If Trump Wants to Take On China, He Needs Allies

And he should start with Europe.
By Julianne Smith

BERLIN — With the prospect of a trade deal between China and the United States all but dead, the Trump administration is no doubt weighing its next steps in its quest to rein in Beijing’s rise. President Trump should try something he hasn’t yet: call Europe.
Just five years ago, such a suggestion would have raised eyebrows. 

Europe’s relationship with China has traditionally been one of close economic cooperation, especially for an export-led country like Germany. 

To the extent that Europeans saw political and security challenges in working with China, they kept faith that growing economic ties with the West would temper the country’s worst instincts.
Over the last few years, though, Germany, along with several other European countries, have experienced a strategic awakening. 

German policymakers, along with industry leaders, have become much more vocal about China’s predatory trade practices, in particular forced technology transfers. 

They have begun to refer to China as a “systemic competitor.” 

So has the European Union.
This should make the countries of Europe, historically among America’s closest allies, well placed to work with Washington to confront China over trade, its destabilizing policies in Asia, and the authoritarian political model it is promoting around the world. 

Instead, Europe and the United States are consumed by cyclical arguments over — to name just a few issues — military spending, trans-Atlantic trade imbalances and the Iran nuclear deal. 

That’s exactly where the Chinese want the two sides of the Atlantic to be: distracted and divided.

On the subject of China, Europeans feel like they have been relegated to observer status. 

Trump administration officials have made few efforts either to brief allies on their China policy or to propose anything like a unified trans-Atlantic strategy. 

When the Trump administration has engaged Europe on China, such discussions tend to focus on tightening investment screening and preventing the Chinese telecommunications provider Huawei from constructing 5G networks. 

Those two important issues merit trans-Atlantic consultations. 

But the Trump administration’s approach — which includes threatening to limit intelligence sharing with any ally that proceeds to build its next generation of mobile infrastructure with Huawei — is a losing strategy. 

Europeans are tired of taking orders from Mr. Trump’s America, which makes them more inclined to ignore American directives on issues like Huawei.
The president should start over. 

The United States and Europe need to come to the table as actual partners and begin a much broader dialogue about China’s political, economic and technological ambitions. 

At the very minimum, the two sides of the Atlantic should be sharing insights on everything from Chinese influence operations to human rights abuses to investments in artificial intelligence and other disruptive technologies. 

More ambitiously, the United States and Europe should aim to fortify their trade relationship; coordinate American and European policies on China’s human rights abuses; and create alternatives to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The best way for the United States and Europe to compete with China would be to resolve their own bilateral trade disputes. 

The more the two sides bicker and threaten each other with more tariffs, the more space they allow for China to continue ignoring international trading rules. 

When — or if — the two trans-Atlantic partners turn down the heat on their simmering trade war and focus on strengthening trade ties, they should reach out to Japan and other allies that could bolster the West’s economic strength and influence.
Better coordination should be the next item on the trans-Atlantic to do list. 

In March, when Xi Jinping visited Paris, President Emmanuel Macron invited the chancellor of Germany and the president of the European Commission to join him. 

Mr. Macron’s intended message was clear: Instead of picking off individual European Union members, China would have to deal with a united Europe. 

The United States and Europe could send a similar message. 

The two partners could begin coordinating their messaging on issues like China’s continuing persecution of the Uighurs, or the two Canadian citizens that China is detaining.
One specific area of focus should be China’s Belt and Road Initiative — a vast network of infrastructure and connectivity projects, underwritten by China, across Asia, Africa and Europe. Some of those projects provide much needed investment. 

Many, however, lack transparency, leave the host country riddled with debt, and require political favors in return. 

Given the scale of China’s investment, it is tough for Europe and the United States to offer viable alternatives. 

They should still try.
They could also do more to help countries avoid the Belt and Road Initiative’s many pitfalls. 

Last year the United States Treasury sent a team of evaluators to Myanmar to help it navigate the challenges of a Belt and Road project. 

Europe should be doing the same thing. 

They could start that work not halfway around the world but in Portugal, Greece, Italy and Serbia, which have already signed on to Chinese projects and are looking at more.
It may be hard to imagine the Trump administration doing any of these things. 

This is an administration, after all, that has undermined, not strengthened, America’s network of alliances from the start. 

It prefers to see the world, as two administration officials put it in a 2017 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, as “not a ‘global community’ but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors, and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”
Mr. Trump is right to claim that America finds itself in an era of great power competition with China. Where his administration has repeatedly missed the mark, though, is in its determination to deride the very “global community” that could help America in its challenge. 

If Trump were serious about competing with China, he would be doing more to get as many allies on his side as possible.
Working with Europe will not be easy. 

The two will never be in perfect lock step on China, especially when it comes to security issues. Europe doesn’t have anything resembling America’s forces in Asia nor does it share America’s security commitments. 

Even inside Europe, there will continue to be different approaches to China. 

Nonetheless, the smartest thing for Europe and the United States to do would be to find areas where they can come together. 

Right now, they are not positioning themselves for even modest levels of success. 

They aren’t competing, and China wants to keep it that way.

China’s Military Seeks New Islands to Conquer

Allies in the Pacific are worried that the U.S. and Europe are no longer reliable.

By James Stavridis

A Defense Department report warns that China’s military buildup is reaching the point where it can attempt to “impose its will on the region and beyond.” 

Visiting recently with senior officials from two U.S. allies in the region, Japan and Singapore, gave me a visceral feeling of how things look on the ground (and at sea). 

“We are deeply concerned about the US long-term commitment in the region, starting with troops in South Korea – especially in the face of China and their determined military expansion,” a senior Japanese official told me.
The constant refrain was simple: The West is becoming a less reliable partner. 

These allies are dismayed by a U.S. administration that has repeatedly criticized its closest partners and accused them of freeloading on defense. 

They are also worried about weakness and distraction of a Europe facing Brexit. 

This is compounded as they watch China increase pressure on Taiwan to accept a “one nation, two systems” deal à la Hong Kong and militarize the South China Sea by constructing artificial islands.
Japan, in particular, faces a host of challenges from Beijing. 

These begin with a long and bitter history of conflict, principally stemming from the Second World War but also dating back to the Sino-Japanese War more than a century ago. 

Other areas of contention include China’s unfounded territorial claims including the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea; support for North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, who has launched ballistic missiles over the Japanese islands; massive hacks into Tokyo’s intelligence and military command systems; and the intellectual property theft that has also frustrated the U.S. so deeply. 

Singapore, given its geographic position as the gateway to the Indian Ocean, is a key stepping stone in China’s military expansion and its massive One Belt-One Road development project.

