Wang Huiyao in dialogue with Harvard Professor Graham Allison
March 03 , 2022【English】
【Chinese】
This year marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s ground-breaking trip to China followed by the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué. 50 years on, this bilateral relationship continues to be fraught with tension. Recent breathtaking developments in Ukraine is making the strategic competition even more complex with profound implications for the future of the international order. In such an extraordinary time, how can the future of great power relations be put into perspective? How will US-China relations move forward as important political developments continue to unfold in both countries? Taking a lesson from history, is it possible to have another “ground-breaking” breakthrough between the world’s two largest economies?
On March 3rd, CCG hosted another session of its Global Dialogue series, this time in partnership with the China Conference of the Harvard Kennedy School. This dialogue featured Dr. Wang Huiyao, founder and president of CCG and former senior fellow of the Harvard Kennedy School, and Prof. Graham Allison, founding dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, who is best known in China for his views on the “Thucydides’s Trap” in public debates on US-China competition.
Dr. Wang and Prof. Allison touch on a variety if issues including their views on the meaning of the Shanghai Communique both historically and today, issues in the economic, political and trade relations between the US and China, insights in the roles of both countries in the current conflict in Ukraine as well as suggestions on potential areas in which the US and China can cooperate further to the benefit of both countries.
Leo Liu: Welcome everyone, thank for joining us at the US-China relations panel, the opening session of the China Conference, here at Harvard Kennedy School, in partnership with the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) and China-US Exchange Foundation. My name is Leo Liu, a MPA candidate here at Harvard Kennedy School. Today, we are graced by the presence of two experts on Sino-American relations from either side of the Pacific, who would discuss the status of US-China relations and help us understand its future. Throughout the discussion, if you have a question that you would like to address to our panelists, please submit them via the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen. We’ll relay your questions as we go along. Next, let me introduce our panelists. First, we have Professor Graham Allison. Professor Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard University. He was the founding Dean of Harvard Kennedy School, and until 2017, served his director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, which is ranked as the number one university-affiliated think tank in the world. Professor Allison has also served in key positions in the US government, including Assistant Secretary of Defense in Clinton administration and as Special Advisor to Secretary of Defense under President Reagan. Professor Allison has written many best-selling books on international relations. His latest work is Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap, published in 2017, a topical and important issue that we’re going to talk about today. Professor Allison, thank you so much for joining us today.
Graham Allison: Thank you for having me.
Leo Liu: Next, we have Dr. Wang Huiyao. Dr. Wang is the founder and president of Center for China and Globalization, a leading Chinese non-governmental think tank that ranked among top 70 think tanks in the world. Dr. Wang often advises the Chinese government in his think tank capacity. Dr. Wang is a thought leader on China and Globalization, global governance, global trade and investment, global migration and talent flows, China’s international relations and China-US trade relations. Dr. Wang, thank you very much for joining us.
Wang Huiyao: Thank you, Thank you Leo.
Leo Liu: So let’s begin. This year is the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s visit to China. It was a watershed moment in history, which marked the beginning of the normalization of relations between the US and China after over 20 years of mutual hostility. In those 50 years, the Cold War has ended, the world economy has grown 21 fold from less than $4 trillion to $85 trillion in 2020. The US has helped China join the WTO, China has developed from an economic backward country to become the 2nd largest economy in the world, and in the process lifting 800 million people out of poverty, and two countries have enjoyed a relatively peaceful relationship. As we commemorate this historical event, I would like to ask both Professor Allison and Dr. Wang, what was the significance of Nixon’s visit to China? How should we look at it today?
Graham Allison: Well, I will take a shot, and then see what Henry says, it’s a pleasure to be on a panel with Henry. Henry and I are colleagues and friends from many different occasions. For me, this is pretty poignant this month as the 50th anniversary, because I was a student, and remain student and colleague now of Henry Kissinger, who actually had orchestrated this visit of Nixon to China 50 years ago this month. I’ve talked to him about it often after. So this was advertised by the Nixon administration as the week that shook the world. And they were recalling Napoleon’s Council in which he said, let China sleep, because when it wakes, it will shake the world. So I would say Napoleon was correct, China has awakened, it has shaken, and the world is still shaking, with more to come. And interestingly, in the final year of his life, as I described in my Destined for War book, Nixon came to have some second thoughts, just wondering, what had I done? And he said, was it possible that we have awakened Frankenstein’s monster. We have created something that’s gonna be bigger and perhaps even hostile to us. So he was thinking about that question, and I think that it’s very appropriate in a setting like this to try to think back on the 50 years, to note what remarkable things have happened over those years, for the world’s benefit, for China’s benefit, for America’s benefit. But also notice that, that was then, and this is now.
