US & China: Present Dangers, Future Challenges

>> Elizabeth Economy: I think there's just a very simple rule that we ought to be applying to Taiwan, which is, do we think that whatever action it is that we're taking enhances Taiwan's national security?

>> Naj: Good afternoon, thank you for being here. My name is Naj and I'm from the Philippines, which is said to be on the front lines of the South China Sea dispute.

So I wanted to ask for your thoughts on the dispute, particularly the increase, the recent increase in tensions around Second Thomas Shoal, China's likely motivations behind the actions, and the Biden administration's response to it. Thank you.

>> Elizabeth Economy: Sure, so I think certainly, within the Philippines itself, we've seen a pretty significant shift from previous President Duterte to now Marcos, right, that has changed the way that the Philippines is approaching China has made it a much tougher.

Has taken a tougher and stronger stance on the sovereignty issue, so that, I think, began to change the game a little bit. Look, China has said that it controls 80% of the South China Sea. It's put it out there, and it is constantly pushing and probing for opportunities to make progress.

I think the Biden administration has made clear to China, I think, in a very important way that the Philippines, that the ship itself is covered, right, by our treaty. The actual feature is not. But the fact that the ship is means that we would take action if, in fact, there were some loss of life or something like that at the behest of the Philippines.

So we've clearly indicated our commitment, I think, to the Philippines in this case. And this is gonna be, like the case with Taiwan, like the Diaoyu Senkaku Islands, China's going to continue to push and to probe. And in the first line of defense, it's gonna be the Philippines.

If the Philippines were able to get some of the other Southeast Asian neighbors to step up and support it a little more robustly, I think that would also be helpful. But in the meantime, I think the US Is doing everything that it can to be a strong partner with the Philippines.

And I think also the recent sort of Philippine, Japan and US Trilateral, I think was sent a really important signal to China. Japan is stepping up in a much more significant way on the security front, not only for the Philippines, but also for Taiwan. And I think this is really sending an important message to China about the challenge that it's gonna face moving forward.

But it's not going to retreat. I can't.

>> Josh Brous: Hi, Dr. Economy, thank you for speaking, big fan. My Name is Josh Brous. I was formerly with INDSR in Taipei. My question is somewhat related, particularly on the question of gray zone activity in the South China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait.

Another Hoover Institute fellow that I work with at Palantir Technologies, Matt Turpin, has frequently written that more phone lines, more communication that US folks traditionally put forward on trying to mitigate gray zone activity is the way forward. But I think he is not the most optimistic on that path of action.

I'm curious how you see the US and its allies more meaningfully reacting to gray zone activities as the ATIS violations continue to stack up and all that behavior. So thank you.

>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah, I think the only way that the United States and regional allies can more meaningfully engage or try to prevent, if not slow down Chinese gray zone activities, is to have more presence in the region.

I don't believe that more phone lines and communications are gonna make any difference. I think engaging Europe, having more European countries also take an interest and deploy their ships to sail through under freedom of navigation sort of rules is really important. I think it would be helpful if we would sign onto the law on the, my gosh, the freedom.

I just forgot the name of it now. But basically, international law of the sea, right. If we would sign on to that, that would also give us greater standing in sort of legal sort of situations to make claims against China. So I think there are things we can do.

But the challenge for the United States is that China, look, China is continuing to grow its navy, its coast guard. It has the advantage of geography in all of this, but the United States is simply gonna have to be present and it's gonna have to bring more actors to the space.

Otherwise, I think there's not much that we can do because China has no interest. This is a top priority for China, an area of sovereignty. A top priority for China is to secure what it considers to be its sphere of influence. So if it remains a priority for us to ensure that we have freedom of navigation.

A huge amount of trade goes through the South China Sea, then we're gonna need to step up and become even more engaged than we are and again bring more of our allies and partners to bear.

>> Samantha: Hi, I'm Samantha. I'm a senior at the Air Force Academy. And my question is on how have Chinese FMI operations related to the US Cooperative Threat Reduction and partner capacity building activities within Africa affected the United States security, defense and military relationships with targeted countries in Africa?

>> Elizabeth Economy: Sorry, what was the first part of the Chinese, what was that?

>> Samantha: Their Foreign Malign Influence operations.

>> Elizabeth Economy: Foreign Malign Influence operations.

>> Samantha: Yes, ma'am.

>> Elizabeth Economy: How have in Africa?

>> Samantha: Yes, ma'am.

>> Elizabeth Economy: Affected those countries relations with United States.

>> Samantha: Yes, and the United States' ability to have security, defense, and military relationships there.

>> Elizabeth Economy: I have to think about what countries in Africa have felt targeted by malign activities. I will tell you that there was work done here at Hoover by some scholars to educate African civil society actors and leaders on Chinese malign activities influence operations. I'm not sure whether, to be frank, I can't think off the top of my head of any African country that has felt the sting of foreign influence.

There are many who have had problems with the Belt and Road initiative and who have then and have sought US and European and other investment, have said please come, and we would like for you to compete for projects. We want your investment. It's higher standard, it's better. But honestly, I can't think of any off the top of my head.

The cases that I know are primarily in Asia and in Europe, but if you have something in mind, I'd be interested. No, okay, well, bears my looking into a little more deeply, but I can't think of any off the top of my head that have felt that China has tried to use coercive tactics or disinformation in meaningful ways that have led them to turn to the US, interesting question.

