John Blomster: Hello and welcome to DISCOVERY presented by the University of Washington School of Law. I'm your host John Blomster and today we're speaking with Lyle J. Goldstein, a strategic research professor at the U.S. Naval War College. He is also the founding director of the school’s China Maritime Studies Institute, which focuses on cultivating deeper insights into China's growing maritime power. He is here with us today to discuss the deteriorating state of U.S.-China relations, and what policymakers can do to right the ship.
Lyle, thank you so much for joining us here on DISCOVERY.
Lyle Goldstein: Glad to be here, John. Thanks for having me.
Blomster: The dynamic between the United States and China is one of the most important relationships in the world, and right now it's not great. We have a host of issues to dive into, but in short, what is the current state of us trying to relationship? And why would you characterize it as a rivalry?
Goldstein: Thanks for that question, John. My view on this is that we're in a very difficult period. You know, I wrote a book just under five years ago outlining why I think the relationship is in crisis. That was back in 2014 2015.
And I pointed at that time to a number of signs that we were headed for increase tensions and militarized rivalry that had serious risks, not only for the U.S and China, fundamentally, but for the whole planet. And since then things have only gotten much worse. So, U.S.-China confrontation which really, if you will, was somewhat localized in the South China Sea, with tensions in North Korea, of course, but has now spread out to across a whole panoply of domains that are all very troubling from, you know, one can talk about Africa, Arctic, South Asia, Taiwan, of course. So, this is very unfortunate because when you have to great powers maneuvering in dangerous ways it really only just takes one spark.
Blomster: One of the things you discuss in your book Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the U.S.-China Rivalry is the Thucydides Trap thesis. What is that and do you agree with its premise?
Goldstein: Great question. I do agree, very much so with the premise. We credit Professor Graham Allison Harvard for writing a terrific book about this that came out in 2017. I’m just rereading the book right at this moment, but it speaks to me and I think all students of international relations because really the first texts that we’re given to study in the field of international relations is this great history by Thucydides of the Peloponnesian War. And what's so striking about this theorizing is the most critical sentence that every, every student of IR knows is that Thucydides suggest the main cause of this massive devastating war between Athens and Sparta was twofold: the rapid rise of Athens, that's on the one hand, and the fear that that caused in Sparta. That's how Thucydides put it. And really it's not a leap to think about how the same conditions are operating today in the U.S.-China relationship. That is, China is rising very rapidly, probably beyond what most Americans can appreciate.
I think that's quite true. I see that on the military side where China has, in my view, exceeded our capabilities, not in all areas, but in several areas that are disturbing. But it's also, you know, in many other fronts, you know, China is doing, really impressing things on technology development, infrastructure development, but the other side of this of course of Thucydides insights is not just the rapid rise of one power, it’s also the fear that that causes for the, as it were, the hegemonic power, which is obviously the United State here.
As I watched the discourse on China and China policy which is rife with exaggeration, and threat monitoring. I do wonder if this is what exactly what Thucydides was talking about.
Blomster: And you talk about a lot of different potential flash points, and we're going to get into some of them, just in a bit, but is there one point that really stands out, or one particular moment or issue that really was illustrative of that China and U.S. tensions have, kind of, reached a dangerous new level?
Goldstein: Yeah, I’m gonna have to pick two, John, if you will. There’s Taiwan on the one hand and North Korea on the other. And Taiwan have kind of been a dormant issue to many military strategists because it was clear after 2008 that China and Taiwan were integrating much more seriously and many began to put away or put aside these military scenarios. It's come back with a vengeance now, and unfortunately tensions are building, China seems to be still engaged in a kind, if you will, a kind of military coercion game. The scenarios are alive, but the U.S. seems to be, as it were, poking the panda a little bit on this. And that's disturbing as well. So, but it's very interesting to me that, in the same way that Taiwan, frankly, is a holdover issue from the Cold War, in somewhat simplistic terms of the Chinese Civil war, that was never resolved, well guess what there was another cold war episode where the Korean Civil War was never solved, and therefore both these issues are in my view legacies from the Cold War. And we have to deal with and manage. North Korea, incredibly troubling to listeners especially on the west coast and in Hawaii will understand the gravity of this threat. You know there was that missile warning in Hawaii, and nobody was laughing about that. We are not so far from the day when such missiles could be flying. And we need to take steps to mitigate. I welcome, frankly, the direct contacts that the Trump administration initiated with North Korea. That kind of engagement has to occur. But in my view, we haven't worked hard enough. We haven't thought hard enough about how to, how to meet China halfway on these issues.
Blomster: Yeah, I want to dive into both North Korea and Taiwan, but since we’re just speaking about it now, in North Korea, what role is China currently playing? And how does that relate to the U.S.’s, let’s say, evolving relationship with North Korea, under the Trump administration?
