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Hi, China Watchers. Today we check-in on the State Department's "China House" on its second anniversary, parse pro-democracy activists' critiques of a new Hong Kong-related bill and take a sneak peek at a documentary pushing back against Taiwan's "invisible" status. And we profile a book that exposes how perpetrators of domestic violence in China escape prosecution.
Let's get to it. — Phelim.
Time to assess the State Department's "unicorn"
Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images |
The Biden administration's centerpiece of its effort to strengthen its diplomatic heft in its global rivalry with Beijing began operations two years ago on Monday. The State Department pitched China House (officially the Office of China Coordination) as a way to better coordinate China policy across departments and agencies and to share information and shape policy on China. China Watcher spoke with Mark Lambert, deputy assistant secretary of State for China and Taiwan who helms China House, on what difference it has made since 2022.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
How has China House changed how State approaches Beijing?
It has created a cohort of forward-deployed regional China officers — real China experts based all around the world. They meet with our country teams and embassies coaching and helping our people in other parts of the world understand the China challenge there. Helping to demystify what it is that the Chinese are doing and helping [U.S. diplomatic] posts make recommendations. It's novel and a unicorn in the State Department. We can now share information much more quickly across the U.S. government, but more importantly, with our allies and our partners. This means that collectively we’re able to respond to China more effectively and with one voice.
Tell me a success story
We’ve raised an understanding of the risk posed by China in its support of the Russian war machine and the invasion against Ukraine. The Chinese are thinking that they can have a strong economic relationship with Europe, while at the same time providing this support to Russia. But the invasion of Ukraine is an existential threat to those countries, particularly in Central Europe.
What does Beijing misunderstand about the U.S.?
I don’t think they understand just how important transatlantic security is to our national security. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is something we take very seriously because of our NATO commitments.
I honestly don’t think they understand the importance of our alliance system. When the Filipinos and the Chinese were having their kinetic activity in the South China Sea, there was a real concern the Chinese did not understand the importance of the American alliance system and our mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. Because they don’t have anything remotely like it.
How is Russia's war on Ukraine informing Beijing's designs on Taiwan?
It's pretty clear that the Chinese are looking at how the brave Ukrainian people have stood up, created new asymmetric weapons, defended their homeland and caused so many casualties for Russia, a country with a much larger military.
I hope that they’re looking at that and saying, "You know, this whole combined-arms warfare is a lot harder than we were led to believe, and now is not the day to try to attack Taiwan."
Cardin's Hong Kong bill draws activist backlash
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U.S.-based Hong Kong democracy activists are pretty displeased with a Hong Kong-related bill that Sen. Ben Cardin, (D-Md.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced Monday. The Hong Kong Policy Act of 2024 calls for the release of political prisoners and for democratic elections of the territory's leaders.
Cardin says the legislation will provide “the tools needed to protect U.S. interests, promote human rights and provide relief to those fleeing persecution.”
Activists disagree, arguing it doesn't do enough to protect human rights in Hong Kong.
The bill's defects include a provision that will prevent "jurisdiction-based sanctions or restrictions," on Hong Kong entities or officials, said Samuel Bickett, a former Hong Kong political prisoner and convener of the Washington-based U.S.-Hong Kong Policy Roundtable, which coordinates the activities of U.S.-based human rights groups.
Cardin introduced the bill despite "objections from D.C.’s Hong Kong advocacy community," Bickett said.
The wrong bill. Bicket and other activists argue Cardin should drop that legislation and instead push for the passage of the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office Certification Act, which would require an annual review of the operations of the Hong Kong government's three outposts in the United States. Those entities have allegedly been used to launch intimidation campaigns against activists. The bill would enable the U.S. government to revoke those offices' diplomatic privileges if the review determines that "Hong Kong no longer enjoys a high degree of autonomy" from Beijing, according to the text.
Those offices are sources of "foreign influence campaigns that threaten the safety of pro-democracy Hong Kongers," said Anna Kwok, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group the Hong Kong Democracy Council.
Cardin declined to comment.
TRANSLATING WASHINGTON
— WORKING GROUP INTRODUCES CRITICAL MINERALS BILLS: Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) introduced three bills Wednesday to protect and expand U.S. access to critical mineral supply chains. The two lawmakers are co-chairs of the House Select Committee on China's Critical Minerals Policy Working Group. The bills aim to boost collaboration with foreign governments on supply chains, limit exports of critical minerals to foreign adversaries and expand the U.S. workforce employed in critical mineral mining and processing.
The bills follow Beijing's move last week to ban the export to the U.S. of two critical minerals — germanium and gallium —that are essential to semiconductor and solar cell production.
That ban reflects "China’s weaponization of supply chains" and are a "stark reminder of the vulnerabilities in our supply chains," Wittman told reporters. The China committee aims to steer the bills through the relevant standing committees to get them passed in the next Congress, Wittman added.
