Friday News Roundup — January 13, 2023
Greetings from Washington and happy Friday the 13th. Horror movies often mean sequels, and we’re getting one when it comes to a scandal over the handling of classified documents. There are significant differences in scope and handling of the materials compared to last year’s raid on Mar-a-Lago. Yet, yesterday’s announcement by Attorney General Merrick Garland that U.S. Attorney Robert Hur would be appointed special counsel tells us that this scandal is not going away — and House Republicans stand ready and eager to investigate.
Where the administration would like the focus to be is on this week’s foreign policy accomplishments. Today, President Biden is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, as both nations announce further reorientation towards the China competition and deepen the critical U.S.-Japan alliance. Earlier in the week, President Biden made his first trip to Mexico as president for a trilateral meeting with Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The agenda included discussions on orderly and lawful migration, fighting international criminal activity, and strengthening the three nations’ economies. In economic news, inflation appears to be slowing but risks of global recession still loom particularly for Europe and Latin America.
Where there bipartisan agreement does remain is in terms of the competition with China, where the House voted 365–65 to standup the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, to be chaired by Wisconsin Republican Mike Gallagher.
On Saturday, Joshua C. Huminski, the Director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs, published his list of 15 books to look forward to in the first half of 2023 for the Diplomatic Courier. With books on Russia, Ukraine, technology, and more, there year ahead in reading looks to be a good one.
Huminski also published his review of “Spies and Lies” by Alex Joske with George Mason University’s National Security Institute. A deeply researched look at China’s Ministry of State Security and its influence operations, Joske shows how Beijing used the think tank community’s openness to advance its propaganda and influence would-be policymakers.
In this week’s roundup Dan Mahaffee looks at some of China’s policy changes with near-term optimism but strategic skepticism. Robert Gerber covers how the North America summit addressed friendshoring opportunities. Ethan Brown explores how war games about Taiwan tell us about potential conflict outcomes. Veera Parko provides an update on how Finnish schools are teaching pupils resilience. With Prime Minister Kishida now in Washington, Hidetoshi Azuma looks at what the Prime Minister just accomplished in meeting with his counterpart Rishi Sunak in London. We wrap with news you may have missed.
China’s ‘Shift’ Deserves Caution
Dan Mahaffee
Since the waning weeks of 2022 into the new year, we have seen significant shifts in rhetoric and policy from Beijing. While these shifts span from ending COVID zero to economic policies to a changed diplomatic tenor, the strategic underpinnings appear to remain the same. While the tone may be changing, certain realities remain unchanged as we balance the pressure to secure critical technologies and supply chains, while understanding continued economic interdependence.
Most notable in China’s policy shifts has been the shift in the COVID zero strategy, with the dismantling of the testing infrastructure, rules, and digital and physical barriers. Combined with a more accommodating approach to tech companies and the real estate markets — previous engines of economic growth that had fallen afoul of Xi Jinping’s regulatory policies — we can infer that the economic damage of the combination of COVID policies and harsher economic regulation were having a serious economic impact. Combined with the multilateral effort led by Washington to choke China’s high tech industries, Beijing has also appeared to tone down the wolf warrior diplomacy. The new foreign minister, formerly Ambassador to the United States, has spoken of his fondness of the United States, while China has embarked upon a diplomatic charm offensive in Europe. Beijing’s message has mainly been one of continued economic engagement, appeals to a European sense of strategic autonomy from Washington, and a suggestion that Beijing can play a moderating role in the War in Ukraine and, perhaps, in the costly reconstruction of Ukraine to come.
As noted, many of these U-turns have come about from the economic cost of the policies, as well as a growing sense of isolation that weighed on Chinese elites, business leaders, and the broader public. If we were able to see protests on the streets, it would be fascinating to know what signals of discontent were reaching the highest echelons of Chinese leadership through official and unofficial channels. Beyond the acute pain of COVID zero, and now the humanitarian toll of rapid reopening, the Chinese people face growing youth unemployment, uncertainty about the value of their real estate assets (many families’ generational wealth), and uncertainty about the post-reopening future. Handling the expectations and demand of a post-lockdown China may be as challenging for the party as managing the lockdown itself.
