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China Hawk Pushes for U.S. Action
CAPITAL JOURNAL
By Gerald F. Seib
A writer on the Asia Times news site last week was perfectly clear about who he considers most responsible for the rapid rise of tensions between the U.S. and China: “Tom Cotton leads the China attack” blared the headline over his piece. That would be Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, who indeed has become the loudest voice in attacking China’s behavior amid the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview, Mr. Cotton doesn’t mince words about what he thinks this crisis has revealed about China—or how the U.S. should respond.
“More Americans than ever, like more Asians than ever, recognize that China is a pariah state, and we ought to treat them like a pariah state,” he says.
But Mr. Cotton isn’t just one more voice in a growing chorus of China bashers. He actually has a plan to do something. It’s broad and expensive, and is explicitly designed to take advantage of the crisis to roll back Chinese power.
More than that, Mr. Cotton has the ear of President Trump and the State Department, so it’s important to look at what he’s proposing as a sign of where the policy debate is heading.
At the same time, the Cotton plan also begs the question of whether demonizing China will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Does treat- ing China as a mortal enemy reflect a new reality, or does it create that reality at a time when a more benign course is still possible?
Mr. Cotton’s proposals are rooted in how he explains China’s behavior. He strongly suspects the virus was released accidentally by a Chinese lab in the city of Wuhan. He acknowledges the evidence for that is only circumstantial.
More than that, though, he argues that once the virus was on the loose, China made a conscious choice not to close off its country to prevent the virus’s spread, but rather to let it spread “to ensure the Chinese economy wasn’t the only one to suffer.”
With the crisis now unleashed, Mr. Cotton argues, China’s goal is to take advantage of it to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific, intimidate its neighbors and force reunification with Taiwan. In other words, he argues, having created a global crisis, China now is attempting to capitalize on that crisis.
His proposed response is encapsulated first and foremost in a new $43 billion piece of legislation he has proposed, called the FORCE Act. That’s the Forging Operational Resistance to Chinese Expansion Act, and the title captures its goal and scope.
Mr. Cotton would spend billions to build up joint military capabilities with allies in the region. He wants to build a new submarine and more jet fighters to project American
power into the Pacific, and build up missile defenses in the region.
His legislation also proposes spending billions to counteract disruptions to the defense industrial base caused by the virus, and to develop new sources of components so the U.S. isn’t dependent on single manufacturers. And it would spend $12 billion to improve America’s electrical grid and satellite operations and protect them from attack—presumably Chinese attack.
Those aren’t the only moves Mr. Cotton advocates. He proposes other steps to address what he calls “longstanding problems” unrelated to the crisis: “I believe there will be more political support now.”
He wants to put more midrange missiles in Asia, based on American territory in Guam and perhaps in allied countries as well, to counter Chinese midrange missiles. He would accelerate arms sales to Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province.
He wants to make it easier for pharmaceutical and medical- supply companies to move manufacturing out of China and back to the U.S., in part by allowing them to immediately write off capital expenditures made in doing so. Beyond that, and more broadly, he cites a new government fund Japan has established to help Japanese companies move manufacturing supply chains out of China and back to Japan, and says the U.S. ought to consider a similar step.
These all would be risky moves. Demonizing China may simply bolster the position of hard-liners within Beijing, who will see in them justification for their own preference for confrontation rather than cooperation with the U.S. Decoupling economically can cause as much disruption for America as for China. Beijing’s leaders have made clear that arming Taiwan is a bright red line for them.
Ultimately, cold confrontation can lead to hot war. Mr. Cotton counters: “History shows time and time again the way to avoid such things is to draw clear lines about the kind of behavior we won’t tolerate.”
Not many in Washington want to go as far as Mr. Cotton in drawing such lines. But he is a clear barometer showing how the weather is changing.
CAPITAL JOURNAL
By Gerald F. Seib
A writer on the Asia Times news site last week was perfectly clear about who he considers most responsible for the rapid rise of tensions between the U.S. and China: “Tom Cotton leads the China attack” blared the headline over his piece. That would be Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, who indeed has become the loudest voice in attacking China’s behavior amid the coronavirus pandemic. In an interview, Mr. Cotton doesn’t mince words about what he thinks this crisis has revealed about China—or how the U.S. should respond.
“More Americans than ever, like more Asians than ever, recognize that China is a pariah state, and we ought to treat them like a pariah state,” he says.
But Mr. Cotton isn’t just one more voice in a growing chorus of China bashers. He actually has a plan to do something. It’s broad and expensive, and is explicitly designed to take advantage of the crisis to roll back Chinese power.
More than that, Mr. Cotton has the ear of President Trump and the State Department, so it’s important to look at what he’s proposing as a sign of where the policy debate is heading.
At the same time, the Cotton plan also begs the question of whether demonizing China will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Does treat- ing China as a mortal enemy reflect a new reality, or does it create that reality at a time when a more benign course is still possible?
Mr. Cotton’s proposals are rooted in how he explains China’s behavior. He strongly suspects the virus was released accidentally by a Chinese lab in the city of Wuhan. He acknowledges the evidence for that is only circumstantial.
More than that, though, he argues that once the virus was on the loose, China made a conscious choice not to close off its country to prevent the virus’s spread, but rather to let it spread “to ensure the Chinese economy wasn’t the only one to suffer.”
With the crisis now unleashed, Mr. Cotton argues, China’s goal is to take advantage of it to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific, intimidate its neighbors and force reunification with Taiwan. In other words, he argues, having created a global crisis, China now is attempting to capitalize on that crisis.
His proposed response is encapsulated first and foremost in a new $43 billion piece of legislation he has proposed, called the FORCE Act. That’s the Forging Operational Resistance to Chinese Expansion Act, and the title captures its goal and scope.
Mr. Cotton would spend billions to build up joint military capabilities with allies in the region. He wants to build a new submarine and more jet fighters to project American
power into the Pacific, and build up missile defenses in the region.
His legislation also proposes spending billions to counteract disruptions to the defense industrial base caused by the virus, and to develop new sources of components so the U.S. isn’t dependent on single manufacturers. And it would spend $12 billion to improve America’s electrical grid and satellite operations and protect them from attack—presumably Chinese attack.
Those aren’t the only moves Mr. Cotton advocates. He proposes other steps to address what he calls “longstanding problems” unrelated to the crisis: “I believe there will be more political support now.”
He wants to put more midrange missiles in Asia, based on American territory in Guam and perhaps in allied countries as well, to counter Chinese midrange missiles. He would accelerate arms sales to Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province.
He wants to make it easier for pharmaceutical and medical- supply companies to move manufacturing out of China and back to the U.S., in part by allowing them to immediately write off capital expenditures made in doing so. Beyond that, and more broadly, he cites a new government fund Japan has established to help Japanese companies move manufacturing supply chains out of China and back to Japan, and says the U.S. ought to consider a similar step.
These all would be risky moves. Demonizing China may simply bolster the position of hard-liners within Beijing, who will see in them justification for their own preference for confrontation rather than cooperation with the U.S. Decoupling economically can cause as much disruption for America as for China. Beijing’s leaders have made clear that arming Taiwan is a bright red line for them.
Ultimately, cold confrontation can lead to hot war. Mr. Cotton counters: “History shows time and time again the way to avoid such things is to draw clear lines about the kind of behavior we won’t tolerate.”
Not many in Washington want to go as far as Mr. Cotton in drawing such lines. But he is a clear barometer showing how the weather is changing.