Leo Liu: Dr. Wang.
Wang Huiyao: Yes, thank you, Leo. And it’s great to see Graham again. You are such a great thought leader, in contemporary China-US relations and also geo-politics, so glad to see you again. So I think that what Graham said is really, a great recall of this historical landmark event which actually happened exactly 50 years ago, and I think that impact is still being felt and has led to half-a-century global normalization, globalization, and prosperity. And I think now in China, just last week, there’s the big celebration of Shanghai Communiqué, which has been issued for 50 years. So I think this is really important, and it’s a great event that we go down a history of stability and prosperity for the last half century. So I think the wisdom of Nixon and Kissinger half a century ago should probably be re-visited. Now, we have crisis in Ukraine, and I hope that people can see that China, actually, for the last half a century, has very largely contributed to the global stability and prosperity. It has become the second largest economy in the world, and the largest trading nation in the world. And I think there are many things that China and the US can continue the spirit of Shanghai Communiqué. Also to really be in a bit more normal of a situation than we are currently in would be good as I think we are facing quite a few challenges and difficulties now.
Leo Liu: Just following up on Dr. Wang’s points, I think many would say that Shanghai Communiqué was one of lasting legacies of Nixon’s visits, which laid out some court principles for US-China engagement and touch on many issues, such as Taiwan, but also on Vietnam, India, Japan and Korean Peninsula. Do you think that these are still relevant today? Let me begin with Dr. Wang.
Wang Huiyao: Well, I think that the principles are still highly relevant today. I mean, for example, in the Shanghai Communiqué, it is said, we should seek the peace and security of the Pacific region, and also Taiwan actually – both US and China recognize that Taiwan is a part of China basically. So those are really key fundamental principles. And also, they were seeking actually no interfering or actually disrupting in the region because I think US and China have a great responsibility for that. So I think the Shanghai Communiqué still is quite relevant today, and basically has laid the foundation for peace and security for the last half a century. I think that we have to continue some of these fundamental principles. But I think we can, of course, upgrade. We could have another Sino-US Communiqué based on the past three Communiqués. But still, I think we should really respect the Shanghai Communiqué, and the subsequent two Communiqués we had between China and the US.
Graham Allison: I largely agree with the Dr. Wang. I think, the Shanghai Communiqué identified some fundamental foundations for the establishment of relations between the US and China. And they were largely a reiteration of the foundations, the foundational concepts in the UN Charter that China continues repeating, but they deserve to be repeated. They are called sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, non-interference in internal affairs. These are principles that the UN Charter laid down, but they are reflected in the Shanghai Communiqué. The biggest add in terms of the relationship between China and the US was the proposition that there’s one China, that the parties on both sides of the strait agree on that proposition, and that ultimately, as we saw with normalization of relations, that Beijing is the capital of that China. I think the difficulty has been that as the decades have gone on, and the circumstances have changed in China, and the circumstances have changed in Taiwan, and the circumstances have changed to some extent in the US and the world, the Shanghai Communiqué needs to be substantially upgraded and revised. And I would say that would be a great undertaking for a Biden and Xi administration going forward. And I don’t think it’s simply enough to restate what the Shanghai Communiqué stated, but to try to take account of the new realities in all three countries.
Leo Liu: Thank you, professor. So, many people in the West, including pundits and academics, have described the current state of the Sino-American relationship, as Professor Allison mentioned, as it has changed to become something of the beginning of a new Cold War. While the Chinese media has generally refrained from such narratives and the Chinese government has actively rejected this so called Cold War mentality. Do you think that this new Cold War characterization is accurate? Let me begin with Professor Allison.
Graham Allison: Well, the answer is – unfortunately, I’m a professor, so it’s complicated – and the answer is yes and no. But if I had to choose just one, I would say no. So let me explain briefly. Is the relationship between the US and China is a rivalry? A rivalry that’s basically captured appropriately by Thucydides in his description of what happens in a competition between two states when the seesaw of power on which they are sitting is rapidly shifting, so that initially I’m competing with you in which I look down on you or up on you, depending on where the seesaw is, and all of a sudden, it’s moving at the same time.