Still, despite these significant challenges, Xi Jinping has consolidated power. Even if there were to be opposition to his policies, the idea of the fragmentation of the party leadership seems unlikely. Factionalism seems unlikely given how Xi can wield the party discipline and anti-corruption bodies to eliminate rivals. Similarly unchanged are the priorities and policies regarding the development of domestic strategic technologies, civil-military fusion, and compelled cooperation between tech companies and the international intelligence/domestic repression apparatus.
Business leaders in the United States and Japan have already begun to evaluate how to shift their supply chains away from China, seek alternatives, and work with governments to ensure that export controls and technology protections remain focused and targeted to address strategically critical technologies — not supply chains for basic, commoditized items. China established its role in global supply chains not through individual factories, but the entire ecosystem of robust infrastructure, a network of sub-suppliers, and a cheap workforce — as well as a willingness (or government’s blind eye) to tolerate the societal and environmental costs that the west would not. As policymakers and business leaders look to move and friendshore supply chains (as Robert discusses further below) we have to remember that it took decades to build these supply chains, and reorienting them is not like playing a game of “Sim City.”
As we craft policy, the complex dynamics simultaneous U.S.-China economic interdependence, military competition, and tech Cold War continue to play out. Of note this week was the bipartisan creation of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Communist Party of China. There is a need for a bipartisan, strategic approach to U.S.-China policymaking. The Committee has the opportunity to craft policies that reflect the complexity of the current situation. Technology policies will have to continue to carefully focus on the critical technology chokepoints — and coordination with allies — while avoiding unintended economic consequences that make Washington, not Beijing, the disruptive actor. Similarly, the lawmakers should find that working with allies and partners to build military and intelligence capacity across domains is as important as coordinating economic security policies and tools of economic statecraft. Witness how much effort expended by the administration to get Japan and the Netherlands on board with the most recent export controls. For future measures to be effective, they will have to be as well-coordinated among our allies. Finally, the committee can work to educate the American people, and the world, on the magnitude of the competition and the need for the strategic response.
While Xi remains in control, his approach to politics, the military, and the economy remain paramount. For too long, China did not feel the consequences of its more aggressive, exploitative behaviors. Now that has changed, and so too Beijing’s approach changes. It comes too late for the Uyghurs, for Hong Kong, and we hope that it will never be too late for Taiwan. Our response must be nuanced as well, emphasizing that while China is the current disruptor — despite softer rhetoric. We must also continue to emphasize that there is a valuable and important role for China to play on the economic and geopolitical stages — even though this term as fallen out of fashion, as a “responsible stakeholder.” Above all, I again suggest that we remind ourselves to avoid the temptation to “out-China, China.”
North American Allyshoring
Robert W. Gerber
Media coverage of the January 10 “North American Leaders Summit” in Mexico focused largely on efforts to mitigate the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. A record number of illegal crossings (the White House calls it irregular migration) took place in 2022, causing strain on receiving communities across the United States and political liabilities for Democrats who had pledged a more humane immigration policy but ended up with a humanitarian crisis. Transnational crime including illegal fentanyl smuggling has also surged. Nevertheless, the White House fact sheet issued after the summit listed trilateral commitments on economic cooperation above deliverables pertaining to migration and border security. Non-binding economic commitments include a three-country mapping exercise for critical minerals resources — which are the building blocks for green technologies — and the creation of a trilateral semiconductor industry forum “to adapt government policies and increase investment in semiconductor supply chains across North America.” Leaders also committed to boost skills training for the semiconductor industry across North America.
