Don't Give Up on Diplomacy with China

After three decades of a restrained foreign policy that reassured the world about its benign intentions, China has overreached, and the costs are piling up both domestically and internationally. Few officials now dare to give him honest feedback, such as telling him that he has harmed China's interests by constructing large and militarily fortified artificial islands in the South China Sea and the prison indoctrination camps in Xinjiang; or by cracking down on private businesses, stubbornly clinging to a zero-COVID model, and supporting Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. To avoid further escalation of the hostilities between China and the U.S., Xi needs to find ways to reassure the outside world that China's intentions remain friendly. First, American primacy is the wrong goal for U.S. China policy. General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called his Chinese counterpart to reassure him that the Trump administration had no plans to attack China despite the chaos of its final days, precisely because he knew General Li Zuocheng well enough to sense that the Chinese general remained "Unusually rattled," and needed a second call to ease his worries. Strategic dialogues for sharing perspectives on foreign policy hotspots throughout the world, with no scripted talking points, also are invaluable for exploring areas of convergence and divergence; these strategic dialogues also connote respect, which is highly valued by China. Will Beijing be willing to coordinate with Washington on its response to North Korea's new more aggressive nuclear doctrine and its resumption of missile tests? Can we induce the Chinese government to reconfirm Xi's previous commitments to President Obama not to militarize the artificial islands in the South China, or to cease cyberhacking to steal technical and commercial secrets from private firms? We can only assess Xi's flexibility to reduce overreach by not overreacting to it, and by keeping open the lines of communication.