So, the Thucydidian rivalry I describe in the book, I think that’s the best diagnosis of the problem that we face, so I take that to be the reality of the situation. But at the same time, the US and China live on a small planet, in which both have superpower nuclear arsenals, and in which both emit greenhouse gases into the same constrained biosphere. And, therefore, in which either of them, by themselves, can ruin the world for both itself and the other. So we’re basically inseparable, conjoined Siamese twins, if you want a metaphor. And however hostile I may feel towards by competitor, however deserving he may be of being strangled, if I were to ever yield to this temptation and one strangled the other, it would be committing suicide at the same time. You look at that and you say, I have a vital national interest in my survival, which requires my finding a way to coexist with you, even while at the same time I’m engaged in a fierce rivalry with you. I would say that’s the description of our problem, and the reason why it’s quite different from the Cold War. Because the idea that there might be a new economic iron curtain in which the US is on one side and everybody else will join the US, and China is on the other side, makes no sense, since China is the major trading partner of everybody, China is a backbone of the global economy. So while there are some similarities between the competition, between US and China, similarities with what we experienced in the Cold War, the differences are also huge, in particular, the economic difference.
Leo Liu: Thank you. Dr Wang?
Wang Huiyao: Yes, I agree with Graham. I think that we probably can’t categorize this as a Cold War. I remember, last year, around the same time, I had a dialogue with Graham. And he has put forward his famous concept of inseparable, conjoined twins. That is really, a great phrase to reflect the reality. I noticed that Prime Minister of Singapore cited this phrase in the new economy conference just last November. So I think it’s true. When you say Cold War, at that time of the Soviet Union – the eastern block of countries against western block countries, the economic, the people exchanges, tourism, student exchanges did not exist during the Cold War, no students from China were studying in the US. Now, you have almost half a million Chinese students studying there. In terms of tourism, economics, this scale of trade volume, this world is totally connected. So somehow, of course, there’s some de-coupling on the tech side, but even that, I think, it’s hurting the consumers, hurting the business, and hurting the country. So we don’t know. We have to see how that partial de-coupling is going to survive. But we need to strengthen global governance, and then US and China and maybe the EU can find a way to work together, and then to have normal acceptance of each other, and we can make this world a much better place for the 7.9 billion people in this world.
Leo Liu: Thank you, Dr. Wang. And actually, I want to follow up on both of your descriptions of US-China relations as inseparable, conjoined twins. But meanwhile, as Dr. Wang has just mentioned, the countries have begun to decouple in some respects, like American companies pulling out of China in recent years. So in your opinion, to what extent are the countries separable? In what aspects can they separate? And to what extent are they not? Let me begin with Professor Allison.
Graham Allison: So the term decoupling resonates, and when Trump began to talk about it, the press actually, you know, amplifies it. But if you look at the reality, the trade between US and China is thicker now than it was before we started decoupling. So in spite of the trade war, we’re back to the level of trade that we had before the trade war. Part of reason for that is that Americans are consumers, and China is the world’s most successful producer of consumer goods. So, where are iPhones assembled? China. Where do batteries for electronic vehicles come from? From China – or the elements are from China. We can go down the list. So, basically the economic relationship has continued to thicken, at the same time there’s been this pushback in certain areas. And there are some items, particularly advanced semiconductors, that the Trump administration denied China, that had a big impact on some industries in China, though China is developing the capacity to manufacture its own semiconductors for most of the categories, not just the most advanced. So I think that we’ll end up with efforts to decouple certain arenas, or I would say, put a security fence around some items that have military or security applications, but those are very few. Then we’ll have a lot of protectionism, which is what you can currently see unleashed in a good part, unfortunately, in Biden’s “Build Back Better” program. And if you listened to the State of the Union speech last night, where the effort to manufacturer things in the US that China can actually manufacture at half the price or two thirds the price, will simply mean paying more for the equivalent items. So figuring out a way in which the comparative advantages of the US in goods and services we can produce, can complement the comparative advantages of China, which include, essentially, dominance in manufacturing commodity products. Not only that, but at least that. But those happen to be the things that end up filling up Walmarts, Target, and Home Depot, and finding a way then to deal with what’s inevitably been a trade deficit. That’s a challenging item, and especially challenging in the politics of the two countries, and especially for the US. But I think, going forward, because in the security arena, for sure, China and US are conjoined Siamese twins, whom if they were ever to have a nuclear war, would destroy each other. For sure, I would say, in the climate space, unless they can find a way to constrain greenhouse gas emissions, they will both spoil the biosphere for both of us. And I think even the economic arena, there’s some analog of that we have yet to kind of work our way through.
Leo Liu: Thank you for Professor. Dr. Wang?
