Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Foreign Policy Pillar is Looking Hollow at Best

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alliances, allies, Beijing Olympics, Biden, China, Emmanuel Macron, European Union, France, Fumio Kishida, Germany, Japan, multilateralism, NATO, Nordstream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Olympic boycott, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Putin, Russia, sanctions, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Winter Olympics

What’s worse than “terrible”? It’s an important question because if that’s a term that accurately describes President Biden’s last week or so in office, then something even stronger is clearly needed for the setbacks suffered recently by multilateralism – the foundation of his foreign policy. And most troublingly, the idea that U.S. foreign policy success requires the cooperation of major allies has been failing most conspicuously when it comes to dealing with America’s two biggest global rivals – Russia and China.

Let’s deal with Russia first, but not because I view it as the biggest threat to the United States – or even much of a threat at all. In fact, I’ve long and repeatedly written that the fate of Ukraine has no importance for America’s national security, and that Washington should accept some form of the kind of spheres of influence-type deal in Eastern Europe that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has proposed.

But the Ukraine crisis is making the most headlines right now, the subject dominated his long press conference last Wednesday, and Mr. Biden is nowhere near taking my advice. Indeed, that presser added powerfully to the evidence that the United States and its allies are deeply divided over how to respond to actual and possible Russian moves against Ukraine.

As the President made clear, “[I]t’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page.  And that’s what I’m spending a lot of time doing.  And there are differences.  There are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do depending on what happens — the degree to which they’re able to go.”

Indeed, that very day, France’s President Emmanuel Macron proposed that the European Union seek separate from U.S. efforts a new security agreement with Russia. Macron did state that “It is good that Europeans and the United States coordinate” but added “it is necessary that Europeans conduct their own dialogue, We must put together a joint proposal, a joint vision, a new security and stability order for Europe.”

Since Europe is a lot closer to Russia and Ukraine that the United States, and will be much more dramatically affected by events in that region, this French position seems entirely legitimate to me. At the same time, it’s tough to believe that Macron would place such importance on a Europe-only effort if he was completely happy with what he knows of American diplomacy so far.

Germany’s views seem even farther from Washington’s. Its new government has not only refused to join some other European countries (notably, the United Kingdom) in supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine. It’s blocked at least one NATO country – Estonia – from sending its own Made in Germany arms to bolster Kiev’s military.

Moreover, trade-dependent Germany, whose trade with Russia in energy and other goods is substantial, doesn’t even seem very keen on deterring or punishing Moscow for invading Ukraine with the kinds of sanctions that are widely viewed as the strongest – cutting Russia off from the global network used by almost all the world’s financial institutions to send money across borders for all the reasons that money is sent across borders. At least Berlin is sounding more open to halting final approval of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline if Ukraine is invaded.    

Asian countries seem more prepared to resist aggression from China, especially the military kind (as opposed to Beijing’s economic efforts at intimidation). Since this post last September reporting on steps they’ve taken to transition from U.S. protectorates to countries more closely resembling genuine allies, some have made even more encouraging moves.

For example, Indonesia reportedly “is preparing itself militarily” to deal with Chinese moves against islands located in its territorial waters and major straits through which much of its (and the world’s commercial shipping) travels. The Philippines – another Southeast Asian country embroiled in maritimes disputes with China, has just bought cruise missiles from India, and reportedly some of its neighbors are interested in these devices, too.

At the same time, despite a virtual summit between President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Japan’s policy on using its forces to help any U.S. attempt to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack remains ambivalent at best. South Korea looks more hesistant still.

Nor is Japan backing the United States to the hilt on sanctioning Russia economically following a Ukraine attack, or even close. After the Biden-Kishida session, an anonymous U.S. official said (in a briefing posted on the White House website) that although the Japanese leader “made it clear his country would be ‘fully behind’” Washington on the issue, his response concerning economic responses Tokyo would support was “We did not get into the specifics about possible steps that would be taken in the event that we see these [potential Russian] actions transpire.”

The refusal of so many U.S. allies and others to join the Biden administration’s diplomatic boycott versus the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing also casts major doubts on the President’s emphasis on multilateralism. Can any countries declining even to keep their officials alone out of China for the games (as opposed to their athletes) be counted on to push back more concretely and powerfully against future provocations from China?

Athletes and sports fans know well the expression “Change a losing game.”  For all you others, it means that if a strategy or approach is failing, switch to an alternative.  But for the future of American foreign policy, the most important part of it remains unspoken, and the one that the President needs most urgently to heed:  “Change it before you’ve lost.”   

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Time for a Nuclear-Armed Taiwan?

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alliances, allies, Asia, China, East Asia, geopolitics, Indo-Pacific, Japan, national interests, national security, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Porcupine Theory, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, vital interests

Since early in the nuclear age, students of international relations scholar from time to time have advanced a dramatically heretical idea: that a world in which more than a few countries possessed nuclear weapons would be safer than a world in which such arms were limited to those countries that already had them. The  reasoning: Attacking nuclear-armed countries is a lot riskier for the aggressor than attacking non-nuclear countries, so the risk of wars breaking out would fall. If you think about the success of the little mammal with big quills, you can see why this notion has become known as the “Porcupine Theory”.

I bring up the subject because I increasingly find myself wondering whether encouraging Taiwan to build a nuclear arsenal would be the best way for the United States to safeguard interests in the island’s independence that have become vital recently because Taiwan has become the world leader in manufacturing advanced semiconductors – which are so crucial to the national security and prosperity of every country, including the now lagging United States.

