The China Plan: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Strategic Competition Lead Authors Project Director Contributing Authors Hans Binnendijk Connor McPartland James P. Danoy Sarah Kirchberger Franklin D. Kramer Study and Editorial Clementine G. Starling Director Didi Kirsten Tatlow Christopher Skaluba The Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security works to develop sustainable, nonpartisan strategies to address the most important security challenges facing the United States and the world. The Center honors General Brent Scowcroft’s legacy of service and embodies his ethos of nonpartisan commitment to the cause of security, support for US leadership in cooperation with allies and partners, and dedication to the mentorship of the next generation of leaders. The Scowcroft Center’s Transatlantic Security Initiative brings together top policymakers, government and military officials, business leaders, and experts from Europe and North America to share insights, strengthen cooperation, and develop innovative approaches to the key challenges facing NATO and the transatlantic community. This report was produced under the auspices of a project conducted in partnership with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs focused on the impact of China on the transatlantic relationship. The China Plan: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Strategic Competition Lead Authors Project Director Contributing Authors Hans Binnendijk Connor McPartland James P. Danoy Sarah Kirchberger Franklin D. Kramer Study and Editorial Clementine G. Starling Director Didi Kirsten Tatlow Christopher Skaluba ISBN-13: 978-1-61977-165-9 This report is written and published in accordance with the Atlantic Council Policy on Intellectual Independence. The au- thors are solely responsible for its analysis and recommendations. The Atlantic Council and its donors do not determine, nor do they necessarily endorse or advocate for, any of this report’s conclusions. March 2021 The China Plan: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Strategic Competition Table of Contents Executive Summary and Principal Recommendations 1 Introduction 6 Chapter I: Assessing the Problem 8 Section A: China’s Strategic Goals and Policies 8 Section B: US Policies and Approaches 11 Section C: European Policies and Approaches 14 Section D: Public Attitudes Towards China 19 Section E: Potential Outcomes 21 Chapter II: Areas of Greatest Potential Convergence 24 Section A: China’s Malign Governance and Human Rights Practices 24 Section B: Chinese Diplomacy and Interference Operations Abroad 38 Chapter III: Areas of Lesser Initial Convergence 50 Section A: Economic Challenges 50 Section B: Technology and Cyber Competition 61 Chapter IV: Security as an Area of Asymmetric Interests 72 Section A: Growing Chinese Military Capabilities 72 Section B: Enhanced Sino-Russian Security Cooperation 77 Section C: Potential for Confrontation in the Indo-Pacific Region 80 Section D: Military and Security Challenges in the European Area 84 Chapter V: Toward a Transatlantic Blueprint 88 Section A: Organizing for Policy Coordination 88 Section B: Aligning Intelligence Assessments 89 Section C: Bringing in Asian Allies 91 Section D: Areas for Cooperation with China—“One World” Challenges 93 About the Authors 97 Acknowledgements 100 II ATLANTIC COUNCIL The China Plan: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Strategic Competition Executive Summary and Principal Recommendations hina presents the United States and its partners 1. Xi’s China has become more authoritarian, out- with the most serious set of challenges they have ward-facing, and assertive in promoting Chinese faced since the Cold War. The scope of those chal- interests. lenges is global. Their potential impact is deep. CLeft unaddressed, they will harm the fundamental, vital in- Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Chinese terests of democratic nations everywhere. Collective action Communist Party (CCP) has taken a more dominant po- between the United States and its European partners, co- sition in governance in China, the economy has become ordinated with like-minded nations in Asia, is needed to de- more state-driven, and Western liberal values have been flect these challenges, protect our vital interests, and seek explicitly disavowed. Externally, Deng Xiaoping’s tradi- a change in China’s policies. Several strategies have been tional admonition to “bide one’s time and hide one’s light,” offered to manage China. What is missing is a blueprint—a lest the outside world gang up on a rising China, has been “China Plan”—to guide the United States and its partners in given up in favor of a more assertive, at times aggressively this endeavor. This study represents such a blueprint. coercive, outward approach. China’s economic strengths give it a strong platform on which to base its international Conducted over the course of a year and drawing on the actions. But beyond economics and trade, the CCP’s do- research and opinions of hundreds of experts, policy mak- mestic insecurities are now projected outward, be it in the ers, and academics in the United States, Europe, and Asia, form of bolstering the leadership of autocratic nations by this study delves into three broad trends and analyzes five exporting surveillance and control technologies, infiltrat- major areas in which Chinese actions threaten transatlan- ing the leadership structures of international organizations tic interests: human rights, coercive diplomacy, predatory with party-state representatives, attempting to control economic practices, technology competition, and security public discourse within democratic countries where it re- challenges. lates to Chinese interests, or aligning China closer with Russia, Iran, and other powerful nondemocratic coun- In doing so, this study identifies areas of convergence, di- tries. Heightened military threats to Taiwan, India, Japan, vergence, and asymmetry in transatlantic attitudes towards Vietnam, and to virtually all the rival claimants in China’s China, arguing forcibly that a transatlantic response is ur- maritime territorial disputes are yet another aspect of this gent and necessary to prevent China from remaking the shift in policy. As a result, the risk of open conflict in Asia rules-based order to its singular advantage. It concludes involving China has increased during this past year. with ten recommended steps for minimizing divergences as a means to building a coordinated transatlantic blue- 2. Bipartisan consensus in the United States provides a print for confronting, competing with, and, where possible, strong foundation for policy. cooperating with China. In the United States, there is now bipartisan agreement Three Defining Trends that the best way to deal with China is to confront it in a uni- fied manner with global partners. A recent Pew Research Three major developing trends together provide both an Center poll found that 73 percent of Americans expressed opportunity and a requirement for transatlantic nations to an unfavorable view of China.1 The Trump administration make a concerted effort to promote and protect their inter- pursued erratic unilateral efforts with respect to challen- ests in the face of a broad spectrum of assertive Chinese ging China until late in its tenure, leaving many European policies. China’s increased assertiveness in its international partners alienated and unwilling to pursue united actions relations combined with bipartisan consensus about the in concert with Washington. US President Joseph R. Biden, threat China poses in the United States and growing dis- Jr., has indicated he will challenge China similarly to the content with harmful Chinese behavior in Europe create an Trump administration, but with a different style and emp- environment ripe for closer collaboration among transatlan- hasis. Biden has said he will focus on international rules of tic nations. These three trends are discussed in Chapter I. the road and be extremely competitive, but seek to avoid 1 Laura Silver, Kat Devlin, and Christine Huang, Americans Fault China for Its Role in the Spread of COVID-19, Pew Research Center, July 30, 2020, https:// www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/07/30/americans-fault-china-for-its-role-in-the-spread-of-covid-19/. ATLANTIC COUNCIL 1 The China Plan: A Transatlantic Blueprint for Strategic Competition conflict. Members of his new administration have already Investment (CAI), which is designed to level the investment criticized China’s economic and human rights policies, playing field. As with the US Phase One trade agreement and a representative of Taiwan was invited to Biden’s in- with China, the CAI was concluded without close transat- auguration. In his first phone call with Xi on February 10, lantic consultation. China may feel that reaching this agree- Biden criticized China for its coercive and unfair economic ment with the EU will undercut this building consensus for practices, human rights abuses, and increasingly assertive a comprehensive transatlantic approach to confronting actions in Asia. Biden has continued vigorous Freedom China. The EU must now prove China wrong. This modest of Navigation Operations in the South China Sea and US agreement should not serve as an excuse for European Naval transits of the Taiwan Strait. At the same time, he backpedaling on transatlantic cooperation. has mentioned pursuing practical, results-oriented enga- gements with China when it is in US and allied interests. Speed is thus important in developing a consolidated Coordinating policies with allies and partners is a center- transatlantic strategy.