basically
office of the Director of National Intelligence. Let me read
you the first paragraph of the unclassified. It says, China's
government-run talent recruitment program facilitate the legal
and the illicit transfer of U.S. technology, intellectual
property and know-how to further China's science and technology
development, military modernization, and goal of becoming a
science and technology superpower by 2049. It is overseen by
the Communist Party's Central Committee and it recruits
scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and managers of all
nationalities working or educated in the United States to
commercialize and weaponize technologies.
You both will agree that China is undertaking an effort to
dominate the most important industries and technologies of the
21st century and that they do so not simply by out-innovating
us or out-investing us, but primarily by the either compelled
or stolen transfer of intellectual property, the recruitment of
both U.S. and other individuals in academia studying in the
United States to transfer technology. They are basically
conducting an all-out assault to steal what we have already
developed and use it as the baseline for their development so
they can supplant us as the leader in the most important
technologies of the 21st century. Is that not an accurate
statement?
Mr. Wong. Senator, I believe what you have laid out--it is
accurate. And a number of those activities and policies perhaps
fall under the Made in China 2025 plan that I believe members
of the committee or subcommittee are aware of. And while the
full elements of that public policy, as well as, I am assuming,
the private policies of China are still under review and we are
still looking at it, I think we can look at the track record of
what China has done when they have done mass subsidization of
certain commodity industries like steel and like aluminum and
the ill effects that that has had on world markets, number one,
but also on the national security of other nations, the United
States included. And the Trump administration has taken strong
action on those fronts.
Now that we are looking at industries or high tech
industries of China itself deems strategic, for instance,
semiconductors, artificial intelligence, this raises similar
and perhaps more concerning issues with regard to the ill
effects it will have on world markets, on world economies, but
also the national security implications that you lay out.
And this really goes to the broader competition that we
have laid out in our National Security Strategy between the
closed economic and political system, international system,
that China is advocating and the more free and open Indo-
Pacific and world order that we have supported for over 70
years.
Senator Rubio. I do not want to run out of time.
I support the open system. I think that is very important.
But at the core, the most immediate and urgent threat here is
the historic, unprecedented theft and transfer of intellectual
property in the hundreds of billions a year unforeseen in the
past. And that has direct national security implications.
It is accurate, Mr. Schriver, that technological high
ground almost always translates to national security and the
ability of a nation to defend itself and its interests.
Correct?
Mr. Schriver. Yes, sir. And I think this is an area where
we are paying attention, but we have got to improve because of
the aggressive nature of the Chinese efforts that you mention.
And it has to be whole-of-government. We have to look at visas
for university students. We have to look at the defense supply
chain. We have to look at all these things because of the
aggressive nature of the Chinese.
Senator Rubio. And I guess the point I am trying to drive
is when we talk about issues like ZTE, that is just the tip of
the iceberg. And apart from having helped to violate sanctions,
the issue with them is not really so much a trade issue per se
as it is a mechanism by which they--it is a technology, an
infrastructure that they can use not simply to establish high
ground there and market share in the U.S. at the expense of our
domestic providers, but also is a way to steal intellectual
property and secrets of other commercial endeavors that they
also view to be critical. And that is why that issue is so
important and I hope the administration does not move forward
on this supposed deal I keep reading out.
Two topics I want to touch on rapidly because it also has
to do with part of this effort. Apart from the technology side,
let me give you some things that have happened very recently.
United and American Airlines are being threatened by China
that if their website does not say Taiwan, China, they are
going to lose their routes and have fines and penalties.
Marriott fired an American worker based in the United
States of America because he accidentally liked a tweet on
Tibet.
Yesterday, The Gap--we have all been to the Gap. They
printed a T-shirt with a map of China, but it did not include
Taiwan. And of course, The Gap quickly scrambled out,
apologized. They issued a statement respecting China's
sovereignty and territorial integrity.
American companies are being bullied to the point where an
American was fired in the United States because he liked a
tweet.
What is the State Department doing when companies come to
them and say we are being harassed in this way? Because these
companies have all caved.
Mr. Schriver. Thank you for the question, Senator.
The State Department believes these actions are outrageous
and disturbing. I think we are all familiar with the sharp
power that Beijing wields its market access as a cudgel to reap
certain economic concessions from private sector entities like
intellectual property transfer or certain joint ventures with
Chinese companies. What they are doing now is extending this
market access tactic to free speech, to extend, as the White
House called it, the Chinese view of political correctness to
private sector actors and in particular U.S. companies. And we
find that outrageous.
As you have seen, the White House and the State Department
have raised this publicly, condemned it publicly. We have
raised it privately with our Chinese counterparts, and we have
discussed this with the companies at issue.
China is very much well aware that it is wading into
treacherous waters here, and they understand that if they
continue along this path, continue to employ these tactics,
that it will negatively affect the U.S.-China relationship and
that there will be consequences.
Senator Rubio. I am not so sure they think they are in
treacherous waters because they keep winning. All these
companies keep doing what they want because in the end, having
market share is more important to these companies apparently
than the trends that these are setting.
I have one more quick question because one of the things
China is trying to do as well is influence votes in
international forums and have leverage even in our own
hemisphere. So just in the last year, we have had not one but
two countries in this hemisphere, first, Panama, after a lot of
investment in Panama, and now the Dominican Republic 2 weeks
ago, after who knows what happened, both switch away from
Taiwan's recognition and towards recognition of China. And now
I am hearing that perhaps Paraguay might be next, and they are
going to continue to work on this. And of course, when they
invest all this money in these countries and, frankly,
oftentimes bribe individuals and governments, things that our
companies cannot do but their companies can--when they do these
things, it is often as leverage to align those countries'
foreign policy to what China's foreign policy may be. And the
first step is to get them to break away from Taiwan, no longer
recognize Taiwan, and align themselves and recognize China.
