Who cares what the rest of the world needs? Certainly not the Chinese government. We should not waste our concern on people and governments that do not value it. We should conduct foreign and trade policy with the benefit of US citizens in mind, nothing else.
6
Over a decade ago, I had a draft on "Courses of U.S. Relations," 1. Collision course - arms conflict -- war -- this would be the worst case. Nuclear arms conflict between the two great powers could result in the hastening of human extinction -- the consequences on the world and the two great powers, the political-economy, and the environmental-ecology would be horrendous if some peoples manage to survive. 2. Balance of power or U.S."containment strategy" -- this approach, however, would probably not be sustained over time. 3. Grand Alliance -- the two great powers work together with other sovereign states to resolve major problems confronting the nations of the world and move forward toward a more peaceful and favorable state of developments.
My thinking now on the issues has not changed basically -- we should definitely work very hard in response to the warnings of scientists on the serious threats of human extinctions -- notably proliferations of nuclear arms and nuclear conflicts, climate change, ecological degradation, pandemics, etc. Concurrently, redouble the efforts to space exploration and human settlements on other planets as Stephen Hawkins and others proposed.
1
attitude is everything
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12184587
1
This is laughable. Rubin, Larry Summers and Alan Greenspan were architects and fervent supporters of the "Washington Consensus" that China has gamed for the past 20 years. That set of policy prescriptions not only brought us the 2008-2009 debacle (see "derivatives", repeal of Glass-Steagall, etc) but also brought us China's entry into the WTO. Millions of American workers can tell you how well that worked out for them. Now - some years after all those beautiful things I just mentioned, we're trying to figure out how to stop the blood loss that China is inflicting on us. So here comes Robert Rubin suggesting that we need to get along with a hostile power that has no intention of cooperating with us on anything unless and until we are economically and militarily subjugated to their rules. Really, Robert?
12
The US has been the responsible constructive partner in the Sino-US relationship for the last thirty years. Whenever China has flouted bilateral agreements and international norms, the US has been the accommodating partner that has worked to get the relationship back on track. Where have these policies led? To an ever more nationalistic and revisionist China with the means and intent to dismantle the liberal world order. Mr. Rubin does not adequately explain why a reversion to these failed policies of appeasement would lead to a better outcome today.
I get your message, Mr. Rubin. Work with China, is your message. Did not the USA work with China for the last thirty plus years?
What did that result in?
A poorer middle class in USA, and a newly rich middle class in China?
We know the problems are difficult now and need cooperation.
But China has not changed its behavior a bit.
I do not see you calling for change in China's trade practices, stealth of US technology, and geopolitical military expansion.
That the only way China understands is the rough and tough way; this is the lesson learned from dealing with China. All the bad behavior did not seem to matter much since China was not a world power. But the same matters a lot now since it has become one. A new deal is needed. Not just the plain old deal that benefits only China and the US business elite.
1
It takes two willing partners for a peaceful trading relationship. If one partner is absolutely determined on exploiting the other to get even for past wrongs, a peaceful relationship is almost impossible. When, as in the case of China, they are collectively bent on reclaiming hegemony and suzerainty over all their neighbors and believe they are a master race destined to rule the world, well we have seen how that does not end well.
1
America & China need to get along but America needs to lead.
1
Rubin is absolutely right... all countries must learn to work together. And as leading superpowers, the US and China especially must, if we are to seriously address powerful global issues that cannot wait. The naysayers are wrong, and blocking progress.
1
If "getting along" means going along with Chinese theft and mercantilism then I say NO!
America,s backbone has taken far to long to stiffen up.
China is increasingly becoming a global bully and the US and the West need to act in concert to push it back. Xi Jinping has revealed himself to be an autocrat. Unfortunately, as long as DT is the President of the US, this ain't going to happen. So, China's unwelcome influence on global affairs is only going to increase.
P.S. The writer's views seem totally aligned with Chinese interests.
Sometimes the most idealistic solution is the most practical solution: Robert Rubin is absolutely correct that the world needs U.S. and China to get along. For all the naysayers who would quibble with this and that, all of you will eventually land on the positions that states, "after my pet peeve(s) are addressed, U.S. and China must get along to tackle bigger issues: after all, U.S. and China are the two indispensable economic/political/diplomatic powers in the world." We are clearly at the nadir of U.S. and China relations with clueless Trump in Washington who denies something as basic as climate change and ambitious Xi in Beijing who comports himself more like an emperor than a party bureaucrat. Rubin's warning is that this is a bad time to engage in brinksmanship in Sino-America relations. Two countries should bide time and work on issues that they can agree on (denuclearization of North Korea...that might be it for next two years) and wait patiently for more favorable conditions to tackle bigger problems. In other words, 2019 and 2020 might not be a good time to radically restructure U.S.-China trade or work out a solution to shipping lanes in South China Sea. With Trump and Xi holding the levers of power, we might have to be content with reducing tariffs on soybeans and allowing Huawei's Weng Wanzhou to return to China. My advice to Rubin: don't hold your breath for Trump and Xi to "prioritize cooperation." As teens in U.S. and China would say: LOL.
1
Always a fan and great respect for Mr. Rubin, who was a key architect of our economic success during the Clinton years. Of course, step one is to get rid of Trump. Speaking of Trump--watched this delusional man, in the middle of a government shutdown he caused, complaining about his lack of popularity in Europe, fantasize about being a general and demanding a wall to appease his supporters--instead of all the great jobs and winning from his tax cut he promised us all. He does not have the time or desire to worry about the global economy and working with China --with all of that on his plate and Fox News pundits to please.
2
@EPMD
I'm sorry but you have great respect for Mr. Rubin? Mr. Rubin was an "architect" of the financial collapse in 2008 because of the policies he supported during the Clinton years i.e repeal of Glass-Steagall and other regulatory "reforms." Please read the following article which clearly details Rubin's possible crimes which were referred to the Justice Department but were never acted upon.
http://fortune.com/2016/03/13/robert-rubin-financial-crisis-commission-justice-department/
January 3, 2019
Indeed this is the right track to approach the working ties for our major historic Sino-American interests, and not let the political leaders invent nasty obstacles for flexing media muscle for collective showmanship distraction seeking personal glorification as if semi divine neo fascists - dare say in history's again, again, again, fake narratives in the electronic strange global blurred definitions of nation power.
jja
2
The next president, hopefully a democrat , should add Robert Rubin to his team. That alone would drive the stock market upwards.
2
The other day China just threatened to annex Taiwan by force...
1
Well, instead of Trump being a one man band and trying to run the country from his tweeting maybe he should employ one of the Chinese immigrants to the USA who will understand how China and its leader thinks. Trumps not diplomatic. There's plenty of qualified Chinese citizens who have emigrated from China. Maybe the Chinese leader needs to ask why?
https://www.statista.com/topics/4541/chinese-overseas/
https://www.iom.int/countries/china
1
China, under the current government is a predatory nation. We should play good cop bad cop with them.
Mr. Rubin`s tenure as secretary allowed the greatest thief of intellectual property and the foundations of huge trade surpluses by the Chinese. He appears clueless as to China's game plan. Perhaps he should be honest and tell America to just shut up and allow China to continue to abuse American industry and economy.
3
The United States has a little toddler trying to do a man’s job.
Trump is way out of his league. Threats and lies aren’t going to work.
Donald needs to stay in his playpen and play with his dolls.
2
American antipathy towards China seems completely devoid of any kind of "class consciousness."
China is to blame for the hollowing out of American industrial cities-- American corporate raiders who sent manufacturing overseas are as innocent as doves.
2
The present rich countries attained its wealth through slavery, destroying the forests, polluting the environment; now we want others to attain that level "like good, responsible boys"... Hmmm.
Brazil and other countries "should not destroy the jungle, as those earth lungs, however, the rich countries destroy a big part of them. Do I sense some injustice in this?
Mr. Rubin's analysis and assumptions would make a lot more sense if the U.S. president wasn't a psychopath. Unhappily, he is incapable of any perspective taking other than impulsive self- interest and retaliation, so the prognosis is poor indeed. Regime change at home is the only salve to heal this gashing wound. And the sooner, the better.
1
Trump cannot get along with any foreign leader because he cannot be trusted to keep his word in any agreement, be it on trade, military or diplomatdic alliance. To him negotiations are a zero sum game with only winners and losers. Although he sees himself as the winner in all such contests, he has actually come out the loser in most of his talks and summits with foreign leaders, even being bested by a neophyte like Kim Jong-un. And his obvious subservience to Putin suggests the Russian leader has some kind of hold on him that Trump is too scared to break.
2
I am dismayed by the comments on this site which talk about getting even with China for its mercantile and under the table trade practices. Is the United States clean in this? Does it not use its clout and subsidies to promote its own economic interests over those of other countries?
There are also the anti-capitalistic rants here about businesses selling out for cheap Chinese labour. In reality, in the face of global competition, many American industries and businesses would have gone out of business if they had not done this. This anti-capitalism is the same attitude expressed at the end of the 19th Century to fight the modernization of the American economy at that time. It got nowhere, except to soften the blow for the people themselves, income tax, etc. (which is exactly what should be done now.) You can't stop the tide of economic and technical progress and change.
The Chinese have their system and beliefs and so does the United States. You are not going to change either of them by fighting. Both are dominant powers and must negotiate with each other. You simply just can't blow up things to make them better. Obama had a plan. The TPP which was worked out with our allies. Trump blew it up to appease the same irrational voices you hear protesting here. Human nature as always goes to the same irrational bottomline. How sad. How truly sad.
1
If Trump really wanted to contain and restrain China, he should not have opted out of the TPP.
If China's Belt and Road initiative poses a threat to our economic superpower status, why don't we offer a Western Alliance alternative to it?
Will China ever come around to recognizing the civil liberties of its population? Unlikely. On the other hand, will they initiate a "shock and awe" bombing of a sovereign nation? Also unlikely. I wish I could say the same thing for my own country.
2
There is an unstated third reason. History shows that when the #1 global power declines and the #2 global power rises towards parity and then overtakes the #1 power, there is often a war between the two nations.
There are cases when war was avoided. When the US supplanted the UK as #1 both nations were able to build on a special relationship and avoid conflict.
Unfortunately, there are too few people in both nations who understand this situation and are willing to work together to make the transition peaceful. Each side can list many grievances with the other. Both sides need to find a way to overcome their grievances. A first step would be to acknowledge the other's grievances.
America and the other nations should acknowledge the most serious past actions: the poisoning of China with opium and the use of military power to defeat the Chinese attempt to keep opium out of their nations. America and other Western powers should attempt to negotiate some sort of acknowledgement, apology and remedial action.
What might be an appropriate remedial action? Maybe provide China with no-fee licenses to pharmaceutical and biotechnology patents. The owners of the patents will scream - but some of those companies were involved in the opium trade.
We need to avoid war.