There can’t be any doubt that the burgeoning importance of Taiwan’s independence and the apparently burgeoning determination of China to reestablish control over what it views as a renegade province, have produced a situation that’s increasingly dangerous for the United States. China, after all, is a power whose conventional military forces may now be strong enough to defeat America’s if it decides to help Taiwan fight off a Beijing attack.

In principle, Washington could resolve to turn the tide by using its own weapons of mass destruction in a battle for Taiwan. But China’s own arsenal is now so powerful that the result could be a full-scale nuclear exchange that brings disaster to the U.S. homeland. In other words, as I’ve written for years, America arguably has lost escalation dominance in Asia, and may have no choice but to acquiesce in China’s takeover of the island and its world class tech capabilities.

Nonetheless, this dire threat so far hasn’t deterred U.S. leaders from moving closer to declaring their intent to defend Taiwan militarily (notably, e.g., as reported here), and ending the posture of “strategic ambiguity” that has so far helped keep the peace in the region. So no one can responsibly rule out push coming to shove in this intensifying crisis.

To date, the United States has opposed countries like Taiwan from crossing the nuclear weapons threshhold mainly because Washington has rejected the Porcupine Theory. In addition, however, this anti-proliferation stance, especially toward allies and quasi-allies like Taiwan, has stemmed from the nuclear weapons parity that the United States enjoyed vis-a-vis the old Soviet Union and today toward Russia, and the overwhelming superiority of its nuclear forces versus those of China and North Korea in Asia. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the Asian nuclear balance has deteriorated from the U.S. standpoint.

The United States has also always viewed its security alliances with Germany and Japan in particular to be essential to preventing their reversion to the disastrously militaristic ways of the 1930s and 1940s. Nuclear weapons controlled by these two countries were therefore completely out of the question. (Interestingly, a revealing difference of opinion between then President Barack Obama and then presidential candidate Donald Trump was sparked by these issues in 2016.)    

Reliability concerns, however, have also dominated Washington’s position on nuclear weapons spread outside the U.S. alliance network. Specifically, American leaders have always worried about these devices being acquired by unstable governments (which supposedly are less capable of securing them against terrorists and other extremists) and so-called rogue states (which supposedly would be more likely to use them or threaten their use).

A nuclear-armed Taiwan could resolve the prime dilemma for the United States by letting it off the hook for the island’s defense. After all, if China hasn’t yet pulled the trigger on a Taiwan without nukes, it makes sense to believe that it would be much less likely to attack the island if a conflict could bring Taiwanese nuclear warheads falling on Chinese soil.

It’s true that, as I’ve heard various observers argue, that the semiconductor problem may be exaggerated – because, for example, the United States could keep the relevant technology out of Chinese hands by bombing the factories and labs. In theory, the Taiwanese may have plans to blow up these facilities themselves. But it’s also true that these speculations could be way too optimistic – especially since the most crucial knowhow resides in the heads of Taiwanese scientists and engineers, who would need to be protected somehow against a Chinese roundup.

An American endorsement of a nuclear Taiwan could also bring benefits throughout Asia, signaling to Beijing that continuing its bellicose behavior could convince the United States to give a nuclear green light to Japan and South Korea.

Moreover, the longstanding main U.S. anti-proliferation rationales look a lot weaker today. Taiwan is clearly neither a rogue state nor a country with an unstable government. Ditto for Japan and South Korea, for that matter. Besides, precisely because of the weakening U.S. military position in East Asia, and consequently growing worries about Washington’s willingness to make good on its nuclear commitments, many observers believe that all three countries are already latent nuclear powers. (See, e.g., here.) That is, they could build nuclear weapons quickly whenever they wished.

Yet encouraging Taiwan to go nuclear would hardly be risk-free. If and when openly announced, it could spur the Chinese to attack – to enable them to capture the island before its nuclear-ization was completed. A nuclear Taiwan would also be less deferential to American wishes. In fact, its semiconductor superiority has already enabled it to resist some U.S. demands related to plans for increasing microchip production and supply chain security cooperation between the two countries. (The same has held for South Korea, as reported in the linked article immediately above.)

More broadly, nuclear weapons acquisition by Japan and South Korea would certainly undermine America’s post-World War II status as kingpin of East Asia, and all the benefits it ostensibly creates for Americans in one of the world’s most economically important regions.

But even if those benefits were nearly as great as widely believed (and continuing U.S. difficulty opening Asian markets to American exports makes clear that they haven’t been), a nuclear-armed Taiwan would create much bigger benefits: dramatically reducing the odds that China acquires some of the world’s most important technology, and that the risk of a Chinese nuclear attack on the United States if Beijing resulting from a conflict over Taiwan.

The key, as suggested above, would be supporting nuclearization without provoking all-out Chinese aggression – suggesting that this goal deserves more attention in Washington than it’s receiving these days.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Ukraine Crisis Update

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allies, Antony Blinken, Biden, China, Germany, international law, NATO, natural gas, Nord Stream 2, North Atlantic treaty Organization, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, sanctions, spheres of influence, Taiwan, Ukraine

The Russia-Ukraine crisis at this point looks like a good news/bad news story – except as was the case when I posted last on the subject, the bad news still looks more important.

The good news: It’s now clear that President Biden knows how dangerously loony it would be to oppose a Russian invasion of Ukraine or intensification of hybrid war against the former Soviet republic with U.S. military forces.