What is the State Department doing? I know that is in a
different bureau, but it is part of China's global ambition and
work. What are we doing? Are we telling countries around the
region that we do not want to see them continue to do this?
Have we talked to Honduras and Guatemala and Paraguay and other
countries in the region, many of whom receive significant aid
from the United States? Do they hear from us that we care about
this issue?
Mr. Wong. Senator, thank you for your question.
Attempts to close off the international space of Taiwan and
to alter the status quo across the strait are disturbing to the
United States. And in our U.S. One China policy, we seek to
strengthen ties with Taiwan. We seek to provide them proper
defensive capabilities to defend their democracy. But we also
want to maintain the status quo because it is the key to
stability across the strait. So any moves to strip Taiwan of
its diplomatic partners disturbs that status quo, and it is
something that we made clear to our partners and we made clear
to Beijing as well.
Senator Rubio. So we made it clear to the Dominican
Republic that they should not do what they did?
Mr. Wong. That is my understanding.
Senator Rubio. And they did it anyway.
Thank you.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Rubio.
I want to follow along the same lines here as well. When we
let people know our support for Taiwan, when we let people know
that we are disturbed that they may have followed China's
desires, that we state on our websites for American Airlines or
that we do not recognize Hong Kong on a Marriott website as
Hong Kong, but it is Hong Kong, China, when we let them know
this, are we working with other nations around the globe to put
pressure on China to stop? Can you talk a little about how we
are pushing back? Is it just calling them up on the phone or in
a meeting and saying, hey, we do not like this? I mean, what
are we actually doing to put some force behind our disapproval?
Mr. Wong. Senator, as in my exchange with Senator Rubio, we
have made this clear. We have raised this privately with our
Chinese counterparts. We have condemned it publicly. The White
House has condemned it very strongly publicly. And we have
talked with the companies who have been involved in these
incidents.
China understands where we stand on these activities and
that if they continue along this path, they continue to employ
these tactics to spread their vision of political correctness
to U.S. companies, as well as other companies around the world,
that there will be consequences.
Senator Gardner. What will those consequences be?
Mr. Wong. Those consequences are still under review, sir,
and a lot of it will depend on China's actions going forward
and if they continue along with these tactics.
Senator Gardner. Could those consequences be reciprocal in
terms of not allowing flights from China to the United States
or other destinations?
Mr. Wong. Again, Senator, the consequences are under
review. I do not want to get into hypotheticals based on what
China may or may not do going forward. The key for us, though,
is for China to understand that this conduct is something we
find outrageous and it is something that they should cease. For
further details, however, I do defer to our China-specific team
and I would be happy to work with you and talk with you and
your staff about it.
Senator Gardner. I understand, Mr. Wong. I think we have a
World Health association meeting coming up toward the end of
May. Last year, of course, China was able to sideline Taiwan
from participation in this. I believe it is important that
Taiwan participate in as many international organizations as we
can, and we should continue to push and pursue the opening of
the organizations to Taiwan. Again, this may not be the right
question for you, but could you talk a little bit about efforts
that we should be undertaking to make sure that Taiwan is
participating in these international organizations?
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator.
The United States supports Taiwan's appropriate
participation in international fora. And they have a lot to
offer particularly in areas of humanitarian assistance and in
areas of health and in areas of economic cooperation. With
respect to the WHA, the World Health Assembly----
Senator Gardner. Assembly. Excuse me. I said association.
Thank you.
Mr. Wong. Excuse me. We have been working to ensure or help
to ensure as much as possible that Taiwan's participation and
that Taiwan is invited and participates on an appropriate
level. We were disappointed to see that they were not invited
this year, but we will continue to work to ensure that our
partners and the WHA and the WHO understand where we stand as
far as Taiwan being closed off from international fora, which
again is not just to the detriment of Taiwan, to the detriment
of the United States, it is to the detriment of all partners
around the world and all peoples that can benefit from the
contributions of Taiwan.
Senator Gardner. I think as you have described, both of you
have described the Indo-Pacific region, what we mean by free
and open as you have described the Indo-Pacific region. Free
and open means sort an Asia of independent states, that they
are not tributary to other parts of Asia, but that it is an
Asia of independent states. Is that an accurate assessment? I
assume that is an accurate assessment.
Mr. Schriver. It is.
Senator Gardner. There is also some thought out there that
people believe the United States has been too defensive in
Asia, that we continue to be on the defensive instead of the
offensive when it comes to our Asia policy or our values and
rules that we support in Asia. There are some who believe that
we need a stronger public diplomacy information campaign
directed at China to point out problems that we have and
perceive with their policies like their approach to Taiwan or
Hong Kong.
Are we doing enough to highlight not only to the region but
to our allies around the globe our disagreements with China's
attempts to perhaps weaken that idea of an Asia of independent
states?
Mr. Wong. Senator, you point out the fact and the truth
that public diplomacy is key to our overall diplomacy and our
overall strategy in the Indo-Pacific. And we do a lot on that
front to promote the free and open order, to promote the free
and open vision that has brought stability and prosperity to
the region over the past 70 years. And specifically when you
talk about exchange programs, a huge part of our public
diplomacy efforts, what we are doing there is developing the
natural allies among the people of the Indo-Pacific to expose
them to American ideas, to expose them to free and open ideas
that are truly universal and beneficial. And for the long term,
as they work in their societies and perhaps rise up to
leadership positions, it will strengthen that fabric,
strengthen those shared values and visions and principles that
we talk about when we talk about the free and open order.
