China Believes Derisking Is ‘Polite Term’ for Decoupling, Former US Official Says
China is not convinced that the U.S. is only trying to derisk, not decouple, from China’s economy, said Ryan Hass, a former National Security Council official. He said Beijing is wary of the growing number of U.S. sanctions and trade restrictions and doesn’t believe the Biden administration is acting in “good faith,” which risks further worsening tensions.
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Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, has said the U.S. is hoping to use export controls and other restrictions to place a high fence around a small yard of sensitive technologies that it doesn't want China to access. “Our Chinese friends complain regularly the yard is growing daily,” Hass, a China policy expert with the Brookings Institution, said during the Aug. 13 Dollar & Sense podcast hosted by the think tank. “It's not that small anymore.”
Hass said he recently spoke with a “Chinese counterpart” who “noted that there are now around 1,300 sanctions in place against Chinese entities and individuals, and he suggested that 700 of those 1,300 have been implemented in the Biden administration.” This implied “that the Biden administration may say soothing words, but their actions tell a different story,” Hass said.
“What we are saying is not being taken at face value by our Chinese counterparts,” he said. “I listen to our Chinese counterparts, and what I hear them telling me and many of us is that the derisking is really just a polite term for decoupling.”
Hass said some in China think “there is an issue of sincerity” in the country’s relationship with the U.S., and that the government’s “overall intentions” are to “undermine China's growth and hobble its rise.” The U.S. needs to take China’s concerns “seriously,” Hass said, “because they are a reflection of the degree of unease and discomfort that Beijing seems to have with the direction of American policy.”
He added that this issue may not be “reconcilable” in the short-term, adding that the U.S. seems unlikely to shift its approach to export controls, sanctions and investment restrictions anytime soon. The U.S. in October released a sweeping set of export restrictions designed to cut off advanced semiconductor shipments and services to China (see 2210070049), and last week issued its long-awaited executive order that will lead to new outbound investment restrictions on three advanced technology sectors in China (see 2308090066).
“The question that I think that we all have to face is whether both sides will be able to manage this friction better going forward in order to collaborate amidst competition,” Hass said, “or whether or not this intensifying friction is going to come to dominate and define the relationship overall.”