Last Wednesday, he told reporters that putting “U.S. troops on the ground…in or around Ukraine to stop an invasion” was “not on the table” – at least “right now.” And despite that qualifier, he said three days later that this idea was never “on the table.”

That’s good news because, as I explained a week ago, geography makes Ukraine completely indefensible against Russia with conventional weapons, and largely as a result, it’s all too easy to imagine scenarios in which a President would face heavy pressure to rescue endangered American units with nuclear weapons use, which would almost certainly prompt a similar response by Moscow that could also easily escalate to a full-scale nuclear conflict. Worse, this risk would be run on behalf of a country that was never deemed anywhere remotely resembling a U.S. vital interest even during the Cold War.

Potentially better news: At least according to this Associated Press (AP) report, Mr. Biden is considering accommodating Russia’s stated security concerns about Ukraine and its relationship to the West – to the point of pressing “Ukraine to formally cede a measure of autonomy within its eastern Donbas region, which is now under de facto control by Russia-backed separatists who rose up against Kyiv in 2014” and reportedly telling Ukraine that “NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] membership is unlikely to be approved in the next decade….”

It’s not yet clear whether such steps would be enough to appease Russia – which has demanded a formal guarantee on the NATO issue, among others. And the AP report, which looks like a standard Washington trial balloon, doesn’t exactly square with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s public insistence yesterday that “One country can’t exert a sphere of influence over others.”

But the evident decision of Biden administration officials to float compromise ideas along with the President’s ruling out of military options at least signals a welcome American awareness that its leverage and stakes in this part of the world are severely limited, and that ringing declarations of support for principles like “international law” and “territorial integrity” can often create more and more serious problems than they solve.

As also mentioned at the start, however, the Ukraine news isn’t all good. My first ongoing concern: President Biden is still talking about responding to an invasion of Ukraine by sending “more American and NATO troops into the [alliance’s] eastern flank…where we have a sacred obligation — to defend [those countries] against any attack by Russia.”

Mr. Biden is correct about U.S. treaty obligations. But as I wrote last week, this move, which could deploy large numbers of western forces very close to large numbers of Russian forces, is also a great recipe for an accidental war that, like a deliberately entered conflict, could go nuclear.

The administration and the U.S. main allies (see, e.g., here) are calling economic sanctions against Russia the main focus of their retaliatory plans, and that’s certainly less dangerous, at least in the short run, than military steps. But for two teasons, that doesn’t mean “completely safe.” First, these economic measures could push Russia and China closer together (as I mentioned last week). And as I didn’t mention, but was worried about nonetheless, such an alliance, or quasi-alliance, creates the possibility of the United States fighting two simultaneous wars against two formidable military powers – over Ukraine and over Taiwan.

It would be comforting to think that the President and his advisors are worried about this prospect, too, and further, recognize that unlike Ukraine, Taiwan’s security has become a U.S. vital interest because of its world leadership in semiconductor manufacturing technology. But even despite Mr. Biden’s reported interest in accommodating important Russia-related Ukraine concerns, I wish I saw more and more public signs of such priority-setting.

Second, I’m not so sure that all of America’s European allies would go along with all or even most of the U.S. sanctions. After all, with the worst of winter still surely on the way, they depend heavily on Russian exports of natural gas. And Germany, in particular, seems determined to increase this reliance ith its involvement in constructing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

Berlin seems to be having second thoughts about this project. But Ukraine has officially accused Germany of blocking some of NATO’s efforts to supply it with weapons supplies. So it’s anyone’s guess where the policy of Germany’s new government is actually headed. And unfortunately, that’s my main conclusion so far about the Biden administration’s approach, too.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Anti-China Coalition is Flunking an Olympian Test

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allies, Australia, Beijing Olympics, Biden, boycotts, Canada, China, European Union, Germany, Indo-Pacific, Italy, Japan, multilateralism, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Winter Olympics

One of President Biden’s main foreign policy aims has been to create an international coalition to resist continually mounting belligerence by China, and to curb the massive, decades-long flows of foreign capital and technological knowhow that have done so much to strengthen and enrich the People’s Republic. And whatever promise is held by this anti-China strategy has become vitally important lately because of Beijing’s intensifying intimidation campaign against Taiwan, whose autonomy has become a vital U.S. interest due to its world leadership in semiconductor manufacturing processes.

That’s why it’s so discouraging to report that, as of this morning, so few of the allies on which Mr. Biden is counting have been willing even to take so limited a step as joining the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics scheduled to be held in China’s capital Beijing in February.

Australia and the United Kingdom signed on this morning. And a bit later, so did Canada. But so far, that’s it. According to this Reuters article, Japan is considering not sending cabinet members to the Games but South Korea isn’t even thinking about this step. The New York Times reports that New Zealand had previously decided not to send any officials to China but cited CCP Virus-related health concerns as the reason; that the European Union’s (EU) European Parliament has passed a resolution backing a boycott barring “verifiable improvement” in China’s human rights situation, but one that’s non-binding; that the EU’s separate policymaking arm has declined to support the U.S. action; EU member France is hiding behind this EU skirt so far; fellow EU member Italy has said it’s not on board; and Olaf Scholz, the new leader of another EU member, Germany, clearly doesn’t want to be.

It’s not that joining the American initiative will produce any meaningful changes in China’s behavior. Indeed, official foreign participation in and attendance at Olympics isn’t exactly the norm.

