Decoding transatlantic relations with Beijing.

By PHELIM KINE

with STUART LAU

Send tips here | Tweet @PhelimKine or @StuartKLau | Subscribe for free | View in your browser

Hi, China Watchers. Today we track the furor over a U.S. diplomatic trip to Beijing on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, preview a new China-focused House task force and probe the partisan divide of congressional China-related tweets. And we profile a book that warns that Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping has fostered a “sense of destiny” about China’s rise that will complicate U.S.-China relations long after he leaves the scene.

Let’s get to it. — Phelim

Photo by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Lawmakers lambaste Kritenbrink’s June 4 Beijing trip

Some GOP lawmakers are furious that assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink traveled to Beijing on the 34th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Massacre.

The Chinese government’s decision to crush peaceful pro-democracy protests in Beijing on that date with tanks and heavily armed troops, killing thousands of unarmed civilians, has become an international symbol of authoritarian brutality. Chinese police marked the day with a massive police presence on and around Tiananmen Square in central Beijing while police detained 32 people who tried to commemorate the anniversary in Hong Kong.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement on June 3 marking the anniversary. But a State Department readout of Kritenbrink and National Security Council senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran’s meetings in Beijing on Monday makes no mention of it. “While in Beijing, the assistant secretary raised human rights in his meetings,” said a State Department spokesperson, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

That’s not enough for GOP lawmakers.

The timing of the trip “is an outrage. … There must have been a late night of celebratory toasts inside the Central Propaganda Department when the State officials landed,” said Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House Select Committee on China.

“Unless it was to commemorate the Tiananmen Square massacre, assistant secretary Kritenbrink should not have gone to Beijing,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

The administration disagrees. Criticism of the timing of Kritenbrink and Beran’s Beijing trip is “making a whole heck of a lot out of nothing,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday.   

Kirby’s comments have triggered a letter from Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Chris Smith (R-N.J.) demanding that Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan clarify why Kritenbrink’s Beijing trip coincided with June 4. 

New congressional task force targets China in the South Pacific

The House Committee on Natural Resources launched a task force on Wednesday targeting China’s growing influence in the South Pacific.

The task force — led by committee chair Bruce Westerman and ranking member Raúl M. Grijalva — will focus on the U.S. territories of Guam, Northern Marianas and American Samoa as well as the countries of Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands that already fall under the committee’s supervision.

Those three South Pacific nations have longtime security pacts with the U.S. that give it the right to deny outsiders access to those two country’s waters, airspace and land. The treaties in turn obligate the U.S. to provide Palau a host of government services, financial assistance and rights of visa-free migration. The Biden administration extended those strategic agreements with Micronesia and Palau last month and is negotiating a similar deal with Marshall Islands.

The genesis of the task force was a House Intelligence Committee briefing earlier this year that spooked both Westerman and Grijalva. After that briefing “we decided on a bipartisan basis to create a task force to focus on American sovereignty and Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” Westerman told China Watcher on Wednesday. The task force “will help craft policy going forward and strengthen our position in this region” and cease operations at the end of 2023.

THREE MINUTES WITH …

Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros of the opposition Citizens Action Party is in Washington this week for meetings with Philippine-American organizations. She spoke to China Watcher about the implications of closer U.S.-Philippine ties under President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos. 

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

How do you rate President Marcos’ pivot away from China and back toward the U.S.?

It’s a first small step in what I think is the right direction. At least he’s pivoting the Philippines away from an almost exclusive prioritization of relations with Beijing toward the rest of the world again. This pivot will raise expectations of raising related values like democratization, human rights and ecological advocacy. It’s not just a contest between the US and China — these other human values are important.

The U.S. is ramping up its military ties with the Philippines — what else should the Biden administration do to improve bilateral relations?

We shouldn’t go back to business as usual and the old geopolitical arrangements. If we’re saying that the U.S. is our ally, especially against Chinese aggression, then we want to be a part of that community of shared values in establishing a rules-based order in the whole South China Sea with peaceful, political and diplomatic conflict resolution methods, including around Taiwan and the West Philippine Sea.

TRANSLATING WASHINGTON

— ASKING SUNAK TO HELP JIMMY LAI: A pair of lawmakers have an agenda item for President Joe Biden’s meeting with visiting U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today: freedom for Jimmy Lai. Lai is the pro-democracy former Apple Daily newspaper publisher imprisoned in Hong Kong on a politically-motivated fraud conviction and facing charges for “colluding with foreign forces.” The two leaders should leverage “the extraordinary U.S.-U.K. alliance on behalf of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners,” Rep. Chris Smith and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), co-chairs of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said in a letter to Sunak on Wednesday.

