Galaxy Brains on China
A survey by Foreign Affairs offers a rare collection of galaxy brains on China. It is by no means complete. It actually misses some major ones such as Kissinger, Paulson. Nonetheless, it is a good collection. These galaxy brains are either compromised or divorced from reality.
The collection is based on their opinion (agree or disagree) on the statement "U.S. foreign policy has become too hostile to China."
The following galaxy brains agree or do not disagree with the statement.
Cheng Li
STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Director and Senior Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution
Beijing believes that the United States ended the war in Afghanistan in order to prepare for war with China, along the lines of what President Joe Biden has described. Mutual hostility is leading the two countries down the road to a potentially devastating war. The sad truth is that the American public is not well informed.Read LessJ. Stapleton Roy
STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Distinguished Fellow at the Wilson Center
China is throwing its weight around in ways that require an appropriate U.S. response. This increases the desire of Asian countries for the United States to remain a major player in the western Pacific as a balancing factor against domineering Chinese behavior. This applies both in a security sense and even more so to our economic engagement with the region, which regional countries seek as an offset against Chinese economic domination of East Asia. We are overconcentrated on the first factor and offering far too little on the second. Moreover, our overreaction to Chinese behavior is blurring our ability to distinguish between excessively assertive Chinese actions and Chinese behavior that is a reaction to U.S. moves that Beijing perceives as directly threatening core Chinese national interests. This applies particularly to Taiwan and the South China Sea. Nor does our China policy adequately allow for the enormous economic interests that regional countries have with China, making them resistant to being forced to choose between the United States and China. In short, the lack of nuance in our China policy is undermining the advantages we should be deriving from Asian resistance to having China dominate the region. In Asia’s eyes, the United States’ visceral hostility to China increases the likelihood of conflict that would damage the interests of all regional countries. By overreacting to China, we are misplaying a strong hand and lessening Asian confidence that we can manage our China relationship in a manner consistent with their interests. We can do much better.Read LessJeffrey Bader
STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution
China is difficult, evolving negatively in some respects, but treating it as an all-purpose adversary is profoundly contrary to U.S. interests.Read LessStephen Orlins
STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
President of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations
Great that you are asking this question to see where senior people are on this issue. Even more than usual over the last 42 years, domestic politics is dictating a policy that is more hostile than what is in the interests of the American people.Read LessSulmaan Khan
STRONGLY AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Denison Chair in International History at the Fletcher School at Tufts University
To be clear, I do think that Chinese policy is needlessly hostile, too—not just toward the United States but toward the world in general. American policy, however, has been what American policy toward any global challenge always seems to be: hype up the threat nonstop and chest-beat ceaselessly about how the United States will beat the threat. Somewhere in the rhetoric, prudence, common sense, and sound policy have died, just as they did in U.S. policy toward communism during the Cold War. (That the United States didn’t lose the Cold War doesn’t mean that it didn’t make some pretty serious mistakes). There is no need to proclaim U.S. intentions of competing with China on vaccines; just supply shots where they’ll help, thank China for doing the same, and move on. The same holds true for cooperation on climate change. And I confess the endless talk from those who hold or have recently held positions in government about how the United States would win a war against China is rather terrifying. No one seems to realize that there are no guarantees such a war would stay contained and that it might just wind up destroying human civilization. (That the United States could make the case that it was all China’s fault would be little comfort.)Read LessAlice Lyman Miller
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University
Washington should both compete and cooperate with China. To do that, it must first and foremost get its own house in order. It is just not anywhere close to doing that.Read LessAudrye Wong
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California
Avery Goldstein
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Professor at the University of Pennsylvania
Now that both China and the United States are focused on the challenges they present to one another, posturing is...Read MoreBilahari Kausikan
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Chair of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore
Cecilia Han Springer
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Senior Researcher with the Global China Initiative at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center
Given the global climate challenge, there is simply no time for increased hostility between the United States and China. Both countries can engage in healthy competition to mobilize science, policy, and technology expertise to meet collective global goals.Read LessChampa Patel
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Director of the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House
Dan Wang
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Technology Analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics
The “whole-of-government” approach taken by the Trump administration demanded every department to identify ways to challenge China. Resulting efforts such as the Department of Justice’s China Initiative is emblematic of a strategy that has created enormous ill will and few successful cases. Instead of a scattershot approach that encouraged departments to act on all of their grievances, the United States could have accomplished more with carefully coordinated interagency work to focus on key strategic issues.Read LessDiana Fu
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 6
19. Diana Fu Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and Nonresident Fellow at the Brookings Institution
U.S. foreign policy aggression has been matched by Beijing aggression. Both sides have become too aggressive toward one another, and AUKUS, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States defense agreement, has upped the ante even more.Read LessEmma Ashford
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 6
Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council
Over the last few years, U.S. foreign policy toward China has become reflexively hostile in a number of areas, from trade to pandemic response. This is problematic, as it can make it harder to conduct the basic business of diplomacy. Just look at the recent Alaska summit, which descended into shouting and hyperbole. To be clear: there are plenty of areas of concern when it comes to China. Policymakers should be wary of China’s rise and hedge against the risks of potential Chinese expansionism. But the open hostility toward China in recent years serves neither side and could make confrontation or conflict more likely.Read LessEric Heginbotham
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Principal Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies
Although the U.S.-Chinese relationship has inherently competitive elements, there are also areas where the two countries can and should cooperate. Yet competitive elements appear to have become the near exclusive focus of U.S. policy. To be clear, I believe that strengthening U.S. regional alliances and maintaining the U.S. military capability to deter are essential to regional stability. But cooperating with China where interests overlap (such as, for example, global climate change, health, and, potentially, peacekeeping) contributes to stability in other ways. Perhaps more to the point, certain aspects of U.S. policy, particularly toward Taiwan, may drive the United States toward conflict with China. Congress is playing a particularly unfortunate role. Measures such as the Taiwan Travel Act and the (proposed) Taiwan Reinforcement Act undermine the bases on which our diplomatic efforts with China rest and represent an unnecessary provocation to Beijing.Read LessKiron Skinner
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Professor at Carnegie Mellon University
Matt Duss
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Foreign Policy Adviser for Senator Bernie Sanders
Michael D. Swaine
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft
The United States conflates its moral opprobrium toward Beijing’s repressive domestic policies with the pragmatic calculation of its national interest. Demonizing China with poorly supported charges of genocide, hypocritical criticisms of its violation of the “rules-based order,” and a zero-sum “democracy versus authoritarianism” framing of the relationship might make for good political theater but does nothing to advance American interests. To the contrary, these statements and the policies that flow from them merely strengthen internal support for the Chinese regime, alarm friends and allies, and undermine what should be concerted efforts to reach understandings with the Chinese leadership based on sharply defined redlines, mutual restraint, and creative diplomacy.Read LessMichelle Murray
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Associate Professor of Politics and Faculty Director of the MA Program in Global Studies at Bard College
The brewing antagonism between the United States and China is not an inevitability. Rather, it is the product of decades of U.S. foreign policy that has failed to engage China on its own terms and recognize its rising power and status. Recently, these policies have begun to crystallize into something that looks more and more like straightforward containment, which will fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy of competition and foreclose the possibility of productive engagement going forward.Read LessMike Mazarr
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation
The issue here is what “foreign policy” we’re talking about. To begin with, it is mostly China that is fueling the degree of hostility in the relationship, so a certain toughness in the U.S. response is appropriate. If we look at core official policy, public statements by U.S. civilian officials have been superbly calibrated. The administration has promised cooperation where interests align and has reached out, with limited success, to schedule dialogues. What I think has become too hostile is thus not the official posture as much as the emerging national mindset on China, reflected in congressional legislation, statements by some politicians (and many breathless pundits), comments by some military officers, and occasionally sensationalistic reporting that speaks in urgent and sometimes apocalyptic terms about this rivalry. These statements and trends may be driving us to a poorly thought out, creeping shift in policy on Taiwan, among other things—one that is partly out of the control of the administration. It certainly appears that Chinese officials are drawing increasingly fatalistic and highly dangerous conclusions about U.S. intentions. I worry that an avalanche of anti-Chinese sentiment and actions from all these sources of “foreign policy” could overwhelm the efforts of a more nuanced and thoughtful official stance to prevent disaster.Read LessRobert Jervis
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics at Columbia University
We are exaggerating both China’s strength and its ambitions—as least for the near future....Shelley Rigger
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Professor of Political Science at Davidson College
Stephen Wertheim
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 6
Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