It’s true, moreover, as The Times mentioned, that many of these countries and the EU collectively have imposed human rights sanctions on China; that some have begun thinking about how to shield their economies from Beijing’s power and influence (see, e.g., here and here); and that some have begun to increase their own defense spending in response to China’s own buildup and provocations (see, e.g., here and here), or become more active militarily in the Indo-Pacific region (see, e.g., here).

At the same time, boosting military budgets and even sending warships on port calls and other East Asian missions is a far cry from credibly pledging to come to the U.S.’ and Taiwan’s aid if China moves against the island. (It’s also important to note that an American military response, or at least a prompt one, is far from certain, either, since the United States is not yet obliged by treaty to come to Taiwan’s defense.)

And if countries are reluctant to take even a symbolic step like diplomatically boycotting the Beijing Olympics, which doesn’t even entail further sanctions, can they really be counted on to enter hostilities against China?

President Biden is fond of saying that “America is back” in its role as free world leader following an alleged Trump administration abdication. But leaders by definition need followers, and when it comes to confronting China meaningfully, it’s not clear right now that he has many that are reliable.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Will the U.S. Finally Get Real on Ukraine?

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Baltic states, Biden, China, Cold War, deterrence, Jens Stoltenbeg, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, spheres of influence, Ukraine, vital interests, Vladimir Putin

With President Biden scheduled to speak tomorrow on a Zoom-like call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the intensifying crisis in Ukraine, I’m worried that the President, along with his counterpart at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), could stumble into a genuinely scary situation with only two bad ways out. The first is a wholly unnecessary conflict that could all too easily go nuclear. The second (and, thankfully, far likelier) is a humiliating climb-down by the United States and the rest of the NATO. For good measure, chances that Russia and China would be driven much closer together would go way up in either case.

The specific causes of these concerns are Mr. Biden’s warning to Russian leader Vladimir Putin that he won’t “accept anybody’s red lines” and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s declaration that “Russia has no veto. Russia has no say. And Russia has no right to establish a sphere of influence, trying to control their neighbours.”

And they’re worrisome because Russia’s red line – Putin’s insistence that NATO agree not to expand eastward by granting membership to Ukraine and other countries on Russia’s borders, or to deploy “weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to the Russian territory” – is supremely credible due both to geography and to Moscow’s big nuclear arsenal, and because these assets are precisely what give the west absolutely no choice but to accept Russia’s domination of its neighbors.

In an ideal world, countries could conduct whatever (peaceful) foreign policies they wanted, including entering into whatever alliances or other international arrangements they pleased, no matter what their neighbors – however powerful – thought. But in this world, Ukraine is located right next door to Russia. As a result, its external relationships will inevitably and understandably concern Moscow – just as the external relationships of Western Hemisphere countries have always concerned the United States and resulted in the Monroe Doctrine.

As I’ve written repeatedly, (see, e.g., here), Ukraine is completely indefensible with conventional weapons and boasts no geopolitical or economic assets of significant interest to America or the rest of Europe. (The country sits on huge natural gas reserves of value to Europe, but as the Nordstream 2 pipeline controversy makes clear, Germany and much of the rest of western Europe are happy to increase its gas dependence on, of all countries, Russia.)

In principle, America’s own nuclear strength could enable it to deter Russian aggression against Ukraine. But due to its combination of acute military vulnerability and economic insignificance, Ukraine was never viewed as a vital interest by the United States even during the Cold War, when changing its then status as a Soviet republic arguably could have created some benefits to the West in a global East-West struggle with an ideological dimension. So Washington never even considered trying to use nuclear threats to influence Moscow’s policies toward the region – or, for similar reasons, anywhere else in the Soviet bloc.

Because Ukraine’s independence and well-being are even less important to the West these days, but the former is just as important to Russia, any Western talk of responding militarily to a Russian invasion or incursion or continuation of the hybrid war against Ukraine (and other countries) Moscow is apparently waging, will ring completely hollow.

Yet it’s anything but difficult to imagine how major power conflict could still break out, especially if NATO decides to beef up its military forces in Ukraine’s vicinity still further, and if any fighting that breaks out in Ukraine spills over its borders. Chances are the West would have little choice to back off (the humiliating climb-down). But what if U.S. or European units were somehow quickly engulfed in combat? Is the possibility that American leaders would use nuclear weapons to save them zero? In my view, it’s practically zero because of Russia’s retaliatory capabilities. But I find the fact that the possibility is anywhere above zero completely terrifying and just as completely unacceptable – the more so because of Ukraine’s irrelevance to American security.

And this is where those “red lines” and “spheres of influence” come in. It’s high time that Mr. Biden and his NATO counterparts recognize that the Russian version of the former can’t responsibly be ignored, and that the latter offers far and away the best guarantee of preserving peace in Europe on terms eminently satisfactory to the greatest number of parties and populations involved.

In a 2014 article following that year’s conflict between Russia and Ukraine (it’s off-line now, but you’ll find a reference to it at this link), I actually urged the United States to go farther – to offer Russia neutralization of the three Baltic countries that also used to be former Soviet republics in return for Moscow’s pledge to respect their sovereignty fully. I know it sounds craven, but these states have much the same kinds of Russian minority populations that have given Putin one of his main pretexts for interfering in Ukraine’s affairs, and they’re just as militarily indefensible without threatening to go nuclear.