Wang Huiyao: Yes, I think that Graham actually is correct. You know, in many areas, you cannot really separate or decouple, some decoupling areas are really public and is driven by this geopolitical concerns of both sides probably. But I can see, actually, if we work together, we can make a win-win relationship. For example, the two largest companies in the United States, like Apple. 90% of Apple phones were made in China, but designed and brand by technology provide by Apple. So it is a good success story that China and United States work together and supply the rest of the world. Also Tesla, has almost become the largest company in the world because they have a largest clean vehicle manufacturing factory here in Shanghai. So, you see, these are really good examples how we can work together, with this cooperation. But again, I can see now we are having really difficult time, because the US administration has actually put hundreds of Chinese companies, close to 700 now, to some kind of entity or other watch list. So this is where it is really hurting. We just had a book launch about a week ago on how multinationals, international chambers view this. They felt, that was really not helpful, particularly from the multinational point of view. So, I think about how the business community can help this out. Recently, the Economist Intelligent Unit has just had an event and I was speaking there. EIU reports that among 500 companies surveyed, most companies in Asia Pacific region will continue to invest, continue to look positively to this region. And China’s import-export volume all broke record last year. So, you see, there are forces trying to decouple. But, of course, there are also larger positive forces not to. I think that we have to be careful. Now, with this political crisis, I think it’s even more so, we want to have a stabilized China, have a stabilized supply and cooperation with the rest of the world, particularly with the United States.
Leo Liu: Thank you, Dr. Wang. I think those are all great points. And you’ve both mentioned competition as well as cooperation. So I think technological competition has become one of the center pieces of US Chinese engagement. But as Dr. Wang has just mentioned, when governments adopt protectionist policies, that is ultimately the consumers who will bear the cost. How can the US and China engage in the tech race without harming the consumers in both countries? Let me begin with Professor Allison again.
Graham Allison: Difficult questions, thank you. We just concluded a report of our China working group at Harvard, called The Great Technology Rivalry. And what this is one of five reports on The Great Rivalry, which tried to track the data on what’s actually happened in the 21st century, just the last 21 years, in the rivalry between the US and China. And the bottom line for each of these chapters, and in particular for the technology report is that a country that the US could not even find in our review mirror, 21 years ago, because it was so far behind – we can’t find it our review here today because it’s either beside us or slightly ahead of us. So We look across the spectrum of technology, but then drill down on six frontier technologies, 5G, AI, quantum, synthetic biology… so you can look at this report. It’s on the Belfer website. It’s about 60 pages with a lot of footnotes and data. And basically, what it shows is that China has made huge leaps forward in becoming a serious rival in almost every technological arena. So 5G is a particularly difficult, a painful one for me, and I wrote a piece about it in The Wall Street Journal with Eric Schmidt a couple of weeks ago. So basically, a short version of the story is 3G was dominated by Europe; 4G the US rolled out and created an environment in which then it was possible for people to invent things which we now think of as mobile and smartphones, social media, Google Maps, Uber and lots of things that nobody could have been imagined before in the world of 3G. So, 5G – the US advertises 5G – and you cannot watch the football playoff games or anything else without being inundated, as you know. But actually the service providers, this is a fake. I mean, the title of our article was, America’s 5G deserves Five Fs. And we do a comparison with China. And I say, you know, if you buy an Apple smartphone that’s 5G enabled. The only reason why that would be valuable to have in most of the US would be if you were going to go to the Olympics, to Beijing, where you would be able to downstream at five times 4G speeds, whereas here, 5G has the same speeds as 4G, sometimes even slower. So, this is a case where no blame for China, good for China doing what it did and doing it successfully, blame for the US for not running faster and finding a way to do so. And so that’s the struggle. Now, competition is, at least in economics, a good thing. Competition in Olympics and athletics is a good thing. I run faster if I’m running against somebody, a competitor, than I do when running alone. So how then to recognize the win-win component of constructive competition, and nonetheless, at the same time, recognize that at the end of the day, the party that wins the race, for example in 5G, will have advantages economically and in security terms, in their rivalry with the other competitor? So this is back to this contradiction again. On the one hand, the competition can be constructive and positive and have benefits, at the same time, in a geopolitical rivalry where I would rather the rules for the Internet be written by the US, and my Chinese colleague might prefer them to be written by China. That’s the competitive side of it. And I think we will have to be smart enough to hold these two contradictory impulses in our heads and in our guts at the same time and still function.
Leo Liu: Thank you, Professor Alison. Dr. Wang?