These commitments could be another indication that the Administration intends to implement the CHIPS and Science Act in a manner that invites — or at least does not rule out — sourcing from Mexico and Canada. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the September 2022 U.S.-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue (HLED) that the CHIPS Act would help develop resilient semiconductor supply chains in North America. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters at the HLED that “while the law’s funding will supercharge the U.S. semiconductor industry, it will also create significant opportunities for Mexico.” The primary goal of the CHIPS Act is to boost semiconductor production within the United States, but involving partners in Mexico and Canada would reduce costs and speed program implementation. (Note: Labor costs in Mexico are currently lower than labor costs in China). The Leaders Summit commitments could also help Mexico and Canada benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA’s tax breaks on electric vehicles require that EV battery components and the critical minerals therein must be sourced within the United States or “in any country with which the United States has a free trade agreement in effect.” This of course includes USMCA signatories Mexico and Canada. Furthermore, the supply chain commitments reached at the Leaders Summit could foreshadow elements of a future Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). The IPEF goals include promoting secure supply chains including for semiconductor production. The next step will be to see if the Administration provides resources to implement the January 11 commitments and whether the authors of the CHIPS Act and the IRA will raise any concerns about the President’s offers to Mexico and Canada. Ultimately, anything that helps the United States and its like-minded democratic trading partners reduce dependency on Chinese supplies of critical minerals and semiconductors is on its face a good thing. And boosting legitimate commerce with Mexico will alleviate some of the economic pressures that are contributing to the border crisis.
Nearshoring to Mexico is well underway. Multinationals like Mattel and GM have announced new factories. FDI and production rates have both surpassed pre-COVID levels in Mexico. In terms of semiconductors, Mexico produced 11.6% of the world’s semiconductor supply in 2018, with a total value of $721 million. Mexico’s integrated automotive manufacturing base creates a strong business case for increasing local semiconductor production. The Mexican government announced in 2022 it would work with the United States “to carry out a pilot program to determine the feasibility of bringing semiconductor input production centers closer together and reduce risks of future disruptions in supply chains.” The Ministry of Economy recently signed a collaboration agreement with Intel Mexico that committed to strengthening the semiconductor supply chain and training of Mexican talent. However, it will be hard to displace semiconductor manufacturing in Asia, as a Brookings Institution report points out. To become America’s vibrant nearshoring hub, Mexico needs to address domestic shortcomings in infrastructure, rule of law/governance, and skills. And even with production shifting to Mexico, many inputs will still come from Asia.
What war games tell us about the next conflict
Ethan Brown
Last week, the CSIS concluded a tabletop event that pitted China’s PLA forces against a U.S.-Japan-Taiwan coalition in a mockup of China’s seemingly inevitable seizure of the independent democratic island.
The short version of the predicted outcome: China fails to take Taiwan, repelled by a combination of that coalition of forces and most importantly, a presumed stalwart resistance by the Taiwanese people in the capital. However, this successful deterrence comes at a gravely high cost (more on that below).
Curiously, this tabletop exercise produced a strikingly alternative outcome than the Air Force simulation which our colleague James Kitfield recounted in 2021 for Yahoo News: “we’re going to lose, fast.” For this roundup, the following analysis will briefly glance over the sequences and methodologies of both exercises, and then expound on the military functionality of these events.
The important thing to note is that the results of these simulated events are really not important. They tell role players and strategic planners what may happen, or how dominoes in the most unpredictable game ever played — warfare — might fall based on decision matrices. The DoD and our security partners don’t use these types of exercises for their predictive value. Rather, these are employed as a tool for anticipating where our vulnerabilities lie, so as to better allocate resources. On the one hand, as the 2021 exercise portends, it is a particularly gloomy outlook. For this recent simulation, the U.S. and her allies win. Neither prediction can be cited as likely or factual.
“We’re going to lose fast”
The 2021 war game chaired by the United States Air Force was heavily influenced by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the opening ‘salvo’ of this conflict being a biological weapon released by China, targeting U.S. installations across the Pacific, a major military exercise serving as cover for a forward deployment to seize Taiwan, and a rainfall of long-range missiles on bases and warships to prevent the rapid reaction capabilities from counter-attacking in the Taiwan Strait. That biological attack was based on real-world events: the port-grounding of the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt due to COVID outbreaks. In another real-world parallel to wargaming, in September of 2020, when the simulation was taking place, a Chinese PLA Air Force sorties overflew sovereign airspace boundaries over Taiwan, simulating attacks of their own, as well as simulated attacks on Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, as well as the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, by then returned to duty in the South China Sea.