— BLINKEN BEIJING-BOUND?: Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing in the coming weeks, CBS News reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources. A State Department official, granted anonymity to describe a sensitive issue, told POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi that there are ongoing efforts to reschedule Blinken’s trip, but that the details are not yet final. “China is open to have dialogues with the U.S. side,” Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement. One of the goals of this week’s trip to Beijing by Kritenbrink and Beran “was to make sure the lines of communication remain open and to talk about the potential for future visits, higher-level visits,” Kirby, the NSC spokesperson, said on Tuesday.

— CAMPBELL FRETS U.S.-CHINA COMMS DEFICIT: Beijing’s freeze on U.S.-China senior military-to-military contacts undermines efforts to create mechanisms to “prevent miscalculation” in the Indo-Pacific, the National Security Council’s Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Wednesday. “The Chinese have concluded consultation mechanisms and hotlines with a number of countries including in Southeast Asia. We believe those mechanisms should also be constructed and engaged in actively and sincerely with the United States,” Campbell said at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “China and the U.S. maintain necessary communication,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in response on Wednesday.

— LAWMAKER BEMOANS ‘REACTIONARY’ APPROACH TO CHINA: Widespread perceptions in Washington of China as an imminent danger to national security is hampering lawmakers’ ability to develop an enduring and mutually beneficial relationship with Beijing in the “post-9/11 world,” Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) said on Tuesday. “So much of the conversation [about China] on Capitol Hill is very reactionary, in terms of how we’re responding to the latest issue with the latest headline, whether that’s the spy balloon or TikTok,” Kim, a member of the House Select Committee on China, said in a speech at the Brookings Institution. Kim wants a longer term perspective. “Some of the greatest adversaries of our past have now become some of the strongest allies of our present,” Kim said.

TRANSLATING EUROPE

MOST EUROPEANS WOULDN’T BACK U.S. IN CHINA CONFLICT, POLL FINDS: The Biden administration’s wish to shore up the alliance with Europe in anticipation of future conflicts with China was dealt a severe blow on Wednesday. A poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that the majority in every surveyed country want Europe to remain neutral in any U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan. Some 43 percent of Europeans view China as a “necessary partner,” while 35 percent see Beijing as a “rival” or an “adversary,” the report says. “When thinking about China, Europeans do not appear to link it to Europe’s experience of its dependence on Russia and the resulting energy crisis in Europe,” ECFR’s Jana Puglierin and Pawel Zerka write.

Silver lining for Washington: However, the report shows that if Beijing decided to deliver ammunition and weapons to Russia, more Europeans than not (41 percent vs. 33 percent) would be ready to sanction China. Respondents were also opposed to the prospect of Chinese ownership of key European infrastructure, such as bridges or ports (65 percent), tech companies (52 percent) and newspapers in their country (58 percent), Jakob Hanke Vela and Nicolas Camut report.

U.K. TO BAN CHINESE CAMERAS: British government departments will have to remove all surveillance equipment made by Chinese companies covered by Beijing’s National Security Law — such as Hikvision and Dahua — under a new Cabinet Office plan. It will create a National Security Procurement Unit and publish a timeline for the removal of cameras produced by such firms from “sensitive central government sites.” Cabinet Office Minister Jeremy Quin said the measures would “protect our sensitive sectors from companies which could threaten national security and are a firm deterrence to hostile actors who wish to do Britain harm.” However, China critics in parliament, such as Iain Duncan Smith, say more needs to be done, Eleni Courea reports. 

NO MORE ‘POLICE STATIONS’ IN BRITAIN: U.K. Security Minister Tom Tugendhat reported to lawmakers on Tuesday that all Chinese police stations have “closed permanently” in the country, citing assurance from the Chinese embassy. Tugendhat added that a British police investigation into these stations had not uncovered any illegal activities. 

HOT FROM THE CHINA WATCHERSPHERE

— HK AUTHORITIES SEEK PROTEST SONG BAN: Hong Kong’s government wants the territory’s judiciary to ban the anthem of its pro-democracy movement, “Glory to Hong Kong.” The authorities consider the song — popularized during mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 — as “seditious” and want to criminalize its broadcast, performance, reproduction and publication, including on the internet, the government said Tuesday. That provoked scorn from Hong Kong pro-democracy activists. Hong Kong authorities “have yet to learn the valuable lesson that banning something — a slogan, a vigil, a sculpture or a song — will only make it more contagious and resilient,” said Samuel Chu, president of the nonprofit The Campaign for Hong Kong.

— CHINA’S CONFUCIUS INSTITUTES GET SAUDI FOOTHOLD: Beijing has opened a Confucius Institute — facilities that offer Chinese culture and language programs — at Prince Sultan University in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday. The launch is the latest sign of warming ties between China and Saudi Arabia following Beijing’s role in brokering a hostility-reduction agreement between Tehran and Riyadh in March. Confucius Institutes in the U.S. have come under congressional scrutiny due to concerns that they pose a potential national security risk.