The Russian leader hasn’t put the Baltics on the table yet, so for now this step might not be necessary (although his aim of preventing “deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to the Russian territory” could easily turn out to cover the Baltics). But Washington shouldn’t consider it off the table, either, since outside-the-box diplomacy like this might also help defuse an actual threat to U.S. interests – a new Sino-Russia quasi- or even formal alliance that would emerge just as China continues threatening Taiwan, whose semiconductor manufacturing prowess is indeed vital to American security. Indeed, such a gambit could set the stage for turning the tables on Beijing – which clearly poses a much greater danger to America now and for the foreseeable future.

President Biden ran for the White House in part on his reputation for reaching across the aisle while in Congress and as Vice President, and finding compromise solutions to thorny and often emotionally charged problems. Those kinds of instincts, rather than reckless bluffing with a transparently weak hand, would serve him and the country best when dealing with Putin on Ukraine – and beyond.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Shocking New Findings on How Corporate America Keeps Strengthening China’s Military

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AI, artificial intelligence, Biden adminisration, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, China, export controls, Georgetown University, innovation, Intel, investment, national security, Nvidia, Orbcomm, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, Silicon Valley, software, tech, venture capital, Xilinx

Recent weeks have seen an impressive burst of new information about how U.S.-owned businesses are fueling the technological and military strength of China, a country whose armed forces American soldiers, sailors, and airmen and women could be fighting on the battlefield before too long.

The first source of this information comes from Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) in an October report called Harnessed Lightning: How the Chinese Military is Adopting Artificial Intelligence.

The study focuses on China’s own efforts to develop artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and incorporate them into its military operations and systems, and goes into fascinating detail about how much money is spent on these efforts, and how many Chinese entities of all kinds are involved in the campaign. The authors also make clear – just in case it wasn’t screamingly obvious already – how widespread these applications can be, and their incredible potential to revolutionize warfare and hand victory to the power possessing the best knowhow.

But as one of the team explained in a summary magazine article two days ago:

“Our research also highlights that U.S. companies are inadvertently powering Chinese military advances in AI. The overwhelming majority of advanced computer chips at the heart of China’s military AI systems are designed by U.S. firms like Intel, NVIDIA and Xilinx, and manufactured in Taiwan. We found that suppliers actually depicted NVIDIA-branded processors in photos of their products, providing clear evidence of the role U.S. technology plays in powering China’s advances. One company, which won a contract to supply chips for the PLA Strategic Support Force, even bought the domain ‘nvidiagpu.com.'”

Moreover, much more than simply semiconductors are involved. So is machine-learning and intelligent text-processing software, along with systems for “real-time monitoring” of “millions of global shipping and related users” with the help of 108 satellites from the American company Orbcomm.

My only objection: It’s inconceivable that these U.S. firms don’t fully understand the national security implications of their activities. The report itself notes that

“Because most institutions that supply AI-related equipment are new and not subject to end-use controls, the Chinese military is frequently able to access or acquire technology from abroad, including from the United States. Some Chinese suppliers make a business out of sourcing foreign data or components and reselling them to sanctioned Chinese defense companies or PLA [People’s Liberation Army] units.”

But the U.S. businesses must be aware that any of their products sold to any Chinese entity are going to be made available to the Chinese military simply because that’s the way China has operated since the Communists have been running the place. So this rationale can be easily laughed off.

The same cynical reaction is justified for claims that U.S.-owned firms don’t know that the capital they’re steering into the Chinese tech sector will also benefit the Chinese military. And these capital flows are both impressive and coming both from finance companies and from the huge semiconductor manufacturer Intel – which is hoping to receive billions in U.S. government subsidies and tax breaks to help restore its competitiveness in microchip production largely (of course) to bolster national security.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal this morning, Intel is “is among the active investors, backing a Chinese company now called Primarius Technologies Co., which specializes in chip-design tools that U.S. companies currently lead in making.” RealityChek regulars, moreover, know that Intel has been investing in other defense-related Chinese entities for years.

Not that American investment firms aren’t also doing their part to strengthen China’s tech prowess and therefore military capability and potential. Including the Intel deal, the Journal found, American companies “participated in 58 investment deals in China’s semiconductor industry from 2017 through 2020, more than double the number from the prior four years….”

And on top of these transactions, according to the Journal, “the China-based affiliates of Silicon Valley venture firms Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Redpoint Ventures have made at least 67 investments in Chinese chip-sector companies since the start of 2020….” In all, the sums involve run into the billions.

And in case you still doubt that these U.S. firms fully understand how valuable their investments are to a country that’s increasingly hostile to America, the Journal article quotes the head of one of these Chinese recipients as saying that his operation is working with the Chinese regime and other partners “to help our country get rid of its dependence on foreign high-performance chips.” Since the United States is still ahead in this sector, a China that no longer relies on American high tech products is going to be a China that’s caught up – and possibly grabbed the lead.

What’s the U.S. government doing about this dangerously unacceptable situation? It’s true that Washington has long maintained a system of export controls aimed at preventing China and other worrisome countries access to critical, militarily relevant goods and knowhow. But as the CSET study documents, this system is being completely overwhelmed – in part because of sorely inadequate funding and staffing, and in part because it’s never switched from a case-by-case approach to the kind of much broader denial strategy that’s clearly needed for a systemic threat like that posed by China.

There’s legislation in the works to plug some of the holes, and according to the Journal, the Biden administration seems supportive. Let’s just hope that the government gets its act together sometime before weapons powered by American technology and funded by American investors start killing American servicemen and women somewhere in East Asia.

BTW, thanks to friend Bill Holstein for calling my attention to these two items. 

