Washington's New Consensus on China

Despite the disingenuous smiles of the 2022 G20 Bali Summit, the United States and China remain in a mire of cold misunderstanding and a distinct lack of trust. As of President Trump’s ascent to power in 2016, there has indeed developed a new Washington Consensus to contain China. Whilst the consensus is to target almost all aspects of the relationship, there are methods such as direct military conflict that are not being utilized and will not be for the foreseeable future. In this essay I will begin by providing a contextual outline of the prior Washington Consensus to engage, analysing the pivot in the relationship and the inevitability of the outcome of massive Chinese economic growth coupled with a distinctly different ideology and system of rule. I will explore the unspoken sentiments that lurked beneath the veneer of the relationship. Moving on I will delve into the new Washington consensus, the peak of aggressive containment under President Trump and the markedly small change that occurred when the Biden administration took charge, exploring the plethora of ways America is challenging China’s path to regional hegemony. Lastly, I will provide nuance to Wang’s perspective, I will look at how open conflict is unlikely to be pursued and is currently not a method of containment being pursued by the United States despite the technological arms race taking place. I will look at different scholars’ outlooks for the future and what they posit as needing to occur for a shift in the Washington Consensus once again.

The old Washington Consensus and its demise

In breaking down the claim that there is a ‘new’ Washington Consensus it makes sense to explore the context surrounding the prior consensus and the reasoning behind such a change. The Washington Consensus is the general sentiment and mode of conduct manifested in policymaking concerning China by the American government. From the visit of China by President Nixon in 1972 and the opening of diplomatic relations 6 years later, what entailed was a general Washington Consensus aiming for engagement (Mearsheimer, 2021; Wang, 2016). The relationship bloomed through the 1980s with President G. H. W. Bush undeterred in his pursuit of maintaining economic relations despite the Tiananmen Square Incident (Mearsheimer, 2021). Where Mearsheimer (2021) vehemently believes the US should have stifled China’s rise as an economic powerhouse, the opposite occurred and America welcomed China into the World Trade Organisation with the optimistic underlying aim of enticing China into a more liberalized democratic state that would align seamlessly with the US-led global system (Mearsheimer, 2021; Wang, 2016). This continued into the new century with President G. W. Bush making it clear that China stood on the side of the ‘civilized’ states in his great moral division of good and evil in the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks (Zhang, 2021: 1442). Under President Obama, the US “welcomed the rise of China” and engaged in economic cooperation and integration through agreements such as the Bilateral Investment Treaty and China jumping at the opportunity to buy US Treasury Bonds in the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis (Li, 2016). Upon reflection, Doshi (2021: 311) is correct to note that during the 1990s and 2000s China maintained greater freedoms for academics and lawyers, allowing for a degree of separation of party and state, in this way these glimpses into a more liberalized China justify some degree of optimism on the US side. However, the party soon “ascertained” that these allowances were not to the benefit of the longevity of party rule thus rendering legitimised American hope into naivety (Doshi, 2021: 311).

A significant factor behind the paling of American engagement was the massive growth of the Chinese economy with Chinese annual GDP growth not dropping below 5% for 28 years straight from 1991 (The World Bank, 2022). This looming presence began to resemble a Thucydides trap where the “incumbent superpower undoubtedly feels under pressure” by a rising Spartan China (Li, 2016). While some believe that a power chasing economic growth and reform wouldn’t have conflict in its line of sight, Mearsheimer (2021) rightly posits imperial Japan as an example of a state that still sought regional hegemony in the 1940s in the midst of its economy developing leaps and bounds. Mearsheimer (2021) goes on to state that with economic power comes the desire for military progression, China fits this model as its military budget has been increasing rapidly, sitting today at $229.6 billion (Jash, 2022). During this economic growth and coupled military expansion, further factors in the relationship changed despite President Obama’s continuation of engagement. American public opinion regarding China soured with 29% of Americans holding unfavourable views toward China in 2006 to 52% in 2013 (Li, 2021: 8; Wike, 2013). They expressed discontentment with the decline in US manufacturing, the trade deficit with China, and its holding of American debt (Wike, 2013). Beneath President Obama’s friendly words and excellent streams of communication with China, both Wang (2016) and Li (2016) agree there was a trust deficit. The waning of this cooperative relationship should have been obvious from the outside in the eyes of Mearsheimer (2021) and the application of a realist mindset. In the anarchical global system, there exist no institutions capable of truly reigning in the desires of states and so in order to secure their own survival they relentlessly push on with the pursuit of power, China proved no exception.

