1/n Several people have wondered why I signed this. Forget the headline; the 7 points make sense even if you think of "China" as an enemy.https://wapo.st/325BS4l?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.ef0ab8128d67 …
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2/n The open letter by foreign policy and china scholar community is aimed primarily at US and Trump administration in particular. There is a real danger of across the board demonization of China and Chinese from a racist, populist administration and its supporters.
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3/n State Dept. official Kiron Skinner recently said that while USSR was "within the Western family" now for first time US faces "great power competitor not of the Caucasian race" . . . "a really different civilization." This kind of bs is scary, and will produce bad policy
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4/n Sen Cruz' hearings about China and US academe cast broad aspersions about ALL Chinese scholars in US; new visa restrictions target Chinese students alone; FBI has circulated a threat awareness document and visited US university campuses telling them to watch out for Chinese
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5/n And there are military-industrial complex forces excited about Cold War with China--they were pumping for it before 9-11 even. But many dangers to Cold Warization of the US-China relationship:
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6/n a) decoupling economies a fantasy, and will help no one (I don't deny tech security issues--Huawei is a problem, this is tough); b) Climate change requires collaboration, not confrontation. Think of the process that brought down cost of solar panels.
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7/n We cannot afford a lengthy Cold War, drummed up by politicians using fear of Other to promote themselves--and this is happening in US as well as by CCP.
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8/n That said, the open letter absolutely should have mentioned Xinjiang concentration camps outright, not buried it in a phrase about "repression of ethnic minorities." That's always been the case--now CCP is embarked on fullscale assimilation of Uyghurs, with Tibetans, HKers.
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9/n There is an implication in the open letter that we should rewind to pre-Trump and all will be okay. To be sure, Trump policy to China is the worst: pulling out of TPP was the greatest gift to CCP imaginable. Weakening relations with our allies, pulling out of UN rights
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10/n bodies, all cede the stage to CCP party-state. Tariffs are clumsy, ill-thought out, self-defeating. And despite Pence speech, Trump admin largely silent on human rights. But rewinding to pre-Trump "engagement" not enough
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11/n New US policy towards China needs to place rights and universal values front and center. XJ, Tibet, HK must be prominent: we've seen that sidelining them doesn't help trade. We should give more love to Taiwan: progressive, democratic, dynamic, tolerant.
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12/n If Trump can arbitrarily slap tariffs on 100s of billions of trade goods, and world doesn't end, future presidents, politicians, social, academic and cultural figures can be forthright about XJ, Taiwan, HK etc. Let CCP fulminate. Our answer is values-based: eg :
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13/n "we like Taiwan. they show a modern expression of sinic culture, but don't feel the need to throw minorities in concentration camps, cut their people off from the world or build Orwellian surveillance systems."
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End of conversation
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