— CHINA HAWK HELBERG GETS STATE NOMINATION: President-elect Donald Trump has tapped China hawk Jacob Helberg — a senior policy adviser to Palantir Technologies' CEO Alex Karp — to be the State Department's top economic policy and trade official. In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump said Helberg, one of the leaders in the push to ban Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok, will be "a champion of our America First Foreign Policy." POLITICO's Eric Bazail-Eimil has the full story here. Helberg's anti-TikTok creds will be tested by Trump's mixed messaging on the app's future. Trump pledged during his campaign to "save TikTok" despite a bipartisan law that will bar TikTok's access in the U.S. if its Beijing-based parent company doesn't sell the app to a non-Chinese buyer by Jan. 19.
— LAWMAKER: D.C. SHOULD CUT BEIJING TIES: Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on China, put District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser in the hot seat over the city's 40-year sister-city ties with Beijing. Those links are "a betrayal" of American values and Bowser should "end this relationship immediately," Moolenaar said in a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday. Bowser was noncommittal. "I'll be happy to review [Beijing-D.C. ties] in the context of what the basis of our relationship is," Bowser said.
— PRESSURE GROUPS: DON'T RENEW CHINA COMMITTEE: A coalition of more than 50 nonprofit advocacy organizations — the majority representing the interests of Asians, Asian Americans Americans and Pacific Islanders — oppose the renewal of the House Select Committee on China in the next Congress. The committee "would only continue to specifically target an individual community in a manner that will lead to a rise in anti-Asian and anti-Chinese sentiment," the groups said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday.
The GOP side of the committee dismissed that argument. The letter "presents a false choice between protecting U.S. national security and safeguarding the rights of Asian Americans and people of Asian descent here on U.S. soil," said GOP committee spokesperson Allison Aprahamian. That sentiment was echoed on the other side of the aisle. The committee will continue its work in the next Congress "while safeguarding the rights of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community as well as those of the Chinese Communist Party's victims around the world," said Will Baldwin, spokesperson for the committee's Democratic minority.
— PELOSI PILLORIES VATICAN TIES TO CHINA: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has criticized the Vatican's renewal of a deal in October with the Chinese government on joint consultation on the appointment of new bishops in China's government-regulated Catholic church. "Why should the Chinese government be having a say in the appointment of bishops?" Pelosi said in an interview with the National Catholic Reporter on Tuesday. That agreement flies in the face of decades of "suffering of Catholics in China," Pelosi added. Pope Francis has made outreach to Beijing a priority in recent years, fanning fears that he may be hatching a deal that will switch the Holy See's diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing. The Chinese embassy declined to comment. The Vatican didn't respond to a request for comment.
TRANSLATING EUROPE
EU DIPLOMAT: CHINA REQUIRES 'STRONG' TRUMP: President-elect Donald Trump should be hawkish on Russia if he wants to exert real sway over China, the E.U.'s top diplomat said Tuesday. Speaking at POLITICO's P28 event in Brussels, Kaja Kallas said China was "learning from Russia," and insisted that defending Ukraine against the Kremlin would send a strong message to Beijing. "If you don't want problems with China, I think you have to be really strong on Russia," she said. POLITICO's Seb Starcevic has the full story here.
— BEIJING BASHES EU 'RESTRICTIVE TRADE MEASURES': The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused the European Union of unfairly targeting Chinese firms with "restrictive trade measures' including barriers to market access under the pretext of "economic security." Those moves "undermined the lawful right and interests of Chinese enterprises and tarnished the E.U's own image," Mao at the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday. Those comments were a response to a question about a report released Monday by the China Chamber of Commerce to the E.U.
HOT FROM THE CHINA WATCHERSPHERE
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— TAIWAN BLASTS ‘DESTABILIZING' CHINESE MILITARY MOVES: Taipei came out swinging Wednesday at what it called a "destabilizing" Chinese military incursion in the air and waters around Taiwan that began on Monday. "Large numbers of PLA Navy and China Coast Guard vessels … [are] unnecessarily escalating regional tensions, and interfering with regular international shipping and trade," Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. China's Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry have declined to comment about the uptick in Chinese military activity around the self-governing island.
— REPORT: HEINZ, DEL MONTE'S XINJIANG LINKS: A total of 72 international companies — including U.S.-based Kraft Heinz Co. and Del Monte Foods, Inc. — have direct or indirect ties to agricultural production or supply chains (or are at risk of doing so) in China's Xinjiang's region linked to forced labor and coercive eviction practices targeting Uyghur Muslims, said a research report published Thursday by the International Network for Critical China Studies. That's a research network of China-focused academics led by David Tobin, lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield. "Products made with tomatoes or peppers from the Uyghur region continue to taint global supply chains," the report said.
Kraft Heinz maintains a strategic partnership with China's state-owned agricultural firm COFCO which "actively helps the government to surveil Uyghur households and enforce state policies linked to cultural assimilation and forced labor," said the report. Kraft Heinz denied the use of forced labor in its supply chain and said it had already distanced itself from COFCO. The firm has "stopped sourcing tomato products from COFCO for all our operations, with the exception of China and Central Asia," Kraft Heinz spokesperson Alex Abraham said in a statement. Del Monte didn't respond to a request for comment.
