Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Welcome to the China in the World podcast, a series of discussions examining China's foreign policy and shifting engagement with the world. The China in the World podcast is brought to you by Carnegie China and hosted by me, Paul Hanley. Welcome back to Carnegie China's China in the World podcast.
For this episode, I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Ian Chong, non-resident scholar at Carnegie China and associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, to discuss the upcoming meeting between U.S. President
Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of APEC in San Francisco. Before I dive into the interview, let me first introduce Ian. As I mentioned, Ian is a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China, where he looks at U.S.-China dynamics in Southeast Asia and the broader Asia Pacific.
at the National University of Singapore, where he works as an associate professor of political science. His research covers the intersection of international and domestic politics with a focus on the externalities of major power competition, nationalism, regional order, security, contentious politics, and state formation. He writes often and publishes comments widely on U.S.-China relations,
Security and Order in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, Cross-Strait Relations and Taiwan Politics. Ian, thanks for joining the podcast. Really appreciate it. I know I'm talking to you while you're in Taiwan, and you've got a busy schedule there, so I appreciate you joining. Absolutely. My pleasure.
Well, let's jump right in. And let me start by mentioning the terrific piece that you put out this week, in fact, for Carnegie China, entitled Amid Contending Narratives,
a read on US and PRC messaging in Singapore. And in the article, you discuss how China and the US are trying to gain soft power in Singapore and how Singapore's population is responding to these narratives. This is something you and I have talked about several times over the last few years.
And I know you look at very, very closely. In a nutshell, how would you describe the dynamics playing out in domestic narratives in Singapore?
So, basically, Washington and Beijing are trying to persuade policymakers as well as the public that they have a better case than their rival. I mean, it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, but certainly I think there's a preference if there's at least some sympathy for the positions that these two major powers are putting across.
In a nutshell, the Beijing position emphasizes quite a bit on what they see as the illegitimacy of U.S. action, the provocations that accompanies those sorts of behaviors and statements, and they also make an appeal
to the sense of, for lack of a better term, ethno-nationalism, because about 70% of Singapore's population is ethnic Chinese. Of course, there's no need for ethnicity to mean anything for political loyalties, but that's what the CCP, this Chinese Communist Party, tends to emphasize.
The U.S. position, they tend to emphasize more on issues such as international law, rules-based order, and the tangible material benefits and stability that U.S. presence has historically brought to the region and promises to continue to bring. So in terms of how the population reacts, I think
It's quite split. There are people who find this appeal to ethno-nationalism quite attractive, others who have lingering apprehensions about the United States and views the United States as a colonial, imperial-type power. They would be skeptical of the U.S. and be more persuaded by the PRC position. There are others who sort of see and understand
the role that U.S. stability has brought and believe that a stabilizing active U.S. role that is moderate and measured is one that will continue to bring prosperity for the region and Singapore with it. So this contention continues. Fascinating. And just a follow-up question to that,
I mean, is this competition of narratives by the US and China in Singapore, is it something that's quite subtle as a Singapore national? I mean, you look at this closer maybe than others, but if you're a Singapore citizen, does this come across as something subtle or is it very apparent and very clear that the US and China are competing rhetorically in terms of these narratives? And then secondly,
A lot of this is the rhetoric. A lot of it is what is used in messaging or official statements or through media. But obviously, a lot of the opinion is going to be based on U.S. and Chinese actions and specific policies.
So, you know, how much of the rhetorical, you know, the narratives that they're putting out, how much impact is that having versus the, you know, the actions that each side takes and the policies they undertake? So this is where things I think are quite interesting because actions themselves, they can be read, but essentially what these narratives try to do is to create an interpretation and try to get people to believe and support those interpretations
for listeners in places that regularly have elections, think about this as election campaigning, right? Your different candidates, if you will, are trying to put forward a messaging that interprets what they are doing and also what their opponents, what their rivals are doing in ways that obviously advantages to themselves. So there's a whole gamut of things. Some of it is quite subtle. Some of it is more in your face. So I think the PRC side
There's far more range. So there's official stuff coming up from official media and official statements from the PRC. There are efforts to try to get others to help amplify the messaging, whether this is on social media or actually in various local media.