A significant element of China’s rise is its perception by many as a ‘revisionist power’. From the creation of islands in the South China sea in 2014 to the aims of a One China policy to integrate Taiwan and the Diaoyu islands, the likes of Mearsheimer (2021) have labelled these as “revisionist goals”. We will see in the second section how further Chinese activity led this term to be used in a spread of official US documents. Analysing the failed aims of the prior Washington Consensus it is clear that the difference in ideologies was insurmountable and that the decades of CCP rule could not be cast aside with ease. What is significant is that the autocratic Chinese mode of operandum isn’t just to “bemoan” the Washington-centric global system but to scrutinise it and provide its own alternative (Doshi, 2021: 302). Given the decades of engagement, one cannot say the two states had not ample opportunity to reconcile, thus the stark difference in ideology is emphasised (Mearsheimer, 2021; Wang, 2016). Despite the seemingly good-natured CCP party line of aiming for ‘win-win cooperation’, the position of regional hegemon is singular and the state of affairs crystalised into a zero-sum game (Mearsheimer, 2021; Wang 2021). Delving into the nature of regional hegemony helps us understand the fading of the prior Washington consensus. As Doshi (2021: 300) explains, hegemonic orders involve a state dominating subordinates using the threat of punishment, consensual inducements or their own legitimacy. China’s size and the ideology of the party did not lend to this subjugation, the signalling of this to the US did not require the declaration of war, conflict isn’t required for an order to change and so the era of engagement waned (Doshi, 2021: 301).

The new Washington Consensus

The new Washington Consensus of containment arrived with the installation of the Trump administration in 2016, having run on the promise of a tougher stance on China and the minimising of the trade deficit of £367 billion in goods seen in 2015 (United States Census Bureau, 2022; Wang, 2021). Beyond attempting to contain China’s rise Trump eventually settled on attempting a complete decoupling of the US and Chinese economies (Li, 2021: 2). Despite the failed aims of the prior Washington Consensus, scholars such as Wang (2016; 2021: 56-57) still maintained optimism in 2016, stating that the relationship could be repaired through domestic progress and the coping of imbalances. This rosy picture however never materialised, instead, China pushed forward with its revisionist goals, the violent border incidents with India, globally criticised management of the Xinjiang province, heightened military exercises around Taiwan and disputed claims to land and sea territories in the Spratly islands (Mearsheimer, 2021; Page, 2015). The first National Security Strategy (NSS), released in December 2017 authoritatively labelled China, along with Russia, as ‘revisionist’ powers (The White House, 2017). Since then, a spread of official papers, documents and statements in the US have viewed China through the same prism. Most recently, the US Department of defence explicitly termed China as a ‘revisionist power’, claiming in its June 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report that ‘Beijing under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to reorder the Indo-Pacific region to China’s advantage by leveraging military modernization, influencing operations, and enacting predatory economics to coerce other nations (United States Department of Defence, 2019). Beyond China’s lack of domestic change is America’s. US public sentiment remained negative regarding China, and it became a useful pariah in which politicians could aim the sights of domestic discontent (Wang 2016).