1
The next decade will see accelerated Chinese militarization and expansionism along with a protracted and dynamic trade war with the U.S. For China's long term strategic objective is too surpplant America as the world's preeminent super-power. It's our challenge to not let this happen while delicately balancing shared intetests, like North Korea, in the process. I believe it's our most critical and major geopolitical challenge that we must succeed with.
1
Wonderfully written and analytically right-on from this distinguished former public servant. Cheers and Happy New Year!
2
Robert Rubin served as secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999. The China he knew is no longer the China we see today. It remains to be seen how China and the US will resolve their long-term grivances. The current trade war could be resolved, but would the two co-exist peacefully?
In the 1990s, China was just starting to reap what it sowed since 1978, when the Communist Party started to introduce capitalist market principles. Economic expansion accelerated dramatically back then, as a result of mass privatisations, and the opening up of the country to foreign investment. Overseas firms rushed to build factories in China to take advantage of its low labour costs.
This not only helped to boost GDP, but also increased the pace of urbanisation as workers were drawn from rural areas into higher-paying jobs in cities. With market liberalisation China became a major global exporter. The Shanghai stock exchange could reopen in December 1990 for the first time in over 40 years and, China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001.
Xi Jinping has abandoned Deng Xiaoping’s “bide and hide”, keeping a low-profile policy. Today, his political philosophy is a nationalist appeal to restore the country to greatness, following a century of national humiliation. It will be difficult for Xi to make concessions after whipping up chauvinism. His “Made in China 2050” aims to overtake the US as world leader politically and economically. And the US is not going to let it happen.
2
Rubin and his Davos friends don't have a clue about the level of the American people's antipathy towards China over trade. nor do they understand how instrumental Trump as been in bringing that antipathy to the surface.
Rubin thinks Trump will pass the scene and cooler heads will then prevail. Trump may well pass the scene - and sooner than we think - but the damage has been done. The people must be offered real benefit in exchange for cooperating with China. And the Davos crowd has no intention of paying THAT price.
2
A nicely written, but wrong, article from one of the architects of the "globalization" policy that shipped a manufacturing base the U.S. spent 150 years painstakingly building off to China with a high-minded, wonderful sounding rationale but basically for quick term profits for Wall Street raiders. China does indeed need to change its policies that do not respect intellectual property and incentivize unfair trade and colonialism. The U.S. people do not have to meet them half way. We already met them completely on their side during Mr. Rubin's and others' run on the U.S. manufacturing bank.
3
That China engages in certain behaviors that are antagonistic to Western values is undeniable. At the same time, we continue to throw our weight around as if we have some right - or duty - to constrain their growth, and do so in a way that is designed to make them appear as the aggressor and which ultimately only increases tensions between the two nations.
Like it or not, China is not going anywhere, and my view is that we need to remain firm with them while also finding ways to cooperate, and more importantly, recognizing that they are not the United States, do not share all of our interests, and accordingly we cannot expect them to act like us.
The opportunities in continuing to integrate the two markets are too great to be ignored, and there is too much at stake not to cooperate. The continued emergence of China (and India) as global powers and more importantly, technological innovators, sets more minds working on the problems of the world. If you believe only the rich benefit from trade with China, that is incorrect.
I'm trying not to be naive here, and I think an altogether more harmful form of naivete is to believe that it's inevitable that we start another arms race with a nuclear super power. China is a rising nation of 1 billion+ people. OF COURSE they are going seek some level of regional & global influence, especially in their own backyard (referring to the South China Sea), and our task may be understanding that we cannot deny that.
1
Mr Rubin might enjoy a higher Social Credit Score, and maybe this editorial will be considered deserving to get past Chinese censors.
But then a totalitarian state doesn’t matter as long as the trade runs on time, right Mr Rubin?
Decency is worth defending even if it hurts profits. I imagine the Uyghur Muslims in Chinese camps would agree, if they had the freedom to. Mr Rubin is deaf unless the give cash.
1
Capitalism's demand to lower the cost of labor is what caused Millions of US worker's jobs to transfer to China. US business owners benefitted at the expense of US workers.
To blame Dem vs GOP politics for an inherent trait of an economic system mis-diagnoses the problem and cannot provide a solution. Democracy is not wedded to Capitalism - a point consistently misunderstood.
China's politicians play the Long Game measured in decades and centuries, while we play by 2- and 4-year election cycles. A sleeping giant has awoken. US politicians cannot reasonably expect the Chinese economic model to change simply because US politicians are unhappy and make demands on China.
Does China think it needs to get along with America as it watches it moon landing today?
Trump sees himself as the world's ultimate negotiator ,well read on international affairs knows more than anyone in the world including stone masons and generals. Xi is president for life , Trump may be impeached before 2020 how can he deal with anyone , he lies does not honor commitments and may wind up in jail in 2020 as citizen Trump. Trump is a pushover witness Kim young thug of North Korea walking all over him our stable genius. What a sad joke of man this president is in full view of the world laughing at him.
1
@Robert E. Rubin
You tanked the country! You and your Wall Street friends should be in jail right now.
5
The 2 major issues you point to, that US & China should work on together are the environment & nuclear weapons. As far as environmental progress is concerned, you can forget about US participation while Trump is president. China has begun to make progress in this area because it's people demand it - even tho it's clearly not a democracy. As for nukes : You begin with North Korea, and I must say that after what the Clinton/Obama team did to kaddaffi & his country, Lybia, Kim would have to be an idiot to get rid of his nukes.
1
Yes, of course. Like Chamberlain wanted to build a “constructive relationship” with Adolph Hitler. Stalin wanted the same thing. Let’s remember how that worked for the U.K. and Russia. China, the worst polluter on the planet, should work together with the US, who hasn’t signed the Paris Agreement. China has been hacking America’s most sensitive websites for years, so America should work with China on cybersecurity. Mr. Rubin, it seems as if you and many other influential Americans have no idea about the nature of Communism.
3
It's a pity Mr. Rubin and his accomplices at Goldman Sachs and Treasury didn't "take the lead in the mist" twenty-five years ago when they sold the American middle class out to China for a cup of coffee, relatively speaking, which has brought us to the dangerous reckoning we are witnessing, which is just beginning.
If they had then perhaps the current "arc of history" wouldn't be heading towards a cataclysm.
The editors should know that this newspaper loses precious credibility any time they give a platform to people like Rubin, Larry Summers, Geithner, Hank Paulson, Alan Greenspan, etc. Not to mention Steven Rattner.
And no thinking person cares what "virtually all mainstream economists" think. About anything.
4
If China looks at its internal market, it has almost 20% of the people on this planet living within its borders...
That doesn’t count all the places it has cast its eye longingly on...
If China looks at its external market, less than 5% of the people live in the United States...
.....
If you’re going down an S-curve measuring your national prosperity, as someone else is coming up one...
You might be forgiven for thinking there is a cause<>effect relationship of some sort...
The reality – folks that are sinking will have shrunk their financial market horizons to mostly three years or less, while folks that are rising will have views reaching beyond a decade...
More specifically, the US has greatly pulled back on any sort of onshore capital investment – while the Chinese are going global with theirs...
Not much they’re doing that isn’t simply the EU playbook writ large...
Not much we’re doing that isn’t simply Brexit 2.0...
PS
Please don’t tell me how many $50K SUVs we’re selling to each other on subprime credit or leases – or how many $50K/year pharmas with which we’re shooting up each other...
Ask people whether they’d rather get $50K pharmas or $50K SUVs for free – and see what they say...
Seriously? Come on Bob. This article is a vapid as they come. You can do better, or maybe you can’t? All that Citibank Payola and time in their G-5 have dulled your edge for sure. Either bring some game or just twiddle your thumbs at CFR. Articles like this help no one.
4
Incompetent. Mediocre. Ignorant. That sums up my appreciation of America's leadership. Hopefully this minimus potus will be the only one this century. Not sure. Americans voters are so easily manipulated or dead stupid, they could elect a Kardashian #48.
October 2049, centennial of the Chinese Communist Revolution, the United States will have miss yesterday's, today's and many tomorrow train departures. Eurasia will belong to China and in a lesser extent to Russia with European, Asian and African alliances, partnerships and treaties.
The supreme U.S. idiocracy will look at the military parade wondering how they got spoofed.
1
The fact that China is operating the world's largest Gulag system, incarcerating its Muslim citizens, is one reason not to get along. Bob, your argument is a bit reductionist when you leave such an obvious issue out of your piece. That leads me to believe that you're not showing all your cards.
1
Trump should turn the screws on China’s economy and drive them into economic depression. The resulting economic slowdown will effectively shutter all of those Chinese factories spewing toxins and greenhouse gasses into the air. Moreover, the resultant inflation will make even coal too expensive to import, let alone burn. The raw discontent among the poor subjects of the Xi dictatorship will keep his Communist henchmen too preoccupied to work on nuclear weapons. Win-Win!
1
Moron Bolton/Trump pull out of the iNF treaty, and Trump mentions China. As retired Perry reminds us: we have nuclear submarines, no need to put medium range missiles all over Asia.
The dynamics of the US-China relationship may change for the better, but a clear realization of how we got to the present state is very helpful in assessing that possibility. China made it's 'great leap forward' when the policies of Deng replaced those of the idiotic ideologue, Mao. The policy was simple: use the actual resources we have (a large group of high school graduates who can read and write and will work for the yuan equivalent of a couple of dollars a day, take (steal) technology where ever we can, and accumulate dollars and euros by selling cheap goods to the west. So simple and it worked like magic, especially since it fit so well with the 'free trade' religion of the time in the USA and Europe. So now Xi has an enormous pile of dollars and euros to use. And they will use them to convert the poor third world devils along the 'Belt and Road Initiative' into indebted vassals. They must obtain the external resources to feed themselves, given that they are using almost all of their arable land. It will be interesting to see how long Xi can continue China's success at replacing local production around the world with cheaper Chinese production. Somehow one feels it can't go on forever.
1
It is truly a testament to how brainwashed many Americans are that a writer simply asking for a more peaceful relationship with China is met with so much hostility. As if the prospect of treating the Chinese with respect as human beings is unthinkable. As if the prospect of not viewing the Chinese as a maniac bogeyman is inconceivable.
The constant vilification of China is tiresome and unpersuasive. The pearl-clutching that Westerners do toward China's economic endeavors is largely hypocritical since Western nations ascended mostly through exploitation of a thievery of other peoples' lands and innovations.
2
@Sarah Johnson
The Chinese people are not the problem. The totalitarian communist Chinese government is the problem. They are tyrants who murdered millions, make no mistake.
1
Yes, let's overlook their treatment of Uighurs, Tibet, Hong Kong, and their own political dissidents, blatant bullying of Taiwan, because the communist party is totally trustworthy and not corrupt (according to the communist party).
3
All sounds sensible, but until the doe-doe-bird and his lackeys, sitting in the White House is removed, nothing sensible will happen.
