Pandemic Response Reflects Unlearned Lessons of U.S.-China Trade War
Yukon Huang and Jeremy Smith
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 27

“Nationalist and protectionist impulses have hampered the exchanges of knowledge and goods that foster economic growth. Similar failures of global coordination are now exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic.”

“A rhetorical pledge to work together is welcome but insufficient. Getting the virus under control and reactivating the global economy will require coordination not only between the world’s two biggest economies but also among individuals, businesses, and other governments worldwide. Despite the common goal of slowing the spread of the virus, these actors are pursuing their own incentives and motivations, which in turn are imposing costs on one another. Due to the nature of public goods, the world’s governments must collectively step in to manage health security. But as the U.S.-China trade war has revealed, the world may lack the necessary governance frameworks, leadership, and collective will to address such large-scale challenges…”

“Neither great power is meeting the world’s needs: one is losing the interest and sway needed to exercise global leadership and the other is not yet ready to do so. As some observers have noted, such a vacuum necessitates intervention by third parties, though none have stepped into the void. Europe remains divided in its foreign policy interests and preoccupied with its own pandemic response. The United States has undermined the key multilateral institutions responsible for global trade and health by blocking the appointment of judges to the WTO appellate court and recently announcing a halt to WHO funding. International financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are mainly designed to offer assistance to vulnerable economies; they lack mandates to deal with structural weaknesses in global governance by establishing ground rules or enforcing behavior. The UN Security Council might be able to play such a role, but it is often paralyzed by the veto power of its five permanent members. That has left the G20 to issue unenforceable statements pledging cooperation.”

Friends and Enemies: A Framework for Understanding Chinese Political Interference in Democratic Countries
Matt Schrader
The German Marshall Fund of the United States, April 22

“This report explores how the Chinese Communist Party has increasingly employed domestic tools to unite foreign friends and isolate foreign enemies. Although the degree of success the Party has enjoyed in building global influence is debatable—and there are certainly examples of failure—Party leaders appear to be increasingly confident in this toolkit. Understanding the roots of this confidence requires careful assessment of the many ways the Party influences and interferes in other countries’ and which actions the Party deems to have been successful. This report identifies five components, which often interact with one another, that together characterize China’s political interference in industrialized democracies:

1）Weaponizing China’s economy: Party leaders generate political compliance in foreign societies by communicating the benefits of cooperation, alongside the costs that Beijing can impose upon countries, companies, or individuals who step out of line.
2）Asserting narrative dominance: In the global conversation on China, the Party manipulates and controls information to downplay and crowd out adversarial narratives and advance those that serve its interests.
3) Relying on elite intermediaries: The Party relies on intermediaries abroad to shape foreign perceptions of China, often adopting many of the same ambiguous, opaque, and misleading methods that it utilizes to co-opt elites at home.
4) Instrumentalizing the Chinese diaspora: The Party identifies valuable diaspora members and groups in an effort to penetrate and co-opt Chinese diaspora communities.
5) Embedding authoritarian control: The Party’s way of doing business, and its efforts to demonstrate a viable alternative to liberal democracy, both strengthen authoritarian norms beyond China’s borders.”

“These characteristics of the Party’s foreign interference have deep roots in how the Party governs China. They are not accidental, and they did not first appear after Xi Jinping’s assumption of power. Rather, they grew out of the strategies, structures, and political warfare doctrines the party has used to address the many internal and external threats it perceives to its primacy within China…”

U.S. Views of China Increasingly Negative Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
Kat Devlin, Laura Silver and Christine Huang
Pew Research Center, April 21

“Against the backdrop of trade frictions and the onset of an unprecedented pandemic, negative views of China have continued to grow, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of Americans conducted in March. Roughly two-thirds now say they have an unfavorable view of China, the most negative rating for the country since the Center began asking the question in 2005, and up nearly 20 percentage points since the start of the Trump administration. Positive views of China’s leader, President Xi Jinping, are also at historically low levels.”

“Economic factors, such as job losses to China and the trade deficit, remain key concerns for the American public. But other issues – including Chinese human rights policies and environmental degradation – also worry Americans. Many of these issues play a role in how the public views China more broadly: Those who see the China-related topics included in the study as a serious problem generally have less favorable views of China overall.”

“As the economies of both China and the United States struggle due to the pandemic, more Americans now see the U.S. as the world’s leading economic power than at any time over the past 12 years. Americans now see the U.S. as more of an economic powerhouse than China by roughly two-to-one (59% vs. 30%). Americans also overwhelmingly believe their country leads the world militarily and that the world is better off with U.S. leadership as opposed to that of China. Regardless of whether the U.S. remains the leading economic or military power today, nearly all Americans prefer U.S. global leadership over Chinese global leadership. This view remains largely unchanged since 2018 when the question was last asked. While there is widespread agreement across all groups in society, Republicans are more likely to view China’s growing power and influence as a major threat than Democrats do.”

Two Months In: Assessing Implementation of the U.S.-China Phase One Trade Deal
Wendy Cutler and James Green
Asia Society Policy Institute, April 15

“April 14 marked the two-month anniversary of the entry into force of one of the most high-profile trade agreements ever negotiated, the U.S.-China Phase One trade deal. The world has changed dramatically over the past 60 days, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and overall U.S.-China relations continue to deteriorate. Nevertheless, Washington and Beijing have maintained their efforts to implement the detailed provisions of the trade accord.”

“It’s premature to judge whether the agreement has succeeded in achieving its objectives of further opening and promoting structural reforms in China’s economy while rebalancing bilateral trade flows. However, it’s not too soon to offer perspectives on implementation thus far. It’s a mixed picture, with some encouraging progress but also some missed deadlines and serious doubts on whether the purchasing commitments can be met. The fallout from the coronavirus outbreak obviously plays a role here, but the uneven record also reflects the long-standing challenges of implementing any complex trade agreement…”

“Finally, it’s becoming apparent that assessing compliance is often not a black or white issue. There are typically shades of grey in implementation of trade agreements, particularly in light of ambiguities in the legal texts. In many cases, calls need to be made on whether things are moving in the right direction and thus quiet conversations would be the most useful in keeping things on track versus going down the dispute settlement route. One additional consideration here: to pursue dispute resolution cases, on-the-ground information from U.S. companies is critical. Yet, U.S. companies have historically been reluctant to report unfair treatment in China to the U.S. Government for fear of retribution. Given the publicity around trade with China, we suspect firms will be extra cautious in bringing forward such complaints, coupled with a fear that the Administration may impose more tariffs. As we enter into the third month of the U.S.-China trade agreement, we can expect continuing ups and downs in implementation.”