Senator Gardner. Mr. Schriver?
Mr. Schriver. I certainly agree with Mr. Wong that public
diplomacy is key here.
On the defense side, I think we are doing a lot to counter
that narrative you described, Senator. We have increased the
freedom of navigation operations just in terms of the numbers
and the frequency of challenges. We are involved in capacity
building efforts so that countries can protect their sovereign
territory out to 12 nautical miles and so they can see out
through their EEZ to 200 nautical miles. We are working not
only with our traditional bilateral alliances, but we are
building out trilateral and mini-lateral efforts and
quadrilateral efforts so that if the Chinese are observing,
they will note that it is not just the United States-China
competition, it is also a competition of ideas and values and
interests. And so there are--I think many more countries,
including the most significant and influential countries in
Asia outside of China, support these concepts, and that will be
demonstrated and sustained over time.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Mr. Wong, to Senator Markey's question, you talked about
some of the programs that are being supported by the State
Department as we look at our Indo-Pacific strategy. Talk a
little bit about your belief on foreign military financing,
international military education and training and how that fits
into this strategy.
Mr. Wong. When we talk about the Indo-Pacific strategy, you
can look at it as having three main buckets. The first is an
economic agenda, an affirmative economic agenda. Second is a
governance and capacity building effort to support good
governance. The third is the security relationships. And the
good thing about our security partnerships and our allied
partnerships is that we have perhaps a unique in history set of
relationships in the region: five treaty allies, numerous other
partnerships where we expand the capacity militarily of our
partners, have mil-to-mil relations, and improve
interoperability and a common vision for what security and
stability is in the Indo-Pacific.
Now, I mentioned to Senator Markey that we requested
increased money for FMF financing in fiscal year 2019. And
again, this goes toward the element of the strategy where we
are trying to build the capacity of our partners, improve
cooperation, and improve that strong partnership we have not
just with our allies but other security partners in the region.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Mr. Schriver, how do you view the importance of U.S. forces
in Northeast Asia, specifically in the Korean Peninsula? Would
you say that they are instrumental in keeping peace in the
region?
Mr. Schriver. I think as Secretary Mattis said last week,
they are a stabilizing force. They are certainly necessary at
this juncture given the threat posed by North Korea. We will
see what happens in the diplomatic track, but certainly now
they are absolutely necessary. And I think beyond what may
happen in the diplomatic track, we have long-term strategic
interests in Northeast Asia that I think, given our situation
as a distant power, we will want forward-deployed forces as far
out as these eyes can see.
Senator Markey. China has constructed, in clear violation
of international law, military bases on artificial islands in
disputed areas in the South China Sea. What is the
administration's strategy in the South China Sea? How are you
ensuring that Beijing knows that we are heavily invested in
seeing that the region remains free, open, and secure?
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator.
The militarization and the reclamation projects we have
seen in the South China Sea from China are worrying to the
United States and concerning. First of all, they violate
certain commitments that China has made regarding commitments
not to militarize certain features.
But further, the militarization of the islands raises the
prospect that China will press its claims in the South China
Sea not in accordance with international law, but by the
principle of might makes right and pressure and coercion on the
other claimants of the South China Sea. That is not in line
with U.S. policy. We want all the claimants to the features and
to the waters of the South China Sea to resolve their disputes
peacefully and, importantly, in accordance with international
law. And toward that end, we take a number of efforts.
First--and Randy can speak to this perhaps more in detail--
we have a freedom of navigation operations program, as well as
general presence operations. Now, you understand, Senator, that
our FONOPs program is a 40-year-old program that operates
worldwide, but it is very important in the South China Sea that
we continue these operations to contest excessive claims and
put force behind our vision of maritime international law,
which truly is the oldest international law.
Number two, we conduct legal diplomacy throughout the
region to ensure that our partners throughout the region
understand the dictates of international law along the sea
routes of the Indo-Pacific but in particular in the South China
Sea.
Third, we provide maritime security assistance to our
partners. This has numerous benefits, but one ancillary benefit
is that it provides them confidence, the courage of their
convictions on what their view is on international law.
And fourth, we work to encourage ASEAN in their
negotiations of a code of conduct in the South China Sea to
ensure that that code of conduct is meaningful and defends
international law and is grounded in what international law
dictates.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
Mr. Schriver, just following up on Senator Rubio, China's
investments in sensitive industries are proliferating with
Chinese acquisitions of U.S. companies reaching a record $65
billion in 2016, a six-fold increase over the previous year.
Mr. Schriver, how do you see this issue? Are we appropriately
positioned to ensure that U.S. security interests are protected
from foreign acquisition?
Mr. Schriver. I think given the nature of the Chinese
efforts and how aggressive they are, we can do better. We are
looking at the defense supply chain. We are looking at the
private sector and certain technology companies that contribute
to the defense sector. And I think in many ways trying to
partner with Congress to shore up, for example, the CFIUS
system. Now we are, I think, engaged in a number of ways to
consult with private companies to protect their intellectual
property, protect their technology. So this is another sort of
whole-of-government effort that is needed, but the Defense
Department is contributing by identifying sort of these key
areas we need to protect and these key parts of our defense
supply chain that need protection. But it is absolutely an
aggressive effort on the part of the Chinese that we need to
pay attention to and counter.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
And next I would like to ask you about the administration's
record in condemning Philippine President Duterte's brutal
campaign of extrajudicial murders that has resulted in the
deaths of at least 8,000 Filipino drug users and low level drug
dealers. I was pleased to read in the 2017 country reports on
human rights practices that the State Department wrote of the
Philippines extrajudicial killings have been the chief human
rights concern in the country for many years.