The combination of illegal acts of aggression (the biological attack), diverse combined arms attacks on key infrastructure and bases, and the rapid isolation and deployment of forces in Taiwan was a clear, striking, and disparaging “L” for American defense and security interests in the region. This result was not even a new or emerging trend; Lt. General Clinton Hinote, then-deputy chief of staff for the Air Forces strategy, integration and requirements office, told Yahoo News in an exclusive interview that war games in 2018 had already concluded a similar result: “At that point the trend in our war games was not just that we were losing, but we were losing faster,” Hinote said. “After the 2018 war game I distinctly remember one of our gurus of war gaming standing in front of the Air Force secretary and chief of staff, and telling them that we should never play this war game scenario [of a Chinese attack on Taiwan] again, because we know what is going to happen.
“The definitive answer if the U.S. military doesn’t change course is that we’re going to lose fast. In that case, an American president would likely be presented with almost a fait accompli.”
These findings boil down to a simple premise (or as simple as this space can accommodate for such complex policy analysis): that the People’s Liberation Army and their CCP overlords studied how America made its war in Iraq and Afghanistan — expeditionary, forward-staging of troops dependent on supply lines and air and space domain dominance — and has spent decades modernizing, evolving and adapting their defense capabilities to defeat that paradigm through denial, speed, and overwhelming defensive advantage in domains that the U.S. did not prioritize in warfare (cyber, non-kinetic, information, political, and patient expansion).
“All sides would pay a heavy price”
On the first turn, the United States loses a $13 billion aircraft carrier, along with more than 700 aircraft, and countless lives as Chinese ground forces contended with a stark resistance from the Taiwanese defense forces. On a tabletop map depicting the Western reaches of the Pacific, active duty personnel, strategy experts, and academic authorities pored over set pieces in blue (friendly) and red (enemy) set pieces. And of all the things that made my gamer heart feel fuzzy, instances of chance and circumstance were dedicated by a roll of the d20 — the twenty-sided die made famous for its similar role in tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons — where role players would maneuver forces across this Pacific theater and roll the die to determine an outcome. Warfare, unfortunately, very much comes down to unpredictable circumstances and strange events. Sometimes, especially in combat, it is truly better to be lucky than good.
Eventual rolls of the dice, strategic force maneuvering, and a tremendous deal of bloodshed and heroic resistance by the Taiwanese resulted in Chinese invasion forces being bogged down, long enough for a combined task force of American and Japanese warships to erode China’s Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD), regain domain and battlespace superiority, and eventual attrit those invading forces to the point of retraction.
There were other iterations of this scenario, some involving Taiwan-alone, which failed utterly. But in every other instance, the U.S. and its partners — eventually — win out.
Lessons learned and future planning
Both exercises provide critical glimpses of the lessons learned and key indicators of this impending conflict, one which many strategic experts and military thinkers cite as the single most critical and volatile flash point in the future.
First, the United States and its allies simply are not equipped with the right type of arsenal to win fast, which is why the Army has shifted focus to long-range precision fires, and why the Air Force was more than happy to publicly announce the roll-out of the new B-21 Raider long-range bomber. It’s why the Marines have fully committed to its Force Concept 2030, making its forces less about countering small insurgencies, and more about island-hopping with enough firepower and barrel-chested freedom fighters to go toe-to-toe with any adversary. Except in the latter simulation, Marines never once made it to the shores of Taiwan. Aircraft carriers proved wholly vulnerable and easy targets for Chinese long-range weapons (much to Alfred Thayer Mahan’s dismay from the grave). And Chinese air defense proved so dense, that it takes weeks (in game timelines) before American and allied weapons can be brought to bear, which do eventually degrade Chinese maritime, logistic and land forces to in-operable status on the island.
But these capabilities, scenarios, guesswork, and rolls of the dice come down to a few very important variables: the will of the Chinese invaders to sustain losses in an indefensible gambit — let’s call it Xi Jinping’s Ukraine — and the will of Taiwan’s defense forces and people to resist in the name of self-determination.