 

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: U.S. Tech Dependence on Taiwan is Even Worse Than You Think

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China, defense, defense manufacturing, electronics, Eric Lee, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, semiconductors, supply chain, Taiwan, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, tech, The Diplomat

As known by RealityChek regulars, I’m really worried about the threat of a Chinese takeover (militarily or political) of Taiwan. That’s overwhelmingly because the island is home to the world’s leader in producing cutting-edge computer chips (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, or TSMC), and these devices will be the brains of future cutting-edge militaty systems and thus vital to U.S. national security as far into the future as anyone can see.

Sure, U.S.-owned companies like Qualcomm, Apple, and Nvidia still design lots of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. But they don’t produce them, and if you can’t manufacture these items (and no U.S.-owned firms can achieve this goal either at their domestic or foreign factories), you have nothing to actually stick into your missile defenses and jet fighters and radar arrays and communications networks.

It turns out, however, that I didn’t know the half of it about Taiwan’s electronics industry and America’s safety and independence vis-a-vis China. As made clear in this report today in The Diplomat, these Taiwanese companies – all located thousands of miles from the United States but only 100 miles from the People’s Republic – are major players in a wide range of both semiconductors and related electronics components that are used in advanced weapons and military systems right now, and that are certain to be keys to their successors.

Even concerning products for which the Pentagon has done a reasonable job helping to maintain adequate U.S.-based output, Chinese control of Taiwan would result in Chinese access to Taiwanese counterparts that are at least as effective – and whose manufacturers in fact perform some of the production for some of the American-owned firms concerned.

Just as bad: “Reasonable job” is a good description of Washington’s performance in terms of ensuring enough manufacturing of these sophisticated electronics during peacetime. But as Diplomat author Eric Lee observes, war-time or the run-up to a conflict could be a different story altogether. Therefore, the reliance on Taiwanese output for any needed surge production a potentially “vulnerable chokepoint for American forces.”

Nor is the situation likely to improve anytime soon, even if Congress does get off its duff and finally pass an acceptable version of legislation aimed at incentivizing much more advanced semiconductor manufacturing at home. For the necessary factories (known as “fabs”) cost billions of dollars and take years to construct. Indeed, as Lee notes, their price tag for one that’s state-of-the-art is about the same as for one of America’s biggest aircraft carriers. Further, as he points out, however much the U.S. government may be willing to provide semiconductor makers with subsidies of various kinds, TSMC by itself will be spending much more. So it’s likely to remain superior in the production of the most powerful chips.

Lee advances an intriguing idea for at least improving the situation – creating a “U.S.-Taiwan Senior Level Steering Group for Supply Chain Security and Defense Industrial Cooperation.” Its mission: more closely coordinating and integrate U.S. and Taiwan defense and technology sectors in order to jointly develop and produce the defense systems of the future and their most valuable components.

At the same time, this step would create its own risks. For China views Taiwan not simply as an asset it would very much like to possess. It’s seen as a renegade province that must be bought back under Beijing’s rule, not according to any particular schedule to be sure, but by force if necessary. That’s largely why the United States has shied away from officially recognizing the island as an independent country, let alone forming an alliance. As a result, how could the cooperative venture Lee proposes be formed without establishing such a relationship? And even if Washington threaded this needle in its own mind, would the Chinese recognize view the difference as meaningful, and simply accept the new status quo? Or would they conclude that a red line had been crossed and attack?

No one can outside Chinese leadership circles can say for sure. And maybe El Supremo Xi Jinping doesn’t yet know himself. What is completely clear, though, is that U.S. failure to maintain leadership in one of the most important industries of the future yet developed has left Washington – and the American public whose interests it’s supposed to safeguard – with only lousy and dangerous policy alternatives, and slightly less lousy and dangerous altenatives.

P.S. In the interests of full disclosure, you should be aware that I hold a not-trivial long position in TSMC stock. And thanks to friend and electronics manufacturing specialist Chris Peters for flagging this Diplomat article for me.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Biden’s Dangerously Loose Lips on Nuclear Weapons Policy

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alliances, allies, Baltics, Biden, Biden administration, China, deterrence, globalism, no first use, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, semiconductors, South Korea, Soviet Union, Taiwan, Trump, Ukraine

As usual, headline news is coming so fast and furiously from so many different direections that lots of major developments get neglected (including by me). One of the most important pretty stunningly shows once again that those American leaders who most loudly proclaim themselves to be champions of the globalist approach to foreign policy, and of the U.S. security alliances they view as one of its greatest achievements (both for the United States and the globe at large) have once more been flirting seriously with ideas certain to destroy those alliances.

Specifically, I’m referring to recent reports (e.g., here) that the President Biden is considering endorsing a “no first use” (NFU) policy for America’s nuclear weapons arsenal.

The shift hasn’t yet been approved. A rethink hasn’t even been officially announced. And some of the anonymous sources who leaked this news to reporters (no doubt from inside the Biden administration, and no doubt as a trial balloon) claim that what’s being contemplated is changing to something similar to NFU but not identical to it.

But of course, trial balloons are floated precisely to evoke reactions to something that someone awfully high up in government (or whatever organization is doing the floating) thinks is a swell idea, and who’s confident that his or her boss thinks or would think so, too. Moreover, the difference between NFU and the variant being considered seems pretty academic at best.

Most important about this possible new Biden approach to national security is that it reveals this administration to be every bit as cynical and therefore unserious about the globalism and alliances it pretends to prioritize – and about its indignant and sanctimonious portrayals of the more skeptical views of critics like former President Trump as proof of their dangerous ignorance – as the Obama administration.

For as I explained five years ago when Obama entertained NFU right after slamming Trump literally as a foreign policy and specifically nuclear weapons know-nothing, even mulling such a new nuclear doctrine could undermine the very alliances that globalists like him exalted.

And the reason is simple: First use of nuclear weapons is the policy that for decades has enabled the United States to deter attacks on the allies credibly in the first place – and that has held these arrangements together. For long ago, Washington dismissed as impractical trying to match adversaries like the old Soviet Union, China, and North Korea in conventional forces. The first two could draw on populations that would always exceed America’s, and even when it came to relatively small antagonists like the latter, fielding such forces was considered too expensive to be sustained financially and politically.

Nuclear weapons, however, were relatively cheap, and American leaders judged that declaring their intent to respond to purely conventional attacks on allies by these countries by launching the nukes if non-nuclear forces proved inadequate would put the fear of God even in a nuclear superpower like the Soviet Union. And first use would even more effectively deter countries with tiny or non-existen nuclear forces of their own, like China and North Korea for decades.

Even when Beijing and Pyongyang built nuclear forces big and capable enough to call this U.S. bluff successfully at least in theory (because they could now wreak impressive nuclear destruction on the American homeland, too), American leaders put their trust in NFU. And if indeed protecting allies was the overriding priority of U.S. foreign policy, this judgement was at least defensible.

A NFU policy, though, or even trial balloons, could bring disastrous consequences. Either would risk emboldening the enemies of the United States and its allies by signaling that Washington would at the least hesitate to play its most formidable military card. Just as important, it’s hard to imagine a worst recent time than the present for indulging in such speculation. After all, not only does the United States no longer enjoy overwhelming nuclear edges over China and North Korea. But China and Russia have displayed ever greater interest in establishing or reestablishing effective control over small neighbors like Ukraine and the Baltic states and of course Taiwan.

In addition, a NFU policy or talk thereof could frighten allies into bailing on the United States and cutting the best deals they could with Moscow or Pyongyang or Beijing while they still had the chance. Alternatively, because sizable American forces remain right at or near the front lines at all three of these flashpoints, the absence of a first use policy could result in them getting caught up in unwinnable battles even if a U.S. President wanted to stay on the sidelines.

Finally, when we’re talking about Taiwan, of course, we’re talking about the place that now makes the world’s most advanced semiconductors – products that are central to both future American prosperity and national security. So as is not the case with Russia’s neighbors or even South Korea (an impressive semiconductor manufacturer in its own right), adopting NFU could result in the loss of a genuinely vital U.S. interest.

I’ve long favored fundamental changes in U.S. alliance and overall foreign policy and national security strategy. But that’s not the point here. If you like alliances, it’s really pretty simple: At a minimum, you either keep first use, or you greatly beef up U.S. conventional forces, or you convince the allies to fill whatever non-nuclear military force gaps you face, or you do all three or some combination of them. If you adopt NFU and fail to take offsetting steps on the conventional force front, be ready to kiss these arrangements goodbye.

From all accounts (see, e.g., here) the allies themselves recognize this. So does China. What’s scary is that even if the supposed adults-in-the-room and master strategists in the Biden administration eventually realize the stakes involved (as their Obama predecessors eventually did), they may have greatly undermined the nation’s safety – along with boosting the risks of conflict the world over.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: America’s Latest China Spy Conviction Might Not Even Be Tokenism

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aircraft, Aviation Industry Corporation of China, AVIC, avionics, China, Clyde V. Prestowitz, FBI, Gary Locke, GE, General Electric, Justice Department, manufacturing, Obama administration, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, spying, tech transfer, technology

Sorry, but I only gave a cheer or a cheer-and-a-half upon learning on Friday that a Chinese national was convicted in a federal court of trying to steal “trade secrets” relating to a key aviation technology from General Electric (GE).

Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that this spy was caught. But anyone knowing anything about the relationship between way too many other U.S.-owned advanced manufacturing and information technology companies and China would surely be asking why Beijing even bothered to send him into the field. Because the amount of sophisticated technology – and even clearly defense-related knowhow – that such companies have transferred to China voluntarily has clearly been more than enough to help the People’s Republic narrow the military gap with the United States substantially. (See, e.g., this piece I wrote for Bloomberg.com from 2013.) 

And even though the Justice Department says GE was working with the FBI to catch Yanjun Xu, it’s been a prime culprit. Notably, as recounted by long-time U.S. trade official and Asia watcher Clyde Prestowitz in his outstanding recent study of Sino-American relations The World Turned Upside Down, in November, 2009, the company announced the merger of its avionics division with China’s Aviationcons Industry Corporation (AVIC) and headquartering the new entity in Shanghai.

As Prestowitz explained, the deal was bad enough from a U.S. economic standpoint because standard commercial considerations had nothing to do with the resulting offshoring of high value manufacturing and employment. Instead, GE recognized that it wouldn’t be selling much in the way of avionics to China unless it made lots of them in China. In other words, it was victimized by extortion.

But the national security implications were even worse. For avionics are the electronics systems used in aircraft and missiles, and AVIC isn’t just another aerospace company, but an organization owned and controlled lock, stock, and barrel by the Chinese state, and one that has a “monopoly on military aircraft manufacturing and maintenance.” So it had to be clear from the get-go that any breakthroughs in avionics generated by GE would ultimately be available to AVIC and deployed in weapons that could well be used against American soldiers, sailors, and pilots in a future conflict between the two countries. Yet good luck trying to find any federal government opposition to the transaction. You won’t.