The President has refused to criticize the Duterte
government's use of extrajudicial killings and on the sidelines
of the November 2017 Association of Southeast Asian Nations
summit meeting in Manila, rather than denouncing the brutal
campaign, the President has said that he has, quote, a great
relationship with President Duterte and said that he always
been a friend of the Duterte administration.
Mr. Wong, do you believe the administration has done enough
to prioritize the promotion and protection of human rights in
the Philippines?
Mr. Wong. Senator, if you look at the Philippines, it is a
longstanding democratic ally, as you understand. And we have
very strong and deep people-to-people ties with the
Philippines. We have very strong military cooperation with the
Philippines. And in particular, we have strong cooperation on
counterterrorism with the Philippines, which is a rising threat
in the region.
Now, all that said, we have concerns over the drug war that
the Philippines is prosecuting in their nation, and we have
repeatedly expressed those concerns to the Filipino government.
And as you know, the U.S. law prohibits foreign assistance
going to individuals or units involved in gross human rights
violations, and that law applies to the Philippines as well.
That said, the rule of law assistance that we do provide to
the Philippines encourages and bolsters their ability to
conduct the drug war in the right way, namely disrupting
international trafficking, focusing on drug use prevention,
treatment, and rehabilitation and, importantly, building the
capacity of the justice sector to handle cases transparently,
to handle them effectively, and to handle them in a way that
respects fully international human rights.
Senator Markey. I appreciate all that. But at the same
time, I just think there should be more forceful condemnation
of what is happening in the Philippines, how Duterte conducts
himself, and I just think we send the wrong message to not just
the Philippines but to other countries when the kinds of
statements that were made by President Trump are interpreted as
those which are giving Duterte a pass in terms of his human
rights abuses inside of the country.
May I go on, Mr. Chairman?
Senator Gardner. Yes, please.
Senator Markey. I would like to move on to Burma, if I may.
After visiting the refugee camps in Bangladesh, which are now
home to more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees who fled Burma,
representatives of the United Nations Security Council are now
considering whether the UN Security Council should refer
Burma's brutal campaign to the International Criminal Court for
accountability for human rights abuses, including the use of
rape as a tool of law.
Mr. Wong, what steps has the State Department taken to push
for a credible accountability process?
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator.
The situation in Rakhine state in Burma is dire, and it is
greatly concerning to the State Department and to the United
States. And our response has been multifaceted.
First and foremost, we provided humanitarian assistance to
relieve the suffering by the Rohingya, by Bangladeshi host
communities, and other internally displaced persons and asylum
seekers. Since October 2016, we have provided over a quarter of
a billion dollars in humanitarian assistance, and I believe
that assistance will continue in order to ensure that the
humanitarian suffering is, at least in part, relieved.
Secondly, we work with a number of likeminded countries and
partners like the UN to urge Burmese authorities to address the
Rakhine state crisis, to end the violence, to restore the rule
of law, to grant unhindered humanitarian access as well as
media access to Rakhine state and to guarantee those who wish
to voluntarily return, that they can do so in safety and do so
with dignity.
We are also urging cooperation on the part of the
authorities in Burma on a credible independent investigation on
allegations of atrocities in northern Rakhine state to make
sure that there is accountability.
And lastly, we will, as a broad matter, continue to support
the democratic transition of Burma to ensure that the military
develops professionally and develops modes of conduct subject
to civilian control and that the military meets international
standards of human rights and adopts standards of
accountability for what we are seeing occurring in Rakhine
state.
Senator Markey. Mr. Wong, I introduced an amendment to the
Burma human rights bill that would enhance accountability
mechanisms for sexual and gender-based violence and conflict.
And although the State Department and Department of Defense can
be forward-leaning and urge greater accountability for these
atrocities, it just has not been enough from my perspective.
Mr. Wong, will you commit to using all existing authorities
to punish those who use sexual violence as a tool of law?
Mr. Wong. Senator, thank you for your work and for
Congress' focus on Burma over a number of years, not just
recently, but in particular recently.
And Congress has provided the executive branch with a
number of strong tools to address the situation in Burma and to
address sexual violence. And we want to make sure that we can
apply those tools in tailored fashion and in a robust fashion.
As far as new bills and new authorities, if there are new
tools that you will be presenting, I am sure that our Burma
team will be happy to work with you, happy to review the tools
to make sure that they do go toward achieving our mutual goal
of relieving the suffering in Burma.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gardner. Senator Kaine, are you ready to ask
questions?
Senator Kaine. I am glad to.
Senator Gardner. Great. Senator Kaine?
Senator Kaine. Thank you.
Thank you to the witnesses.
Section 110 of ARIA commits the U.S. to full implementation
of sanctions against North Korea and supports the pressure
campaign to achieve complete denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula.
Could I ask you to describe what the United States
understands by complete denuclearization? You know, recent
press around this has been suggesting that there may be
different views between the U.S. and North Korea about what
complete denuclearization means. Talk to me about what that
means to the United States pursuant to ARIA and the
administration policy.
Mr. Wong. Senator, thank you for your question.
As you are aware, over the past year, the administration
has put immense resources and the State Department has put
immense resources into a maximum pressure campaign to impose,
to the maximum extent, the sanctions powers that we do have. We
have also worked with our likeminded partners and partners
across the world and at the UN to implement new sanctions and
new pressure to create the conditions now where we can discuss
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Now, I am not a part of the negotiating team, but I do
understand that our team is clear-eyed about the track record
of North Korea, about the track record of prior negotiations
and how they have failed to meet our ultimate objective. So
they are focused on that ultimate objective, which is, as you
know, complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization
of the Korean Peninsula.