There is also a less-noticed but extremely worrisome aspect to China’s increasing boldness: It is building its naval capability to dominate farther into the Pacific -- as far as what Western analysts call the “second island chain.”
When thinking in a geo-strategic sense about China, the island-chain formulation is helpful. 

Since the 1950s, U.S. planners have delineated a first island chain, running from the Japanese islands through the Philippines, and down to the tip of Southeast Asia. 

Dominating inside that line has been the goal of China’s recent buildup in naval and missile capabilities. 

But U.S. officials warn that Chinese strategists are becoming more ambitious, set on gaining influence running to the second island chain -- running from Japan through the Micronesian islands to the tip of Indonesia. 

As with its initial forays into the South China Sea, Beijing is using “scientific” missions and hydrographic surveying ships as the tip of the spear.
Japan and Singapore are essentially anchors at the north and south ends the island chains. 

They have been integrating their defense capabilities with the U.S. through training, exercises and arms purchases. 

They are exploring better relations with India as the Pacific and Indian Oceans are increasingly viewed as a single strategic entity. 

This is a crucial element in the U.S. strategy for the region. 

But there are changes coming.
First, there are expectations that China will eye the third island chain, encompassing Hawaii and the Alaskan coast before dropping south down to New Zealand. 

This has long been regarded as the final line of strategic demarcation between the U.S. and China. Second, some analysts are beginning to talk about a fourth and even fifth island chain, both in the Indian Ocean, an increasingly crucial zone of competition between the U.S. and China.
Two obvious Indian Ocean chains exist. 

The first would run from southern Pakistan (where China has created a deep-water port at Gwador) down past Diego Garcia, the lonely atoll controlled by the U.K. from which the U.S. runs enormous logistical movements into Central Asia. 

As a junior officer on a Navy cruiser in the 1980s, I visited Diego Garcia when it was essentially a fuel stop with a quaint palm-thatched bar. 

The base has expanded enormously, becoming critical to supporting U.S. and British combat efforts in the Horn of Africa and Middle East.
The fifth and final island chain could be considered to run from the Horn of Africa – where the U.S. and China now maintain significant military bases – down to the coast of South Africa. 

Little wonder the U.S. military has renamed its former Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific Command.
Each of the island chains will be a line contention. 

Both U.S. and Chinese war plans encompass protocols for employing land-based forces from the various islands to project power to sea.
Japan and Singapore are keenly aware of the geographic importance of the Pacific island chains, as are more distant allies such as Australia and New Zealand. 

How the U.S. Navy integrates forces with allies and partners, and develops cogent plans to use the islands should matters come to blows (as bases for long-range air, intelligence gathering, and logistic resupply) will be crucial.

The most helpful analogy may be the so-called Great Game between the U.K. and Russia for control of South Asia in the 19th century. 

But in today’s world, both the U.S. and China have broader global ambitions and larger international trade empires to defend. 

Control of the island chains, with Japan and Singapore at the most crucial points in the Pacific, can give either great power the upper hand.

US Needs Assist from Allies to Curb China’s Theft of Advanced Technology

By Nike Ching and Hongshen Zhao
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., shake hands with FBI Director Christopher Wray as CIA Director Gina Haspel looks on before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

Senior U.S. officials and experts say the United States needs to rally allies to pressure China stealing advanced technology through cyber espionage.

At the same time, key American lawmakers are questioning the readiness and capacity of the U.S. to counter such threats.
The renewed push comes after U.S. federal prosecutors pressed criminal charges against the world's largest telecommunications company — China's Huawei Technologies — its chief financial officer and several subsidiaries for financial fraud and theft of U.S. intellectual property.

The Trump administration said Washington is deeply concerned about the potential of Beijing using Chinese technology firms to spy on the U.S. and its allies.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about worldwide threats on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., Jan. 29, 2019.

"China's pursuit of intellectual property, sensitive research and development plans, and the U.S. person data remains a significant threat to the United States government and the private sector," Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told lawmakers at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on Tuesday.
Other officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-proliferation Christopher Ford, advocate for a global coalition against Chinese technology-transfer threats.
At another hearing, experts said threats that Huawei poses to supply chains and critical infrastructure are absolutely real.
"We need defensive measures and we need to invest in our own technologies as well, and we need to be cooperating with allies and partners," said Ely Ratner, who was deputy national security advisor to former Vice President Joe Biden.
"We know that the Huawei leadership has members of the Communist Party within it, and the company has a long and deep relationship with both PLA and the Ministry of State Security in China. And of course is subject to Chinese law and their new National Intelligence law which gives the government the right to use the networks and data as they wish," added Ratner at a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby warned that China may gain "economic, informational, and blackmail" leverage over other countries through data collected by companies such as Huawei.
"This dissolves or corrodes the resolve in these countries potentially to stand up to Chinese potential coercion," Colby told senators.
"We need to be able to form a network that is sufficient and cohesive to stand up to these Chinese threats," he added.
Bipartisan senators have been pushing for the creation of a White House office to fight China's state-sponsored technology theft and defend critical supply chains.
Senator Marco Rubio questions witnesses before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

"China is currently attempting to achieve technological and economic superiority over the United States through the aggressive use of state-directed or state-supported technology transfers," said Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) who introduced a bill to fight China's technology threats earlier this month.
"A national response to combat these threats and ensure our national security has, to date, been hampered by insufficient coordination at the federal level," added Warner and Rubio in a statement.
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., speaks during the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2019.

Under the bill, the Office of Critical Technologies & Security would coordinate with federal and state regulators, the private sector, experts and U.S. allies to ensure that every available tool is being utilized to safeguard the supply chain and protect emerging dual-use technologies.

America Pushes Allies to Fight Huawei in New Arms Race With China

Whichever country dominates 5G will gain an economic, intelligence and military edge for much of this century

By David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes, Raymond Zhong and Marc Santora

Huawei’s offices in Warsaw. Polish officials recently came under pressure from the United States to bar Huawei from building its 5G communications network.

Jeremy Hunt, the British foreign minister, arrived in Washington last week for a whirlwind of meetings dominated by a critical question: Should Britain risk its relationship with Beijing and agree to the Trump administration’s request to ban Huawei, China’s leading telecommunications producer, from building its next-generation computer and phone networks?
Britain is not the only American ally feeling the heat.

In Poland, officials are also under pressure from the United States to bar Huawei from building its fifth generation, or 5G, network. 