It is China who must learn to get along with the rest of the civilized world - simply by abiding by WTO laws/regulations/rules and by following the Golden Rule, that unimaginative and uniformed stalwart communists probably don't even know:
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
1
The basic fact is that when the No.1 & No.2 economic powers are at war, both will lose. And the damage will spread to other economies to some degree because instead of a bigger growing pie where everyone can participate, the total pie will shrink.
Another obvious fact is: USA & China each operates under different political systems and rules. Stop trying to change the other's internal practices, agenda & law. Reaching some kind of mutually agreed transaction handshakes should be good enough.
The reality in the last two years is that the shallow pond of good will between USA & China has been poisoned badly. Just as Trump & Brennan unleashed American white supremacist racist hatred within USA, they also unleashed McCarthyism cold war feeling towards China, abetted by hawkish types like Colton, Navarro, Lighthizer & others. When one reads NY Times and other major US newspapers, it's clear US media is a partner propagating negative sentiment against China. It's the usual propaganda game. Repeat fictional stories over & over and people believe it.
The sad part is even respected academics like Columbia's Jeffrey Sachs and Yale's Stephen Roach could be subjected to political mob attack when they offer rational scholarly opinions.
Broken friendship is hard to mend. So the outlook of bringing USA & China back to somewhat friendlier state at all levels is very bleak. Too bad Canada is caught in their fights. Trudeau should find a way to return the Huawei CFO to China asap.
Mr. Rubin is a dreamer ,albeit a beautiful dream.The ideologies of both Nations stand in the way of cooperation.If anything they are antagonists & unless there is a drastic change in Politics by China, such as a Free Society. My greatest fear is that they will destroy each other & take the world with them.
1
I’m guessing the president hasn’t asked you to join the administration.
You’re too smart for him.
It doesn’t take a genius to get what you’re writing about.
All it takes is an open mind and time to understand it. Bullies may get their way for a while but they are eventually punched in the nose at which time they generally run away but occasionally stand their ground and suffer further. I don’t give trump the credit to have the intelligence.
China may never follow the rule of law in our lifetimes, said Lightizer in 2010. Allowing a totalitarian aggressive dictatorship to join the WTO was perhaps the most foolish mistake ever made because China uses its earnings to build its military and spy network. China killed its first Nobel Peace Prize winner recently. Germany did the same in 1935. Wake up, people. China is following the path of Japan in the 1930s. Trying to reach a fair deal with China is an effort in futility. We who have worked and lived in China could have told the WTO what would happen if China joins. China is preparing for world domination, and you the American consumer are funding it. If Trump wavers with China to satisfy the lust of Wall Street, Trump will have his Neville Chamberlain moment. There is Dumb, Dumber ... and then there are Americans.
1
"I increasingly hear frustration from business leaders about structural trade issues. The military is concerned about aggressive geopolitical moves by Beijing. And prominent voices in both political parties are striking an increasingly confrontational tone. Legitimate concerns have led to a vicious cycle, with each negative development further poisoning an already shallow well of good will."
True enough. Apparently the biggies in American business have fallen in behind Trump, as one would expect, and blame China for these developments.
I beg to differ. China isn't aggressively doing anything to us. They are simply waltzing into regions and sectors Trump abandoned.
Our allies know in their bones they can never rely on us again. The more they need us, the less likely we will respond. Like American banks.
We obviously care not at all about the environment. We're the laughing stock of the developed world both for our refusal to maintain, let alone invest in, infrastructure and for the pedestrian, not to say fatally boring, nature of what still passes for public projects and civic architecture.
If you want to open a new coal mine, build a coal-fired utility, sure some desperate American may offer to help out but, other than that, keep your grapefruit legs, your nasty diseases, your bad food, and your ugly cities to yourself.
Makes you wonder why our phones stopped ringing, doesn't it?
There's nothing new with China, we just got real stupid.
Robert Rubin? You mean THAT Robert Rubin? The guy who repealed Glass-Steagall? Mr. NAFTA? That guy? He should be sharing a room with the Clintons in the Third Way Nursing Home. I’m sure they would be...Stronger Together!
2
This from the pseudo-intellectual who is the architect of the Great Recession.
While at Citi, shortly after his Treasury dalliance, Rubin was asked about the Great Recession (an offspring of his banking reform policies). His reply?
“I’m only a consultant.”
[At the time, to the tune of $15M per year - huh?].
Take his opine with a grain of salt, please.
2
What's China ever going to do that the West would recognize as commendable? Will they stop buying Ivory and Rhino horns? Support MeToo# ? Equality for their LGBTQ community? They are centuries behind the West - their social values and medicine are antiquated at best - dangerous at worse.
1
Like being prescribed a medication , globalization side effects are raising its ugly head. Globalization could be compared to pigs gorging themselves at the feeder. Our consumption driven economy is built around slave labor imports, mostly from China.
The Chinese people will get along with America much better when CCP is gone.
2
So the bailout captain is siding with trade theorists who believe exports are a net debit to the U.S. economy. Please, NYT, no more old experts.
2
In response to this opinion piece I have two words: Never Happen.
1
While many detractors in these comments appear to hold dearly to an archaic, "us against them" foreign policy stance (and I am not a fan of the USA's nor China's environmentally destructive, nepotistic greed and military flexing), I rather agree that China and the USA must remain engaged, no matter how difficult or disparate their world views, and forge a way forward peacefully, but strategically. To abandon the hard work of negotiation between the world's greatest polluters and economies spells doom for everyone. The USA has much to learn from China's powerful, carefully-strategized global expansion-- all done without firing a shot, whereas the USA is like an adolescent bully, sending its troops or its proxies to bomb and mutilate anytime it doesn't immediately get its way. Both must be tempered, out of enlightened self-interest if nothing else.
15
@WR
Peace without shots fired within Western Civilization since the end of the Second World War. This is after well over a millennium of carnage in Europe.
The prosperity you enjoy in Vietnam and throughout much of Asia is a direct result of American foreign and economic policy since the end of the Pacific War. The amount of money and knowledge investment in China has been monumental with the greatest transfer of wealth in human history virtually all of it created because of those American policies.
It is very easy to have a clever foreign policy when one is nibbling around the margins particularly when that policy is directed at strictly economic and not immediate strategic interests. China has never been tested.
US foreign policy has been successful in many ways and a terrible failure in others. The conflict in Vietnam and Iraq 2 were unmitigated failures and totally unnecessary.
2
If the Chinese have learned anything, it's that their American counterparts are naive - and this article is no different.Talk of voluntary compromise for mutual good only tells the Chinese they still have the same cards to play that they've held for decades; "We say yes to the Americans, then go off and do exactly what we want to do anyway." China trusts no one. They believe above all, that every other country is out to stifle their rightful place in the world. This article both enforces that opinion and gives them continued permission to ignore us.
Rubin is right and the arguments he makes are sound but there is a lot of "hate" for China right now. People have to ask themselves where that comes from? It comes from the anxiety gripping the population of an America in seeming decline. Throughout its history the US in periods when the "American Dream" seemed out of reach or fading the population always sought out a scapegoat. Chinese people were the scapegoat in post goldrush boom California when the "Know Nothing Party" polemicized about "cheap Chinese labour" and their other "nefarious" practices. The reality was and it was known at the time - these groups just didn't want the competition. These progenitors of the modern anti-China movement proudly attacked and harassed the Chinese in that state; encouraging the pogroms, lynchings and exceptionally racist laws that finally drove the Chinese out and led to the uniquely racist China Exclusion Act of 1882. And, well, here we are again another period where the American Dream is fading China is on the rise and the scapegoat must be served. The US needs to focus on its myriad own problems and stop its fearful flawed attempts to drag China down.
11
@Belasco
No, I’d say the hatred comes from China’s unabashed and shameless theft of intellectual property from everyone else in the world.
As for China’s humiliation at the hands of others, it should try looking in the mirror: 40 million starved and murdered by the CCP, the same party ruling China today. Nobody - Genghis Khan, the Japanese, etc - nobody comes close to the bloodbath that the Chinese Communists visited on the Chinese people. It is a nation of sheep.
5
@Belasco
I believe that Rubin asks the wrong question. It should be: Can we have a constructive relationship with a nation whose stated long term goal is to replace America as the world's preeminent super-power, while still jointly pursuing areas of mutual self-interest?
4
@NorthernVirginia "A nation of sheep"? That's the kind of low information high xenophobia analysis this debate sorely needs to evade. The Chinese have had almost more people's revolutions than the US has had presidents. Read up on "the mandate of heaven." This "nation of sheep" is also apparently eating America's lunch in the farthest-flung riskiest parts of the planet. As for CCP diatribe, how long back in party political histories do we want to go when we are tossing mud? Can we go after the Democrats and the Republicans for violently seizing large chunks of Mexico, the Philippines and Hawaii? How about how they massacred people during the Haitian occupation? How about the over 3 milion people the US killed in the Vietnam War or the 500,000 Iraqi children SOS Albright admitted were killed due to sanctions? Each side constantly parading a laundry list of half-truths and serious omissions about the other serves no purpose as far as getting things done. The reality is there is an easily played upon deep in the bones fear of China that has plagued the West for millennia. Take a look at the Knackfuss painting commissioned by the Kaiser often referred to as "the Yellow Peril" and you'll see the fear that drives these thoughts. The West has to conquer its fear of being overwhelmed by China and Asia for that matter and learn to share the planet. Both sides need to cooperate on this. There is really no other alternative.
6
Even more, “Russia”, China and America. Together they control the fate of the modern world and as such, need to lead by example.
Shoot the messenger not the message.
Maybe Rubin thinks the horror show that is Trump makes him by comparison a credible and persuasive pundit on anything.
It doesn't.
In fact, Trump has cast 1% enablers like Rubin in sharp relief for their hidden agenda as agents of Wall Street, infected by the same virus of greed and tunnel vision of self-enrichment.
It's just January and Rubin is sending out his Valentine's Day card to his contacts among China's financial leadership, an easy gesture that can only reap big rewards for bankers like Rubin who see an opening to position themselves as Friends of China (FOC) while Trump leads the inmates out of the asylum.
The message is valid and common sense, which in the time of Trump, catapults it into the realm of Wisdom and Profundity.
But the messenger is toxic and nakedly self-promotional, like Trump, but with table manners and the genteel restraint of a Mafia Consigliere.
Rubin has been reading Norman Mailer and this is his tribute to "Advertisements for Myself." He reminds us that he's connected, ostensibly influential, pragmatic and a guy who chats easily with the Chinese Foreign Minister.
Unfortunately for Rubin his price tag -- like Trump's -- is planted on his forehead. And with any luck Trump will soon join him in the clearance bin of self-serving hustlers way past their shelf-life.
Rubin knows that "May you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse that he helped author in English.
China steals military and technology IP.
That's a 100% Undisputed fact.
Doing /something/ is better than saying "in the interest of getting along please keep doing so, but, can you be subtle about it?"
I don't think the trade war was the answer. But I understand why people support it.
2
Having worked in China in a management capacity, I can tell you that this article is a lot of typical wishful thinking that is at the root of our dysfunctional relationship with China. We entered China with the wrong mindset from the beginning: that we could project our values (e.g. democracy, capitalism) onto the Chinese.