On further details, however, I will respectfully have to
defer to our negotiating team in the White House.
Senator Kaine. Let me ask you this. We are here because of
the good work of our two leaders on the Asia Reassurance
Initiative Act. And the idea of reassurance is a reassurance
that the United States is going to continue to play a
leadership role. And this may be a hard question for you to
answer because I think this is for the negotiators probably as
well. So I will just make it as a comment and as a concern.
I do not hesitate to criticize the administration on
things. I think the North Korea challenge is a tough one, and
except for not having an ambassador in South Korea, which I
think sends a very bad sign, I do not have a lot to fault this
administration for about the North Korea thing. I think so far
the opening of dialogue has been positive.
I will tell you a worry that I have, though. My worry is
that the discussion will involve strategies that may pay
attention on the Korean Peninsula but that may not reassure our
allies generally. They may be strategies that are very
favorable to China, for example. The things that the U.S. might
do in exchange for reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula
might be a series of things that would be, in the grand scheme,
very, very helpful to China, which would not reassure many of
our allies in the region who are concerned about Chinese
influence. And so this is one of the things that I am going to
be watching as these discussions and negotiations progress.
Anything we can do to bring down nuclear tensions on the
peninsula I will sort of have a default in favor of. And yet, I
think we do have to make sure we are not doing that at the
expense of ceding even greater hegemony to China in the region
in a way that our allies would find disturbing.
So you can comment if you want, but I know that that is big
negotiation policy. Mr. Wong?
Mr. Wong. Two points, Senator. Thank you for your question.
You are right that we have not yet appointed an ambassador
to South Korea, but I do understand this is a priority for
Secretary Pompeo. But I do have to say that we have a charge
there, Marc Knapper, whom some of you may have met on your
travels to Seoul, who has been very effective and has been very
strong in getting us to this point prior to the upcoming
summit.
Secondly, with regard to the allies, a key part of our
approach on DPRK is strong, lockstep coordination with our
allies in the region, namely, first of all, South Korea with
respect to this issue, as well as Japan. And those discussions
continue at all levels so that we do remain on the same page,
and we are taking every step together with our allies.
Senator Kaine. Excellent.
I want to move to ask a couple of questions about Burma, if
I can. Do you believe it is important to hold accountable
individuals of any military or security force who are involved
in human rights abuses?
Mr. Wong. Senator, I do, and I think our policy in Burma is
to encourage accountability for any atrocities that have
occurred.
Senator Kaine. Do you believe that individuals who
knowingly played a direct and significant role in committing
human rights violations against the Rohingya, such as senior
military and security officials in Burma, should be held
accountable to the full extent of U.S. and international law?
Mr. Wong. Senator, I believe that is our policy, to hold
accountable those who would take part in human rights
violations, and we have taken steps to encourage
accountability.
Senator Kaine. Do you both agree that based on that answer,
that this accountability should include those who were in
charge of a unit involved in so-called clearance operations in
the northern Rakhine state that began during or after October
2016?
Mr. Wong. Senator, I am not aware of the particular
operations you are referring to. I will have to defer to the
State Department's Burma team on that. I understand my
colleague, Patrick Murphy, who is our acting Special
Representative on Burma, was here on Friday for a briefing and
he can continue to brief. But for the overall policy of
encouraging accountability, ensuring that gross human rights
violations are punished and prevented, that is our policy in
Burma, as it is elsewhere around the world.
Senator Kaine. I am going to ask that question again for
the record in writing because it may be appropriate for others
to weigh in on that question.
The accountability should also be extended to those who
knew or should have known that the official subordinates were
committing sexual or gender-based violence and failed to take
adequate steps to prevent such violence or punish individuals
responsible for such violence. Should accountability extend to
them?
Mr. Wong. Senator, I am happy to take back the specific
question on the specific incidents to our team. But I do want
to emphasize that we fully support the goals that we share with
you of ensuring accountability, ensuring that human rights
violations are punished.
Senator Kaine. Has the Department of State and Defense had
a chance to review the proposed Burma Human Rights and Freedom
Act?
Mr. Wong. Senator, I will have to defer to our legislative
team and our Burma team. I am not aware if we have completed
our review yet. But overall, if there are further tools on
Burma or any other policy, the State Department stands ready to
review and work with Congress to ensure those tools are robust
and well tailored to achieving our goals.
Senator Kaine. I am going to ask for the record the
following question. Do either of your agencies have policy
objections to implementing the sanctions detailed in the
bipartisan act? And I will ask that for the record for a
written response.
The reason I asked that series of questions is one thing
that I found noticeable about the written testimony of each of
you was no mention of Burma or the Rohingya. I am a believer
that we cannot have stability in a region while there are
ongoing atrocities happening without anybody being held
accountable. And Burma's democratic experiment and what seems
for now to be a failed experiment is very, very disheartening.
And so I will ask those questions for the record and I would
appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Senator Kaine.
Secretary Schriver, Senator Markey mentioned and talked a
little bit about the Philippines and our response in the
Philippines, given human rights violations there. The
Philippines also represents an opportunity from a strategic
standpoint on the defense side of the picture.
Could you talk a little bit about where we are with EDCA
right now and how that should be perhaps utilized to a greater
degree than it is, if it can be, and if it cannot be, is it the
Philippine Government that is holding us back or is it our
reservations?
Mr. Schriver. Sure. Thank you, Senator.
I think on the defense side, our relationship remains
strong. As Mr. Wong indicated, there is a longstanding
foundational relationship between many of the institutions
between our two countries. I think particularly the recent
campaign in Marawi reinforced the importance of U.S.-Philippine
cooperation in the CT area.