Wang Huiyao: Yes, I agree very much with what Graham has just said. I think this Olympic spirit, this athletic competition is healthy. Absolutely, if you run with somebody, it probably helps you to run faster. So that is a healthy competition. We really want to avoid the unhealthy competition. Graham mentioned about 5G and those things and I think China was probably, in some cases, competing with US and EU. Now, China, for example, has built 4.6 million 4G stations. Now they have 1.4 million 5G stations. Every village now is Wi-Fi connected. So that’s really helped efficiency and effectiveness of production and manufacturing and the whole society running in China. So I think infrastructure is really a great thing. I noticed that Graham’s latest report on technology also mentioned infrastructure, for example, China’s high-speed railway makes up two thirds of the global total length, which is enormous.
Graham Allison: US has zero. We have zero.
Wang Huiyao: Yes, what I was thinking is that President Biden actually proposed the infrastructure package of $1.2 trillion , “B3W – Build Back Better World”. And EU has proposed €300 billion on infrastructure. And China has this infrastructure plan for the last eight years on “Belt and Road” connectivity. So maybe, on this common prosperity, we can work together with the US and EU, on the infrastructure, so that we can intertwine deeply, so that we can avoid future conflict. I had talked with the Larry Summers about a month ago in length, he was thinking about the World Bank should be reinvigorated, and ADB, AIIB, all the development banks should really work together. Probably we have another infrastructure transformation for the world, which is a badly needed. We need to find a common ground to work with each other.
Graham Allison: If I can make one half-frivolous comment. I’m enamored of China’s prowess in constructing infrastructure, and I’m appalled by American efforts. And if you want to get a vivid example of this, look at my TED talk that was from 2017, in which I compare how long it took to renovate the Harvard Bridge, between the Kennedy School and the Business School across the river, on the one hand, and the Sanyuan Bridge in Beijing, which has twice the number of lanes of traffic. And you won’t believe the answer, but I’ve got a timestamp video of the Chinese construction project. How long did it take before the traffic was flowing, as compared to the Harvard one? So that’s just for fun. And I would say secondly, when President Xi came to visit Donald Trump for his first visit, in Mar-a-Lago, I made a proposal, first to the Chinese, who didn’t seem to like the idea, and then to Trump’s crowd, they didn’t like the idea either. So finally, I said, well, it’s probably tongue-in-cheek, I’ll make it publicly, so I wrote a Time Magazine piece about it. So I said in the Chinese tradition, when the leaders come to visit, they bring presents. Though, often times, when they go to an African country for example, they will build a soccer stadium or something, a significant sign of appreciation. I said Donald Trump was very keen about having a wall that would prevent illegal immigration from Mexico. So my proposal was that Xi would say to Trump that China likes walls, China actually has a long history with walls. We’re very proud of one. We call it the Great Wall. If you would like, we can construct a Great Wall for you along the border with Mexico. I said, if they would do that, he would have Donald Trump as his closest friend.
Leo Liu: That’s a great anecdote. Thank you, Professor Allison. That’s a great segway to my next question, what is on infrastructure. Both the US and China are pursuing infrastructure development, for Biden administration is Build Back Better, for China, is to continue to develop infrastructure domestically, but also try to export it worldwide through its Belt and Road Initiative. You think that the US and China have opportunities to collaborate on infrastructure development? Let me begin with Dr. Wang.
Wang Huiyao: Absolutely. I think that the Graham’s anecdote really exemplified the need. I think that complementary roads can be played. For example, I can give you a case that I was speaking at the Council of Foreign Relations a few years back, and I was saying that for oil in Texas located inland – the cost to ship it to the coast is double the cost of shipping it to China – the cost inland cost is double of the cost of ocean shipping costs. Why? Because there is no infrastructure inland. And, Michael Pillsbury was at the meeting, and he actually went back and verified that. That was true, because there is no infrastructure in inland Texes to really take a big advantage of this energy export. So I think that it’s important that we have infrastructure. I think, as Graham said, there’s zero high-speed rail. Maybe we could help to build this from San Francisco to Los Angeles, or Las Vegas to LA, there could be a short way of doing that, absolutely. And also airports – we could start by helping the US develop infrastructure for exports to China like I mentioned are needed in Texas. But also we have Chinese companies doing some underground projects in Boston and in Los Angeles. So I think there could be a way of doing that. Absolutely. But I think I see big potential to cooperate with US companies in third countries – in developed countries where the US has all the advantages, such as familiarity with the religion and language and laws and everything. China has all the capacity built up in the last several decades in big mega projects. So I think they can really work together for both each other and for the world. I think there’s a lot of potential to do so. So, how to have a global governance for that? I mean, World Bank, chaired by US, Asian Development Bank, chaired by Japan and AIIB chaired by China. Maybe the Development Banks should start first, because AIIB has also been joined by many European countries, and that’s a good vehicle to really start working on the infrastructure.