They have their own authoritarian, mercantilist model and that is not going to change in our life time. Let me make this as clear as I can make it: they are not going to listen to anybody from the Council of Foreign Relations, or anybody else. They are the only large country in the world without any allies, and they are good with that.
Rubin makes a silly argument about nuclear weapons, forgetting that we threatened Mao with nuclear weapons during the Korean War. Mao's response at that time was that he could afford to lose tens of millions of people in an exchange; could we? So, what's changed? In reality, not much; they still think the same way today.
We should spend a lot less time projecting onto the Chinese our value system, and a lot more time working with our allies on our own shared values, something that this administration takes lightly. Working with our allies, a full time job, will get us further than poring time and effort down a rat hole trying to convince the Chinese of something that they could care less about.
More wisdom from the age of wishful thinking. The Clinton administration gave the keys to the kingdom to China and we got cheap stuff at Walmart in return. No more, Wall Street, thanks.
1
Well, we'll need - like with most commonsense suggestions - a new president come 2020 to implement a saner, better relationship with China.
Excellent article; well presented and wriiten. There is only one problem: it makes way too much sense for this incompetent administration to listen to any of it.
Views of a masterthief are valuable and should be listened to carefully. Thank you for this opportunity, NYTs.
2
Not only must we learn to get along with China and Russia for our own survival, but there must come a paradigm shift in human thought that allows all nations to live in peace and harmony. The way we're dong it now is ridiculous.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a linguistic "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of all humans. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
1
Dealing with international issues like climate change and nuclear technology requires an understanding and appreciation of science. Along with an understanding of rising ethnic sectarian socioeconomic political educational nation state diversity and power.
Economics, politics and sociology are not sciences. There are too many variables and unknowns to craft the double-blind experimental controlled tests that provide predictable and repeatable results. Economic, political and social studies are no more worthy of serious consideration in facing and resolving these problems than is history. But history is much more informative.
By focusing on the primacy of America and China Bob Rubin exposes his corrupt crony capitalist corporate plutocrat oligarch welfare banking bias. China is an aging and shrinking nation with a below replacement level birthrate and a massive male gender imbalance. On a per capita basis China has the #80 economy near Bulgaria and the Dominican Republic. Xi Jinping has rejected the term limited collective leadership model of Deng Xiaoping. About 20% of humanity is ethnic Han Chinese.
India is the largest most ethnically sectarian diverse parliamentary democracy on Earth. Brazil is the most populous Portuguese speaking and Roman Catholic democratic country. Only Nigeria has more Sub-Saharan blacks than Brazil. Nigeria is the most populous African democratic country. South Africa has the top African democratic economy. Russia has nukes and cyber.
Good, balanced article.
There is also a third possible consequence of America and China not cooperating: a major economic collapse similar to the Great Depression.
The problem is that neither Trump nor Xi have the larger vision to cooperate. Both are egotistical and delusional authoritarians who are extremely poor leaders.
We can only hope that both of these petty despots exit one way or another ASAP.
So, basically the US should toss away its foundational beliefs in freedom and liberty in order to keep profits up?
2
In response to some comments below, tariffs are blunt and hitting the wrong button costing money ONLY to US RESIDENTS who buy Chinese made goods. Who does it hurt? Everyone and more the average American on the pretense of being tough. Sorry but arrogance and stupidity don’t add up to courage and I guarantee the China sees that.
I would like to see the US subsidize exports not by lowering the costs to manufacturers but by subsidizing other countries’ citizens’ to spend more money, spur their economy and buy American goods. It will make us more competitive. For example through the TPP. That would actually help us if those economies grow which would also make Chinese goods more affordable. That type of cooperation would be great. China could buy in with cash and tariffs placed on any Chinese good created with stolen patents or intellectual property. If they want in they can get in and “do as the Romans do”
If we don’t have an ill president, (s)he could get together with the koreas , Russia, China, and ? UK. and set an aim to unify the peninsula because anything else is short term and let Russia and China and Kim know that a nuclear attack would warrant some type of response, let all agree to that so it doesn’t require a nuclear response or spinning out of control.
@Wayne
If not tariffs, then what? Strong language?
This is all well and good but we also have a president who views all foreign relations as a zero sum game, so in his eyes there is no such thing as a “win win” situation.
In order to achieve progress, it is imperative to have a president who is looking forward, not backwards. 2020 is our only shot. Present leadership is not going to get us there
This column is just a fantasy. There can be no meaningful cooperation on nuclear proliferation with the country that has single-handedly enabled North Korea’s development of them. Climate change has not proven to be amenable to international agreements. With the rarest of exceptions and only when it acts in its own interests, China has shown no interest in normal relations with the rest of the world. China is not our friend and is increasingly becoming a threat. We should not enable it any longer.
13
@Bob China does not even need the US to "enable" it. That sort of arrogance/ignorance is one part of what allowed China to prosper on continents where America's self-described "excellence" has only led to dead-ends, mass bloodshed, and a middle class fleeced to near-extinction-- all in the name of supporting the misadventures of the rich, military-industrial cesspool of corporations and their fascist enablers. China may not be a friend of the USA (which has few friends left at this point), but that is all the more reason to remain strategically engaged.
2
@WR
Since you do not live in the United States you are probably very unaware of the decimation of entire manufacturing industries in this county. I would recommend to you an HBO documentary - Schmatta - Rags to Riches to Rags. This is the story of the rise of the Labor Movement in the US and the key role the garment district of NYC played in the creation of an American Middle Class. NYC had the largest concentration of clothing manufacturing in the US up until the 1970s-80s. The percentage of clothing worn in the US which was made in the US was: 95% during JFK's presidency; 75% during Reagan's, 50% during Bill Clinton's and < 5% during Obama's. Factories were not only closed but all their machinery was shipped overseas as well.
Naturally this was done due to policy changes in the US government and driven by the Finance Industry of Wall Street. Clothing is not the only industry so affected. Much of these jobs and machinery went to China. I find your comments on arrogance/ignorance as projections of your own biases. The average America has no particular animus towards China and many as evidence from these postings blame our own Failed Power Elite.
Your criticisms of American Foreign Policy are noted. Vietnam and Iraq 2 were both monumental failures of policy.
Nevertheless, China is hardly benign in its foreign policy and has benefited tremendously from a massive transfer of wealth (much of it from the West) It has been enabled. Those days are hopefully over.
1
Great suggestions, solid path forward. It won't happen with Trump in the White House.
I don't support TRUMP on any issue EXCEPT this : confrontation with China(C). C is exploiting our open societies to dig deeper into our social, electrical, entertainment sectors through State-controlled entities dictating what should be shown or heard or discussed or whom we meet or hail in our worlds. Xi Jinpeng is harking back to 18 th century, or before, China where all neighbouring countries used to pay tribute to the emperor in Beijing. It is important to make China realise they can't sell in free markets in free societies UNLESS they adopt at home free open market policies and free society rules. They want control power markets in Australia but won't allow us to control or have strategic stake in their power or telecom markets. C is operating behind the doors through so-called private companies in Hong Kong to take control of strategic sectors of free societies. Take Li Ka Shing of CLP in HK, for example.
1
Why should we give any credence to platitudes from Robert Rubin? I wish the NYT, the paper of record, would ask Brooksley Born to grade Mr. Rubin’s tenure. I will assume that Mr. Rubin is aware that he and his profession fit firmly in Adam Smith’s category of unproductive labor. This equates to any wealth Mr. Rubin obtains as being based solely on the surplus wealth obtained from productive labor.
Of course, Mr. Rubin was very instrumental during the Clinton Administration in cozying up with Wall Street and financializing the US economy. Disinvest in US manufacturing, send entire wealth creating industries overseas, schield Wall Street from accountability for its malfeasance, and then pretend to be a calming voice of reason. What gall. I’ll always remember Rubin’s protege, Larry Summers, opining that maybe American workers didn’t deserve their salaries and benefits.
My one consultation with Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump was the knowledge that I would not be subjected to the arrogant opinions of Larry Summers as head of either the Fed or Treasury.
2
You are right about the things you mentioned, but also wrong by not mentioning other things. China's blatant cyber-theft of intellectual property is a huge enterprise that is extremely detrimental to other countries and should not be accepted. China does not respond to warm and fuzzy. If it did, it would have more friends in the world, when in fact it really has no true friends in the world. All its relationships are economic in nature. They way to deal with China is from a position of strength and firmness. Behind our backs, they consider us to be naive not to understand that.
13
Robert Rubin's role in the financial crisis of 2008 undermines any credibility he may have in expressing his views on China. Not only was he instrumental in the repeal of Glass Steagall, he was CEO of Citibank when that firm was instrumental in the subprime mortgage scandals. He, like many other Wall Street moneymen, made $00s of millions from their fraudulent behavior.
His comments on China and the US are just as misleading. While it is obvious that financial benefits would flow to both as a result of better relations, he proposes nothing but platitudes structured to make him look like a voice of reason.
China under Xi is an imperialist and totalitarian power.
Xi has directed the China to steal American intellectual property in order to catch up with western technology.
Xi has directed China to militarize the South China Sea in order to establish Chinese hegemony over the region.
Those are just two of the most egregious examples of Chinese behavior under Xi. Should his most recent sabre rattling over Taiwan materialize into something more ominous, it could get much worse.
Mr Rubin's opinion as expressed seems more like an effort to secure a lobbyist role with Mr Xi, something akin to Manafort's outreach to Putin.
Bottom line, people should not trust Mr Rubin's judgement on any topic which would have material impact on people's lives. Like Donald Trump, his track record clearly speaks to his willingness to feather his own nest at the expense of others.
2
Perhaps the old saying from the hippie era of the 70's
Make Love Not War
should be modified to: Make Money Not Trade Wars.
1
It is a good deal for USA to do business
with China. We get their goods and give
them dollars. They use the dollars to
buy Govt. securities, invest in companies. Dollars are back here and we keep the goods as well. It is a win-win.
America and China both work on the same economic principle, enunciated by Edward Abbey, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." Cancer cells kill the body that sustains them. They don't care about the consequences of their actions.
1
So if you reject the notion that climate change and nuclear weapons are serious threats to life on Earth as we know it, does that mean that relations with China can be ignored? The entire argument of this piece is based on 2 alleged threats that many don't see as such.
It is actually quite instructive to parse through Robert E. Rubin’s texts. I know it is rather silly to look for words of wisdom amidst the verbiage of the architect of the Great Recession but bear with me.
The thesis here is that one has to play a game an opponent only when it is obvious that we have more to lose than the opponent if we don’t play.
Of course the self-centeredness of this assumption is obvious to anyone who actually thinks but it should not surprise one these days that very few do.
The other assumption is that the opponent is not as “smart” and self-centered as we are. This way they will not see through us and play when we want to play despite the fact Rubinian logic says one should play only one had an advantage. China is not such a player.
