US China Strategy Paper Longer Telegram Arouses Little Debate in Beijing

BEIJING – A recent U.S. strategy paper on China widely read in Washington DC showed only a passive response in Beijing, where limited public discussion focused on one point: the author misled China.

The Longer Telegram, issued in late January, suggested how the new US government should deal with a rising China by delivering a detailed critique of the Communist Party government under President Xi Jinping.

An effective American approach to China requires “the same disciplined approach it applied to the defeat of the Soviet Union,” the newspaper said. “The US strategy must remain laser-focused on Xi, its inner circle and the Chinese political context in which they govern.”

The anonymous author is a ‘former senior U.S. government official’, according to the DC-based think tank Atlantic Council that published the long article.

The piece attempts to reflect a historical document that shaped Washington’s policy on the Soviet Union – called ‘The Long Telegram’, and it was sent from Moscow in February 1946 with the onset of the Cold War.

So far in Beijing, major state media have not covered the newspaper much, except for the noisy state-backed tabloid Global Times, and even then, almost entirely in English. “Longer Telegram”, a hegemonic farce in the late stages, “reads the title of one.

On the official news website of China’s People’s Liberation Army, an article in Chinese portrayed the strategy piece as an outdated mentality, and contrasted the country’s view with a recent state media report on a Chinese woman’s ability to rise from poverty. .

The Chinese Foreign Ministry – in response to a question from a Global Times reporter – criticized ‘The Longer Telegram’ for its call to restrain China.

According to an official translation, the ministry said such comments against the ruling Communist Party were a collection of rumors and conspiracy theories’ and that attempts to drive US-China relations into conflict ‘resulted in total failure’. .

The sparse remarks at the state level come as tensions between the US and China, the two largest economies in the world, are driven by very different systems of government.

‘The Longer Telegram’ has caused a great deal of controversy in the American world for foreign policy, and critics have said the newspaper knows China wrong and places too much emphasis on Xi’s role. But many agree with the newspaper’s call for a more thoughtful US policy on China.

The growing coherence surrounding a tighter US stance on China is a source of concern in Beijing.

“The Longer Telegram” does not represent the reality of China and is not a good starting point for dialogue, said Shen Yamei, deputy director and fellow research fellow at the US Department of International Studies.

According to Shen, the mistake the newspaper is making is that it does not apply in this situation, as China has not said it wants to replace the US. She added that it is the US that cares whether it has its central position in the world.

Critics say China’s state-dominated system benefited from joining the World Trade Organization in 2001 without quickly incorporating the kind of free-market and rule-based system advocated by countries such as the US.

To address these developments, ‘The Longer Telegram’ states that the US must draw up clear red lines and points of national security for Beijing which, if crossed, will provoke a firm US response.

Some of these red lines include a Chinese military attack or economic blockade on Taiwan, according to the report, which also said the U.S. should push back more strongly on any Chinese threats to U.S. global communications systems.

The author of the original ‘Long Telegram’ in 1946 was the American diplomat George Kennan, who was responding from Moscow to a US State Department on Soviet foreign policy. Kennan published a related article in Foreign Affairs the following year under the pseudonym “X” and began in 1952 with a short term as US Ambassador to Moscow.

In his paper, Kennan argued that the Russians were intent on expanding the Soviet system worldwide and against coexistence with the West. He believed that the US should use pressure rather than installment to bring about cooperation with the Soviet government, or possibly even its internal collapse.

For more than 70 years – including the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 – the US led a so-called liberal world order in which international institutions set rules for a global system.

It has begun to shift over the past decade or so, with China’s growing economic and technological influence, along with former US President Donald Trump’s own approach to foreign policy.

It is not yet clear what action President Joe Biden will take, but he is sticking to a tough stance on China, albeit with a calmer tone than the previous government.

“The challenges with Russia may be different from those of China, but they are just as real,” Biden said in a speech to European allies last week.

Biden made his first call as president with Xi earlier this month. The US president and first lady also released a video greeting for the new moon year, which was widely shared on Chinese social media.

Scattered online comments about ‘The Longer Telegram’ remained contemptuous.

In a video of about 5 minutes from more than 900,000 times from February 5, Shen Yi, a professor at Fudan University, dismissed the attempt to repeat Kennan’s efforts as a joke.

An online article on February 7 by Zhongnan University of Economics and law professor Qiao Xinsheng said in an online article that the strategy document failed to accurately analyze the Soviet Union’s own problems and that the US would not expect China to ‘disintegrate’.