Goldstein: China is playing, in my view, a modestly helpful role in North Korea from the American perspective. That is, they've been calling for peace and stability, constantly, which I think is helpful. They have clamped down on the sanctions regime. I was just on the North Korean border with China myself back in September 2018 and got a look and got to talk to a lot of people about what's going on in the border and I'm quite convinced that China's being, if not incredibly draconian, that they have by and large, gone along with the sections and entailed substantial pain. Where we’ve made some mistakes is that if we had put this issue first in U.S.-China relations—that means putting it ahead of the trader issue, putting it ahead of the South China Sea, putting it ahead of the East China Sea issue and so many others—to me, would have been appropriate several times if Trump, and Xi had met and then work just on this question and I have yet to see that. I didn't see that on the under the Obama administration either, that kind of focused intention. And I do believe China could take some extraordinary steps here, but it has to be within the right environment. What would some of those steps look like that China could take? For one, China has a vast expertise on nuclear technology and nuclear weapons. So China can play a huge role, if you will, in verifying what North Korea has and that's an essential step. Another role China could play, if, if it came to this is they could play a role in the disarmament step. That is, no other country has the capability to move these technologies, to even move the weapons. Or if you will, one arrangement I've studied a little bit is a kind of dual key housing of North Korean weapons. If you can imagine that. One in which China essentially takes custody of the weapons, but North Korea still has some oversight. That might be a way to split the difference. So, these are all options that we should be exploring with China, but China has to be incentivized to take such a role. And let me add one more piece because China is. These would be difficult steps for China, but I don't think North Korea would undertake any of these kind of radical moves toward disarmament unless it was assured of its own security and therefore one of the most critical moves that I've been advocating for several years is that China would paradoxically want China to strengthen its security commitment to North Korea. Now that I know that sounds very strange, probably for many of your listeners, but part of the origins of this problem is that North Korea has now leg to stand on except the nuclear leg. And so we have to give them something else to stand on and that could be a strengthened security guarantee from China. By the way, Russia could play a useful role in this as well. So I mean, we have to begin to think about this whole problem differently. Or else we're going to be stuck in this situation of trading threats. Now, some of the carrots the US has floated are useful in my view, but we haven't gone nearly far enough. We have to think, really—really we have to think anew about this problem.
Blomster: Yeah, I'd like to talk about Taiwan a little bit more. How did that rivalry start between the U.S. and China and Taiwan and why is it escalating so quickly, right now and why should people be aware of what's happening there?
Goldstein: Taiwan has been at the heart of U.S.-China relations for decades, going all the way back. And it really is a vexing issue from all perspectives. I urge people to get familiar with the history, to go through the documents, to really explore because, as I survey the entire world and as I said I work on Russia and China, so I watched the Syrian situation and the evolving situation in Ukraine and North Korea and so forth, but among all these difficult situations I do regard Taiwan as perhaps the most likely to cause a, if you will, a World World III or some kind of apocalyptic situation.
Why? The history is very, is fraught. In China, I I think we can say Chinese nationalists, this is absolutely their most critical issue for Chinese people on the mainland. This is the preeminent symbol of China's re-rise, that's for various reasons, but it goes back to, of course, the most painful experience and in the creation of Chinese nationalism, early in the 20th century you had much of that nationalism was formed against Japan, indeed the foundation of the Communist Party took place not long after the so called May 4 incident, which was Japan's claim of large amounts of territory that had been blessed by the Versailles Treaty, but Taiwan becomes an acute pressure point in this struggle from the Chinese point of view because Taiwan was occupied from an earlier point by Japan and occupied for 50 years. So, essentially Taiwan becomes part of this larger—it really does take on this mantle of the preeminent part of Chinese nationalism. So we want to be very cautious here and the American diplomats have recognized this for a very long time. Especially as embraced by Henry Kissinger, when he and Nixon opened the relationship with China and I would remind American listeners that we wouldn't have a relationship with China—there would be no relationship, no diplomatic relations—if the United States had not abrogated the treaty, the defense treaty with Taiwan. If the United States had not pulled all its troops, bombers, by the way, many American listeners may not know, the United States deployed about seventy nuclear weapons to Taiwan over a period of the 1960s. Those were withdrawn as part of this larger compromise with China, so for years, American diplomats have recognized the sensitivities, and been ultra-careful.
Now we will continue to give weapons to Taiwan, but China is not comfortable in this arrangement and that made that.
Now, we've continued to give weapons to Taiwan, but China is not comfortable with this arrangement. And that made that extremely clear. And now with China's power growing apace, the issue becomes ever more acute. And we really are at a point now the Trump administration has taken several steps to, I think, that have increased tensions that China has also, I mean, it's a process of escalation on both sides. And we can talk chicken and egg, who started it as it were, but China has become started regular bomber flights around the island, which many find extremely intimidating. They have all kinds of missiles aimed at Taiwan, but the United States has also, let's say, moved the goalposts they have sunk I think, more than $250 million into a new, if you will, a new embassy effectively in Taiwan. Although they don't call it an embassy, but everybody knows what it is. And has started to make regular transits by US Navy ships to the Taiwan Strait. So, tensions are building in a very dangerous way. And, you know, it raises the question, where, where are the off ramps? We need to tackle this issue frontally and undertake and push for a serious diplomatic negotiations to get to a more stable arrangement.