Rubin made his name, career and fortune as a risk arbitrage trader. The sine qua non of the job is the ability to calculate odds better than the opponent and bet when you have even a slight advantage. In his case betting on the likelihood of a merger or acquisition to happen.
When you are playing sage with other people’s chips that is ok. Nobody took back the 100 million of so he made from Citigroup while the other was losing their shirt. Rubin kept quiet for a while and know he is back it seems with vacuous words again.
Get intelligent trade theorists and globalization specialists to analyze and advise us. Dani Rodrik, Joseph Stiglitz and your own Paul Krugman comes to mind.
3
I don’t see any way for the US and China to solve complex problems when neither country seems able to solve problems within their own countries (education, healthcare, climate) due to institutionalized corruption.
1
How closely should we work with a nation that belligerently threatens the existence and future of another sovereign nation?
China is playing a long game with the West concerning Taiwan. They are careful to encroach slowly... the death of a democracy by a thousand tiny cuts.
2
" In the United States, the business community, policy analysts and the media ...". If you feel you have accounted for all the stakeholders in that statement you are ignoring the current realities, which are very much changed from when you were Secretary of the Treasury. What about ordinary people? Don't their interests need representation at the table?
1
China has contravened some widely accepted trade and investment norms.
But
- subsidizing exports (the US farm bill is $867 billion)
- restricting imports ( US tariffs and controls on everything from sugar to iron)
- imposing buy-China mandates ( Buy China bad! Buy American good!)
When they do it, it is reprehensible. If the US does it, it is necessary for national security or preserving jobs.
For any outside observer - Mr Pot, please meet Mr Kettle.
Mr. Rubin, we all know, well, 2/3 of us know that Mr. Trump is off base. But we also know that we are not going to accept a replay of Japan’s “mercantile mischief” with China. The planet got mad at Japan in the 1980’s. Japan didn’t build “fake islands” in the middle of international shipping lanes. Japan didn’t try to elect “Presidents for Life”.
We now have workers without good, or any work. Even in the 80’s we didn’t have the greed from the 1% people in your industry. They didn’t have their tax cuts then. Now they do. The Trump people have only Trump.
Sir, I welcome your next article that takes these changes into account.
1
I agree with Secretary Rubin that The US & China have to get along. However, for me, it is hard to trust the Chinese. Just in the last year we have seen China become more authoritarian-not less- President Xi is now president for life; Just this week I read that mainland China feels that it is inevitable that Taiwan is brought back into mainland China's control. In addition, I've read that Chinese Muslims have been rounded up into re-education camps and one of our top national security people said last month that the cyber-crime against the US by Russia pales when compared to what the Chinese are trying to do to us. Things are going to have to change a lot for me to trust them.
Rubin was one of Clinton's people who pushed hard to help Beijing win permanent normal trade relations with the US, which led to China's accession to the WTO a year later, which led to the mess we're in today.
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He also pushed hard for ending Glass-Steagal, which led to the mess of 2008.
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And here he quotes Wang Yi, one of China's most aggressive hawks, as if Wang is some kind of thoughtful philosopher.
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Isn't there an island where guys like Rubin, Kissinger, et al, can go and retire in silence, while the country tries to undo the damage they've already caused?
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No more from this guy, please.
2
If the economic benefits of Chinese and US cooperation over the past 4 decades had been fairly distributed, we wouldn't be having this conversation. The US-Chinese economic relationship generated vast sums of wealth at the expense of the American middle-class. Trump is analytically wrong about everything. However, he is the political embodiment of the Democratic failure to reject Reaganomics forcefully enough.
Bill Clinton bought into the growing pie narrative. In the process he sold Americans out. Bush 43 made things infinitely worse while Obama essentially focused on the broader economy over the middle class. A reality which the obstructionist GOP essentially forced upon him. Throw in some election tampering, racism, and xenophobia: We have Trump as a result.
What was the first thing Trump did? He tore up the cooperative solution to Chinese-US tensions, the TPP. Whoops. I guess the neo-pols of the eighties, nineties, and two thousands should have shared a little bit more of that pie.
16
President Xi looks at China through his own experience which does not hold well for compromise. It’s serious business to him to show the world that China’s economic system is a success. He sees his country as simply the best. Americans are a little more practical no matter what we say. We(including Trump) are into compromise. I can only hope that President Xi can place himself and his country above ego and realize that not getting along in some meaningful way could lead to disastrous consequences.Both countries could do a lot together to improve the world.
2
If we are truly going to work with China to achieve the goals set out in this article we will need allies. America First and Trump has made this impossible.
1
@dave
We need allies, not freeloaders. For too long the rest of the world has gotten a free lunch from America. Trump is putting an end to that.
1
We have achieved energy independence and the United States is now the single largest producer of oil on the planet. This is good, it's was a matter of National Security and has been developed over time. Our independence in energy should be matched by independence in manufacturing and assembly. It's as simple as that.
It's hard to 'get along' with someone you are at War with, and make no mistake we are at War with China- economic War. Not everyone understands, but this is a War we MUST win, else our children are doomed to a dark age.
It will end up with America first, China first, (we and they will be fine) and the rest of the world will need to make their own national needs paramount in their own ways and in their own time.
The War is economic, to focus on nukes and climate is folly.
3
For the rest of this century China will probably be the most important country for the United States to deal with. That is to deal with on the basis of foreign policy, military/defense policy, trace/economic policy. Of course we will still deal with others and have foreign policy, military, and trade/economics concerns with others countries, but our dealings with China will take much more time and attention than with other countries.
That said, it is unfortunate that at this juncture where trade, foreign, defense policy are so important, we have an administration that in those areas is the weakest in memory. The Con Don says that China is taking advantage of us; which is true. But he actually has no clue of what the real problems are or how to fix them. I read that our supposed allies can't figure our what our policy is and, what is worse, our government doesn't seem to know what it is either. Do we even have a coherent foreign/economics/trade policy?
Many people think that it is better to tackle problems like our relations with China with allies; but we dropped out of TPP. China took our place in TPP and it is going forward without us. The Con Don has needlessly offended allies who could be a help in our foreign/trade policy.
The Trump/republican base is never going to support coherent forward looking policies. As long as the republicans control Washington, we will be drifting and losing ground to other countries.
1
Here's another take on this. Both China and America are deeply flawed countries. They have to be. They're human creations. But both countries have done several things right. They have enriched and educated their populations made advances in science and culture. As the two most powerful countries on the planet today they don't have to love each other to try and work together when the house is burning down. And the house - our planet - is burning down. The nuclear, terrorist, economic, and environmental threats Rubin mentions are and will feed upon each other. Lands without water will go to war to get it. People who cannot feed themselves or keep their families safe will spark mass migrations. Complex economies cannot flourish surrounded by chaos. Gated communities will not save you. These are big problems. These are the fires that need to be put out. China and the US need to focus on them. If they can, one hopes, successfully pool their resources intellectual and economic to deal with these problems they'll be plenty of time later for addressing the areas where the two sides disagree. Unfortunately, there is a basic pettiness and reflexive selfishness in human behavior that acts against rational thought for the common good. Our sad history shows the thirst for conflict especially if xenophobically driven is strong. In the current environment, the prognosis for this kind of cooperation is not encouraging. Expressing irrational hatred and acting on it just feels too good.
2
@Belasco Unfortunately, much of what you say is true. America is the richest and most successful country (on the basis of business and technology) the world has ever seen. So why can't we have a rational, reasonably priced health care system that covers everyone in the country?
And our country is going backwards in terms of just basic infrastructure. It is not a secret that railroads, subways, highways, airports, etc. eventually wear out and need to be replaced/upgraded.
The apprentice business executive doesn't cut it in the real world.
2
@Aubrey I made a mistake. This comment should go to the comments by A P which is below. Sorry.
All this tough talk from politicians, even readers here to start demanding China do this, do that, stop doing this, stop doing that. China will stand up to all our tough talk, tariffs and complaining. China has one party, long term plans and goals.
Contrast that with us every four years doing elect and regret, with no plans for infrastructure upgrades and maintenance, a government shutdown, politicians unable to forge consensus, the greatest military in the world, the same one that in 17 years hasn't been able to defeat an enemy whose members never had formal any formal schooling and don't have an organized army. We have the largest prison population of any country in the world. We have 5% of the world's population but consume 80% of the prescription drugs produced. We have an opiod epidemic, an obesity epidemic, a homelessness epidemic. A health care system so expensive and bureaucratic that millions go without care. We extol the virtues of unchecked capitalism, so therefore over several decades we've had thousands of corporations move offshore, leaving workers without jobs, health care and pensions.
So while we're busy not fixing much of this, the Chinese are moving ahead and will surpass us in just about every endeavor.
4
I am truly touched that Mr.Rubin is concerned about nuclear proliferation. The last time he figured in the news was during the bank bailouts, which served everyone 's interests not least his own. Of course climate change and non-proliferation are global 'problems' that need to be addressed collectively . And of course the US and China must lead.But can a European ask why the sudden interest in this global issue when bankers like himself have been, and presumably still are, busy pursuing 'transactional ' concerns to the exclusion of the collectivity? Davos notwithstanding.
2
It's hard to take advice from the guy that almost single-handedly destroyed America who aligned with Greenspan, to hasten our economic destruction along with a few other "bright lights".
However, it has been China's clear intent to reincarnate that experience with their theft of our technologies and intellectual properties, and we are being forced to somewhat coalesce with them to mitigate their intent to overpower us.
7
We absolutely need the United States and China to get along. If we look at our multinationals that earn revenue in China, it is a long list that includes GM, Apple, and others.
Even if the relationship between the two countries is not good today, it is still better than what it was 20 years ago. I am confident the relationship between the two countries will be better 20 years from now.
Star Trek is the future, and the world needs to get united now.
1
In order for both of our countries to successfully work together, both of our leader need to act like mature adults and work with their economic and political policy specialist to craft multilateral plans that will take into account how our decisions will affect the Earth in the future as well as our current situations.
With our current leadership, I do not believe that is possible.
4
We do not have to accept Beijing's Economic model to just go along and get along as they get stronger off of unfair trade on the backs of abysmal labor practices. Here's a few reasons why: Vietnam, Bangladesh, Philippines, even certain parts of India. The US and EU are still, for the time being, in the drivers seat of being prime consumers of Chinese manufacturing and have the leverage to drive change in their behavior, or in the behavior the competitor nations who want to take China's place in the Global Supply Chains if they fail to comply. It's called not putting all your eggs in one basket. China's economy cannot withstand tariffs across the West.
Insisting on better labor standards and intellectual property enforcement in China and all our manufacturing partners should be mandatory. It will put internal pressure on the Chinese, as its own citizens demand better lives, while making real progress at leveling the international playing field. China has skated by on exploitation and dodgy business practices for long enough. If we wait any longer we will have increasingly diminishing leverage on the future of the world economy. Then Beijing will start making economic decisions for us.