Indeed, when the new arrangement was formalized in 2011, the signing ceremony was attended by Gary Locke, former President Obama’s Commerce Secretary – who apparently didn’t even blink an eye when GE proudly declared that the new venture “will develop and market integrated, open architecture avionics systems to the global commercial aerospace industry for new aircraft platforms. This system will be the central information system and backbone of the airplane’s networks and electronics and will host the airplane’s avionics, maintenance and utility functions.”

And apparently Locke – and Obama – were just fine with GE’s avowed aim of developing with AVIC “a world-class engineering organization” with “the JV itself…creating new IP [intellectual property] and new technology.”

I guess they thought that the technology for developing civilian avionics and military avionics are fundamentally different, and that AVIC’s interests are purely commercial.

The technology that Yanjun Xu was seeking isn’t avionics-related. It has to do with engine parts made from composite materials – which the Justice Department says “no other company in the world has been able to duplicate.” And GE’s cooperation obviously means that the company wants to maintain ths monopoly over all actual and potential competitors, including from China.

But since it succumbed to blackmail over avionics, it’s far from a sure bet that it will keep drawing a line in the sand on composites – or anything else. Indeed, as the company boasts, its cooperation with AVIC on “technical training, manufacturing, spare parts distribution, and…maintenance and overhaul” for engines is already substantial. As a result, it’s equally unlikely that American regulators will be able to keep this knowhow in American hands.

The American journalist Michael Kinsley once famously wrote that “the scandal isn’t what’s illegal, the scandal is what’s legal.” You don’t need to look much further than GE’s deep, longstanding, and officially sanctioned ties with China’s state-run aerospace industry to see how right he was.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Brazen U.S. Corporate Collusion with China

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aerospace, Belt and Road, China, globalization, Honeywell, human rights, manufacturing, multinational companies, multinationals, national security, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, steel, tech, tech transfer, The Wall Street Journal, Uighurs, Xinjiang

Usually, it’s not a terrific idea to begin a piece of writing with a phrase like, “If you want to see something that’ll make you sick to your stomach….” But I think you’ll agree that this recent article from The Wall Street Journal justifies an exception. For its portrayal of the China operations of U.S.-owned multinational manufacturer Honeywell depicts a big company actively helping the dangerous thug dictatorship in Beijing endanger often-intertwined American security and economic interests, and evidently doing so without even a peep of protest from Washington – including during the Trump years.

Journal reporter Trefor Moss’ piece dealt with the question, “How can an American company thrive in China at a time when tensions between the two countries are running high?” His answer: Under Honeywell’s long-time head of China operations, it pursued a strategy of fully immersing “the company in Chinese business and culture—and [not shying] away from helping Chinese companies achieve strategic goals set by Beijing.”

This approach was worrisome enough when this executive, Shane Tedjarati, launched Honeywell China down this path in 2004. By that time, Beijing was not only gutting America’s domestic manufacturing base with a wide range of predatory trade and broader economic practices. But it had also compiled a record of challenging American national security interests through policies like supplying countries like Iran and North Korea with technologies vital to developing weapons of mass destruction and the missiles needed to deliver them.

Now that the People’s Republic has since at least early 2018 been seen as a threat to critical American interests in the Indo-Pacific region requiring a “whole-of-government” response, and that President Biden has declared that “We’re in competition with China and other countries to win the 21st Century. We’re at a great inflection point in history” and that “we’ll maintain a strong military presence in the Indo-Pacific…not to start a conflict, but to prevent one,” activities like Honeywell’s in China look alarmingly like colluding with an enemy.

What else can be made of Tedjarati’s position as “a visiting professor at Shanghai’s China Executive Leadership Academy, an elite school that provides leadership training to the Communist Party’s rising stars.”

Or of Honeywell’s sale of industrial automation equipment to one of the state-owned Chinese steel companies that for years been glutting global markets with dumped and artificially cheap product that’s hammered America’s own sector?

Or of its “open” support for the Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese global infrastructure plan widely seen as a way for Beijing to expand its worldwide influence, and that’s got the Biden administration concerned enough to be mounting a U.S. response?

Or of these Honeywell actions (which didn’t make the Journal piece) “[T]he company repeatedly, between 2011 and 2018, sent drawings of parts of US military aircraft to suppliers in foreign countries, including China, asking for price quotes, according to a Department of State charging letter. The manufacturer voluntarily disclosed the violations.

“The engineering prints showed layouts, dimensions and geometries for manufacturing castings and finished parts for military aircraft and engines, as well as other hardware and weaponry. Drawings for parts within the Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters, Boeing B-1B supersonic bomber and Pratt & Whitney F135 turboshaft engine were included.”

For good measure, Honeywell has also supplied protective equipment to Chinese security forces operating in western Xinjiang province, where Beijing has been harshly persecuting the Muslim Uighur minority group.

Honeywell did pay a (tiny) fine for its seven years of sharing those drawings. But overall, according to Moss, Tedjarati told him that “No U.S. or Chinese officials have ever told him the company should do, or should avoid doing, specific things in China.”

Honeywell has by no means been the only U.S. multinational to enrich China and strengthen it militarily and technologically for decades. (See, e.g., here and here.) But it may have just won the award for the most brazen. And until these kinds of operations are halted completely, it’ll be hard to describe America’s China policy with the word “serious.”

Full disclosure:  I have no financial positions whatever in Honeywell, other than possibly through index funds or exchange-traded funds, and other such vehicles, and have no plans to acquire any.