U.S. policy has needed to adjust to China’s coercive actions and rising power, but in recent years, American leaders have...Read MoreTanisha M. Fazal
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota
On democracy and human rights, the United States and China have a lot to disagree about. But they also need...Read MoreYanzhong Huang
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Professor at the Seton Hall University School of Diplomacy and International Relations
President Joe Biden’s China policy is fundamentally no different from President Donald Trump’s. Although China’s internal repression and external aggression are in part to blame, the Biden administration has not shown much interest in improving the bilateral relationship. In the Cold War era, the United States and the Soviet Union cooperated on global health issues. Today, however, there is little serious discussion between the United States and China on how to work together to combat a common global threat. Instead, U.S. COVID diplomacy focuses on countering China’s influence.Read LessYuen Yuen Ang
AGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan
The issue is less about hostility than about whether U.S. foreign policy is based on a balanced, grounded understanding of the situation in China and whether U.S. rhetoric and measures have been effective—or have potentially empowered hard-liners in Beijing. Treating all of China as an “enemy” and appearing hostile without an appreciation of the diversity among Chinese elites will only force them to rally behind one paramount leader and the nationalist line.Read LessAynne Kokas
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Faculty Senior Fellow at the Miller Center and Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia
U.S. foreign policy with regard to China needs greater nuance in areas of potential engagement. China is a strategic competitor, and that presents risks to the United States. At the same time, the United States still benefits from cooperation in important aspects of climate, education, and health. By painting “China policy” with a broad brush, valuable opportunities for collaboration get lost.Read LessDan Nexon
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
Professor in the School of Foreign Service and Department of Government at Georgetown University
U.S. rhetoric toward China is probably unnecessarily hostile. It doesn’t advance any concrete foreign policy goals, and the xenophobia apparent...Read MoreJoseph Nye
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School
About right....Kurt Tong
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Partner at the Asia Group
The United States needs to do a better job collectively, both the executive branch and Congress, at prioritizing objectives and focusing more on the substance of U.S. national interests and less on purely political messaging.Read LessManjari Chatterjee-Miller
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
Since the deterioration of the U.S.-Chinese relationship, the United States and China have been strategizing past each other. The United States is focusing on security, whether with the Quad or now AUKUS. China is focusing on economics, whether with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), or joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). A strategy to counter China cannot simply focus on security, risking escalation without results.Read LessMelissa M. Lee
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University
China has risen. Full stop. U.S. foreign policy must accept that reality. Chinese-U.S. cooperation will be essential for tackling global threats such as climate change, and that cooperation depends on not completely alienating Beijing. But the United States is also right to challenge China’s illiberalism and egregious human rights abuses. Even with its flaws, and with much work remaining to fully realize its promise, the liberal international order remains central to stability and prosperity in the world. Modeling that liberalism at home must be part of the U.S. response to China’s illiberal challenge.Read LessMinxin Pei
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Professor at Claremont McKenna College
Patricia M. Kim
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution
The Biden administration has framed the right approach toward China—declaring that Washington will seek to simultaneously compete and cooperate with Beijing while working closely with friends and allies to effectively meet the challenges posed by China. But operationalizing this strategy is no easy feat. Most critically, Beijing has yet to accept this framework thus far and has made clear that U.S.-Chinese cooperation is impossible as long as tensions exist in the broader relationship. Moreover, although there have been some notable achievements in bolstering U.S. alliances in recent weeks, there have also been setbacks with European partners following the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the surprise announcement of AUKUS, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States defense pact. Persistent and creative diplomacy and the careful balancing of interests, ideals, and relationships will be necessary to ensure that U.S. alliances remain robust and that U.S.-Chinese relations do not fray beyond repair and stray into dangerous territory.Read LessRyan Hass
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution
The crux of strategy is to advance interests, uphold values, and strengthen cohesion with allies and partners. One hopes that the Biden administration will be able to move discussion from questions of toughness to measures of effectiveness in delivering tangible results.Read LessWang Jisi
NEUTRAL, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 5
President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at Peking University
Given the increased incompatibility of interests and values of the United States and China, a more hostile U.S. policy toward China is inevitable. While most Chinese observers may say that the United States is too hostile to China, they may wish China to be tougher to the United States. This becomes a vicious cycle.Read Less
Clear and bright brains
The following are clear and bright brains on China. Again, it is by no means complete. It misses major figures such as Balding, Pompeo, Rubio.