The US has a more forthright approach, which tends to be officials and having officials quoted in media. And because the US has a very big platform, what the US officials tend to say gets quite a lot of play in the media. So how it's done is a bit different. I think if you look at the effects, I think what's quite interesting is the
The subtlety, I think, on the PRC side is useful, because one of the things that people in Singapore believe, for instance, is that Singapore is dependent on China economically. That's technically not true. The PRC is Singapore's largest trading partner in goods.
But trading in terms of services is much larger with the US, Japan, Europe. And foreign direct investment coming into Singapore, people give a lot of play to the PRC money coming in through private sources and also the Belt and Road Initiative. But the private sources, that's portfolio investment, not direct investment. And the direct investment falls far short of the United States. But the impression is that China has this outsized role.
Fascinating. I know that also in the region, there's a lot of attention, of course, very close attention paid to what the US and China are doing together.
And we have a potentially a big, the Chinese side has not officially announced it yet, but potentially a big meeting between the U.S. president and the Chinese president next week in the United States and San Francisco on the margins of the APEC Leaders Summit. There's been, you know, some developments as of late in U.S.-China relations with
high-level cabinet secretaries from the U.S. visiting China, a number of working groups and official dialogue mechanisms have been announced between the two sides. There's still, of course, underlying tensions in the relationship. Let me just start out in talking about, to get your sense in advance of the meeting between the two presidents, how do you currently assess the overall relationship between the U.S. and China?
So I think between the PRC and the United States, there still is a high degree of mutual wariness. They see the other as potentially
or in fact, maybe even already doing things that are deleterious to the other's interests. Notably, PRC General Secretary Xi Jinping has previously described U.S. actions in Asia as trying to contain, encircle, and suppress the PRC, whereas the U.S. sees the
Officially, they've stated that they see the relationship with the PRC being one that's going to be highly competitive. But they both also hold out the possibility for some sort of collaboration. And I suppose this frames the Biden-Xi meeting. It frames also the economic dialogue that's been going on. I suppose both sides are trying to find a way to...
compete, but still manage their ties in ways that don't spiral out of control. There's also been some talk, obviously, of the military-to-military discussions that the US has been asking for a long time, including possibly arms control. I think there, again, there is some willingness to at least test and see.
if there are ways to allow the military relationship, the security relationship, to be a little bit more predictable. Yeah. I mean, I think I agree with you. And in terms of the U.S. approach, I think it's becoming clearer and clearer. I'm not sure how well it's accepted on the Chinese side yet or whether it ultimately will. But I think what the Biden administration is saying is,
as you say, the competition will intensify, that there's an expectation on the U.S. side, and that the U.S. will continue to push back, confront China on areas where it cannot change China policy, but the U.S. side has determined that it is threatening or undermining U.S. interests or those of its allies. At the same time, what you're seeing now is the other half of the perspective, which is
If the competition will intensify, the US and China will necessarily need to intensify their diplomacy and their dialogue, and perhaps even cooperation in areas where they have mutual interests. Because without it, you may have a higher risk
that the two sides, the confrontation grows stronger and ultimately leads to conflict, which I think neither side want. I think that's what the Biden administration is trying to put forward to the Chinese side. The Chinese side has not accepted that approach yet. Do you think there's been any progress in coming to better understanding of what each side is trying to achieve in terms of their approach?