>> Tanvi: Hello, my name is Tanvi. I'm a student at Caltech. And my question is about the perceived threat of Chinese influence on Americans data. I think most recently, the big thing was about the TikTok bans. And I was wondering how that sort of action played into the Biden administration's response.

Do you think that was a productive action? And then if the sale doesn't go through, is that something worth pursuing?

>> Elizabeth Economy: So, technically speaking, I'm still a special government employee of the Commerce Department, so I'll probably just offer my own personal perspective on the TikTok and the challenge I think it presents as opposed to commenting on Biden administration actions on that particular issue, okay?

So I think, the challenge is twofold. One is the issue of the collection of data. And I think, for the most part, 99% of people using TikTok. Chinese are not that interested in you, but it's real. And so it is something that we need to be concerned about.

The other issue is the issue of the algorithm, right? And the ability of TikTok to control the information that is going to you. And that can be information that is shaped by not permitting, for example, information about Tiananmen or Xinjiang or whatever, just keeping information from. But also, of course, amplifying messages that would undermine our security here.

And I think that threat is real. Do I wish that there were a great solution that would be acceptable to the Chinese government and the US government that would enable TikTok to continue? I do, I don't see what that is though, because the Chinese government is never going to allow, by dance, TikTok to sell its entirety to the United States.

>> JP: Hi, I'm JP, so I have a question that I asked Albert Jacoby. He refused to answer. And it's, we know that the Indo Pacific is number one, but what's number two? I argue that it's Latin America and I'm biased because my name is Juan. But my argument is China has eight free trade agreements with Latin American nations, only one with one African nation and it's Mauritius.

They're launching more satellites from Latin America than Africa. They have an all weather strategic relationship with Venezuela, Syria, with African nations. They're extracting more lithium from Latin America than from Africa. And our investment In Latin Latin America, 71% of it is only with Mexico. So I argue that priority number two is Latin America, and that Africa doesn't matter that much, comparatively speaking.

I know that's controversial. What do you think? Is it priority number two?

>> Elizabeth Economy: So the minute you said that Bridge refused to answer, I'm like, well, I am going to answer. But now that I hear the question, I'm thinking, hmm, no, I understand your rationale. And I will say this much, which is like Africa, but even more so, I think the past administrations have not paid enough attention to Latin America.

And it is our backyard. And you're right, there are natural resources there. There are important countries like Brazil, Argentina, large economies and Mexico, obviously, that we need to be engaging probably more robustly than we are in many respects. My hope, frankly for the next administration is that there will be significantly more attention paid to Latin America.

So like Bridge, I probably don't wanna say which area is number two, but I will say that I don't think your rationale is unfounded.

>> Thomas Boland: Hi, Ms. Economy, my name is Thomas Boland. I have a question today about how we can support Taiwan. We heard yesterday from Stephen Kulkin about this spectrum of foreign policy which ranges from capitulation to being provocative, and kind of in the middle, there's deterrence and diplomacy.

How can the US navigate that kind of middle area without falling into being provocative towards China about our support of Taiwan?

>> Elizabeth Economy: Yeah, I mean, I think there's just a very simple rule that we ought to be applying to Taiwan, which is, do we think that whatever action it is that we're taking enhances Taiwan's national security?

So does it enhance Taiwan's national security for Speakers of the House to travel to Taiwan, which results in several days of military sort of activity? One could argue, probably not. Do I understand why, for example, Speaker Pelosi went? I do, and if anybody kind of deserves to go to Taiwan, given her incredible support of the island and given her support for human rights, I completely understand why she wanted to go.

But I think, do I think that a lot of loud proclamations about Taiwan and resolutions in Congress about Taiwan are helpful? No, I do not. So I think with every step that we take, with every policy that we make, we need to think about what does this do to enhance the security of Taiwan.

And it can be Taiwan's economic security, it can be Taiwan's military security, but that's the lens through which I think we should evaluate every action we take.

>> Emma Crandall: Hi, ma'am, my name is Emma Crandall. I'm coming from the University of San Diego. Over the last few days, we've learned a bit about authoritarian regimes and how in the short term, they work together decently, but in the long run, usually not.

What role do you see North Korea taking in potentially attempting to promote China's anti American agenda and the world market and other facets? Thank you.

>> Elizabeth Economy: Sure, I will say that one of the things that has struck me most about what we've seen happen with Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been not only the Chinese support for Russia, but also Iran and then North Korea.

And what this suggests to me is that we need to be thinking more broadly about a Taiwan scenario in which we're not simply thinking about China now. We're thinking about what kind of support Russia and North Korea and Iran and other authoritarian regimes might provide to China in Taiwan contingency.

So for me, the aperture was just opened really widely based on this recent situation. In terms of how closely North Korea will support China, I think, look, most of all, four of those regimes, in any case, are all committed in one way or another to pushing against the United States, right?

They share that across all four of them. But do I think that North Korea is prepared to simply subscribe to whatever China wants to do? I don't think so. And we've seen at various points over the past five to seven years moments when China has tried to get North Korea to do something.

North Korea has not been willing to do it. Their relationship is not a hand in glove relationship. It is born of a set of coincident interests. But China does not actually support North Korea's growing nuclear capabilities. It's concerned about the potential for a collapse of North Korea that would contribute to wide ranging flood of immigrants from North Korea into China.

It sees Kim Jong Un as unpredictable and is concerned about it. So again they can align on I think certain issues, especially those that are against the United States. But I don't think they share. They're not completely in line and have a number of concerns between the two of them.