Trump officials suggested that future deployments of American troops — including the prospect of a permanent base labeled “Fort Trump” — could hinge on Poland’s decision.
And a delegation of American officials showed up last spring in Germany, where most of Europe’s giant fiber-optic lines connect and Huawei wants to build the switches that make the system hum. Their message: Any economic benefit of using cheaper Chinese telecom equipment is outweighed by the security threat to the NATO alliance.
Over the past year, the United States has embarked on a stealthy global campaign to prevent Huawei and other Chinese firms from participating in the most dramatic remaking of the plumbing that controls the internet since it sputtered into being, in pieces, 35 years ago.
The administration contends that the world is engaged in a new arms race — one that involves technology, rather than conventional weaponry, but poses just as much danger to America’s national security.
In an age when the most powerful weapons, short of nuclear arms, are cyber-controlled, whichever country dominates 5G will gain an economic, intelligence and military edge for much of this century.

The transition to 5G — already beginning in prototype systems in cities from Dallas to Atlanta — is likely to be more revolutionary than evolutionary. 

What consumers will notice first is that the network is faster — data should download almost instantly, even over cellphone networks.
It is the first network built to serve the sensors, robots, autonomous vehicles and other devices that will continuously feed each other vast amounts of data, allowing factories, construction sites and even whole cities to be run with less moment-to-moment human intervention. 

It will also enable greater use of virtual reality and artificial intelligence tools.
But what is good for consumers is also good for intelligence services and cyberattackers. 

The 5G system is a physical network of switches and routers. 

But it is more reliant on layers of complex software that are far more adaptable, and constantly updating, in ways invisible to users — much as an iPhone automatically updates while charging overnight. 

That means whoever controls the networks controls the information flow — and is able to change, reroute or copy data without users’ knowledge.
In interviews with current and former senior American government officials, intelligence officers and top telecommunications executives, it is clear that the potential of 5G has created a zero-sum calculus in the Trump White House — a conviction that there must be a single winner in this arms race, and the loser must be banished. 

For months, the White House has been drafting an executive order, expected in the coming weeks, that would effectively ban United States companies from using Chinese-origin equipment in critical telecommunications networks. 

That goes far beyond the existing rules, which ban such equipment only from government networks.
Nervousness about Chinese technology has long existed in the United States, fueled by the fear that the Chinese could insert a “back door” into telecom and computing networks that would allow Chinese security services to intercept military, government and corporate communications. 

And Chinese cyberintrusions of American companies and government entities have occurred daily, including by hackers working on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security.
But the concern has taken on more urgency as countries around the world begin deciding which equipment providers will build their 5G networks.
American officials say the old process of looking for “back doors” in equipment and software made by Chinese companies is the wrong approach, as is searching for ties between specific executives and the Chinese government. 

The bigger issue is the increasingly authoritarian nature of the Chinese government, the fading line between independent business and the state and new laws that will give Beijing the power to look into and take over networks that companies like Huawei have helped build and maintain.
“It’s important to remember that Chinese company relationships with the Chinese government aren’t like private sector company relationships with governments in the West,” said William R. Evanina, the director of America’s National Counterintelligence and Security Center. 

“China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law requires Chinese companies to support, provide assistance and cooperate in China’s national intelligence work, wherever they operate.”
The White House’s focus on Huawei coincides with the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on China, which has involved sweeping tariffs on Chinese goods, investment restrictions and the indictments of several Chinese nationals accused of hacking and cyberespionage. 

President Trump has accused China of “ripping off our country” and plotting to grow stronger at America’s expense.
President Trump’s views have prompted some countries to question whether America’s campaign is really about national security or if it is aimed at preventing China from gaining a competitive edge.
Administration officials see little distinction in those goals.
“President Trump has identified overcoming this economic problem as critical, not simply to right the balance economically, to make China play by the rules everybody else plays by, but to prevent an imbalance in political/military power in the future as well,” John R. Bolton, President Trump’s national security adviser, told The Washington Times on Friday. 

“The two aspects are very closely tied together in his mind.”
The administration is warning allies that the next six months are critical. 

Countries are beginning to auction off radio spectrum for new, 5G cellphone networks and decide on multibillion-dollar contracts to build the underlying switching systems. 

This past week, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it had concluded its first high-band 5G spectrum auction.
The Chinese government sees this moment as its chance to wire the world — especially European, Asian and African nations that find themselves increasingly beholden to Chinese economic power.
“This will be almost more important than electricity,” said Chris Lane, a telecom analyst in Hong Kong for Sanford C. Bernstein. 

“Everything will be connected, and the central nervous system of these smart cities will be your 5G network.”

Both the United States and China believe that whichever country dominates 5G will gain an economic, intelligence and military edge for much of this century.

A New Red Scare

American officials whisper that classified reports implicate Huawei in Chinese espionage but have produced none publicly. 

Others familiar with the secret case against the company say there is just a heightened concern about the firm’s rising technological dominance and the new Chinese laws that require Huawei to submit to requests from Beijing.

Australia last year banned Huawei and another Chinese manufacturer, ZTE, from supplying 5G equipment. 

Other nations are wrestling with whether to follow suit and risk inflaming China, which could hamper their access to the growing Chinese market and deprive them of cheaper Huawei products.
Government officials in places like Britain note that Huawei has already invested heavily in older-style networks.

And they argue that Huawei isn’t going away — it will run the networks of half the world, or more, and will have to be connected, in some way, to the networks of the United States and its allies.
Yet BT Group, the British telecom giant, has plans to rip out part of Huawei’s existing network. 

The company says that was part of its plans after acquiring a firm that used existing Huawei equipment; American officials say it came after Britain’s intelligence services warned of growing risks. 

And Vodafone Group, which is based in London, said on Friday that it would temporarily stop buying Huawei equipment for parts of its 5G network.
Nations have watched warily as China has retaliated against countries that cross it. 

In December, Canada arrested a top Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, at the request of the United States. 

Meng, who is Ren’s daughter, has been accused of defrauding banks to help Huawei’s business evade sanctions against Iran. 

Since her arrest, China has detained two Canadian citizens and sentenced to death a third Canadian, who had previously been given 15 years in prison for drug smuggling.
“Europe is fascinating because they have to take sides,” said Philippe Le Corre, nonresident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

“They are in the middle. All these governments, they need to make decisions. Huawei is everywhere.”

A Huawei store in Warsaw. This month, the Polish government made two high-profile espionage arrests, including an employee of Huawei.

Growing Suspicions
This month, the Polish government made two high-profile espionage arrests: a former intelligence official, Piotr Durbajlo, and Wang Weijing, an employee of Huawei. 

The arrests are the strongest evidence so far that links Huawei with spying activities.
Wang has been accused of working for Chinese intelligence agencies, said a top former Polish intelligence official. 

Wang was the handler of Durbajlo, who has helped the Chinese penetrate the Polish government’s most secure communications network.
The case was a prime example of how the Chinese government plants intelligence operatives inside Huawei’s vast global network. 

