Does Biden Take China’s Threat Seriously?
His diplomacy is provocative, but his defense strategy isn’t preventive enough.
By Walter Russell Mead April 8, 2024 https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-biden-take-chinas-threat-seriously-japan-state-dinner-defense-pacific-e7859c50?st=qpnpkc5bbzkenk8&reflink=article_email_share
After six months in which the Middle East seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the Oval Office, the White House is pivoting to the Indo-Pacific this week as Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrives for consultations and a state dinner. President Biden and Mr. Kishida will be joined Thursday by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for talks on China’s growing military threat to the Philippines.
The deepening security relationship with an increasingly activist Japan is the heart of America’s strategy, which illustrates both the potential and possible pitfalls in Team Biden’s approach. As China’s power has grown and it has cast off the “peaceful rise” policy of Deng Xiaoping’s era, Tokyo sees Beijing’s ambitions as a direct and increasingly urgent threat to its security and independence. If China compels Taiwan to unite with the mainland and makes good on its sweeping claims in the South China Sea, Beijing will be able to restrict Japan’s trade with the world. Tokyo is responding to this threat, made more powerful by China’s growing alliance with Russia, by increasing defense spending, strengthening its security relationship with the U.S., and enhancing military cooperation and engagement with neighbors like the Philippines.
Yet close American cooperation with Japan comes at a cost. Chinese nationalists see Japan as China’s greatest historical enemy and the U.S. as China’s most powerful contemporary opponent. Photos of Mr. Kishida clinking champagne flutes with Mr. Biden will inflame Chinese public opinion and allow regime propagandists to whip up support for Xi Jinping at a time of economic stress.
Most Westerners yawn when they read official Chinese documents, but as Steve Tsang and Olivia Cheung write in their concise and important new book, “The Political Thought of Xi Jinping,” there is much to be learned from them. A vision of zero-sum competition with the U.S. is at the heart of China’s approach to international politics, and hostility toward Japan is central to the Communist Party’s goal of uniting the Chinese people behind Mr. Xi and the party elite.
In 2014 Mr. Xi added three memorial days to the Chinese calendar, celebrated with marches and events throughout the country. Two of the three are explicitly anti-Japan. One commemorates the victims of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, and the other celebrates Japan’s defeat in World War II. Chinese textbooks and curricula have been revised to highlight the evil intentions and relentless ambition of Japan and the U.S. The idea that national unity under communist leadership is the way to frustrate China’s foreign enemies is central to regime propaganda.
We should make no mistake. Both elite and mass Chinese public opinion will read this week’s U.S.-Japan summit as a serious escalation of Washington’s direct challenge to Mr. Xi and his goal of unification with Taiwan. The question is whether the Biden administration and the country it leads are prepared for the blowback.
With widely respected Asia hand Kurt Campbell at the No. 2 spot in the State Department after his February Senate confirmation, a chief architect of America’s Asian diplomatic strategy is well-placed to keep strengthening and integrating America’s vital alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific. Yet old questions linger. Does Mr. Biden understand how serious the challenge from China is? Does he have a plan for American and allied success? Is he willing and able to give his military and diplomatic teams the resources and political support they need?
Not everybody in Asia is convinced that the answer is yes. An annual survey of business, political and civil-society actors by the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute found for the first time this year that a slim majority of Southeast Asian leaders would, if forced to choose, opt for China over the U.S. as their “preferred alignment choice in the region.” Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia were among the countries where majorities would choose China in a pinch.
Those skeptical Southeast Asians are onto something. America’s failure to match China’s epochal military buildup—not a lack of diplomatic activism—is the root cause of the region’s geopolitical insecurity. Better security cooperation with Japan, a goal of this week’s talks, can help at the margins, but a serious policy for the Indo-Pacific requires larger investments from the U.S. than Team Biden is currently ready to provide.
As a result, American policy in Asia is to speak loudly while brandishing a small stick. If we persist, it won’t matter how many toasts American and Japanese leaders drink together or how many memos of understanding they sign. Unless we get the basics right, Mr. Xi’s China will one day call our bluff.
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Appeared in the April 9, 2024, print edition as 'Does Biden Take China’s Threat Seriously?'.