7
The historic mistake by US of creating its own foil in the form of China was the result of completely misguided initiatives. A totalitarian regime that neither respects intellectual property, nor believes in rule of law at home or abroad cannot be equated with USA. China needs to be contained, though not in the manner President Trump is going about trying.
9
From China's point of view, China is still a developing nation; what they practice had been practiced by now developed nations including the US, often in worse form. Unfortunately, the size matters. A nation with 1.4 billion people has way more impact on the world than a regulation sized one. Fortunately China seems to recognize that fact and taking lead on the environmental front at least. They now need to extend that recognition on other fronts and act like the second largest economy rather than a developing nation.
As for Trump, well, he'll be gone in 2 years. If not, God help us.
4
@TK Sung China taking lead on the environmental front? Surely you are joking?
1
@TK Sung
China cares nothing for the environment. Just breathe the poisonous air in Shanghai if you don’t believe it.
1
@DLR China is still in the climate accord, aren't they? They are electrifying all vehicles whereas Trump is pushing coal. The coal's share of their electricity also has been shrinking much faster than the US. https://unfccc.int/news/china-meets-2020-carbon-target-three-years-ahead-of-schedule
The U.S. has losing the position of the leader of the world to meet the transnational challenges. The country has withdrawn from Paris Agreement for preventing global warming and from Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) for free trade. If Trump administration fails to persuade North Korea into giving up nuclear weapons, many countries think that they cannot depend on the U.S. to solve transnational issues any more.
4
@Matsuda: The days of the US as international policeman are over. Too many Americans are mentally and emotionally living in the world of 1945 rather than 2019. We are 5% of the world population and occupy a major portion of North America. We do not and cannot rule Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and Australia/New Zealand. It is sheer folly even to try. Somehow that realization has to come through.
2
A very 1990s editorial. Not sure why the downplaying of the PRC’s neo-mercantilism? And, some apparent effort at drawing a false equivalence?
'
I usually disagree with this administration. But, the neo-mercantilism of the PRC is a big issue -the PRC's breaking of “norms” has been systematic, widespread and protracted, in the face of policies that have overall been constructive towards China over the past 18 years (late 1990s, with admittance into the WTO).
'
Quite a few mainstream economists have done their best to ignore neo-mercantilism, although this phenomenon has manifested on more than a few occasions, usually with developmental states policies, with significant impact on the global economy (see Japan from the 1960s to 1990s; S. Korea from the 1960s to the 2000s, the PRC from the 1990s to today).
Neo-mercantilism may be embedded in a model, but doesn’t mean policies should be tolerated and allowed to persist uncontested. They are unacceptable, because such economic Brezhnev doctrines of “what is mine is mine, what is yours is mine” lead to continuing efforts to hollow out industries based on government policies (to move up the value chain). This is not just “some unacceptable consequences” but a serious threat to a rules-based, relatively open, global trading system.
,
The one valid point is that the US should join with other countries to present a united block, but that maybe too late, given the spats this administration seems to like to incite all over the map.
21
@Michael Dunne
"The one valid point is that the US should join with other countries to present a united block, but that maybe too late, "
You got it in one. Many countries are or have moved to working around the US rather than with them.
4
@R Moore How do you define "many"? And which countries (if Iran, or Cuba, or Venezuela, well, yeah, that is yesterday's news). I respectfully disagree. Aside from a few cases (like TPP) I think many traditional allies, and countries that have long worked with the US are kind of stuck in a state of indecision. So maybe the worst of all worlds for others: Have a counterparty that is erratic and volatile in dealings (the current administration), but not have a real plan B on what do to next, for the near and mid-term at least.
1
@R Moore Many Chinese in Australia think Australia should no longer be a US ally.
1
I agree that China and the US need to find common ground. However, can we stop the climate hysteria as an integral part of these economic discussions? Global warming remains an unproven theory - it is in no way settled science. To argue the latter point as gospel truth makes global warming supporters as equally myopic about science as they claim 'deniers' to be.
We would be far better off working constructively together on economic, environmental and standard of living matters. While statists like Rubin pine for more government climate intervention, millions around the globe still lack adequate supplies of potable drinking water, basic health care such as vaccines, and reliable supplies of electric power. Far more will die this year from a lack of these than from anything caused by global warming.
2
@Alan One wonders what it would take to stop this kind of unsubstantiated disregard for Science. The IPCC, not a liberal hoax, but rather the top scientists focused on atmospheric and ocean science from around the world, says we have 12 years to reduce emissions to 45% of 2010 level, or blow past the 1.5 degree celsius limit, beyond which consequences are dire. The 13 Federal agencies issuing the Climate Assessment tells us it is already so advanced that our GNP will be going down rather than up in approaching decades. What is left that could convince Alan? Maybe if Jesus and Einstein descended into the UN Chamber and told the assemblage, "Yeah, trust us: even God doesn't over-rule science. After all, he made the rules."
Do you work for the fossil fuel industry?! They are the only ones who say climate change isn’t settled science.
It’s settled, it’s settled, it’s settled!!! 98% of scientists agree, and the other 2% are in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby.
Period.
An honest discussion about US-China relations requires avoiding false equivalencies in describing the interests of the two states.
China is a dictatorship whose supreme leader is seated for life. It commands its citizens’ physical movements, property ownership, and social order. It suppresses its religious and ethnic populations, imprisons and executes individuals without due process, and pursues its national and international interests through state-sponsored censorship, espionage, theft, and commercial and monetary agression. This includes appropriating sovereign lands in disregard of international law to build military facilities that threaten maritime trade routes. It does all of this in a zero-sum campaign against the interests of all nations, especially the US.
Despite these facts, Rubin advises that the US can and should cooperate with China to reach a mutually agreeable detente - without enumerating the transgressive behavior China would be forced to forgo. There is no evidence that China would cooperate in this, and considerable evidence that China would resist any enforceable agreement as an act of capitulation and a subsumation of its essential interests.
The banal platitudes of American political and business interests who had a hand in our present predicament will not help Americans understand what is now required to secure their future against a patient and capable adversary. An honest discussion is required.
25
Unfortunately, I'm afraid Rubin raises the wrong question. Of course we shou!d seek a constructive relationship with China, where our interests dictate it. Perhaps North Korea is an example of that. But we must be clear eyed in realizing that China's strategic goal is to surplant the U.S. as the economic and mi!itary leader in the world. This is the objective that they are focused on like a laser beam across all sectors of their government. In order to achieve this, China must win the economic, mi!Italy and diplomatic wars.
So,the critical question is:Can we have a constructive relationship with a country that wants to replace us as THE global super power? I contend that it's possible but might not be probable. What I mean is both countries will continue to compete for trade advantages, military superiority and alliance superiority, with the attentive tensions that such competition inevitably causes. These "tensions have to be cleverly managed" to not jeopardize "our constructive joint interests." This is the difficult challenge that faces our leadership.
The current status:We have economic leverage "now" due to our market size buying power. We currently hold military leadership but China is developing and expanding. Finally, I'm afraid we are on a path towards losing the alliance battle. China has a stronger bond with Russia, Iran and North Korea. China is quietly and cleverly courting African and Latin American countries.
This is America's true challenge of the future.
15
The need for the US is for a policy of balanced international trade, not just with China, but in total. That best can be done by currency exchange control. Grant US exporters $ trade credits that US importers must buy on a regulated exchange before releasing equivalent dollars to pay for imports.
1
Come on! The only thing Mr. Rubin cares about is money and Trump's misbegotten trade war is causing traders to sell and people like Mr. Rubin to lose millions. If he cared so much about climate change (and he most certainly does not) why is this the first we're hearing about it? As Matt Tabibi once wrote about Mr. Rubin: "He's an unapologetic arch-capitalist demagogue whose very career is proof that a free-market meritocracy is a myth."
As President Clinton's treasury secretary he was the driving force behind two disastrous regulatory actions, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the deregulation of the derivatives markets. Those time bombs gave us the 2008 financial crisis. Who in their right mind would give him an Op-Ed, much less listen to anything he has to say?
57
That Robert Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, recounts a quote from a politician that represents a communist country with an agenda antithetical to America’s, and uses the quote as evidence of America’s failing, shows why we are in the state we are in. Namely, a society where financial brokers, like Mr. Rubin, actively work against their country’s interest to reap ungodly wealth.
America’s middle class was painstakingly built by men and women who cared about their country and who knew that progressive taxes (top individual rates at 70% ) were vital to a functioning democracy. Unfortunately, history will remember, Mr. Rubin and his Baby Boom generation cared more for their own self interest than that of their county.
48
Are you certain that all baby boomers are to blame? So many played by the rules and are struggling today. Please don’t lump all members of a generation together. There were baby boomers who supported and fought for equal rights for women, civil liberties for minorities, and protection of the environment. A minority are bankers an financial brokers.
1
Per capita, China invests three times more in education than the US does including investments in start ups and innovation. 96% of Chinese parents pay for additional after school education. 46% of American parents do. Did you know that the primary content focus is English language instruction and that the largest "on line" English tutoring company, VIPKids, employs over 30,000 virtual English tutors in the US, Canada and Australia. No matter what Trump does, he's not going to turn back the juggernaut that is a modern China of 2.5 billion people. While we've been siphoning money to the rich, they've been building infrastructure...fast trains, airports, highways and new subways. I'm afraid they will just wait Trump out and the Chinese government and people will never fully trust the US again.
14
@Ronald J Kantor
You are on the mark...except for China's population.
It's 1.4 billion, not 2.5 billion.
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/
3
@Ronald J Kantor There's some cognitive bias involving numbers there. China's population is more than quadruple that of the US. Yet, their young people are still flocking to other countries for higher education. Especially the middle class and any parent with means. They don't have enough qualified teachers and universities to go around. What Chinese parent would send their young kids to live with foreign strangers in the west if they knew dependable education and opportunity was available at home? Also, you do realize China employs cyber-army trolls right? They need English to spread their dear leader's vision. And if you think China doesn't hoard their cash to their own 1% and relatives of the political elite, you're either dreaming or dishonest.
2
@Socrates. Thanks, Socrates for providing correct population #. Thought it was considerably higher than 1.4 billion...
If China is listening, maybe they can find some emails to help break Trumps magic spell over the Russo-Republicans in Congress.
China’s destiny will benefit where a symbiotic relationship with the U.S. is maintained sustainably over a multi decade time period.
Let’s not drive them into the arms of the Russians.
4
Look, we live in the real world. China has legitimate interests and isn’t concerned whether the “world needs us to get along”. Our relationship with with China will become an increasingly tense struggle in the coming years. Unlike the former USSR, China is a formidable economic powerhouse. Our greatest asset is the economic counterweight we represent and our capacity for innovation. China can’t. Exploit this ruthlessly. We have to act as though the future is really up for grabs because it really is. Liberal values and sensitivities will not enable us to engage China successfully - hard negotiating and action will. If we do these things, we may avert a Chinese takeover or war. I’m not certain the latter would be the worse option.