Leo Liu: Thank you. Dr. Wang. Professor Allison.
Graham Allison: I think part of the problem is that there are probably seven reasons why American infrastructure projects have been so slow and unsuccessful, and therefore doing them in a cooperative or joint way with China is not necessarily going to make those better. When I look at the effort to build a high-speed rail. We have one project that was supposed to go from Los Angeles to Sacramento. The governor, a couple of weeks ago, started out it was going to be finished in five years, then costs $40 billion or 50. It’s now 15 or 17 years later. They’re not saying whenever it’s going to be finished, if ever. And it has $110 billion budget, so it hasn’t been completed. Now, we take a long analysis to see what are all the things that are wrong with it. But if I try that pick up on Henry’s point, so there may be a silver lining.
Elon Musk thinks he can do virtually anything. He’s got one of these crazy ideas of boring holes underground through which you would run either cars or trains and stuff. I don’t know whether it makes any sense or not, but I can imagine him having a company which had both a Chinese and an American component, and then drilling a hole from Los Angeles to Sacramento, wherever to wherever. So I think the idea of maybe having some business people in the mix, with companies – they’re more pragmatic than the governments – and, for they, basically, you know if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But I think it’s going to be a difficult area, because it’s an area in which American performance has been poor.
Leo Liu: Thank you, Professor Allison. I want to shift gears a little bit to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Over the past week, the whole world’s attention has been fixated on Ukraine, and as Russia invaded, the United States, as well as most of the European nations, have joined to condemn Putin for this act of war. But China has generally maintained its neutrality on this issue. So what do you think are the implications that this Russian-Ukraine conflict might have on US-China and Russia-China relations? Let me begin with Professor Allison.
Graham Allison: Okay. This is another big subject that – one of the problems about professors is that, as one of my colleagues said, they speak in 50 minute sound bites or so – but I’ll try to be brief. I’ve written two pieces in the last two weeks about this, for anybody who wants to read at greater length. So they were both in the National Interest. The most recent one was last week, in which I said, or raised the question, will China have Putin’s back in this invasion? And I said, my prediction is that the answer is yes. The previous piece, a couple of weeks ago, said, Washington was saying Putin’s invasion was imminent and was going to happen tomorrow. Biden told the leaders of Europe, it’s going to be on Wednesday. And I said, there’s going to be no invasion of Ukraine before February 20. And I was taking four to one bets, $4 of my money against a dollar of yours with Washington people on this. I’m going to be in Washington tomorrow collecting some of my bets. Okay, so basically, the fundamental reason why there was not going to be an invasion before the closing ceremony of the Olympics is that Xi and China have built a relationship with Putin and Russia that is thick and operational. Even though it defies geopolitical gravity, since in principle, if you were just a Martian analyst, you would say China and Russia have many more reasons to be adversarial than to be allied. They have a lot of territory that used to be called China that’s now called Russia, including a port that the Russians called Vladivostok, but on Chinese maps still has the Chinese name. They have a huge area in Siberia that has no people, virtually and is full of resources. On the other side of a border, you have hundreds of millions of people and no oil and gas or other resources. So I can think of a solution to that problem. Then you go through this list and you say, how can the two states in the world that should naturally be antagonistic be as operationally aligned as they are?
And I’d said these two big factors. First is China’s brilliant diplomacy, especially Xi’s, in finding a way to court and coddle Putin and even to make him feel comfortable as a junior partner, without ever saying so. Who is the first person Xi visited when he became president? Putin. Whom did he spend his birthday with? Putin. Who was the first person that pops up at every Chinese meeting after Xi? Putin. Who was the first person he met with in person for two years, a foreign leader, there at the summit, at the beginning of the Olympics, February 4? Putin. So Xi has done a great job of that.
