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By PHELIM KINE
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Hi, China Watchers. Today we introduce Taiwan's new top diplomatic envoy to the U.S and kick the tires on the counternarcotics agreement that President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping inked in San Francisco earlier this month. We'll also unpack the prospects for U.S.-China cooperation at the United Nations COP28 climate conference opening today in Dubai and say goodbye to Henry Kissinger. And with an eye to those climate talks we profile a book that warns on how China's dam building spree on the Mekong River is leading to environmental disaster.
Let's get to it. — Phelim
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Alexander Tah-ray Yui is all smiles about becoming Taiwan's new top envoy to the U.S. | Taipei Representative Office in the EU and Belgium |
Mr. Yui comes to Washington
Meet Taiwan's new top diplomatic envoy to the U.S — Alexander Tah-ray Yui.
Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday appointed Yui, currently the self-governing island's top diplomat in the European Union, to fill the post in Washington vacated last week by Bi-khim Hsiao. Tsai picked Deputy Foreign Minister Roy Chun Lee to replace Yui in Brussels.
Hsiao left the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office to accept Vice President Lai Ching-te's offer to be his running mate in his bid for the island's presidency. Hsiao and Lai are now hot on the campaign trail in a race against rival candidates from the opposition KMT (Nationalist) Party and the upstart Taiwan People's Party.
Yui's qualifications for the Washington job include efforts to promote "trilateral exchanges between Taiwan, the United States and Latin America" and to boost Taiwan's "contacts and connections with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries in the Americas," said a Taiwan presidential office statement.
In and out. Yui's appointment comes just five months since Tsai appointed him to be the island's top representative in the EU and only two months since he landed in Brussels. During his stint there Yui pushed for a Taiwan-EU trade agreement and made the case for Taiwan as "a thriving democracy that should be preserved."
From the Americas to America. Prior to his EU role Yui served as vice foreign minister with responsibility for Taiwan's relations with Latin America. That was a hardship posting — Beijing has successfully wooed Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Panama out of Taipei's diplomatic orbit since Tsai took office in 2016.
Holding pattern.The Presidential office didn't specify when Yui will arrive in Washington to take up the island's most important and demanding diplomatic posting. Deputy Representative Robin Cheng is temporarily covering that top job, according to a statement from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office
Diplomatic cliffhanger. The absence of a top Taiwanese diplomat in Washington at a time of high tensions with China across the Taiwan Strait is "unprecedented and problematic," a former Taiwanese government official told China Watcher. A caretaker TECRO chief representative "doesn't get the access that the appointed representative does — title and position determine everything in diplomacy," said the former official, who was granted anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak on the record.
Those concerns may be overblown. A vacant top envoy slot "shouldn't be a problem as we know that Taiwan and the U.S. have very good communication now. …I personally don't think there would be too many difficulties in terms of Taiwan-U.S cooperation," said Lin Fei-fan, former deputy secretary general of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
Sorry, Joseph! Yui's appointment dashes widespread speculation that Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, who previously served as the island's Washington envoy from 2007-2008, would be Hsiao's successor. "Joseph Wu wants the job — in Taiwan, the role of ambassador to the U.S. is actually more prominent than the Minister of Foreign Affairs," said Eric Huang, former Washington-based representative for the KMT and currently an Edward Mason Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School. TECRO didn't respond to a request for comment on Wu's possible candidacy for the position.
Hsiao's still around. Until Yui lands in Washington, expect Hsiao to retain an influential role in U.S.-Taiwan relations. "They might keep Hsiao as the person behind the scenes — the deputy representative will run the show on the front but Hsiao will still be the person managing the relationship," said Jason Hsu, former KMT legislator-at-large.
That fragile U.S.-China counternarcotics cooperation
President Joe Biden exited his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping earlier this month touting a breakthrough: a revival of counternarcotics cooperation to address China's role in the U.S. opioid overdose epidemic. The Biden administration says the deal is already reaping results. "Because of our diplomacy, China has taken steps to shut down companies dealing in chemicals used to make fentanyl," Biden tweeted last week. The White House didn't respond to a request for details about those alleged shutdowns.
Beijing's messaging on the agreement has been more ambiguous. Chinese state media has only reported that Biden and Xi agreed to create a "working group on counternarcotics cooperation." Beijing has made no mention of official action against Chinese firms linked to fentanyl precursor chemical exports to Mexico that cartels process into synthetic opioids that end up on the streets of American cities. Chinese authorities "will earnestly act on the common understandings reached by the two heads of state, work closely with the U.S. anti-drug authorities on the basis of equality and reciprocity to jointly combat transnational drug crimes," said Liu Pengyu, the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington.
What could go wrong? Lots, warns Vanda Felbab-Brown, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology and an expert on Chinese counternarcotics policy.