The crescendo of US hostility came with the onset of the ongoing US-China Trade war, from the imposition of tariffs on appliances and solar panels on January 22nd 2018, ramping up to a 10% tax increase in tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to offset the trade imbalance, this aggressive economic policy was matched by China (Chen & Lawder, 2018; Schlesinger & Ailworth, 2018). In December 2018, the Vice-chair of Huawei and its founder’s daughter were arrested in Canada at the behest of the US government (Corera, 2021). What followed was active hostility towards several Chinese companies including powerhouses ZTE, Tencent, and Huawei over fears of government interference in US domestic affairs by proxy (Shepardson, 2021). The pursuit of containment and the ensuing trade war perfectly highlight Doshi’s (2021: 315) two-pronged explanation of US intent. Firstly, the removal of a rising hegemon in Asia explains the desire to stunt Chinese growth which arguably occurred, with 2019 resulting in the slowest third-quarter GDP growth in almost 30 years (Yao & Crossley, 2019). Secondly, the US wishes to undermine Beijing’s supposed attempts to remove the US from the global order, this would explain US actions against Chinese firms operating on their soil and citing security concerns.

In briefly looking at China’s response to this first wave of aggression, Hass (2021) notes interestingly that China despite offering counter-tariffs in 2018, still maintained engagement with American firms and attempted to calibrate to the policies. However, this soon dissolved and by 2020 China was initiating counter-aggression in response to Trump’s personal critiques of Xi, they pursued “laws and regulations for export controls, national security investment screening, policy-related visa sanctions, and extraterritorial provisions in laws and administrative regulations” (Hass, 2021). The shift in Chinese policy points to the existence of a new Washington Consensus for which they were responding to. By 2021 China had a tally of domestic affairs they openly blamed America for assisting. From hosting the Falun Gong and Chinese dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo, support of Tibetan separatists, support for protests in Xinjiang province and Hong Kong, followed by the signing of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act in 2020 (Wang, 2021: 52). On the American side these actions of China coupled with the failure of America’s attempts at liberalisation helped fuel the “caricature” of an untameable beast, thus the trade war was justified in the public mind (Zhang, 2021: 1443). President Trump’s final year of presidency entailed three prongs of attack, economic in its decoupling, political in its hope of CCP overthrowal and militarily in the TAIPEI act of 2019 which encouraged the global recognition of Taiwan’s autonomy combined with continued American arms sales to Taiwan (Li, 2021: 7).

2020 provided a fascinating insight into how a consensus is defined, as the Republican Trump administration was replaced by the Democrat Biden administration, American policy towards China proved bi-partisan as it held firm on the idea of containment and ultimately very little changed in the transition (Li, 2021). Like most administrations President Biden began with optimistic words promising cooperation; In the same sentence as denouncing a complete decoupling with the Chinese economy, the Trump administration was seen as having failed in containing China (Li, 2021: 6-7). China too saw initial positive signals as they saw “overlap” with several of the Biden administration’s aims such as the combating of Covid and the economic recovery from said issue, not to mention the stated ‘climate goals’ of each country (Li, 2021: 6). Bi-lateral cooperation on these issues was soon swept aside in early 2021 as Secretary of State Blinken sided with his predecessor Pompeo in condemning Chinese treatment of Uyghurs, followed soon after with the designation of Chinese firms Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua as official National security threats (Shepardson, 2021). Beyond the already notable nature of such bi-partisan alignment is the turnaround of Biden’s personal perspective as he held strong support for engagement throughout his career as the Chair of the Senate Foreign Policy Committee and his time spent working under the Obama administration (Mearsheimer, 2021). Such diversion from his previous position prompted notable Chinese diplomat, Yang Jiechi to proclaim, “we thought too well of you” (Li, 2021: 6). The Biden administration so vehemently sticks to a policy of containment that many scholars regard the prospects of war to be in their most heightened state (Li, 2021: 8).