So I agree with you on the Biden side. I've been thinking about the PRC response, and I think what we're seeing is that the PRC, in terms of allowing the dialogue to go on, and I think what the Xi-Biden meeting will do is to give more momentum, so perhaps the scope for the economic dialogue will increase, and then we might see a tacking on of the military side. So essentially,
I think Beijing recognizes that they want to avoid an uncontrolled confrontation. They want to avoid accidents that escalate in ways that are unmanageable. So they've come around, actually, in substance.
to the U.S. talk about wanting some sense of guardrails, right? So you compete within certain boundaries. There are areas you don't want to go. We've seen this during the Cold War, for instance, although I think pushing the Cold War analogy may be going a bit too far. But at any rate, the PRC seems in substance to have come closer to the U.S. position, but they've not used that language because I think rhetorically they don't want to seem like they are giving in or accepting the U.S. position and, you know, they
Especially, I think the PRC side doesn't want to seem like they've been pressured into this modification of their role. So they've avoided that kind of language, even though substantively it seems like they're getting there. Yeah, that's very interesting. I mean, it may lend some credence to the Politico report that came out yesterday that indicated that during Wang Yi's visit, the foreign minister's visit to the U.S. recently,
in preparation for the Chinese president's visit next week, that there was some indication from him that the Chinese side was thinking more about mill-to-mill and there may be a possibility to thaw the mill-to-mill relationship, which had been put on ice after the visit of Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.
And if that's the case, that is a good sign. However, let me ask you this question, because ultimately what I still see in the dialogue is the US pushing for a mil-to-mil dialogue, getting back to some of the high level engagements between military leaders, but also crisis prevention and management mechanisms to try to avoid
an accident or if one happens to manage it. And here, what I hear on the Chinese side is
We may not be as interested in that because having those kind of mechanisms will, they worry, give more incentive to the US side to continue to do the operations surveillance, air surveillance, naval surveillance, and other freedom of navigation exercises and all the rest that the Chinese side doesn't like. And so they're hesitant to engage in that
and they really want a conversation at a higher level about what each side is doing in the region and what China doesn't like that the US side does. But do you think in their growing understanding of the importance of these kind of guardrail mechanisms that that is evolving on the Chinese side? - I think it's evolving to the extent that the PRC doesn't want an accident.
However, I've heard the argument laid out, I've heard a stronger version of it too, which is by agreeing to any mil-to-mil crisis prevention and management mechanisms, that gives the United States a free pass to undertake what the Chinese call, what the PRC calls risky behavior, that you can fly and operate and sail in what the PRC deems Chinese waters.
And when or if a accident happens, then you call it in and the US side calls it in and things go away. That takes risk away from the US side. I don't think that's necessarily an accurate depiction, but if I believe my Chinese interlocutors are expressing their views in good faith, then that really underscores the real
suspicion of U.S. intentions. So that's going to be difficult to manage. And the whole higher level point is to sort of push for some sort of political discussion. But I think the political discussion bit is going to be difficult to come about, firstly, because the U.S. is in the region in part for its foreign presence, obviously to protect its interests, but also
It's in support of its allies, but the US itself is not a disputant. So it can't negotiate on behalf of the other disputants that are US allies.
So I think that talk seems to be a bit of that continued elbowing around to try to get a little bit of advantage and to perhaps push the US back a little bit. But I think we probably will see more of this to and froing demands and counter demands as the process of dialogue continues and as competition continues to proceed.
Yeah, I think this is one of the more important aspects. And I hope there is something that comes out of the meeting between the two presidents. I think our expectations on what and how meaningful it will be, at least initially, need to be realistic. But to get something started on that, of course, you know, and talking about risky behavior and the Chinese view that the American side is engaging in that conversation.
in its military activities. Of course, the Department of Defense recently disclosed intelligence citing over 200 cases of what they described as Chinese risky maneuvers conducted by the PLA operators. And if we think about the 2001 EP3 incident,
And if one of these maneuvers were to result in some sort of inadvertent collision or accident, it could really have the potential to create a pretty significant crisis in US-China. So I think this is an important area. I'm glad I had a chance to get your perspectives on this. One of the other-- yeah, go ahead. - Sorry, just let me quickly underscore something, because I think--
Some people have in mind precisely the 2001 EP3 incident and think that, well, you know, the crisis was resolved. Nothing big came out of it. But I think that sort of view is perhaps projecting what happened in the past to today, the U.S.,
PRC relationship today, it's not like the US PRC relationship in 2001, where I think there was a lot more mutual trust. There was more of a willingness to give
On the other side, some benefit of the doubt. And I guess in the EP3 incident, and you would know this very well, I think everyone was very lucky that we had a former Admiral Puerh who actually knew about naval operations, who was in Beijing at that point in time. And that's sort of luck, and you can't replicate luck.