And secondly, the US has, in targeting both China and Russia as adversaries, and trying to isolate the two of them, has missed the fact that the enemy of my enemy is a friend. That’s the geopolitics 101. So, we’ve been pushing China and Russia closer together. Well, this is just the opposite of the trilateral diplomacy that we’re remembering the 50th anniversary of now. This is like Xi has learned the lesson better than Americans have. So I would say that as we watch what’s now happening, China is stressed, because what Russia is doing blatantly contradicts China’s fundamental principles for international relations. But China not only says, but I think the Chinese government believes in the foundations of the UN Charter, including sovereignty and territory integrity. No one can deny that Russia’s invasion, coming on the heels of it previously seizing Crimea, is not consistent with territorial integrity. So that’s made the job of the Foreign Ministry very difficult. And you could have seen them been trying to figure out some paths here. But at the same time, I argue in this piece that given China’s interests, where it has to make hard choices, it will have Putin’s back. And so far, I think that’s what we are observing. One last point, I was interested that yesterday, Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister, had a conversation with the Ukrainian foreign minister, in which, according to the Foreign Ministry’s account of the conversation, he said China was eager to play a role in helping to negotiate a cease-fire now and a resolution of these issues in which Ukraine would be a neutral state. So I think it’s likely that we’ll see more activities from China trying to play a role as a peace maker in this space, because that way that’ll soften the fact that at the same time it’s protecting Putin’s back, including in the vote today in the UN, in which it abstained, rather than criticizing Russia for invading Ukraine.
Leo Liu: Thank you, Professor Allison, for those great remarks. Dr. Wang. What are your thoughts?
Wang Huiyao: Thank you. I think Graham has certainly made a case. I think historically, China and Russia have had a lot of difficulties and Russia has taken big chunk of Chinese territory, in the historical sense. But even as myself, I remember in the late 1960s, we almost broke war out with Russian, with the former Soviet Union. So the relationship was really up and down.
But I think recent years, the relationship has become very good. I think that’s probably also reflecting the what the Graham just said. It was actually pushed, probably by US and by Western countries that they get closer because they share some kind of empathy to each other and because they all fell the sanctions and things like that. But what I actually think is, though, that China is different from Russia.
You remember last October when President Biden had a virtual summit with President Xi , it was really encouraging – new words that he said, that US is not seeking to change China, US does not want to set up alliance against China. So the moment Biden goes back to Washington and said, okay, we’ll boycott the Beijing Olympics? It’s a really big shock that surprised to the Chinese government and to its people. But then Putin comes out, said, okay, I’m going to come to the Beijing Olympic. I’m going to support Beijing. I’m going to come in a big way. And so that’s where he came. And they have the joint statement. But I think there’s some misunderstanding of that statement. It should not be interpreted as some kind of alliance. China does not seek alliance with any other countries. It’s not a military alliance. They just broadly laid out some of their views of the world – global governance, how they can cooperate and things like that. So I think it’s a bit an overread of that statement.
But, again, as Graham said, Foreign Minister Wang Yi just had a telephone call with the Foreign Minister of Ukraine, and then China stated very clearly that Ukraine sovereignty should be respected, also as Mr. Wang Yi said at the Munich Security Conference. So, I think, absolutely, it would be great I think China can do something. Because if you look for a country that has both good relations with Ukraine and Russia, you probably wouldn’t find the second most influential country in the world to have that position. So China could use that position because China also has a vital interest with European countries. Ukraine is the signing party to the Belt and Road Initiative. China has “16+1” initiative, the China-EU continental rail and rail cargo actually has gone up 50% in China and European continental train shipments. So there’s vital interest for China to see the security and prosperity in Europe as well. And also, China is the largest trading partner with Europe as well. So again, I think it would be great if China is invited to the table and then uses its good will to really make sure this conflict is not escalated, and de-escalate that. China certainly can play much role there.
Leo Liu: Thank you. Dr. Wang. I think the Ukrainian crisis has certainly shown us that, even though that’s both US and China are third parties, they can’t really avoid each other in a globalized world. Still following up on global issues. There are many other global issues, such as climate change, pandemics and nuclear nonproliferation, that require collaboration from both countries. Can the two countries find ways to collaborate in spite of substantial differences? Professor Allison?
Graham Allison: Well, I would say survival is a very powerful, sturdy imperative. Nations rarely are leaders and sane leaders of nations rarely commit suicide for their country. Maybe we can probably find some examples, but it’s a very, very, very rare. So if the sane leaders of China and the US and we have quite sane leaders in both Biden and Xi look at the world and say, what’s happening if there should be a nuclear war between the two of us. They quickly get to the right conclusion: bad idea.
If they look at the climate challenge over the long run, they can see that either party by itself, when the current trajectory, can emit so much greenhouse gas that the whole biosphere will become unlivable for everybody. So bad idea. The pandemic is interesting, though the prospect of having impermeable walls around the country to prevent 100% of the penetration by viruses is a losing battle. It doesn’t mean that the Chinese strategy for trying to find cases when they occur and limit their spread, actually – it’s turned out to have been more certainly and more successful than the American strategy – but it still is not a zero world. Viruses and bacteria will get through borders, but I don’t observe for it. So again, shared interest in trying to prevent that, or find ways to deal with it.