Those operatives have access to overseas communications networks and conduct espionage that the affected companies are not aware of, the official said.
Wang’s lawyer, Bartlomiej Jankowski, says his client has been caught up in a geopolitical tug of war between the United States and China.
American and British officials had already grown concerned about Huawei’s abilities after cybersecurity experts, combing through the company’s source code to look for back doors, determined that Huawei could remotely access and control networks from the company’s Shenzhen headquarters.
On careful examination, the code that Huawei had installed in its network-control software did not appear to be malicious. 

Nor was it hidden. 

It appeared to be part of a system to update remote networks and diagnose trouble. 

But it could also route traffic around corporate data centers — where firms monitor and control their networks — and its mere existence is now cited as evidence that hackers and Chinese intelligence use Huawei equipment to penetrate millions of networks.
Chinese telecommunications companies have also hijacked parts of the internet, rerouting basic traffic from the United States and Canada to China.
One academic paper, co-written by Chris C. Demchak, a Naval War College professor, outlined how traffic from Canada meant for South Korea was redirected to China for six months. 

That 2016 attack has been repeated and provides opportunity for espionage.
Last year, AT&T and Verizon stopped selling Huawei phones in their stores after Huawei begin equipping the devices with its own sets of computer chips — rather than relying on American or European manufacturers. 

The National Security Agency quietly raised alarms that with Huawei supplying its own parts, the Chinese company would control every major element of its networks. 

The N.S.A. feared it would no longer be able to rely on American and European providers to warn of any evidence of malware, spying or other covert action.

An assembly line at Huawei’s cellphone plant in Dongguan, China. The company has already surpassed Apple as the world’s second biggest cellphone provider.

The Rise of Huawei
In three decades, Huawei has transformed itself from a small reseller of low-end phone equipment into a global giant with a dominant position in one of the crucial technologies of the new century.
Last year, Huawei edged out Apple as the second-biggest provider of cellphones around the world. Richard Yu, who heads the company’s consumer business, said in Beijing several days ago that “even without the U.S. market we will be No. 1 in the world,” by the end of this year or sometime in 2020.
The company was founded in 1987 by Ren, a former People’s Liberation Army engineer who has become one of China’s most successful entrepreneurs.
The company started through imitation and theft of American technology. 

Cisco Systems sued Huawei in 2003, saying it had illegally copied the American company’s source code. 

The two companies settled out of court.
Huawei opened research centers (including one in California) and built alliances with leading universities around the world. 

Last year, it generated $100 billion in revenue, twice as much as Cisco and significantly more than IBM. 

Its ability to deliver well-made equipment at a lower cost than Western firms drove once-dominant players like Motorola and Lucent out of the telecom-equipment industry.
While American officials refuse to discuss it, the government snooping was a two-way street. 

As early as 2010, the N.S.A. secretly broke into Huawei’s headquarters, in an operation code-named “Shotgiant,” a discovery revealed by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor now living in exile in Moscow.
Documents show that the N.S.A. was looking to prove that Huawei was controlled by the People’s Liberation Army — and that Ren never really left the powerful army unit. 

But the Snowden documents also show that the N.S.A. had another goal: to better understand Huawei’s technology and look for potential back doors. 

This way, when the company sold equipment to American adversaries, the N.S.A. would be able to target those nations’ computer and telephone networks to conduct surveillance and, if necessary, offensive cyberoperations.

President Trump met with Andrzej Duda, his Polish counterpart, last year. Mr. Duda has suggested that the United States build a $2 billion base and training area, which Mr. Duda only half-jokingly called “Fort Trump.”

A Global Campaign
After an uproar in 2013 about Huawei’s growing dominance in Britain, the country’s powerful Intelligence and Security Committee, a parliamentary body, argued for banning Huawei, partly because of Chinese cyberattacks aimed at the British government. 

It was overruled, but Britain created a system to require that Huawei make its hardware and source code available to GCHQ, the country’s famous code-breaking agency.
In July, Britain’s National Cyber Security Center for the first time said publicly that questions about Huawei’s current practices and the complexity and dynamism of the new 5G networks meant it would be difficult to find vulnerabilities.
At roughly the same time, the N.S.A., at a series of classified meetings with telecommunications executives, had to decide whether to let Huawei bid for parts of the American 5G networks. 

AT&T and Verizon argued there was value in letting Huawei set up a “test bed” in the United States since it would have to reveal the source code for its networking software. 

Allowing Huawei to bid would also drive the price of building the networks down, they argued.
The director of the N.S.A. at the time, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, never approved the move and Huawei was blocked.
In July 2018, with these decisions swirling, Britain, the United States and other members of the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing alliance met for their annual meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Chinese telecommunications companies, Huawei and 5G networks were at the top of the agenda. They decided on joint action to try to block the company from building new networks in the West.
American officials are trying to make clear with allies around the world that the war with China is not just about trade but a battle to protect the national security of the world’s leading democracies and key NATO members.
On Tuesday, the heads of American intelligence agencies will appear before the Senate to deliver their annual threat assessment, and they are expected to cite 5G investments by Chinese telecom companies, including Huawei, as a threat.
In Poland, the message has quietly been delivered that countries that use Chinese telecommunications networks would be unsafe for American troops.
That has gotten Poland’s attention, given that its president, Andrzej Duda, visited the White House in September and presented a plan to build a $2 billion base and training area, which Mr. Duda only half-jokingly called “Fort Trump.”
Col. Grzegorz Malecki, now retired, who was the head of the Foreign Intelligence Agency in Poland, said it was understandable that the United States would want to avoid potentially compromising its troops.
“And control over the 5G network is such a potentially dangerous tool,” said Mr. Malecki, now board president of the Institute of Security and Strategy. 

“From Poland’s perspective, securing this troop presence outweighs all other concerns.”

A Roadmap for the Great U.S.-China Divorce

Washington needs allies if it really wants to decouple.

By Christopher Balding

As the trade war between the U.S. and China drags on with new tariffs and no end in sight, we need to ask ourselves: What do they want? 

A fundamental objective for both is to become less reliant on the other. 

The trade war should thus be reframed as a conscious uncoupling.
Behind the rhetoric from both sides lies a profound distrust. U.S. suspicion stems from two specific issues. 

China is increasingly seen as a national security threat that fails to play by the rules. 

The Trump administration’s stance has spurred debate over whether it was a mistake to allow admittance of a highly protectionist Communist country to the World Trade Organization. 

Democrats may dislike Trump’s methods, but few will disagree with his view of China as a mortal rival.
For its part, the government of Xi Jinping is concerned about China’s dependence on U.S. technology and finished manufactured products. 

The focus of its Made In China 2025 plan is to shift Chinese consumption of high-tech products away from foreign, specifically American, manufacturers and toward domestic companies.
So how will they decouple? 