Andrea Kendall-Taylor
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security
The concern is not that U.S. policy toward China has become too hostile but that Washington is overly focused on...Read MoreAndrew Nathan
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University
The Biden administration’s China policy does not seek to stop the rise of China or overthrow the Chinese Communist Party...Read MoreBonnie Glaser
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Director of the Asia Program at the German Marshall Fund
Protecting U.S. national interests requires a tougher set of policies toward China, but these need to be integrated into a...Read MoreBonny Lin
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
There are significant differences between the United States and China, but these differences should not overshadow and eliminate the potential...Read MoreDexter Tiff Roberts
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative
The United States has belatedly come to recognize China’s deep and disruptive ambitions in geopolitics, the military, and the economy...Read MoreEvan Medeiros
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Professor at Georgetown University
China is a powerful, indignant, and insular rising power that requires the deft use of competitive strategies by the United...Read MoreHo-fung Hung
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University
The United States’ increasingly assertive posture toward China, from Obama’s pivot to Asia to Trump’s trade war and so on,...Read MoreJude Blanchette
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Freeman Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Hostility is in the eye of the beholder, of course. But I see no action that the Biden administration has...Read MoreKelly Hammond
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Arkansas
Kharis Templeman
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution
U.S. policy toward China is belatedly catching up to the significant changes WITHIN China over the last decade. It is...Read MoreMary Gallagher
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Professor at the University of Michigan
Under the last administration, U.S. policy toward China was badly mismanaged, but the overall direction of a more “hostile” policy...Read MoreMichael Fullilove
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Executive Director of the Lowy Institute
The main reason that U.S. policy toward China has changed is that China has changed. Beijing has become more aggressive...Read MoreNora Bensahel
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Visiting Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Oriana Skylar Mastro
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Center Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
While it is true that the United States has decided to push back against some nefarious Chinese activities, the U.S....Read MoreOrville Schell
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 2
Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society
We need to stand up to China in a bipartisan way while keeping the door open to work on areas...Read MoreRichard Fontaine
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
CEO of the Center for a New American Security
Beijing has earned its reputation as the United States’ foremost foreign policy challenge, and a firm set of responses is...Read MoreRichard McGregor
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Senior Fellow at the Lowy Institute
The United States needed to strengthen its policy—in a sense, to overcorrect—to get seriously back in the game of strategic...Read MoreRobert Keohane
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 3
Professor Emeritus at Princeton University
Xi’s policies require pushback, so current policy is appropriate. But we should keep the rhetoric down. Our interests require that...Read MoreScott Kennedy
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
The limited communication with China, exacerbated by the obstacles to travel for government officials, business leaders, and others, has pushed...Read MoreShivshankar Menon
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Chair of the Centre for China Studies at Ashoka University
Finding the “Goldilocks zone” for U.S. China policy will always be complicated by the fact that China, too, has a...Read MoreStacie Goddard
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 7
Mildred Lane Kemper Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College
I do not think that the United States’ “policy” has become too hostile. AUKUS, the Australia-United Kingdom-United States defense agreement,...Read MoreStephen Walt
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 8
Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School
Although U.S. policy toward China has toughened in recent years, it is a sensible response given China’s growing power and...Read MoreVijay Gokhale
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Nonresident Senior Fellow at Carnegie India
For at least the past 15 years, the Chinese have worked in the Indo-Pacific to diminish the United States’ role...Read MoreAnne-Marie Brady
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Professor at the University of Canterbury
The government of Xi Jinping changed Chinese-U.S. relations, not the U.S. government. The U.S. government, along with other governments, needs...Read MoreJohn Mearsheimer
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Professor at the University of Chicago
China is bent on establishing hegemony in Asia, which makes eminently good sense from Beijing’s perspective. In effect, China is...Read MoreMatt Pottinger
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Chair of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
See “Beijing’s American Hustle” (September/October 2021).
...Michael Beckley
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 9
Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University and Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
The United States will eventually need to reengage with China. But right now the priority is to blunt a surge...Read MoreMichael Singh
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Managing Director of the Washington Institute
U.S. foreign policy is not hostile to China; rather, the United States is (belatedly, some would argue) taking seriously China’s...Read MorePaula Dobriansky
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Senior Fellow at Harvard University
We are in a geopolitical environment of expanding competition among great powers. China poses significant challenges to the United States....Read MoreRobert C. O’Brien
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Chair of American Global Strategies
Returning reciprocity to the U.S.-Chinese relationship must be a priority. Ending China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property and technology must...Read MoreVictoria Hui
STRONGLY DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Associate Profess
Aaron L. Friedberg
DISAGREE, CONFIDENCE LEVEL 10
Professor at Princeton University
Albeit belatedly, in the last several years the United States has begun to respond more vigorously to China’s increasingly aggressive behavior. The challenge China poses is large and growing. At this point, underreaction is still a greater risk than overreaction.
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