So to believe that we can have an accident today and everyone can walk away relatively unscathed with some, even if there is some loss of life, I think that's unrealistic. There's far more nationalism on the PRC side. There's far more,
wariness of the PRC and perhaps even a view that the PRC is purposely being antagonistic on the US side. So a backing off of both sides, as we saw in 2001, is going to be so much more difficult, also because of domestic politics. So yeah, I would really caution against people over-reading the 2001, which I know and I've heard people do.
I could not agree with you more on that, Ian. I talk about this fairly often. I think there was a willingness by the leadership in 2001 to use creative diplomacy to work through the crisis to get to a better place because both sides wanted that. I don't think you'd have that same approach because of domestic politics and the state of the relationship as it currently stands, the antagonism in the relationship.
And the other point is, and I heard Admiral Gary Roughead, the former chief of Naval operations, make this point a while ago. The one thing that we didn't have in 2001 that we would have to contend with today is social media.
There was not social media in 2001. And that will, given the levels of nationalism, what we can expect in terms of the commentary on social media and the pressure that'll put on governments is pretty strong. So I agree with you 100%. I think an EP3 crisis today would be, the result would be much different and unfortunately much more damaging to U.S.-China relations.
We are getting low on time. I want to get a sense, you know, ASEAN countries,
have a lot at stake in U.S.-China relations. If I've learned anything over my last two plus years in Singapore, it's this. And Southeast Asian countries watch very closely, as I mentioned, the U.S.-China relationship because it's consequential to them. A lot at stake. The Singapore Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said recently, you need a meeting to head in the right direction, but you don't expect a meeting to make everything sweetness or light
or something, what in your view would ASEAN countries see as a successful meeting between the two presidents? - So I don't think in ASEAN capitals they would see the meeting itself
as necessarily signifying anything. Because if you recall from last year's T20 meeting, it appeared that Biden and Xi had a very good conversation. And then we had the balloon incident happen. And things got into a bit of a downward spiral. It was controlled. But I suppose what South Asian capitals would be looking at, they would prefer that the US and PRC manage their relationship, if not get along.
They would be looking out to see if there's momentum behind a lot of the economic and political dialogue, and if there is some effort to move forward on the military dialogue. So we talked about actions earlier, the actions that follow on the Biden-Xi meeting in the weeks and perhaps months to come. And I think they will also be watching to see how far the PRC side continues to
put forward their positions. So if you recall, General Lee Sang-Fu, before he disappeared and was removed, had claimed that a lot of this activity was occurring in or near PRC waters. But of course, that is a matter of dispute. And I think that comes
Those claims, very excessive claims, put a lot of pressure on Southeast Asian capital. So they'd be watching to see if some of that, as a result of the perhaps forward movement in U.S.-China relations, mean to say some of the PRC is willing to at least dial back some of the rhetoric and behavior in relation to these very excessive claims.
Well, there's a lot at stake and very much appreciate, Ian, you sharing your perspectives on this upcoming visit and look forward to continuing to discuss these issues and maybe do a recap after the visit to get a sense of how you feel it turned out. But thanks for joining and please consider coming back to the China in the World podcast to share your perspectives in the future. Oh, definitely. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you, Ian. Thank you.
Thank you for listening to the China in the World podcast. For more episodes and research, please go to carnegiechina.org. This episode was produced by Nathaniel Schur. The music was composed by Spencer Barnett.