There’s little historical precedent to consider how this might look. 

Two major powers have never been so closely intertwined. 

However, there are some patterns emerging. 

First, alliances are slowly evolving into more cohesive forms. 

Just as the new U.S.-Mexico agreement (likely to include Canada) seeks to divert more trade into Nafta, other countries have started reconsidering their reliance on Chinese telecom-equipment makers for the rollout of 5G wireless networks.
Second, there’s a reassessment of where key products should be made. 

The second batch of Trump’s tariffs focuses on low-end intermediate exports with the intention of reducing China’s role in the global value chain and pushing reshoring to the U.S. and other locations, as a recent Natixis report noted.
Though it’s unlikely that Apple Inc. will start making iPhones in the U.S., shifting factories to allies is probable and builds upon existing trends. 

China is no longer a low-cost producer, and both foreign and locally owned firms there are actively considering plans to relocate operations. 

As Samsung Electronics Co. has shown in Vietnam, it isn’t necessary to make a final product in a country that manufactures the specific inputs. 

Chinese exports are dominated by electronics and basic machinery that rely on global supply chains, so it’s certain many companies are reevaluating their long-term sourcing plans.
If the Trump administration is intent on shifting supply chains away from what it considers a strategic adversary, it should accelerate plans to encourage this trend. 

Trade agreements that grant allied countries special access to U.S. markets with higher-quality governance and legal systems will increase the appeal for firms of moving out of China. 

That could mean revisiting the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Washington must also actively open its domestic markets to Africa, Latin America and emerging Asian economies in lower-skilled products, where China dominates. 

The primary competitor for Chinese export market share isn’t North Carolina but Mexico, Vietnam and South Africa. 

For an administration seeking to reduce its dependence on Chinese garment and textile exports, raising tariffs on Rwandan garment exports is self-defeating.
The U.S. and China have talked officially of resolution, but realistically, the red lines laid out by both sides make a negotiated settlement difficult to envision. 

The Trump administration requires much broader market access and more changes to China’s socialist model than Beijing is willing to grant. 

The U.S. government, with bipartisan support, is likely to pass an updated foreign investment oversight bill that targets China in all but name.
If Washington really wants to reduce its dependence, it needs better planning to trade with allied countries and must allow other emerging-market economies to benefit from its tariffs on China. 

Garment manufacturing won’t be moving from Guangdong to Georgia, but many other countries would love that business. 

Such a shift would be a strategic win in a trade war that so far has shown little planning.

China’s Master Plan: How the West Can Fight Back

The U.S. needs to protect sea lanes, push democracy and, most important, mend ties with allies. 
By Hal Brands
Projecting democracy. 

In the first three installments of this series, I've explored the changing nature of China's challenge to U.S. interests and the existing international order, with a particular focus on three issues: China’s progressively more global military ambitions, its promotion of authoritarianism and subversion of democratic practices abroad, and its efforts to build new international institutions more responsive to its own interests.
All of this is in addition to other, more familiar aspects of the Chinese challenge: Beijing’s efforts to overturn the military balance in the Western Pacific, its coercion of U.S. allies and partners, and its audacious plans to establish economic dominance in an array of critical sectors.
American officials have known for many years that China would eventually be a force to reckon with in global politics. 

But how rapidly and expansively that challenge has emerged has nonetheless been striking.
The previous three articles were devoted largely to diagnosis rather than prescription. 

Now I turn to the matter of solutions: How to deal with a China that is putting U.S. leadership and international order under stress on a variety of fronts at once.
Doing so will be no easy task, but neither should it be considered impossible. 

Although some observers argue that the U.S. and its allies have little choice but to stand aside as the Chinese juggernaut advances, the fact is that Washington and its friends still control a clear preponderance of global power. 

If they can get their act together, they ought to be able to protect their interests and defend the international system that has benefitted them all so enormously for the indefinite future. 

Here are some basic guidelines.
First, with respect to China’s expanding military footprint, it is important to remember that this trend is not all bad, at least in the short term. 

A dollar that China spends on prestige capabilities such as a vulnerable aircraft carrier is a dollar it may not be able to spend on the more lethal anti-access/area-denial capabilities that could give U.S. forces fits in the Western Pacific.
Yet Washington still needs to be begin thinking about a future in which Beijing can create global dilemmas by projecting power outside the Western Pacific, contesting control of sea lanes in the Indian Ocean and beyond, and perhaps establishing a more significant presence in regions as far afield as Africa or even Latin America.
How can the U.S. and its allies safeguard their global freedom of action in light of this emerging challenge? 

It may not be strictly or even primarily a military task.
China will struggle to project power globally without foreign bases, and preventing key countries from granting those installations may be something that requires skillful diplomacy and economic assistance more than the application of force. 

But regardless of the method, such efforts will represent an important facet of U.S.-China competition should Beijing’s military capabilities and horizons continue to expand.
Second, the U.S. needs to embrace the ideological dimension of the competition. 

The idea of waging a protracted ideological struggle is out of fashion, largely because of the hangover from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
But putting those conflicts aside for a moment, the fact remains that America’s democratic values have long represented an ideological and geopolitical advantage over its authoritarian rivals. 

Conversely, if China is successful in distorting democratic practices and making the world safer for autocracy, U.S. influence will suffer.
Granted, there may be cases where solicitude for human rights and democracy cannot trump all other concerns. 

There is simply not an enormous amount Washington can do to pressure the Philippines’ authoritarian leader, Rodrigo Duterte, or Thailand’s military junta right now without further compromising its strategic position in Southeast Asia.
But the U.S. and its partners can still highlight the authoritarian, brutal aspects of Chinese rule; they can publicly expose and constrain Chinese efforts to distort democratic debate within their own societies; they can, in many cases, provide moral and material support to democratic actors in countries where democratic governance is either in danger or struggling to take hold.
This is not Wilsonianism run amok. 

It is good practice in dealing with an authoritarian challenger that is not shying away from ideological competition.
Third, regarding the rival institutional order that China has begun to build, the key is to offer attractive alternatives to countries that are faced with hard choices. 

Over the past year, I have heard numerous U.S. and allied officials say that smaller, poorer states in the Indo-Pacific region and elsewhere do not necessarily want to tilt toward Beijing economically and geopolitically.
They often recognize the danger of debt traps that will spring shut when large loans cannot be repaid. And several strongly object to Beijing's expansive claims on the South China Sea.
Nonetheless, they feel that they cannot say no to Chinese engagement and assistance -- even when they recognize its potentially predatory dimensions -- given their economic needs. 