— CANADA SANCTIONS OFFICIALS FOR RIGHTS ABUSES: The Canadian government has imposed sanctions on eight current and former Chinese officials for their role in "grave human rights abuses," Canada's Global Affairs Ministry announced Tuesday. Ottawa implicated the eight officials in "government-led repression of ethnic and religious minorities in China, including in Xinjiang, Tibet and against those who practice Falun Gong," the ministry said in a statement. The sanctions forbid any Canadians from engaging in any "financial or related services" with the eight, who include former Chinese Communist Party chief in Tibet, Wu Yingjie, and former CCP head in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo. The sanctions are "gross interference in China's internal affairs" based on "false allegations against China in the name of human rights," the Chinese Foreign Ministry's Mao said Wednesday.
— XI WARNS ON TRADE WAR RISKS: China's leader Xi Jinping warned of the possible blowback from an expansion of U.S. tariffs and trade restrictions in the Trump administration. “Tariff wars, trade wars and sci-tech wars go against the trend of history and the laws of economics, and there will be no winners,” Xi said in a speech to a visiting group of foreign businesspeople Tuesday. Xi sounded a conciliatory note by pledging to "manage differences with the U.S." to avoid the fallout from an intensification of the U.S.-China trade war.
THREE MINUTES WITH …
Image courtesy of Vanessa Hope |
Vanessa Hope is a filmmaker whose latest film, Invisible Nation, is a tribute to Taiwan and its democratic system in the face of international isolation and risk of Chinese invasion. Hope is marketing her film as a tool to boost awareness of Taiwan's strengths and challenges with screening locations including the U.K. Parliament last month. Hope spoke to China Watcher about Taiwan's precarious status.
How is Taiwan an "Invisible Nation"?
It lacks a meaningful place in the international community, meaningful official diplomatic recognition from the major countries of the world. China is doing an excellent job of keeping it out of the United Nations, major international organizations, on civil aviation, Interpol and the World Health Organization.
How did that happen?
The status quo originated when there were two dictators, one in China and one in Taiwan. And there was a sense that it was inevitable that the dictator in China, Mao Zedong, — who had just won the war against the dictator who fled to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek — would eventually end up getting Taiwan. And cynically, [former national security adviser Henry] Kissinger and [former President Richard] Nixon formed that [cross-Strait] policy when they agreed to engage diplomatically with China and essentially sacrifice Taiwan.
What do you expect U.S.-Taiwan ties to look like under the incoming Trump administration?
The way in which both Trump and Elon Musk speak about Taiwan in purely transactional terms focused most on how much money they can make in China is not good for Taiwan.
Trump most recently said that Taiwan should be paying more for protection from the United States when it’s already paid billions of dollars for weapons that have never been delivered. Trump is also claiming that [the Taiwanese] have stolen our jobs in the chip manufacturing industry, and that we should just build them here. That sadly plays into China’s narrative [to Taiwan] of "Don’t trust the United States — they’re not going to be there for you, and we’re the ones that should be controlling you."
HEADLINES
Financial Times: How the chip war could turn under Trump
China International Strategy Review: Can American pressure change China?
RFA: Hong Kong officials learn neighborhood surveillance from China
South China Morning Post: Chinese scientists have no choice but to leave US, top mathematician say
ONE BOOK, THREE QUESTIONS
Bloomsbury Publishing |
The Book: Violent Intimacy: Family Harmony, State Stability and Intimate Partner Violence in Post-Socialist China
The Author: Tiantian Zheng is SUNY distinguished professor of anthropology at State University of New York, Cortland.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
What is the most important takeaway from your book?
China's police and judiciary officials tend to deal with the majority of "family conflicts" — the official euphemism for intimate partner violence — through mediation rather than prosecution of the abuser. Prosecution of abusers usually only occurs in response to severe injury of victims such as mutilation and paralysis. That unfortunately eliminates possible deterrent effects and helps perpetuate intimate partner violence against women in China.
What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing this book?
That China's judiciary officials generally interpret and apply the country's Anti-Domestic Violence Law as a civil law with relatively mild penalties such as fines rather than as a criminal law that results in the imprisonment of offenders. That means that in the eyes of China's judiciary officials, intimate partner violence is a civil offense unless extreme injuries occur. Even broken bones are downplayed as "minor injuries.”
Has China's demographic crisis — in which preference for male offspring has created a population in which men far outnumber women — influenced the occurrence of intimate partner violence in China?
A shortage of women in China has made women more vulnerable and susceptible not only to intimate partner violence, but also to kidnapping, abduction, trafficking and forced marriage. In 2022 a woman in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, was discovered chained by the neck to a wall in a doorless shed. It turns out she had been kidnapped and trafficked into a forced marriage that produced eight children.
Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com.
Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Eric Bazail-Eimil, Seb Starcevic and digital producers Emma Cordover and Giulia Poloni.
China Watcher Wants You! Do you have tips? An inside track on the incoming Trump administration's China policy? Comments on this week's newsletter? Email me at pkine@politico.com.
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