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| By Alex Thompson, Phelim Kine and Max Tani |
Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max The Biden administration has made it clear: they really don’t like China. And the China hawk hub inside the administration is the White House’s National Security Council led by JAKE SULLIVAN , according to several officials across the administration. Sullivan has stockpiled the NSC with so-called “China hawks” who have consistently advocated for a confrontational approach. One of the NSC’s directors for China, RUSH DOSHI, published a book last year entitled “The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order” that warns the Chinese Communist Party wants to reshape the global order so that it will be less liberal, more coercive and more friendly to the ambitions of autocratic regimes. Another one of the council’s China directors, JULIAN GEWIRTZ, has a book coming out this year called “Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s” that the publisher says will look at the “foundations of strongman rule under Xi Jinping, who has intensified the policing of history to bolster his own authority.” TARUN CHHABRA , the Senior Director for Technology and National Security, wrote in 2019 that “Beijing’s ‘flexible’ authoritarianism abroad, digital tools of surveillance and control, unique brand of authoritarian capitalism, and ‘weaponization’ of interdependence may in fact render China a more formidable threat to democracy and liberal values than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War.” And there’s more! The NSC’s Senior Director for International Economics & Labor JEN HARRIS wrote in 2017 that “years of continually subjugating our economic interests to geopolitical ones, especially where China is concerned, has done real harm to American workers.” Senior NSC China director LAURA ROSENBERGER said in 2020 that China had gone “full Russian” with its disclosures—or lack thereof—about Covid-19 and wrote a piece about how online information is the latest front in the “Great Power” competition. And Rosenberger’s boss, U.S. Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs KURT CAMPBELL, may be the biggest China hawk of them all. Last Spring, he declared that when it came to China , “the period that was broadly described as engagement has come to an end,” and that “the dominant paradigm is going to be competition.” NSC’s unambiguous hostility towards China's ruling Communist Party has caused internal tensions. Some Biden administration officials, such as climate envoy JOHN KERRY and Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO, believe collaboration with China is important to address both climate change and improve global economic conditions. And, on occasion, the conflicts produced by those differing views have leaked out. The Washington Post reported last fall that Kerry was at odds with Sullivan and other White House aides who were “more skeptical that the United States alone can coax China into reducing emissions.” The NSC is one of the most influential offices inside the Biden White House. Sullivan has argued that foreign policy must be intertwined with domestic policy — “foreign policy for the middle class” is the tagline — which gives the office a lot of turf. As a result, other parts of the White House and the administration sometimes try to frame proposals as pushing back against China so that they can get them through the NSC more quickly, according to several administration officials. It’s a stark departure from the Obama administration which took a more collaborative approach to China, even as it sought to isolate them on trade deals like the failed Trans-Pacific Partnership. Some administration officials argue they’ve shifted because the Obama approach didn’t work in prompting China to change its behavior. Others argue that China in 2016 is different than China in 2022 given the rise of “wolf warrior” diplomacy (basically, Chinese diplomats yell at foreign counterparts who challenge Beijing, in addition to being very aggressive on Twitter), increased control of Hong Kong, and other moves. Often left unsaid is that the politics around China have also changed since the Obama administration. Beginning with DONALD TRUMP’s election in 2016 and ramping up further after Covid-19 originated from China, both parties have become more openly combative toward the country. Democratic Senate candidate TIM RYAN in Ohio debuted a China-bashing ad last month called “One Word,” in which he says “China” eight times in 60 seconds. He declined requests from some Asian-American groups to take it down. Some administration officials say that Capitol Hill is just as hawkish, if not more, than the NSC team and are adding pressure to the administration. Even so, some Obama White House veterans have argued that a tough approach will be counterproductive. RYAN HASS, the NSC’s director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia for Obama’s second term, wrote in a 2021 book that “America’s efforts to weaken China are harming itself.” “Exaggerating China’s strengths creates anxiety. Anxiety generates insecurity, insecurity leads to overreaction, and overreaction produces bad decisions that undermine America’s own competitiveness,” he wrote. The book — “Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence” — was blurbed by, among others, SUSAN RICE, now the head of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. Alexander Ward contributed to this newsletter top |