If America and other liberal powers do not strengthen bilateral and multilateral development lending to pivotal countries, if they do not push forward with the trade arrangements that give nations in the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere options other than being pulled into Beijing’s orbit, if they do not reinvest in the U.S.-led institutions China is challenging such as the World Trade Organization and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, they will not have much luck stemming the Chinese tide.
This leads to a final point, which is that accomplishing any of the tasks outlined here will require a seriousness of purpose and an integration of national power that, under the current U.S. administration, has been painfully lacking.
To be fair, the Defense Department is rightly refocusing on long-term competition with China. 

Congress also deserves some credit for bringing a years-long period of U.S. military austerity to an end.
Yet the Trump administration has also overseen a disinvestment in and denigration of diplomacy; the careless discarding of America’s best tool of geo-economic competition with China, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal; and a striking indifference, at least on the part of the president himself, to the role that American values have long played in accentuating U.S. power.
Moreover, Trump has undercut the multilateral democratic unity necessary to do so by pursuing trade policies that threaten to injure allies such as Japan.
The U.S. and its friends will find it hard enough to address the difficulties China poses if they cooperate effectively and bring all the elements of their influence to bear. 

They will find it far, far harder if they don’t.

Trump Should Sanction China for Destabilizing South Korea

As Secretary of Defense James Mattis tours Asia to pledge support to our allies, the best form of reassurance would be action against China’s provocative moves in the region.
By GORDON G. CHANG

Secretary of Defense James Mattis is now ending his “Mission Reassurance,” the first foreign trip by a Trump administration official. 

He spent two days in Seoul and is finishing up in Tokyo.
The SecDef has been issuing strong words confirming America’s commitment to defend South Korea and Japan. 

That’s important. 

Now, however, it’s time for President Donald Trump to back up the reassurances with stiff economic sanctions on China for destabilizing North Asia.
Mattis’s staff, sounding pitch-perfect, characterized his inaugural foreign tour as a “listening trip.”
Yet the former Marine Corps four-star general was also there to speak. 

“I want there to be no misunderstanding during the transition in Washington that we stand firmly, 100 percent shoulder-to-shoulder with you and the Japanese people,” he said on Friday to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“We stand with our peace-loving Republic of Korea ally to maintain stability on the peninsula and in the region,” Mattis said earlier in the day in Seoul. 

“America’s commitments to defending our allies and to upholding our extended deterrence guarantees remain ironclad: Any attack on the United States, or our allies, will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons would be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming.”
What is neither effective nor overwhelming is America’s response to provocative Chinese actions directed against Seoul. 

For more than a year, Beijing has been trying to prevent South Korea from basing on its soil the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, designed to shoot down incoming missiles. 

From a location in the South, THAAD, as the Lockheed Martin-built system is called, can protect South Korea, Japan, Guam, and the United States. 

Beijing objects to deployment as it is worried that THAAD’s powerful radars can peer over the border into China and hit its missiles as well as North Korea’s.
Beijing has pulled out the stops in its campaign against Seoul, threatening to cut diplomatic relations and issuing media tirades. 

Moreover, it has used the Chinese economy as a club. 

It has, for instance, barred South Korea’s K-pop groups from performing in China, ended charter flights to the South, limited Chinese tourists going there, and banned the import of South Korean cosmetics.
And Beijing has gone after Lotte Group. 

The South Korean chaebol, the country’s fifth largest, is thinking of swapping land, a golf course, with the country’s Ministry of Defense so that the government can get a suitable parcel for the first THAAD battery.
There is talk of a boycott of Lotte Chinese outlets and “continuous sanctions.” 

Last November, the Chinese government also ordered an audit of an affiliate of Lotte and a fire-safety inspection of a Lotte store.
So far, the pressure on the conglomerate is working. 

On Friday, the board of directors of Lotte International, the group unit that owns the land in question, again deferred a decision to approve the deal. 

Perhaps significantly, the company did not announce a future board meeting.
In response, Seoul has stopped approving visas for Beijing’s Confucius Institutes in South Korea. That’s a brave step, but the South does not have the heft to significantly affect Beijing’s calculus on the matter.
The United States, however, does. 

The American market is critical to China, and closing it—or threatening to do so—would make Beijing rethink its intimidation of Seoul.
China is itself vulnerable to U.S. pressure. 

In 2015, China ran a trade surplus in goods and services of $336.2 billion. 

The surplus looks like it was slightly smaller last year, but it was nonetheless substantial. 

China could not sustain a sudden cut off of trade with the U.S.
Of course, America would be hurt as well, but the damage would be far smaller. 

The U.S. is not dependent on trade with China and its economy is far larger than China’s, thereby better able to withstand shocks. 

Last year, China’s gross domestic product, as reported by the official National Bureau of Statistics, was $10.83 trillion. 

America’s, according to the first estimate of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, was $18.86 trillion. 

In reality, the disparity is almost certainly larger due to Beijing’s overreporting.
Trump, while campaigning for the presidency, talked about a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods to counteract the effect of Beijing’s increasingly predatory trade practices. 

Many objected to the cost of such a levy, but no cost is too high to get the earliest warning of a North Korean—or, for that matter, Chinese—launch of a nuclear weapon.
It’s outrageous that China has armed North Korea’s Kim regime and is now threatening “a small country”—Beijing’s demeaning term for South Korea—for trying to protect itself, but it’s understandable why it’s trying to get away with that. 

It is not explicable, however, why Washington allows the Chinese to get away with such intimidation.
It’s good for Mattis to issue reassurances to jittery American allies, but it would be even better for his boss to show real American commitment by imposing costs on China.
The best form of reassurance, after all, is action. 

China Threat: America Should Drop Philippines Alliance

The U.S. collects allies like most people accumulate Facebook friends

By Doug Bandow

Rodrigo Duterte is making a state visit to what until recently had been his nation’s “Great Satan”: China. 

As the Obama administration pivoted to Asia, the Duterte administration is pivoting from the U.S. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi greeted Duterte in Beijing: “This is a historic visit and presents an opportunity for relations between China and the Philippines to restart on a fresh, more positive footing.”
The prospect of a changed relationship worries Washington, but actually would be to America’s advantage. 

The “mutual” defense pact between the U.S. and Manila is a bad deal for Washington, which should use the Duterte shock as an opportunity to replace the alliance with much looser cooperation on shared interests. 

In particular, the U.S. should leave confrontation with Beijing over contested territorial claims to Manila.

Rodrigo Duterte (L) shakes hands with Li Keqiang (R) ahead of their meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 20, 2016. 

The U.S. collects allies like most people accumulate Facebook friends. 

The Philippines is a good example.
America’s tortured relationship with the East Asian archipelago goes back more than a century. 