On EDCA, we are making progress I would say, and there are
a number of steps that need to be taken. Site evaluations, for
example, perhaps could go more quickly for our liking, but I
would say that we are making progress. We will keep pushing
this with our Filipino counterparts.
Senator Gardner. It is your full intent, though, that the
Philippines has no hesitation on the agreement, the
partnership?
Mr. Schriver. I do not believe there is a political
hesitation or problem. I think it is mostly just the pace at
which bureaucracies can move and folks can move on this.
Senator Gardner. Section 101 of ARIA authorizes funds for
the following goal: to bolster the United States military
presence and readiness in the Indo-Pacific region for the
purpose of deterring and defending against provocative actions,
including by improving the defense infrastructure, critical
munitions stockpiles of the United States, and critical
munitions stockpiles of the United States Armed forces.
Could you talk a little bit about that goal, what
improvement the Department of Defense would like to see, Mr.
Schriver, and where you think we should have improvements and
perhaps just give us an update on the state of readiness on the
armed forces within the Indo-Pacific region?
Mr. Schriver. Thank you. I probably would want to give a
more fulsome answer by taking the question and giving a more
detailed briefing on plans for dispersal and for how we would
plan to have ammunition storage, et cetera, the number of
things that you mentioned in your question.
I think as a general matter, we understand the
implementation of the National Defense Strategy in dealing with
the challenges that China poses will require a different
approach, a different perhaps posture, but also this ability
for dispersal, this ability for survivable, sustainable
logistics to include ammunitions support for our forward-
deployed forces.
I can give you a more fulsome answer by taking the
question, but certainly as a general matter, these are our
goals and we appreciate the support, as expressed in your
efforts here at the committee.
Senator Gardner. Thanks. Perhaps we can follow up on that
question a little bit more.
Mr. Wong, talking a little bit about the competition and
China's practices, economic practices, economic coercion,
predatory economics, it has been characterized a number of
ways. What is our strategy right now as it relates to the BRI
initiative of China and how to counter them?
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator.
The One Belt One Road initiative or the Belt and Road
Initiative, is essentially a state-financed, state-backed
infrastructure initiative to build infrastructure across
Central Asia and other parts of the Indo-Pacific. When we look
at the Belt and Road Initiative, the United States is less
concerned about where the money comes from or from which
country the money comes from. We are much more concerned with,
A, how the financing for the infrastructure is structured,
number one; and number two, how the particular projects are
conceived and implemented. So we are concerned with the debt
structuring because if these deals and this financing is not
structured in a way that recipient nations across the Indo-
Pacific can pay them back in a sustainable manner, what we will
see over time is that these projects will compromise the
sovereignty of these nations to the detriment of their national
security. And we are concerned about the particular projects.
Senator Gardner. But yet, those nations continue to take
the dollars, the projects. Do they understand that?
Mr. Wong. Well, Senator, we have a number of efforts across
the Indo-Pacific and truly around the world to build the
capacity of partner governments to understand lifecycle
costing, to understand what a proper bid process is up to
international standards, and to understand how they can
structure debt, drive a harder bargain to ensure that they
preserve their sovereignty, preserve their economies over time
as they partner with other nations or private sector actors on
their infrastructure, whether that is China, whether that is
Japan, whether that is us or private capital markets.
But going back to the particular projects, we want to
ensure also that countries conceive of these projects focused
in a way that--on economic growth, that these projects are
truly feasible economically, that they are connected to the
economies of these nations, and that they are focused not on
certain strategic designs, but on economic designs because if
they are not conceived and implemented in that manner, what we
will see is that these projects will not lift up the nations'
economies but, in fact, weigh them down. So that is a message
we are bringing to our partners.
And we are also putting our capacity building efforts
behind this effort, something we have done literally for
decades. Perhaps we should talk about it more but the United
States has facilitated hundreds upon hundreds of connectivity
projects around the Indo-Pacific to drive regional integration
in a positive manner, to raise GDPs, to increase stability and
the economic growth of these nations. We want to continue that
trend and ensure that other initiatives do not diminish the
positive growth of the region.
Senator Gardner. Secretary Schriver, you mentioned the
CFIUS and CFIUS review processes. Some have talked about
perhaps maybe a more global approach to a CFIUS review system.
Other countries are having the same questions about national
security and investments in their country by SOE type of
organizations or other government intervention- funded
enterprises. Have we looked at a global type of CFIUS with
partners like Australia and Japan? Because we share a common
national security interest. And what would that look like if we
did?
Mr. Schriver. It is a great question, Senator, a little bit
outside my lane. In DOD channels, we do talk about the
challenges that China poses, particularly in the countries you
mentioned. To the extent we can share our experiences and trade
notes on Chinese behavior, we do that in DOD channels in terms
of promoting an overall global CFIUS. I would have to refer to
other colleagues in government if that has been a conversation.
Senator Gardner. Thank you.
Mr. Wong, do you want to address that at all?
Mr. Wong. Senator, it is a little bit outside my tent as
well, but I understand I think the administration is working
together with Congress on certain bills and reviewing certain
bills with regard to the CFIUS process, to reform it and
strengthen it.
Senator Gardner. Senator Markey?
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one
final question.
During his confirmation process to head of the Pacific
Command, Admiral Philip Davidson submitted to the Senate Armed
Services committee that, quote, I believe the INF Treaty today
unfairly puts the United States at a disadvantage and places
our forces at risk because China is not a signatory. Admiral
Harry Harris has made similar assertions.
Mr. Schriver, can you explain how DOD recommends that the
United States respond to this asserted disadvantage with the
noncompliance with the INF?