In nuclear proliferation, we’re seeing this with the Iranian negotiations that are going on right now. So what can they do? So I think there are many areas like that should motivate two rational countries to find ways to cooperate in spite of the fact that they will be competitive at the same time.
Leo Liu: Thank you. Professor Allison, Dr. Wang?
Wang Huiyao: Absolutely, I agree with Graham. I think that’s important. The two countries have been the largest and 2nd largest economy in the world, and also with the increasing influence. I mean, all those global challenges, we need global leadership and global multilateralism to really thrive. So I think it’s important that now US is running thin on many of those global government issues, and China could really help and be supportive.
I really think those common areas, like climate change, like cyber security and all the other infrastructure needs of the world and things like poverty alleviation, SDG 2030 agenda – it really needs a lot of common efforts and then, but most important, leadership. China and the US have a moral responsibility to lead it, to work on that. And then so that we can really get away from this geopolitical attention somewhat, and put more emphasis on common prosperity, common good for the world. And that is really important. I think we should work towards that. I’m really encouraged by the dialogue we have today.
Leo Liu: Thank you. Dr. Wang. I know our time it’s almost up. But I just have one last question. What are your hopes for the next 50 years of US-China relations? Since we have commemorated the past 50 years, in the beginning of this webinar. Let me begin with Professor Allison.
Graham Allison: Well, I don’t think anybody would have imagined 50 years ago, the China that exists today. If we told Kissinger and Nixon that China would have become a full-scale peer competitor of the US in one of their lifetimes, they would have said, you’re out of your mind, not conceivable. So what China has accomplished in just basically two generations is quite amazing. And I think I and expect that the next 50 years will be equally amazing, you know, for China, for the US and for the world.
So I think the main task for both the US and China, in my view, is to find a way to escape the Thucydides Trap. We should study history carefully and recognize that, even though there were a lot of benefits to Germany and Great Britain in the period from the 1880s, right through to 1914, and even though they were both each other’s most important trading partner, they were both heavily invested in each other, they both exchanged a lot of students who were educated in the other country. Actually, the two leaders of the country were cousins. They were relatives, and they celebrated holidays together. Nonetheless, when you have a rising power seriously threatening to displace a ruling power, you find a syndrome that we’ve seen repeatedly in history, since Athens rose and challenged Sparta, and mostly those turned out catastrophically.
So I fear that this will go the way of history. And if it doesn’t, it won’t be because we were complacent or we took it for granted, or we just said it couldn’t happen. It’ll be because statesmen reach beyond history as usual, beyond the promise as usual, beyond strategic imagination as usual. So they have to stretch to some better ideas. And I think that’s why it’s a good thing to have conferences like this. Folks at your age are more likely to be less constrained by the concepts and practices that people with my generation have or maybe able to think of some better ideas. So I would say over to you.
Leo Liu: Thank you. Professor Allison. Dr. Wang?
Wang Huiyao: I agree with Graham. So we really have to avoid this Thucydides Trap, and really not let a catastrophic outcome happen. I think, from now to the next 50 years, this wisdom of humankind is really being tested. Now with the modern technology, with a global village. We are now actually in the same a boat, as I was talking to Kishore Mahbubani, he was saying, there’s an ocean, there’s 193 boats floating around separately. We are actually in the same boat. So how can we get the boat culture, with this modern technology, modern integration, so that we can accept each other? That’s really the huge task in the future, about acceptance. Things like, we have the idea of a democracy. We both have the events on democracy in Washington and Beijing, but how we can see the effectiveness of democracy? We also now practice human right, but let’s say, can we attach human rights to the SDG 17 criteria to match human rights? So I think it will be some kind of conversion of the values. I think the next 50 years, so, became more conflict. I was talking to Joseph Nye the same time last year, he was saying by 2035, maybe China and the US will reach a new equilibrium, and then maybe we’ll see some common understanding. And probably by 2049, Fukuyama talked about the “end of history”, but it may not be ending, and we really can find a way to calmly live with each other and understand each other. Because the modern technology ties everybody together. We’ve got to come up with the global culture that recognizable by all the countries, so that we don’t go to war to really to make our difference. So I really think that prosperity and modernization can change human nature, so somehow we really can live together in the next half century. Thank you.
Leo Liu: Thank you, Dr. Wang. And on that high note, we end our conference today, but still turning into our future sessions. We want to extend our utmost appreciation to both Professor Graham Allison, Dr. Wang Huiyao, for being our panelists today. And thank you for joining us here. Have a good morning, afternoon or evening, wherever you are. Thank you.