6
@Tiger shark
" our capacity for innovation. China can’t." This is a dangerous delusion. The US is more driven by marketing-speak than China. Innovation mostly comes from whoever has the largest contiguous market - things become possible at large manufacturing scale that are impossible at small or medium scale. Compare 1.4 billion with 350 million, take away the 37% of Americans who believe in creationism, you are looking at odds of six to one against in terms of who will have the next bright idea.
1
@Tiger shark, What liberal values?
USA seem to engage well with
the likes of Saudi Arabia and
before that with Hosni Mubarak
and Agosto Pinoche of Chile. We
never paid attention to their murdrous rampage. Now with
China we are acting as holier than
thou. What about tariff on Canadian
stell and Aluminium? Does Canada
offend your liberal values and
sensitives?
We went to war against China in Korea, went to war again against China in Vietnam, and then greedy American businessman closed factories in the USA throughout the 90s and 2000s and peacefully transferred millions of jobs from the US to China. Where did the money go? Improved our infrastructure? Educated employees for the new economy? No it lined the pockets of greedy Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile the American heartland is in despair with no jobs and an opioid crisis. Thanks Mr. Rubin. And when are we going to convict your investment banker brethren for the financial crisis?? We’re still waiting.
69
@JPH
This is nonsense. Truman explicitly avoided attaching China as part of the Korean War. And, the Vietnam's sponsor was Russia, not China. Generally, the Vietnamese are very wary of China.
2
The cognitive dissonance in the quote below is astounding. It’s saying that we have two countries with antithetical systems, they should be able to get along.
“These structural policies present a complex problem. They’re embedded in China’s economic model, and the United States needs to recognize that it can’t simply demand that China change that model. And China needs to recognize that its system creates some unacceptable consequences in the trade arena.
From there, the two countries should be able to identify reasonable solutions.”
2
@Geo
What's the dissonance? Most people get along every day with others who have religious or political views that are antithetical to theirs. You can tolerate others with antithetical views, do business with them, and let them practice whatever views they want in their own home as long as they let you do so in yours.
Similarly, not every country has to have the same system. China should be able to have whatever system it wants in China, America can have whatever system it wants in America, and we can tolerate and be friendly with each other on the international stage. Dissonance only exists for people who think that every other country should have the same political system as their own (which, sorry to say, is a view more prevalent in America).
8
@Aoy
The best comment so far.
Judged by results over the last 25 years the Chinese people have gained much more from their political structure than any other country on earth.
To minimize that achievement is to misjudge the domestic support the government has.
Most Western countries compare poorly.
1
I agree we can get along with those that disagree with us, but antithetical views are different - they clash, they offend. Also the issues with the U.S. and China do not stay in their own homes. China wants to keep its model and sell into the U.S. and visa-versa. The result is a clash.
But the dissonance I am speaking (typing) of is cognitive dissonance. Not dissonance from the clash of cultures. The author identified the differences, acknowledges the severity of the differences and then suggests a rational solution should be achievable.
2
A cooperative relationship with China is what we need?
China has been "given" the bulk of our jobs, and much wealth has been transferred into their hands - thanks to politicians who happily did so, due to the influence of corporate/1% campaign donations in both Republican and Democratic administrations. Great for China, a catastrophe for many of us.
Much as I decry President Trump's lack of civility, regulatory roll-back, and myriad other ills, he at least is attempting to tilt some of this balance back in our favor, unlike previous presidents. How it pans out is an open question, but the jury is still out.
21
You do realise that the decision to move production abroad was not taken by politicians, but by corporate boards and company CEOs. Even if the government wanted to stop them, it has no power to dictate where you place your private business.
All of this is in perfect accordance with capitalist doctrines, where the mandate is to optimize profits by minimizing costs. Nowhere in that ideology is mention of societal responsibilties or the economic devastation it could leave behind. In fact, capitalism specifically emphasize that the only consideration is to the owners and the corporate value.
Nobody 'gave' China these jobs. They simply offered a better price for the same services and won the competition. This is exactly how it is supposed to be, if I remember my economics lessons correctly.
I am sorry you don't like losing. But that was always a possible outcome, in the competitive system of capitalism. If you never considered that option, and what it would mean for your society and opportunities - then you failed your due dilligence.
And as far as I know, government didn't force this on you. The people chose this system again and again, with great enthusiasm and public outcries when anyone deviated from the model. Nobody hoodwinked you, it is all right there in the ideology and textbooks explaining how this works. And the warnings were there from the start, so you ignored them at your own peril.
At least be angry at the right people.
6
@Peter Jensen A very good description of the international economic situation.
People don't realize that the global economy has a mind of its own and is driven largely by economics and technology. Communications and shipping are easier and cheaper than ever so it makes sense that business is being done on a worldwide basis. Most large corporations are truly world-side businesses. This involves lots of economic change which many people don't like.
@Ellen, No guarantee that Turmp's
policy will tilt balance in our
favor. If so, why Tim cook is decrying
the negative effect of trade war on
its business there. Fedex chairman
also attributed negative business
environment to poor political
decisions. Don't be sure Trump's
policies won't hurt us. No wonder
stock market has plunged. They
understand bad consequences of
Trump's policies. Trump will be
as successful as Herbert Hoover.
This is wise advice but I am pessimistic that it will be followed. There is far far too much "China bashing" in the United States today. We can and should give a loud cheer for the EIGHT HUNDRED MILLION Chinese who have been lifted out of poverty in a generation. We can and should give a loud cheer for the bright hard working Chinese scientists, engineers and mathematicians (I see them in my classroom!) who are making great advances in twenty-first century fields. We have far too much reference to the Chinese "stealing" our technology. We can have a positive constructive relationship with China -- and the great open question is whether or not that will happen.
25
@joelibacsi The US has tried for more than 18 years. See admittance to the WTO. Hasn't happened. And largely because of the neo-mercantilist and developmental state policies of the PRC.
5
@joelibacsi A positive relationship with a country that invades and occupies the maritime territory of our friends and allies, that routinely threatens to invade peaceful and democratic Taiwan, that threatens our legally conducted air and maritime patrols in and over international waters, that threatens our treaty ally Japan, that enables the brutal, corrupt and dangerous dictatorship in North Korea? How long does this list need to become, not even including China’s predatory commercial abuses, before we recognize that China’s intentions are not benign? Sometimes we need to put aside our short-term financial interests to prevent much costlier problems later.
5
@joelibacsi
When China stops stealing data and intellectual property people will stop complaining.
This acrimony has nothing to with Chinese intelligence or hard work. It rests with closed markets, intellectual property theft.
6
I couldn't agree more. There is a huge opportunity for a win-win negotiation with China. Both countries have a great deal to gain. Mr. Rubin is correct in pointing out that there are simply areas that cannot be negotiated. For example, I don't believe that the US can influence China on its treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang Province. We shouldn't try. Awful as that situation is, the US in not going to influence China's internal affairs. But, there are plenty of areas that can be negotiated to the benefit of both countries.
Trump has the opportunity to do the one thing that salvaged some of Richard Nixon's legacy, an opening to China. Lighthizer could negotiate a meaningful agreement with China. We'll see if that actually happens.
8
@ShenBowen, True China withstood
pressure on Tibet. Cuba is a good
example of failure of the pressure
politics. It has been under the
sanctions since 1959. It has not
disappeared. China is too big to
fold.
2
If trump wanted to really get tough, he callus sanction the delivery of commercial jets and jet engines - products that China can’t make yet and must buy from US and European companies. Even rolls Royce relies on US made cast and forged parts made from nickel superalloys and titanium.
You know they need it because they’ve tried to steal the technology from western companies with spies and hacking. It might be painful for some period as China buys one of every 5 Boeing planes built, but I bet it would have an almost immediate impact and the situation could be resolved. By the way, Russia has nothing bigger than the 100 passenger sukhoi superjet and that won’t do the job. Nowhere near the safety record either.
It might be a draconian step, but if you really want to show them you’re tough, this would do it.
5
@Steve Ell
This is tough. But if China refuses to send shoes, shirts, and pans suddenly, we instantly become barefoot and topless...
Sorry. Could. Not callus in line one. Screwy autocorrect
Mr. Rubin makes a valid point that it will take the clout of the world’s two largest economies to effect change in important global challenges. This would have been easier when these two economies were both democratic, free trade societies with reliable judicial systems, I.e. the US and the EU.
Unfortunately, the abdication of American industrial corporations to hire and pay local labor in favor of the near slave-labor rates of China and her satellites over the eighties and nineties, along with China’s admittedly brilliant morphing from a communistic economy to a capitalistic one, makes this nearly impossible. China’s current combination of capitalistic greed at its worst with an authoritarian government which sees no need to play be anyone else’s rules makes the level of cooperation Mr. Rubin wants is very hard to imagine.
China will only cooperate with us, or anyone else for that matter, when they can clearly see what’s in it for them. Sounds like the current occupant of the White House, in my estimation.
4
@Steve Feldmann
"Mr. Rubin makes a valid point that it will take the clout of the world’s two largest economies to effect change...'
Actually, Mr Rubin is reported as saying 'the two largest *national* economies'.
See the difference? On many metrics, the largest economy on the planet belongs to the European Union. Which isn't a 'country' - but only because EU member states don't want it to be. The EU fulfils all the conventional legal, diplomatic and statutory criteria of 'a country'.
American politicians - especially those around (and including) Mr Trump detest and fear the EU. Which is why they spend so much time talking it down and, lately, actively undermining it.
3
@Steve Feldmann
Yet it was the US, not China, that withdrew from the Paris climate agreement and Iran agreement, which were both supported by the EU.
The fact that a country is democratic does not mean it will act cooperatively in the international sphere. As Republicans like to remind us, American voters care about America, not foreign countries, and they vote accordingly. I see no evidence that the median American voter cares about international cooperation any more than the Chinese leadership.
3
@nolongeradoc
I don’t think most Americans are afraid of the EU. If anything we’re happy you haven’t been killing each other in vast numbers during the last 70+ years. Personally, I’d like to see more integration between US & European civilization. Europe is a bit bureaucratic for our taste but it’s much better than many competing civilizations.
We’ve had our problems here in the States, with Bush’s blunders but we will survive Trump.
Mr. Rubin, as one of the leading ushers of China's entry into GATT and then the WTO, you could have done more to make sure that those "disrupted" by the veritable flood of Western FDI into China were given more of a helping hand.
Additionally, why didn't the WTO adhere to ILO standards (as TPP does)?
You, your boss, and your predecessors insured "engagement" with China would, over time, bring important civil rights and governmental reform to that country. Instead, Chairman Xi has moved China in the opposite direction.
I agree that Trump's tactics and lack of coalition building are lamentable (maybe he really isn't trying to "solve" anything) but that doesn't make China's myriad transgressions any less real.