Mr. Schriver. Well, the discussion about the future of that
treaty would belong to my colleagues at State. I would say from
a DOD perspective, I think it is about 85 percent of Chinese
missiles that would be INF noncompliant. Really the backbone of
their power projection are ballistic and cruise missiles that
would be INF noncompliant. So unless something is done about
that either through treaty efforts or through other diplomatic
efforts, we have to accommodate for that capability. People
describe it as an anti-access/area denial strategy on the part
of China. And so we account for that by some of the efforts I
described earlier, greater dispersal opportunities, more access
opportunities, longer-range power projection ourselves, staying
outside threat envelopes. But it is a very dynamic challenge
and it is one that if we are going to be able to implement our
National Defense Strategy, compete effectively with China, we
do have to account for that.
Senator Markey. Mr. Wong, what is the State Department's
plan to deal with this issue? What is the initiative that you
are taking in order to close this problem off?
Mr. Wong. Thank you, Senator.
I am aware of the testimony from Admiral Davidson and
Admiral Harry Harris, and I am aware of the current strictures
and requirements of the INF Treaty both in Europe and Asia.
With regard to any modification of those treaties, I will
have to take that question back to our international security
team at the State Department and am happy to provide you an
answer.
Senator Markey. Yes. Would you? Just listening to Mr.
Schriver, it is clearly a huge issue. I think the number you
just used was 85 percent are not in compliance with the INF.
Mr. Schriver. If they were to try to join or if they were
to have those restrictions imposed on them, I believe that is
about the right figure.
Senator Markey. Yes. That is a big, big issue.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Gardner. In ARIA, we talk about human rights. You
have talked about human rights in your testimony and answers
today. We talked about the democratic values in the Indo-
Pacific region and that is, indeed, part of United States
national interests, national security interests.
Could you talk a little bit about how ARIA, you believe,
could help you address the mission or the goal of addressing
human rights? Mr. Wong?
Mr. Wong. Senator, I am glad that human rights is mentioned
in ARIA, and I assure that we talk about this constantly within
our interagency process and at the State Department not just
with regard to the free and open Indo-Pacific strategy but our
diplomatic efforts around the world. You, as well as I, know
that the U.S. has a strong tradition of advocating for human
rights. This is for a number of reasons. Number one, it is our
comparative advantage when we talk about competition abroad.
Number two, it has benefits in terms of stability and
prosperity if human rights were respected in more parts of the
world than they are today. But lastly--and this is perhaps the
most important--it is simply morally right. It is the right
thing to do. It is a part of the U.S. creed and a part of our
founding. It is what has always been a part of our enduring
interest and our ideals.
I am glad, again, that ARIA highlights this and that we are
continuing to focus on this at the State Department, and that
the United States is the world's strongest power, but we are
also the world's most moral actor. And we have a unique role in
speaking for those who cannot freely speak for themselves in
advocating for their rights.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Wong.
ARIA also talks about, in section 202, the multilateral,
bilateral, regional trade agreements that increase U.S.
employment and expand our economy. Could you talk a little bit
about your role--excuse me--the State Department's support or
whether they do not support it--that goal in terms of trade
agreements, multilateral, bilateral trade agreements, and what
would the State Department's role be in negotiating such
agreements--engagements I should say?
Mr. Wong. Sure. Senator, as I mentioned in my opening
statement, we have a very deep and broad economic relationship
in the Indo-Pacific, again the number one trading partner for
the Indo-Pacific, the number one foreign direct investor. So
strengthening those economic relationships, strengthening the
investment environments in the Indo-Pacific is not only in the
interest of the nations geographically in the Pacific but also
is in our interests. And the Trump administration, President
Trump, is very focused on defending the interests and improving
the lot of U.S. businesses and U.S. workers. Toward that end in
the Indo-Pacific, we have a number of actions.
First, that we work for ambitious agendas in APEC so that
we can work through APEC to collectively lower trade barriers
and lower investment barriers to improve economic prospects for
all the nations in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. included.
Second, the President supported bilateral trade agreements
with any country that is open to free, fair, and reciprocal
trade, and we are looking at that.
And third, we have talked a little bit about connectivity.
We want to engage more on this economic front because best
value energy infrastructure, digital infrastructure, transport
infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific can redound to our benefit
by, first, improving the economies in the Indo-Pacific and make
them better trade partners but also particularly with energy,
the prospect for exports for U.S. businesses and U.S. workers
and lowering the trade deficits that we have with countries in
the Indo-Pacific holds a lot of benefits and good prospects in
terms of benefits. And this is something that is talked about
in ARIA.
Senator Gardner. And do we need to restructure any of our
sort of our trade and investment organizations, our development
infrastructure, our investment infrastructure for further
engagement in Asia?
Mr. Wong. I understand that the administration has
supported the goals of--I believe it is called the BUILD Act,
which would essentially consolidate most, not all but most of
our development finance agencies here in the United States
under one roof so we can have uniform policy direction, uniform
authorities, perhaps increased capacities to foster the type of
private sector investment we want to see in connectivity
projects around the world, but also in particular for my
purposes in the Indo-Pacific. I think that would be very
helpful because it again provides uniform policy direction, but
it gives the U.S. private sector, as well as our partner
governments at the national and provincial level, a one-stop
shop, a place they know they can go to when they want to
discuss best value practices for fostering connectivity.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Wong.
Final question. You mentioned APEC. Where do you see ASEAN
and our relationship with ASEAN fitting in the Indo-Pacific?
Mr. Wong. Senator, the strategic logic of ASEAN is that
small and medium-sized nations in Southeast Asia can band
together and use their collective weight to resist outside
coercion and foster a free and open order, a rules-based order.
So we support that. We support the centrality of ASEAN.
When I was out in the region, I was in Jakarta, and I told
our partners there--I had a meeting with the permanent
representatives of ASEAN. And I said if you were to devise from
scratch a body to promote a free and open order, you would band
together the nations at the fulcrum of the region in Southeast
Asia. You would have this body be able to convene the nations
of the Indo-Pacific. You would have it work in a consensus
manner so that its decisions were strong and respected. You
would, in fact, create ASEAN. So the good thing is we do not
have to create it. We have ASEAN already.
So the corollary policy for the United States is to
strengthen ASEAN, is to work with them so that their decisions
are meaningful and that they can tackle larger regional
security issues and other issues that we need to support the
type of rules-based, free and open order that we want to
promote.
Senator Gardner. Thank you both for your time and testimony
today.
And, Senator Kaine, I believe you may have had some
questions for the record. The record will remain open until
close of business on Thursday. Please have your questions
submitted by then. I would ask the witnesses to please respond
as quickly as possible, and those responses will be made part
of the record.
And with the thanks of this committee, the committee is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record
Submitted to Alex Wong by Senator Tim Kaine
Question 1. At the hearing, both of you testified that we should
hold accountable to the full extent U.S. law allows, individuals of any
military or security force who are involved in human rights abuses. Do
you agree this should include those who: were in charge of a unit
involved in so called ``clearance operations'' in Northern Rakhine
state that began during or after October 2016; and who knew, or should
have known, that the official's subordinates were committing sexual or
gender-based violence and failed to take adequate steps to prevent such
violence or punish the individuals responsible for such violence?
Answer. The Department is committed to using all of the tools at
our disposal, including targeted sanctions on Burmese military
officials and not issuing JADE Act travel waivers for senior military
figures, to show there are serious consequences for those who commit
serious human rights abuses and violations. General Maung Maung Soe,
who was a leader of units responsible for widespread human rights abuse
against Rohingya in Rakhine State, was included in the first tranche of
persons sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights
Accountability Act in December 2017.
The State Department has made a determination that ethnic cleansing
occurred in Burma and we continue to call on Burma to hold accountable
those responsible for human rights abuses and violations, including the
atrocities in Rahkine State and in other areas of Burma, including
Kachin and Shan States. At the same time, we continue to collect new
information about these abuses and review the full range of tools
available in order to seek accountability for those responsible.
Question 2. Please provide your Department's position on the Burma
Human Rights and Freedom Act. Do your Departments support the
legislation? If not, detail your Department's policy objections,
including to implementing the sanctions detailed in this bipartisan
Act.
Answer. We appreciate that Congress shares the same goals of
working to ensure justice for victims of violence in Rakhine State, and
that those responsible for atrocities and other human rights violations
and abuses will face appropriate consequences. Justice and
accountability are important for Burma's democratic transition. We look
forward to working with you to assist Burma in this transition and to
realize the country's full potential, but the Department assesses that
the current tools such as the Junta's Anti-Democratic Efforts (JADE)
Act and the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act available
to the U.S. government are sufficient to pursue accountability.
Question 3. Would sanctioning senior military and security forces
officials in Burma who were found to be involved in human rights
violations help or harm U.S. efforts in reforming the Burmese military
to become a more professional and effective military?
Answer. We are committed to utilizing the full range of policy
tools and working with the international community to promote
accountability for those responsible for human rights violations and
abuses including ethnic cleansing, and other atrocities in Rahkine
State and elsewhere in the country, and to promote reform and
professionalization of the Burmese military. Sanctions are one such
tool, and we have sanctioned Maung Maung Soe, a senior general who was
a leader of the units responsible for serious human rights abuses in
Rahkine State, under Executive Order 13818, which implements the Global
Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act. We are also considering
additional measures and have advocated for other countries to do the
same.
We continue to call on both the civilian and the military
leadership in Burma to hold those who are responsible for the ethnic
cleansing and other atrocities in Rahkine State to account, and to
reform and professionalize the armed forces in a manner that would
advance Burma's democratic transition.
Question 4. Does the administration intend to lift or relax
sanctions put in place on North [Korea] for its gross human rights
violations in exchange for agreements on denuclearization? Please
detail the Administration's current strategy to address North Korea
human rights abuses.
Answer. We remain deeply concerned by the gross human rights
violations and abuses committed by the North Korean government. Many of
the current sanctions on North Korea were put in place due to the
regime's egregious and widespread human rights violations and abuses.
Our commitment to achieving the complete, verifiable, and irreversible
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula does not negate our resolve to
press the North Korean government to respect the fundamental freedoms
and human rights of its citizens. Our strategy to promote human rights
in North Korea focuses on three core objectives, including increasing
international awareness; expanding access to information, voices of
freedom and democracy, and visibility into the world outside; and
promoting accountability for those responsible for human rights
violations and abuses in North Korea.
Question 5. North Korean defector Thae Yong Ho, the regime's
former deputy ambassador in London, said that it is unlikely North
Korea will agree to Washington's version of ``complete, verifiable,
irreversible denuclearization'' because it would challenge the
fundamental structure of North Korea's political system. Instead, he
suggested North Korea will push for a watered down version. In light of
this assessment by the highest profile defector to date, please explain
what acceptable denuclearization would look like from the
Administration's perspective?
Answer. The goal remains the same: the complete, verifiable,
irreversible, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This means the
permanent and verifiable elimination of North Korea's nuclear program
and delivery systems. We have seen that the incremental, phased
approaches of past negotiations all failed. The Trump Administration is
not interested in negotiations allowing North Korea to buy time. In the
meantime, the global maximum pressure campaign will continue until
North Korea denuclearizes.
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[all]