In 1898 the U.S. “liberated” the Spanish colony in order to gain an outpost in East Asia. 

But to rule Washington brutally crushed an indigenous independence movement.
Eventually independent, the Philippines suffered greatly under Japanese occupation during World War II. 

In succeeding years Manila sank into a corrupt, incompetent dictatorship. 

Democracy returned three decades ago, but the state always seems to be stumbling toward the brink.
A mix of volcanic debris and nationalism closed America’s most important military facilities, Clark Air Base and Subic Bay, in 1991 and 1992, respectively. 

Yet despite the Pentagon’s angst over the loss, American power remained undiminished. 

When the Cold War ended the U.S. reigned supreme in the Asia-Pacific.
Government continued its comic-opera course in Manila, tottering from crisis to crisis. 

Washington was still heavily involved in Filipino affairs, providing Special Forces to help battle Islamic insurgents, materiel to augment the Philippine military, and foreign aid to alleviate poverty. 

But the relationship was an alliance in name only.
The Philippines is a military nullity. 

The country brings to mind the Imperial German officer who, after viewing maneuvers by the Austro-Hungarian army exclaimed: “My God, we are allied with a corpse.”
The Philippine armed forces long focused on internal security. 

Eight years ago Gen. Alexander B. Yano, Philippine army chief of staff, complained about “deficient” capability and an inability to “really defend all these areas because of a lack of equipment.” 

Yet even today the Philippines devotes less than one percent of its GDP to the armed forces, which is a tiny fraction of what the People’s Republic of China spends. 

The International Institute for Strategic Studies explained that for decades “perennially low defense budgets have thwarted efforts to develop any significant capacity for conventional war fighting or deterrence.”
For a country determined to confront Beijing at sea, the Filipino navy is a particular disappointment. Explained journalist Joseph Trevithick: “The archipelago’s sailing force is made up of half-century-old-antiques—and is falling apart.” 

In fact, the navy’s three finest ships are retired U.S. Coast Guard cutters. 

The flagship Gregorio del Pilar will be a half century old next year. 

No wonder IISS warned that “it remains unlikely that the Philippines will be able to provide more than a token national capability to defend its maritime claims.”

Philippine sailors stand in front of the newly-commissioned Hamilton-class cutter Gregorio del Pilar in Manila on December 14, 2011. The Philippines launched its newest warship on December 14, a former US coast guard cutter that President Benigno Aquino said would be deployed to waters at the heart of a territorial dispute with China. 

Under the circumstances Philippine officials continue to do what comes naturally: seek to borrow America’s military.
The alliance was negotiated shortly after World War II, when many Asians still feared a Japanese military revival and the U.S. and Soviet Union were locked in a global struggle for dominance. 

Today no one threatens Philippine independence. 

And the unlikely conquest of the Philippines, while a humanitarian travesty, would not threaten American security. 

Washington has no reason to defend the Philippines proper, let alone distant and contested pieces of rock such as Scarborough Shoal.
Yet Pentagon bureaucrats are attracted to bases like moths to a flame. 

The military never lost its desire to regain facilities in the Philippines. 

In 2014 the two governments signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, set to run for a decade, which authorized joint training missions, offered multiple base access for U.S. forces, and prepositioned American military equipment.
Although emergency basing rights have value, they are modest: Washington should be intervening much less in other nations’ disputes. 

The price for such a benefit should be equally modest, and certainly should not include a promise to go to war.
However, the latter is what Manila desperately desires, at least until Duterte’s election. 

Barely six years after Clark and Subic closed the Philippines agreed to a visiting forces agreement for U.S. military personnel. 

American advisers arrived shortly thereafter. 

The last government was particularly enthusiastic about promoting joint exercises.
Beijing recognized Manila’s objective. 

Chinese state media concluded of EDCA: “the Aquino administration has made its intention clear: to confront China with U.S. backing.” 

In April Philippine Defense Secretary Gazmin declared that Americans “with their presence here, will deter uncalled for actions by the Chinese.” 

A local village leader said the accord made residents “think the U.S. has the capability to defend them. The presence of America will make China think twice.”

But why would U.S. officials be so mad as to go to war with Beijing over Philippine fishing rights?

This combination of Sept. 3, 2016 photos provided by the Philippine Government shows what it says are surveillance pictures of Chinese coast guard ships and barges at the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. 

The Sino-Philippine squabble involving Scarborough Shoal and surrounding waters got rough when China ousted the Philippines in 2012. 

This summer Manila won a legal battle before an international tribunal, but China refused to accept jurisdiction or defend the case, and rejected the opinion when it was announced. 

Duterte first appeared ready to confront Beijing, acting like a great power despite possessing a minor power’s military. 

Then he dramatically reversed course, which explains his ongoing trip to the PRC.
Duterte’s switch makes it easy for Washington to put the interests of the American people first for a change. 

His extrajudicial killing of drug users and dealers and multiple insults of President Obama have gained the most attention, but more significant was his announcement that he was “reconfiguring” Manila’s foreign policy: “I insist that we realign.” 

Duterte said he was terminating bilateral military exercises. 

He also criticized joint Philippine-U.S. air and naval patrols of contested waters.
Moreover, Duterte said he would order American Special Forces out of Mindanao Island where they are deployed against Islamic insurgents (though the defense minister later said they would stay until the Philippine troops were prepared, which could be some time). 

Duterte also indicated his interest in purchasing Chinese weapons and hoped for Chinese investment and aid, as well as improving military cooperation with Russia.
Philippine officials routinely have tried to walk back Duterte’s outbursts. 

Foreign Minister Perfecto Yasay allowed that the two countries have “a special relationship” and the alliance is “a vital component of the Philippines’ independent foreign policy.” 

Duterte himself explained that he did not intend to yield his nation’s territorial claim. 

Moreover, he added, “I am ready to not break ties but we will open alliances with China and [Russia].”
In fact, America remains far more popular than the PRC with the Philippine public. (U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel made the only slightly veiled threat: “I think it would be a serious mistake in a democratic country like the Philippines to underestimate the power of the public’s affinity for the U.S.”) 

Still, Duterte’s true feelings appear clear: “Eventually I might, in my time, I will break up with America. I would rather go to Russia and to China.”
U.S. officials appear to hope they will wake up and discover Duterte was only a nightmare. 

For instance, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter responded to Duterte: “As it has been for decades, our alliance with the Philippines is ironclad.” 

The U.S. embassy in Manila insisted: “We will continue to honor our alliance commitments and treaty obligations and expect the Philippines to do the same.”
Duterte’s evident hostility shocked many Americans. 

He cites colonial depredations stretching back to Washington’s bloody anti-insurgency operations, of which most Americans are unaware. 

However, his approach also reflects sound policy.