Blomster: In the book Meeting China Halfway, it's extremely comprehensive about all these issues. And I encourage everyone to read it. In that book, you propose 100 policy proposals. And while we'd like to get into all of them, we will just encourage people to go dive into the other 99 by getting the book. But what is one that you would maybe call out as a most important or more immediate suggestion or proposal that we should be focusing on and implementing today right now?
Goldstein: It's really possible to leap into some kind of grand bargain that we suddenly trust one another in an adversarial situation. You have to build trust through iterated small steps, if you will. As social scientists call it cooperation tit for tat-type situation where trust is built gradually. So we haven't really talked about the South China Sea. But this also is a very point of major tension here. And some of the small steps that could be taken, in my view that would help to mitigate what are really major tensions today. I mean, people don't realize, but day to day, U.S. and Chinese forces are interacting in some rather dangerous ways. In that sea area, and again, you know, it would only take maybe one collision, say of two ships to that could set off a shooting war. Now, what are some practical steps that could be taken in the South China Sea? I'll just talk about one or two, because you have to walk before you can run. So one of the proposals that I make is that we have, by and large, China has deployed Coast Guards to deal with these tense, issues. There are plenty of Navy ships out there. But the Coast Guard is upfront in the waters of you know, in the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines and claimed and of Vietnam, as well, and so forth. So we have to try to develop more cooperation among the Coast Guards. Now they're actually in Northeast Asia, there is a Coast Guard forum that brings the Coast Guards if you can believe it, of Russia, China, Japan, the U.S., South Korea, they all come together regularly, I believe, on an annual basis to meet each other to exercise to talk about security problems, complicated issues like fisheries. So that exists in Northeast Asia, which is very tense. And has really helped. Let's see it migrate to Southeast Asia as well, I'm surprised that we haven't seen that kind of move. So I'd like to see the U.S. propose and promote that. And another step quickly that China could take maybe to reciprocate would be, I would like to see China propose sort of U.S.-China naval patrols in the Malacca Strait. That's an area of great sensitivity. And I think the two could build a lot of trust and a lot of goodwill with countries like Indonesia and Singapore and Malaysia. They appreciate the tensions and difficulties of managing maritime security issues in that area. And watching the U.S. Navy and Chinese Navy cooperate in that endeavor. And by the way, we have done uncooperative exercise with the Chinese Navy in other areas like the Gulf of Aden. So could we move those into the sensitive Malacca area, as this would be a strong symbolic step a message to the security establishments in both Beijing and the U.S. that there was a certain determination to work together on some of these hard problems, but also a message to the region too, that the U.S. and China are determined to work together and manage these a promise for the good of the region and the good of the world.
Blomster: For aspiring lawyers and young legal scholars who may be listening, how can they be a part of the change and have a positive effect on this dynamic as they advance in their careers and have more of an influence to impact?
Goldstein: The role for lawyers I think, is a very interesting one when we think about U.S.-China relations you. I think they can help a lot by helping to smooth out these differences in U.S.-China relations. There's a tendency to take some certain legal principles, I think, too far when we consider China. You know, we want to kind of map the western experience on to China. You see a little bit of this in the South China Sea, where we want to read China the riot act on the using Law of the Sea principles to argue in the adjudication that occurred a few years ago, to show that they weren't clear violation, but in my view, that can be excessive and lead us to a rather dark place. If we are very confrontational with China, we have to realize that this will actually end up fueling tensions, rather than mitigating. So I think we have to be realistic, we have to realize that there are other approaches to law, and we have to use laws as a mechanism of bringing us together. And that's a very difficult intellectual challenge.
But I want to encourage young law students and others in the legal profession to think creatively about how law can serve the purpose of peace. I think it amounts to finding a balance, and it will take some creative and how to put it enlightened lawyers, people who can see both the long-term goals of establishing a peaceable, workable order, without brandishing that kind of what ends up being a kind of traditional, in my view, a frequent approach by people in the west to say that the West knows how to do it, just look at Europe and the United States. And if China could only be like us, then everything would be fine. But we have to recognize that's just not going to work, we're going to have to look for new approaches.
A quick example of this is the, you know, I think we're all disturbed when China decided to more or less, drop the World Bank and IMF and go about creating its own institutions, you know, the Asian Infrastructure Bank, and so forth. And, you know, the United States and Japan, I think, took a very negative disposition on this. But I think if we look out in, again, a more enlightened approach, we might realize how this actually could serve the global community, could serve Asian peoples and across the world who badly need infrastructure, and could actually even serve the rule of law. Again, if you take that kind of wider perspective, more long term perspective, and a perspective that says that Chinese and other peoples are entitled to a certain amount of nationalism, after all, all countries have some aspect of nationalism, and it's not something one can put away in a box somewhere, and hope for the best. So, so again, thinking long term, and embracing countries in a cooperative spirit, I think is the best approach. And lawyers can play a really important role in that process.
Blomster: Lyle Goldstein is professor of strategic research at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island, and the founding director of the China maritime Studies Institute, you can take a deeper dive into the topics discussed here in his book Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the US-China Rivalry.
Lyle, thank you very much for taking so much time to be with us here on Discovery.
Goldstein: Thanks for having me, John.
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