Under President Biden, the US has been attempting to restructure supply chains through both ‘chip alliances’ and domestic chip development and production through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (McKinsey and Company, 2022). Prior to this was the Strategic Competition Act of 2021 (involving the spending of millions of dollars on ideological, technological, and military advancements ahead of China) (United States Congress, 2021). These actions form part of what Doshi (2021, 319-321) describes as “economic blunting”, with the US keen to avoid dependency of itself and its allies on Chinese production. Doshi’s (2021) point on the asymmetrical nature of Chinese-US competition is logical and thus we can provide a counter to Wang’s (2021: 48) claim, it is not logical for the US to contain China in “every possible way”, the Chinese population dwarfs America’s and already it outweighs the US in GDP if Purchasing Power Parity is considered, thus methods of US containment must be selected strategically (The World Bank, 2021).

Methods of Containment not being pursued and the longevity of the New Washington Consensus

Returning to Wang’s (2021: 48) statement we see that yes there is a new Washington Consensus, however as of yet outright military conflict has not been pursued, leaving an avenue of containment unchosen. Through my analysis, a realist perspective on Chinese-US relations appears most credible. Constructivism falls by the wayside as American democracy and Chinese autocracy maintain polar ideological positions and thus shared ‘socially constructed’ norms and values were not to be found despite the prior US attempts at reconciliation. Liberalism too proves unhelpful as no NGOs have proven capable of unifying the two states despite China’s participation in groups such as the WTO for decades and again mutual cooperation has been attempted. While realism proves more insightful, Mearsheimer’s (2021) offensive neorealism has yet to fully materialise. Given the anarchic state of the global system, Mearsheimer (2021) is of the view that China like Sparta, is doomed to engage in conflict with the Athenian US. However, possession of nuclear capabilities by both sides disincentives' conflict as it essentially entails mutual destruction. Francis Fukuyama (Fukuyama, 1992: 254) correctly posits that it is “perfectly possible to imagine anarchic state systems that are nonetheless peaceful”. China has seen massive dominance over neighbouring states throughout its decades of growth but as of yet avoided open warfare, the competition with the US will be one fought on technological, ideological and economic fronts.

In pondering the longevity of the new Washington Consensus, several scholars present their thoughts. Wang (2021: 56-57) views de-escalation as only arising from America stepping aside from Taiwan and allowing peaceful unification. In this regard, the end of tensions is not insight given sustained US arms sales to Taiwan and the significance of Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan cementing the administration’s support (Xuanzun, 2022). Mearsheimer (2021) views the dilemma as structural and therefore unsolvable through policymaking, only a significant unexpected crisis would alter affairs, again given the maintenance of the status quo despite the sudden emergence of a Covid ‘pandemic’ one wonders what sort of crisis is really required. Interestingly the harsh policies initially enacted by Trump have worked in the favour of the CCP by driving nationalist defensive public sentiment, thus de-escalation is not yet visible on the horizon (Li, 2021: 7). It is also important to consider the need for a containing Washington Consensus on ‘someone’, an enemy to align the gaze of the US population, as Grygiel (2018) puts it, “an organising principle”, the Bi-partisan support as the Biden administration took over displayed the need to maintain a barbarized enemy, a source of woes for the American people.

Conclusion

So to conclude, this essay began with a delving into the context behind current US -Chinese relations and how engagement with the hope of ideological change embodied the prior Washington Consensus. I investigated the signals of an unravelling of this approach and how the Trump administration ushered in a defined new consensus of containment, the trade war beginning in 2018 was the tangible materialisation of this approach. With the continuation of this trade war to the present day, I analysed the Biden administration’s angle that opened upon cooperative grounds yet ultimately saw little change, with containment proving the nexus of policy. Finally, I looked at how violent conflict is a method of containment not pursued and is not necessitated despite no de-escalation in sight for the two competitors. So yes, there is indeed a new Washington consensus, distinctly different to its predecessor and it is seeking to contain China in a plethora of ways, however there are methods of containment not being sought after. The future of the relationship is devoid of optimism as it is devoid of bloodshed.

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