35
Engage with China where we can do so in ways consistent with our interests and values. For example, welcome Chinese people, as visitors and visa holders. Push back -- hard -- where the Chinese government/Party leaves us no choice. Be respectful of a great civilization (and serious competitor), but be resolved; play the long game; play not to destroy China or "block its rise," but to preserve what we have created and fought for. Work for peace; do not initiate conflict, but be ready for conflict if it comes to us. This is the only formula for "getting along" that makes sense.
25
If after 40 years of engagement you believe that PRC will be anything but a baneful influence on humankind hasn't learnt much from past 40 years.
China is an efficient dictatorship with potential to build a digitally controlled system with killer robots and string of failed states round the world. if you still have illusions, pass the joint.
51
@Vinny
What failed states are you talking about? China's rise has been great for other poor countries, because it increased investment into them and demand for their products. The data clearly shows that developing countries started growing much faster after China started getting big in the mid-90s, both in absolute terms and relative to developed countries (https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NGDP_RPCH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVEC/WEOWORLD). Big recipients of Chinese investment like Cambodia and Ethiopia were starving in the 1980s; now they have very fast and consistent economic growth. Meanwhile, the US regularly uses sanctions in an effort to turn countries it doesn't like such as Cuba and Iran into failed states.
12
@Aoy
Yes, many aspects of recent American foreign policy leave much to be desired. Our Power Elite have squandered many of our strengths.
2
@Vinny
So Vin, what should we do next?
Thanks...you keep the joint.
Robert Rubin was one of the bricklayers of the 2008 Great Depression via unregulated Wall St. greed, so his advice needs to be taken with a grain of incompetence.
In 1997, Rubin and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan strongly opposed giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversight of over-the-counter credit derivatives when this was proposed by Brooksley Born, the head of the CFTC.
What America needs to work on is fixing its own country's infrastructure and brains which have been collectively hollowed out by an insatiable culture of destructive corporate sociopathic greed that has destroyed its democracy, its middle class and its reputation.
China is a one-party dictatorship state, but at least it invests in its infrastructure.
Until America stops investing in greedy billionaires as a panacea, it will continue to slide into 3rd Worldism, feudalism and the fetid Trump Toilet.
The enemy is domestic, not foreign.
116
@Socrates Bravo! Mr Rubin's attempt to act the "elder statesman"in the US-China disputes is negated by the fact that he monetised his China connection, as did so many in Wall Street. Reluctantly, I'll take "the Donald" over Mr Rubin on this issue.
13
@Socrates
As someone who knows a little about Costa Rica, let me use that country's relationship with China to show how we in the USA get it wrong.
Chinese labor built the new outdoor stadium in San Jose, the capital city, about four years ago. Chinese labor helped build the only stretch of "freeway" in all of Costa Rica (from San Jose to Puntarenas, more or less). Travel in Costa Rica is difficult due to the lack of decent infrastructure (it is a poor country) and the geography (it is a land of volcanoes, earthquakes and is very rugged, making road building very difficult). Building that road was a real benefit to the people of Costa Rica.
This is how Chinese diplomacy works - not guns but butter. Did the Chinese play this to their advantage - sure. Do the Chinese benefit from it - most definitely, even if the people of Costa Rica benefit from the modernization as well.
This is the problem with the USA. We export military "solutions" to our potential allies instead of something beneficial to the average citizen of the country we are "helping".
5
@Socrates
Soc,
Bob Rubin is a Giant Hydra-aka Goldman Sachs- alum. He never uttered one word of even mild regrets for leading the charge to kill the Glass-Steagall Act.
We all know GS mantra: collect billions every year by all means possible regardless of ethics, morals, or integrity. I didn't forget his holiness Lloyd Blankfein fatwa " I was doing the work of God" when asked how to justify looting billions while millions working Americans 401K are in shambles.
Little Prince Mnuchin is currently following his mentor Rubin methods he learned @ GS, laying the groundwork for next financial debacle.
5
Words of wisdom from the guy who along with Bill Clinton brought you the repeal of Glass-Steagall (while Rubin negotiated his obscenely lucrative position at Citi Bank), which led directly to the Great Recession. Can anyone please tell me why we should listen to one word espoused by this purveyor of corporate profit above economic security?
76
@Michael
Hey, I'd listen to him before I'd listen to Lighthizer or Navarro or Mnuchin or Ross or Pompeo or Trump.
The way things are heading with the current team of China "experts" serves solely to make China dig in its heels to avoid repeating the humiliation suffered by China as a result of the Opium Wars and Treaties of concessions with the "barbarians."
"Never again."
3
This represents exactly the globalist view which so many voters rejected in the 2016 election. I, for one, see folly in producing everything in China and then shipping it around half the globe. How does that square with environmental concerns? And as much as Mr. Rubin deplores the current administration and wishes parenthetically upon a 'future' administration, it is still the administration with Mr. Navarro, not Mr. Rubin, as negotiator with China. Godspeed, Mr. Navarro!
12
@Wolf Bein
Wolf, do you think The Government is making your cars or computers in China?
No. It's your hereos of private enterproise, it is the greedy mouths at the top of the free market heap. This is exactly what you boys wanted,"Get government off my economy!", right?
Where you see folly, they see a sweet spot, and will not be denied.
Speaking of sweet, I dearly love how you boys manage to put The Great Recession at Clinton's feet. Very smooth. And we all do a good fanatsy now and again.
If you want to bet on Trump/Navarro, I'd take that action...
I completely disagree with the conclusions from this. I don't think the world needs the United States and China to "get along", I think we need the United States to stand up for and defend their own professed values and morals.
I think if the United States wants to be a world superpower then they need to bear the responsibility that comes with being a world superpower, which is to maintain the order that they've established, defend their allies and those who help enforce an American-led order, and establish rights for the human person world-wide.
If the Americans have decided to abdicate their responsibility in the face of Chinese aggression, then that is not called "getting along". Call a spade a spade, it's bowing down for the sake of money.
These are the types of decisions that will have lasting consequences far beyond the presidency of Donald Trump. These are generational consequences, the types that will affect American lives for the next hundred years. This is not the sort of thing that will go away just because a Democrat gets elected President in 2020.
47
@C What values and morals? The U.S. is slaughtering people in the Middle East as we speak, for the sake of profit. The U.S. itself is a threat to human rights.
4
Sometimes in the US, many tend to think the future will take care of itself, which may be why so many Americans are more responsive to short term concerns than the planetary catastrophe that their grandchildren might endure.
But in the longer term, the rise of Eurasia will connect the European Union, world's largest market, with Asia, the world's greatest reservoir of educated human potential.
China's Belt and Road project, the opening of the Arctic Ocean to navigation, the vast wealth of resources in central Asia and the challenges of climate change to food production will reinforce the two realities above.
The world will begin moving away from fossil fuels in the 2020s, with profound implications for oil exporters in the Middle East, Russia and elsewhere.
Short term turf battles over steel and automotive production are distracting from the need for the US to remain relevant in a future world that could be dominated by Eurasia.
Leadership in new energy sources and storage, advanced manufacturing, more efficient transportation, sustainable and climate adaptive agriculture, biotech, AI and especially education are far more important than dominance in fossil fuels and obsolete manufacturing and weapons systems, the focus of the current Administration.
The growing influence of Big Energy, Pharma, Guns and Finance is steering politics in Washington away from our real long term interests.
New House investigations into the Trump Administration will make this clear.
11
@Look Ahead. Chinese are beating our pants off in the development of AI based educational applications. The Chinese government is investing big money in start ups that focus on use of educational technology to "level the playing field". Exactly what should be happening in the US, but isn't.
Am pretty damn Blue, voted for HRC, not a Trump fan.
However, is he really all that wrong about China?
I mean, R. Rubin says "...Well, yeah, the Chinese violated some norms...."
Is that really all that different from Trump saying that they are cheating and that our trade situation with China needs to be adjusted?
Not to mention the fact that they are trying to take over the South China Sea and , TODAY, threatened Taiwan.
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@Lefthalfbach
Except Trump, for some reason, trashed our longstanding allies as well as China. Rubin is correct in writing that Trump should have built a coalition of democracies (they all share the same frustrations with China) and then pressing China to change.
The fact that he didn't makes me wonder what his real motivation is (ie, damaging or ruining our alliances).
@Lefthalfbach There is no such thing as "cheating" in geopolitical competition, otherwise America's numerous wars waged under false pretenses (Vietnam, Gulf, Iraq) could easily be called cheating as well. The feigned concern for Taiwan is simply a propaganda weapon, and you know it.
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@Sarah Johnson
How would you know that my concern for Taiwan is "...feigned..."? They are a free-ish country. They have been our ally for generations.
How are things going in Hong Kong these days under the "...two systems..." theory of Chinese government. Not very well.
Look, your argument cuts both ways. If China is free to "...violate some norms of trade and investment...", to summarize R. Rubin, then a
different trade policy by us with China is at least defensible.
As for whether wars equal cheating? To the extent they are fought to control territory or resources? Yeah, I suppose you could make that argument.
But China is hardly a pacifist nation. They are expanding their navy. They are building islands in the South China Sea. They are militarizing those islands.
That is a direct threat to Japan, South Korea and Phillipines- and, for that matter, Vietnam. It also threatens to stranglr Singapore's trade route to the US and the Panama canal.
I don't care for Trump. I don't think Pence would be much of an improvement, But the development of Chines manufacturing cost millions of jobs here and is a major cause of the breakdown in rural and small-town America.
Tom Friedman made these same point in an Times Op=ed a few weeks back.
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DJT declaring a trade war with China is distorting our economy. Farmers who grow soybeans have lost their biggest customer, China! They now have other sources for their biggest cash crop, soybeans. China is never going to purchase soybeans from American farmers again. And it is because of the declared trade war that DJT started with China to look good to his ever shrinking base of the electorate.
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Trump and his economic advisors have pointed to a valid problem in the US-China relationship. In trade, China has not been a force for fairness nor good; it devalues its currency, making its exports unusually attractive; it insists that companies transfer a portion of their proprietary technology to China in order to enter the Chinese market; and it engages in the active theft of American technology, through personal or technological means. This is not the behavior of a trade partner, but of a serious competitor. Much as I dislike Trump, he makes a point. These actions have been going on under many administrations, and they have not stopped. I just don't know if tariffs are the smartest way to address this issue.
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@Nelson China has been in a trade war with the US for decades. Look at the cost of doing business in China. Forced partnerships with State owned companies, Relinquishing IP, limitations on sales, marketing, etc. Then a soft takeover once the market is established. This combined with the high import tariffs on most goods entering China really don't make it sound like this is something that the US started. The US is just finally waking up to the fact that our corporations sold us out for some cheap Chinese labor and enriched and emboldened our only real rival. Yes, Trump = bad, but there are bigger issues that we have to face about China, and Trump is the only one to start facing them. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Our farmers will sell their wares to other countries, it's not like there are unlimited soybeans. China is buying them across the world which still increases global demand, demand is still there.
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@Nelson That is partly incorrect. There is no other supplier who can provide the price, quality and quantity the US can. The Chinese are willing to impose shortages to win their point though.