Analyst Jared McKinney argued that Duterte is rejecting “three myths that have seduced the American commentariat”: that China would accept an international ruling, American and allied pressure would force Beijing’s compliance, and the PRC was threatening the international system.
Duterte appears to want a diplomatic deal which would avoid military confrontation while providing economic benefits. 

That may be reflected in his statement affirming the U.S. alliance while indicating that he planned to review the 2014 accord. 

The first commits America to defend the Philippines. 

The second commits the Philippines to help America contain China.

U.S. Navy’s amphibious assault vehicles with Philippine and U.S. troops on board maneuver in the waters prior to storming the beach at a combined assault exercise at a beach facing one of the contested islands in the South China Sea known as the Scarborough Shoal in the West Philippine Sea Tuesday on April 21, 2015 .

Whether or not Duterte implements his rhetoric, Washington’s plans for expanded military cooperation appear kaput. 

Today Duterte is visiting China, accompanied by a gaggle of businessmen hoping for new investment and trade opportunities. 

The Philippines is unlikely to end up fully in the PRC’s orbit, but Manila is unlikely to be aiding U.S. military operations against the China.
This shift has generated much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the U.S. 

Yet Manila is irrelevant to America’s direct defense. 

In fact, there are no serious threats to the U.S. homeland. 

Only a few countries have even the theoretical ability to strike America, and they would face ruinous retaliation. 

Moreover, the “new” PRC is focused on self-interest rather than ideology and has demonstrated no interest in war with America anywhere.
Malcolm Cook of Singapore’s Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute argues that Philippine bases enhance America’ ability to inhibit the passage of China’s nuclear-missile submarines, but even then Washington could not assume it enjoyed immunity from a nuclear strike. 

Moreover, U.S. involvement in other nations’ disputes, such as the Sino-Philippine squabble over Scarborough Shoal, actually makes a Sino-American war much more likely.

The U.S. is concerned about freedom of navigation.

Better funded and armed allied navies would be the best means to maintain free passage throughout the region. 

But American support has enabled Philippine dependency.
Terrorism is America’s most active worry, but it is quite modest in practice and does not endanger the nation’s existence. 

Moreover, persistent intervention in other nations’ affairs—such as battling Islamic insurgents in the Philippines—is more likely to create rather than eradicate enemies determined to harm America.
If the PRC some day possesses the means to conduct global war against the U.S., Manila’s decrepit armed forces won’t matter much. 

The Philippines would be but a speed bump to Chinese ambitions, a weak America-allied outpost vulnerable to attack. 

Washington has designated the Philippines a major non-NATO ally, but that’s obviously just a friendly lie to stroke Manila’s ego.
The main military value of the Philippines is to act as a base for U.S. operations, these days mostly directed against the PRC. 

Bases allow U.S. forward deployment of military forces. 

For this reason, Mira Rapp-Hooper of the Center for a New American Security argues that “over the last eight years, the Philippines has become the linchpin of U.S. diplomatic and national security strategy in Southeast Asia.”
Actually, Manila is a dubious linchpin of anything. 

A semi-failed state with an erratic and lawless leader is hardly a reliable partner. 

Moreover, the Philippines wants American assistance in its defense. 

Manila most assuredly does not want to help America battle China on behalf of other nations, including the U.S. 

After all, the alliance with America turns the Philippines into a Chinese target. 

Walden Bello, who served in the Philippine congress before joining Japan’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, warned that his nation is “on the front lines of a superpower struggle for hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.”

In this Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015 file photo, Xi Jinping is displayed on a big screen as Type 99A2 Chinese battle tanks roll across during a parade commemorating the 70th anniversary of Japan’s surrender during World War II from Tiananmen Gate, in Beijing.

Washington sees Manila as part of a containment strategy. 

If war erupted between the U.S. and China, the former would expect to use its Philippine bases, making them a legitimate target for the PRC even if the Philippines formally stayed out of the conflict. 

Officials in Manila likely would be unwilling to grant the U.S. access to bases at the very moment when the Pentagon most desired to use them.
The U.S. should not respond by desperately reassuring the Philippines—Rapp-Hooper speculates that Duterte might be hoping to shake down Washington to “extract stronger security guarantees.” 

An enhanced bilateral relationship would not make America more secure. 

The U.S. cannot effectively enforce regional stability: Conflicts reflect manifold local and regional factors. 

Moreover, Washington’s international order clashes with that of China. 

Americans who assume the PRC would yield might be badly surprised. 

The U.S. may be stronger globally, but the dynamics of war favor Beijing in two respects.
First, events in East Asia matter far more to China, just as the U.S. is far more concerned about Latin America. 

Thus, the PRC will always risk and spend more to advance its interests in its own neighborhood than will others, including America. 

By the same token, Beijing can count on far greater popular support for flirting with war over Scarborough Shoal than can Washington. 

Second, China need only deter America from acting. 

That costs far less than Washington doing what is necessary to defeat the PRC. 

For instance, the U.S. uses carrier groups to bring firepower to other lands; Beijing only needs submarines and missiles to send America’s carriers to the ocean bottom. 

Even a U.S. victory over China could be extremely costly: a carrier lost, other ships sunk, planes downed, bases in Guam, Okinawa, South Korea, and Philippines bombed, “collateral damage” inflicted on allied states.

Beijing, too, could ill afford such a conflict, but it would view the cost of conceding to America as high, likely higher than Washington’s discomfort caused by staying out.
It’s one thing to contemplate such a conflict to defend America. 

It’s quite another to loose the dogs of war in Asia on behalf of other nations’ peripheral interests. 

Especially a country unwilling to defend itself. 

Allowing Manila to create a casus belli while relying on America encourages both free-riding and recklessness. 

Filipino fishermen may be mistreated, but their plight does not warrant a Sino-U.S. confrontation.

Philippines’ marines Brigadier General Maximo Ballesteros (R) leads his US marines counterpart Brigadier General Jan Jansen before the closing ceremony of the joint amphibious landing exercise at a military camp in Manila on October 11, 2016.

With Duterte apparently determined to stake out a position at least equidistant between China and America, Washington should take the initiative. 

The U.S. should end the “mutual” defense treaty and negotiate a far looser agreement for security cooperation when appropriate. 

There should be no more extra aid and freebie weapons for Manila. 

And no more anti-China patrols even if the Duterte government sought to reinstate them.
Before arriving in the PRC Duterte declared “I am not breaking away. I just want to be friendly with everybody.” 

That’s actually a reasonable objective. 

Washington should emphasize that it has decided to update the relationship to reflect current realities, not punish Duterte. 

In fact, America would be following his lead by stepping back and allowing the Philippines as an independent nation to take over responsibility for its own future.