The "working group" may not work. "Prior iterations have often been just platforms for mutual recrimination," Felbab-Brown said.
It's fragile. Beijing suspended counternarcotics cooperation in 2022 as a reprisal for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Taiwan trip. This deal is also vulnerable to shocks in wider U.S.-China ties. "The next time there is a spy balloon — will that pull the rug out from underneath the cooperation?" said Felbab-Brown.
It's transactional. "Five months down the road, [Beijing] might say 'There is this other issue that matters to us and so we're going to reduce fentanyl cooperation' so that they can ask for some other payoffs," Felbab-Brown said.
Still, it's better than nothing. The counternarcotics deal won't end the U.S. opioid overdose epidemic or halt the flow of precursors from China. But it marks hard-fought diplomatic progress by the Biden administration. "This is better than overtly zero cooperation, absolutely," said Felbab-Brown.
THREE MINUTES WITH…
Joanna Lewis, an associate professor at Georgetown University and an expert on China's climate policies, spoke to China Watcher about what China and the U.S. will bring to the United Nations' climate talks in Dubai.
What is likely to happen at COP?
We're not going to see China announce new Paris treaty-related targets at this COP. Those deadlines come later in the COP process. This is more about the U.S. and China getting on the same page on a bunch of key issues that are going to be key in the COP28 negotiations. We've seen before that if China and the U.S. can get on the same page in advance like they did in the context of the Paris Agreement, it can make the broader negotiation process smoother.
China talks big on renewables and electrical vehicles while also approving the construction of a new generation of coal-fired power plants. What's with that disconnect?
In the [U.S.-China] Sunnylands statement China committed to reduce its emissions from coal power this decade. And some new data coming out of China shows China is building new coal plants but they're also building new renewables. The key is — can the rate at which they're building renewables exceed the rate at which they're building new coal plants? If they do so, it would mean renewables would displace the demand for coal. So they're building these new coal plants, but they're not necessarily going to run them. And they're not releasing emissions if they don't run them.
COP CLASHES WITH DUBAI'S INCONVENIENT TRUTHS: Some 70,000 politicians, climate activists and legions of lobbyists are descending on Dubai for 13 days of climate negotiations, bilateral confabs and some serious networking. Among them: POLITICO's own Suzanne Lynch, who'll be bringing you the Global Playbook direct from COP28.
How many private jets does it take to get the Brits to a climate change conference? The U.K. is facing questions about the fact it chartered three private jets for the climate change summit — one each to ferry King Charles III, PM Rishi Sunak and newly appointed Foreign Minister David Cameron to the talks, Suzanne reports this morning. Read all the juicy details here.
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TRANSLATING WASHINGTON
— CORNYN: MCHENRY KILLS INVESTMENT SCREENING PROVISION: Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview on Wednesday that his proposal to screen U.S. investments in China probably won't make it into the annual defense bill, following opposition from House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry.
"It doesn't look like it's going to make it in the NDAA," said Cornyn, who drafted the legislation with Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.). "Patrick McHenry objected." Cornyn said he is talking with Speaker Mike Johnson on passing a related bill that House Foreign Affairs approved in a voice vote Wednesday. POLITICO's Eleanor Mueller has the full story here.
— GALLAGHER: UAE A CHINESE MILITARY 'ENABLER': Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House Select Committee on China, is warning that United Arab Emirates' advanced technology cooperation with China poses a potential national security threat. "The UAE can be a massive investor in Chinese AI and because of military-civil fusion in China, the UAE is emerging to become the single largest foreign enabler of Chinese military capabilities — that's a problem in our relationship going forward," Gallagher told reporters Wednesday in reference to a recent New York Times story about the UAE's G42 artificial intelligence company. The UAE embassy in Washington didn't respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Beijing is working with allies and client nations to construct Chinese-built AI ecosystems that could pose global risks if they take root and expand, Bill Drexel and Hannah Kelley argue in a POLITICO magazine opinion piece that will be published soon.
— LAWMAKERS WANT APEC PROTEST VIOLENCE PROBE: The bipartisan Congressional Executive Commission on China wants the San Francisco Police Department to investigate accusations that Beijing may have sponsored pro-CCP groups implicated in violence against anti-Xi Jinping protesters outside of the APEC meeting in San Francisco earlier this month. Those counter-protesters, who attacked demonstrators representing exiled Hong Kong, Uyghur and Hong Kong communities, "may have ties to the Chinese consulate, raising concerns of official Chinese support for these attacks," said commission chair Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and co-chair Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) in a statement published on Tuesday, citing a report by the non-profit advocacy group Human Rights in China. The lawmakers urged the police to "pursue justice as appropriate." The Chinese embassy in Washington declined to comment.