TRANSLATING CHINA

— CONGRESSIONAL CHINA TWEETS, DECODED: When it comes to prolific China-related tweeting, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) rules Capitol Hill. Blackburn has tweeted on China 190 times and counting since the start of the 118th Congress in January, compared with 39 tweets by her closest competitor across the aisle, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). In the House, Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) is in the number one spot with 89 China-related tweets since January, compared with leading Democratic China-related tweeter Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (R-Ill.) with 26 such tweets since January.

Those stats are just a slice of the findings compiled and updated daily by the China Data Lab at the University of California at San Diego. The lab sifted through 831,331 tweets by lawmakers in both chambers from Jan. 1, 2019 to Dec. 31, 2020. The analysis reveals that partisan divides on China extend to how lawmakers tweet about the country.  

Some key differences in GOP and Democratic lawmakers’ China tweets:

GOP lawmakers outpace Dems in China tweet volume

GOP members tweeted more about China than any other country compared with their Democratic colleagues. About a quarter of Republicans’ foreign affairs tweets related to China, while Democrats focused just 7 percent of their foreign affairs tweets on China. Dems’ top tweet-countries were Mexico (12 percent) and Russia (10 percent), according to the study.

There is a partisan divide in China tweet topics

A breakdown of the lawmakers’ China-related tweet topics revealed partisan differences in focus.

Top GOP China tweet topics:

1. Covid origins and accountability

2. Hong Kong and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre

3. Cybersecurity, tech and North Korea

Top Democratic China tweet topics:

1. Hong Kong and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre

2. Trade War and the World Trade Organization

3. Human rights and Uyghurs

Greater China knowledge = fewer tweets?

China Data Lab analysts found that members of the U.S.-China Working Group — a bipartisan congressional body dedicated to educating lawmakers on China in the interest of better bilateral relations — didn’t tweet much about China. “The proportion of China-related tweets by the CWG members is a paltry 0.77 percent, well below the corresponding proportion of 1.26 percent for the non-CWG members,” the study said.

HEADLINES

Wall Street Journal: What engagement with China has meant for me

China Media Project: How a massacre shaped China’s media

The National Interest: Washington is suffering from policy capture, not groupthink, on China

HEADS UP

— HONDURAN LEADER TAKES BEIJING VICTORY LAP: Honduran President Xiomara Castro will reap Beijing’s gratitude for dropping its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in March with a five day state visit to China starting tomorrow. Castro and Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina will use the trip to tap “new political, scientific, technical, commercial and cultural horizons” with China, Castro tweeted on Monday. Castro’s Beijing trip follows the official opening of China’s new embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa on Monday.

ONE BOOK, THREE QUESTIONS

Party of One | Avid Reader Press

The Book: Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China’s Superpower Future

The Author: Chun Han Wong covers Chinese politics and foreign policy for The Wall Street Journal. 

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What is the most important takeaway from your book?

Xi Jinping is one the world’s most powerful and recognizable leaders, but his background, views and policies are not always well understood — and in fact are often subject to oversimplification and caricature. Some observers mix activism with their analyses of China, while others rely on outmoded frameworks to study the Communist Party. 

What was the most surprising thing you learned while preparing this book?

Despite the Communist Party’s penchant for secrecy, there remains a sizable pool of resources that journalists and researchers can tap to study the party’s inner workings and the perspectives of the Chinese elite. One can still unearth useful insights from memoirs, biographies, news clippings, archival documents, as well as other primary and secondary sources— especially with guidance from scholars and industry peers who know where and how to look for these things. 

What does your book tell us about the trajectory and future of U.S.-China relations?

Xi Jinping gained legitimacy, in large part, by casting himself as an ardent nationalist who can restore China to its rightful place in the world. Xi says this vision doesn’t entail Chinese hegemony, but he also makes clear that China will not stand for being treated as a junior partner in global affairs, particularly vis à vis the United States. Such sentiment has taken root in Chinese officialdom and broader society, and will likely outlive Xi. We can expect this sense of destiny in Beijing to color its relationship with Washington for years to come, wherever China and the U.S. choose to compete, cooperate or confront each other.

Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at [email protected].Thanks to: Heidi Vogt, Stuart Lau, Christian Oliver, Gavin Bade, Nahal Toosi, Matt Kaminski, Jamil Anderlini, and digital producers Tara Gnewikow and XXXX. 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 [email protected].

SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | London Playbook PM | Playbook Paris | POLITICO Confidential | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | Digital Bridge | China Watcher | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | Global Insider | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters