US-China collaboration stressed

Both countries have several common issues to tackle together, experts say

Even though Andy Kim is a member of the US House of Representatives select committee targeting China, the Democratic congressman from New Jersey says he sees the necessity for the US and China to work together.

Such collaboration can help avoid "the challenges that you would face if the two most powerful countries in the world don't have some means of connecting", he said.

"I just don't see a situation in which we can have a world that is functioning if the two most powerful countries in the world don't have a level of engagement," Kim said in keynote remarks at a recent event titled "Is there room for US-China collaboration in an era of strategic competition?" hosted by the Brookings Institution and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Last month the House select committee on China adopted its first Taiwan report, giving the US government 10 points of advice, including speeding up arms sales. Kim is the only committee member who voted against this report. Without a formal hearing or talking to diplomats, the legislators do not have enough information to produce something "on a topic of that magnitude", he said.

At the same event the panelists said that although people have been hearing much out of Washington in terms of much more hawkish policy, the US and China still have many things to work together on.

Jennifer Lind, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, said the US is using "much more narrowing in terms of the defense lens and the security lens "to look at China. Instead of taking more of a lead in the region on economics, the US is becoming more and more focused on defense issues, she said.

At the event, a new Brookings-Center for Strategic and International Studies joint project "Advancing Collaboration in an Era of Strategic Competition" was inaugurated. Lind said she loves this project for "the historical lens that it is going to use".

Lind said the two sides "need to figure out at least a civilized working relationship" on issues such as nuclear nonproliferation, climate change and military confidence-building measures and protocols for avoiding collisions at sea.

Lily McElwee, a fellow of the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that to some extent collaboration came out of a competitive dynamic, looking for cooperation to expand diplomatic influence, for example.

"I think that the best thing we can do is to stay at the table (and to) invite China to come to the table," McElwee said.

China has come up with ideas such as the Global Security Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, she said, offering to play a role in the provision of global public goods.

Areas of cooperation

Michael J. Mazarr, a senior political scientist at Rand Corporation, stressed that competitors could pursue collaboration. "If you want to sort of stabilize the relationship, look for areas of cooperation that meet some of those conditions and put things in place that are designed inherently to stabilize things."

The US and China working with one another is not only about these two countries but also engaging other countries, experts said.

US foreign policy has become about countering China rather than a broader agenda to address the concerns of other countries, Mazarr said. The US should send to partners and allies messages such as "We are happy to have China involved when it's constructive and ends up creating a situation that's more stable", he said.

Lind said the US sparked controversy over China's initiative and efforts to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in the 2010s.

"This is a country that has lifted 800 million people out of poverty, and that's remarkable. And in the US some of our policies were very supportive, but I hear things like 'We made China rich.' It makes me want to cringe. Because this is the blood, sweat and tears of the Chinese people getting a lot less sleep than I did last night who made all this happen. China is and can be a development leader, and I think that's something that's an important starting point, and show them that respect."

What the US claimed to have created, along with its partners, after World War II, was to try to make other countries richer, safer and better off, Lind said.

"That's something we need to celebrate, and also remember that this moment of American dominance in the world right after World War II was bound just to be ephemeral. That was never going to last."

Lind said that it is natural that more power is going to devolve to other countries. "So to Japan, for example, to West Germany, for example, and then later to China, and let's try and handle that like a grown-up."