— CAPITOL HILL HOSTILE TO SHEIN'S IPO: The Singapore-based fast-fashion brand Shein's plan for a U.S. stock exchange listing in 2024 is drawing fire on Capitol Hill. The clothing firm's Xinjiang-based supply chains have mired it in controversy for the past year. Shein "should have to prove to American consumers that their products are not sourced from forced labor," Rep. Jennifer Wexton (R-Va.) said in a statement on Tuesday. Banks and investors involved in the listing should "carefully examine Shein's regulatory and compliance programs," said Rep. Mike Gallagher in a statement on Tuesday.
Shein said in a statement that only 1.7 percent of its cotton is from "unapproved" sources and that the firm is "eager to engage and continue to be transparent with all stakeholders, including Representative Wexton and her staff."
TRANSLATING EUROPE
EU CHIEF ON CHINA: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggests Europeans stop imagining China as a global behemoth, citing its many domestic challenges. Speaking to POLITICO Europe Editor-in-Chief Jamil Anderlini on Tuesday, von der Leyen said: "We see a China domestically that is challenged, an aging society, demography; a severe housing crisis; slowing down growth; unexpected unemployment because the young generation leaving university does not find the adequate jobs in the private sector anymore. So quite some challenges domestically."
But she also objected to the notion of a new Cold War, saying: "We fight verbally with each other. We have different opinions, but it is good that we are talking to each other and that we are competing with each other to show what kind of governance brings the best results."
Tackling critical dependencies: "China has bought mine, after mine, after mine, globally, takes the raw material, processes it in China and has the monopoly," she said, just two weeks before heading to Beijing for an EU-China Summit with President Xi and Premier Li Qiang, alongside European Council President Charles Michel.
NATO TALKS QUANTUM AMID CHINA'S CHALLENGE: NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday signed off the alliance's first ever quantum strategy, amid what one senior official described as China's pacing challenge.
U.S.-Europe joint projects: NATO will be setting up a brand new transatlantic quantum community, bringing experts together from the military, private sector, academia and governments. "We still have to agree the modalities for that. But we're going to do that by the end of January, so it's relatively soon," James Appathurai, NATO's Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, told reporters.
Playing catch up with Beijing: China's massive development in quantum is a driving force for NATO to speed up. According to Appathurai, China is already running a quantum-secure communication line from Beijing to Shanghai, as well as a quantum-secure satellite that can communicate from space down to the ground station. But he added there's no sign yet China uses quantum technology militarily.
HOT FROM THE CHINA WATCHERSPHERE
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— CHINA LOSES ITS FAVORITE U.S. DIPLOMAT: Henry Kissinger's death on Wednesday is a "tremendous loss for both our countries and the world," the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, said in a post on the X social media platform. Kissinger's passing came just four months after senior Chinese officials lionized the former diplomat during his final trip to Beijing. Kissinger "has played an irreplaceable role in promoting mutual understanding between the two countries," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in July while hosting Kissinger. Wang lamented the absence of "Kissinger-style diplomatic wisdom and Nixon-style political courage in its China policies." Xi Jinping called Kissinger "an old friend of the Chinese people" when the two met in 2018.
Kissinger earned that praise for his role in leading the normalization of U.S-China relations under President Richard Nixon as part of a strategy to use China as a counterweight against the then-Soviet Union. That process climaxed with Washington dropping its diplomatic ties to Taiwan in favor of Beijing in 1979. Kissinger's cozy relationship with China's authoritarian leaders sustained over a half-century during which bilateral opening and engagement has curdled into mutual suspicion and acrimony over trade, Taiwan, human rights and China's increasingly aggressive posture in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. and China "have a unique ability to bring peace and progress to the world, and they also have a unique ability to destroy the world if they're not together," Kissinger warned in a speech last month at a National Committee on U.S.-China Relations event in New York City last month.
— CHINA DENIES MYANMAR REBEL MILITIA LINKS: Beijing has dismissed allegations that it is supporting powerful ethnic militias that have united with anti-government resistance forces in a military offensive against Myanmar's ruling junta. Myanmar's government permitted a rare protest in front of the Chinese embassy in Yangon over the weekend by demonstrators who accused Beijing of supporting what they called "northern terrorist groups," per Reuters. "Any attempt to sow discord and undermine the friendship between our two countries will not win support or succeed," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said of those allegations on Wednesday.
— REPORT SNEAK PEEK: CHINA'S SANCTIONS CHALLENGE: Any international sanctions to prevent Beijing from a blockade or invasion of Taiwan or other acts of aggression in the Indo-Pacific would have questionable short-term impact and inflict "rebound" damage on the global economy, warns a Center for a New American Security report publishing tomorrow. "Sanctions alone will not deter the PRC from war," said the report. And the U.S. can't do it on its own. "U.S. sanctions will be porous and ineffective if not reinforced by similar actions from other major economies," the report said.
