The Case for a US-China Water Technology FundThe Biden Administration’s season of engagement with China has led to tangible progress. A series...
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network
The Biden Administration’s season of engagement with China has led to tangible progress. A series of visits by high-ranking administration officials culminated in the announcement of a new structure for US-China economic dialogue, under which newly created US-China working groups will meet to discuss policy and exchange information.
This is an important development – it represents tangible progress on the administration’s China strategy of “invest, align, compete.” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo explained it succinctly; “This is about our very consequential trade relationship, which is good for America, good for China and good for the world,” she said. During a recent panel discussion at the Wilson Center she also stated, “We need to do business with China, wherever we can, promote where we can, and protect where we must.”
The China Question: Engage or Oppose?
This approach stands in contrast to the political factions – vocal and militant in both the US and China – that seek outright confrontation which is influencing policy makers stuck between the bellicose approach and a more conciliatory one argued by many of our allies. The tension between the two – and their uneasy coexistence – currently dominate US-China policy analysis and has been analyzed in many forums, including The Wilson Center’s. In a June podcast, Kissinger Institute director Robert Daly described the gulf between the positive tone that marked Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s China visit and the harsh rhetoric that preceded and followed it – rhetoric that became even harsher after President Biden, trying to walk a line between the two camps, referred to President Xi as a “dictator.” Global fellow Keith Rockwell examined the tension in evidence in Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s April statement that while “we do not seek to ‘decouple’ our economy from China’s,” the US would continue to assert its national security interests including in economic terms; her assertion of the need for security-based restrictions on economic ties with China is undermined by continued US reliance on tariffs, Rockwell suggested. In late August, in the wake of Secretary Raimondo’s China visit, Mark Kennedy, director of the center’s Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition spoke with The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin about China’s refusal to buy into Raimondo’s balanced approach to economic engagement and US security. China’s economic crackdowns “do not make sense if the goal is to promote long-term economic growth, but they could make sense if they are meant to help [China] endure a conflict with the West,” Kennedy said.
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