No matter the ‘positive’ outcome, the blow from this conflict will set American force projection and global influence back decades. The loss of multiple carrier strike groups, air forces, personnel and logistics is scarcely conceivable, especially after the United States has spent nearly a year funding and resourcing another strategic-level conflict in Ukraine. The Taiwan flashpoint may not even be China’s ambitions on a geo-political vector, at least not with any realistic intent to secure the independent island back into its own clutches. Rather, the point may be the much more long-term vision of Beijing hegemony. Taking Taiwan isn’t the goal, eroding American global influence through a long-term strategy, however, is.
Ensuring American and allied deterrence — inducing costs higher than Beijing is willing to pay before conflict — is the only option for avoiding this strategic, centurial setback, is how American defense and security planners need to start thinking, and continue to adapt as force shaping vectors.
Finland´s schools build resilience against misinformation
Veera Parko
This week, the New York Times published an article about Finland´s approach to building resilience against mis- and disinformation. The country recently ranked 1st in the Media Literacy Index conducted by the Open Society Institute– for the fifth time in a row.
In the Finnish education system, media literacy is part of the national core curriculum starting in preschool. From an early age, children are taught how to spot fake news and check facts from different sources. This builds resilience against misinformation, from state-sponsored propaganda related to the war in Ukraine to coronavirus conspiracy theories. High trust in government, quality of teachers and the education system in general, and, admittedly, a language only spoken by about 5.5 million people contributed to Finland´s success in the survey.
Building resilience against misinformation in today´s digitalized world can be a complicated task, especially with young people using social media as their primary source of information. According to a Finnish teacher interviewed by the New York Times, vulnerability to misinformation can be linked to “poorer reading skills and shorter attention spans”. At the same time Finnish children use smart phones from an early age — and are very skilled at using them. Even more reason to start media literacy education already in kindergarten. A media-literate, aware population is the backbone of a resilient society, able to withstand both internal and external threats. But as the example of Finland shows, succeeding in countering misinformation takes a long-term, whole-of society approach and a conscious decision to invest in “mental resilience”.
Japan Brings Britain Back into the Indo-Pacific Fray
Hidetoshi Azuma
A seachange in the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific occurred this week as British prime minister Rishi Sunak and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida signed a historic bilateral defense agreement. The UK-Japan Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) inked at the majestic Tower of London on January 11 would boost bilateral logistical cooperation in an effort to unify the two leading sea powers in the Western Hemisphere against the rise of continental authoritarianism led by Russia and China. The real significance of this new diplomatic deal is Japan’s fateful decision to commit itself to the emerging Anglo-American liberal world order, or Pax Anglo-Americana by bringing Britain back into the growing great power competition in the Indo-Pacific. For the first time in world history, the world’s three foremost sea powers, the US, the UK, and Japan are now looking to rule the waves of the Indo-Pacific with significant implications for the future global balance of power.
The UK-Japan RAA underscores Tokyo’s sifting perspective on alliance. Traditionally, alliance meant the US-Japan alliance which entered into force in 1952 largely as a continuation of the Allied occupation of postwar Japan under General Douglas MacArthur. The US-Japan alliance therefore long served the dual-purpose of supporting Washington’s hub-and-spokes alliance network and maintaining pro-US politics in Tokyo. The upshot was Japan’s lingering culture of security minimalism further consolidated by its own pacifist constitution. Yet, perceived US disengagement, especially beginning in the Obama administration’s policy of restraint vis-a-vis the Syrian civil war in the early 2010s, gradually drove Tokyo to rethink its position as a spoke of the US-Japan alliance. The solution which emerged was that Japan itself would become a hub and augment the existing US-Japan alliance framework.
Such renewed thinking initially spawned the Quadrilateral Defense Dialogue (Quad) framework as a part of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific. Quad was originally the slain former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s idea from his first term in 2006–7 and gained currency with the Trump administration’s adoption of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy. The Quad framework evolved into an institutionalized format, leading to the rise of the Japan-India 2+2 dialogue and the Quad Summit among the four member states. The burgeoning Indo-Pacific regional cooperation culminated in the signing of the Australia-Japan RAA in January 2022. By early 2022, Japan had already been leading the regional sea power coalition with itself being a major hub of all relations.
Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine beginning in February 2022 exposed the structural flaw of the Quad framework, namely India. India’s policy of strategic ambiguity toward Russia revealed the inherent perception gaps within the regional sea power coalition Tokyo had been organizing. Indeed, India’s Quad membership is largely a product of its geopolitical rivalry with China, and its status as a sea power is even questionable despite its democratic politics and aircraft carriers. In other words, New Delhi fundamentally views its participation in the Quad as a geostrategic expedient to check China rather than to promote the liberal world order, the very raison d’etre of sea powers as argued by US naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan.
The silver lining in the Quad’s growing internal division was that it drove Tokyo to pivot to Britain as a boost to the regional sea power coalition increasingly overshadowed by the continental authoritarianism of Eurasia. In fact, Japan’s “Look West” policy occurred at a time Britain was demonstrating unrivaled commitment to the defense of the beleaguered liberal world order with its robust support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Britain’s actions underscored the rise of the liberal Pax Anglo-Americana replacing the unipolar Pax-Americana which emerged after the Cold War. This had significant implications for the Indo-Pacific given Britain’s historical influence in the region.
Indeed, history is the key to understanding Britain’s potential in the Indo-Pacific. The British sea power once ruled the waves across what today is known as the Indo-Pacific. Despite the torment of colonialism, British influence continues to remain palpable from India to Singapore. Britain even sponsored Japan’s Meiji Restoration in 1868 and subsequent modernization with its unrivaled reach and access to technologies. The British Empire and the Japanese Empire ultimately formed an alliance in 1902 in the face of Russia’s impending aggression in the Far East, laying the foundation for the ascendancy of the Japanese sea power over the Eurasian land power. Long before Imperial Japan assaulted Southeast Asia during WWII and the US fought a long war in Vietnam, Britain had already been in the Indo-Pacific since the 18th century and transformed the region into a vast theater of maritime activities. In other words, Britain is the original Indo-Pacific power. Such was the growing consensus within Tokyo’s national security establishment especially following Russia’s renewed war in Ukraine.
Japan’s budding semi-alliance with Britain would undoubtedly contribute to the regional consolidation of the emerging Pax-Anglo-Americana. Indeed, Britain’s return to the Indo-Pacific would mean the emergence of a regional coalition consisting of three of the world’s leading sea powers. Such a new reality would provide an overarching regional framework transcending the patchwork of the Quad coalition hastily organized in the face of China’s growing maritime ambitions. The trilateral sea power coalition would fundamentally focus on promoting the liberal world order rather than mere military imperatives driven by China’s aggressive behaviors.
To be sure, a truly Indo-Pacific trilateral sea power coalition is still a remote possibility but is now beginning to reveal its contours as Kishida has left London and arrived in Washington today. The task is monumental for Japan as it requires additional reforms of its national security posture, particularly intelligence capabilities. Yet, its fateful decision to commit itself to the emerging Pax-Anglo-Americana would pay enormous dividends over time. Indeed, history reminds Japan that its prewar predecessor’s grand strategic error was its decision to decouple itself from the Anglo-American liberal order in the Pacific which emerged as a result of the Four Power Treaty and the Nine Power Treaty signed at the Washington Naval Conference in 1922. In this sense, the fate of today’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific is truly left up to Japan’s actions, and bringing Britain back into the regional fray was a sound geostrategic move in the right direction.
News You May Have Missed
South African Police Investigating Allegations Power CEO was Poisoned
Eskom, the South African state run power monopoly, announced that police are investigating the suspected poisoning of Andre de Ruyter, the outgoing CEO. De Ruyter fell ill after drinking coffee suspected to have been poisoned with cyanide. De Ruyter has led efforts to reform the failing power company, which is rife with corruption and organized crime.
Connecticut Family Accommodates Bear Hibernating Under Deck
A Connecticut couple who found a black bear hibernating under their deck have decided to let the bear, now named “Marty”, remain there. They noticed the bear when their dog became agitated near the deck, but wildlife officials advised that the bear could remain if non-threatening. Of course, Marty now has an Instagram and TikTok account.
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.