— REPORT: ALLIES WARY OF CONFLICT INVOLVEMENT: The Pentagon can't count on allies and partners to allow unrestricted access to their territory to stage military operations in the event of war with China, a new RAND Corporation report released on Tuesday warns. An analysis of how Japan, Indonesia, India, Philippines and Singapore would respond to such a conflict suggests they "may permit lower-level access but will carefully scrutinize higher-level requests," the report said. Reducing that uncertainty may require "clarifying or expanding security guarantees" to those countries, said the report.
TRANSLATING CHINA
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| Kevin Frayer/Getty Images |
— BIDEN'S 'DICTATOR' JAB HIT HOME: What did Xi Jinping hear when Biden ended his post-Xi meeting press conference earlier this month by calling him a "dictator" again? After all, the preamble to the constitution of the People's Republic of China declares it a "people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class." China's Foreign Ministry felt differently. At a press briefing Mao Ning at China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called that comment "irresponsible political manipulation," (and the ministry excised that reference from its official transcript).
Not lost in translation. Xi has earned the "dictator" epithet by devoting the past decade to tightening his grip on the ruling Chinese Communist Party — complete with a personality cult — that climaxed with him sealing a third term as China's paramount leader in 2022. But China's senior leadership dislikes reminders of their authoritarian rule. "Chinese dictators since [former Chinese leader] Jiang Zemin have despised the word 獨裁者, or 'dictator,' even while embracing the term 無產階級專政 or 'proletarian dictatorship,'" said Perry Link, who teaches at the University of California at Riverside and is an authority on contemporary Chinese politics and intellectual life. Chinese who publicly note the dictatorial nature of their government do so at their peril. Link said the decision of a Chinese court to sentence the late Chinese dissident writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo to an 11-year prison term in 2009 for "subversion of state power" based on six of Liu's articles reflected official anger at their dozens of references to China's leaders as "dictators."
The "D-word" rankles. Xi is likely particularly sensitive to the term given that his rule has provoked public anger due to issues including his highly unpopular "zero-Covid" policy abandoned last year and the challenges of a sputtering economy.
"Biden tried to soften it by saying it just means that the guy presides over a communist system — nothing personal, nothing to see here — but since Xi is under criticism at home for arrogating too much power to himself, Biden’s jibe is perceived as unfriendly," said Andrew J. Nathan, a political science professor at Columbia University and an expert on Chinese elite politics. Xi's saving grace is that China's censorship machine means "few people in China will know that Biden said it," Nathan said.
HEADLINES
New Bloom: Wave of racism sweeps Taiwanese social media over plans to allow for Indian migrant workers
Foreign Policy: Cold and flu season stirs dread in China
The Strategist: The long tail of China's zero-Covid policy
ONE BOOK, THREE QUESTIONS
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Jacket images: Przemyslaw Klos/EyeEm/iStock/Getty Images Plus and Peter Dazeley/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Jacket design by Enterline Design Services. |
The Book: Last Days of the Mighty Mekong
The Author: Brian Eyler is the director of the Southeast Asia Program and the Energy, Water, and Sustainability Program at the Stimson Center.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
What is the most important takeaway from your book?
So much of what makes the Mekong amazing — home to 20 percent of the world's freshwater fish catch, a refuge for a mosaic of ethnic nationalities, gorgeous natural beauty — is being destroyed by unbridled economic growth and ill-conceived infrastructure projects. But it's not too late to conserve its mightiness.
What was the most surprising thing you learned while writing this book?
I did the math to discover that China's two largest dams on its part of the Mekong hold nearly as much water as the Chesapeake Bay. Those dams wield tremendous power over downstream outcomes and have at times caused massive flash flooding and severely exacerbated climate-induced drought.
What role does China play in these "last days" of the Mekong?
China's responsible for much of the undoing of the Mekong River's ecosystem. The two dams mentioned above have flat-lined the seasonal pulse of the river, creating ghost towns in former fishing villages along Thai-Lao border. It was China's upstream damming in the 2000s which then set off a damming spree in Laos where now more than 100 dams operate with hardly any mitigation for fish migration or consideration to other downstream impacts.
Recently, China has improved its dialogue with downstream countries, but to bring about real change, its dams need to be operated in a way that supports the seasonal pulse of the river.
Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at pkine@politico.com.Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Eleanor Mueller, Jamil Anderlini and digital producers Tara Gnewikow and Dato Parulava. Do you have tips? Chinese-language stories we might have missed? Would you like to contribute to China Watcher or comment on this week’s items? Email us at pkine@politico.com and slau@politico.com.
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