TheEconomistAugust 1st 2020 191I
n december2018 China hawks in the
Trump administration pushed a series of
punitive measures in what some referred
to internally, according to a new book by
Bob Davis and Lingling Wei, as “Fuck China
Week”. That was as nothing compared with
what happened in the month of July 2020.
In recent weeks America has imposed
sanctions on senior Chinese officials, in-
cluding a member of the Politburo, for their
part in atrocities against Uighurs in Xin-
jiang; added 11 Chinese companies to the
Commerce Department’s blacklist, for
complicity in those atrocities; declared
China’s sweeping claims in the South Chi-
na Sea illegal; revoked Hong Kong’s special
status for diplomacy and trade; announced
criminal charges against four Chinese na-
tionals who officials say were spies for the
People’s Liberation Army; and ordered the
closure of China’s consulate in Houston,
supposedly a hub for espionage and influ-
ence operations, the first such move sincethe normalisation of relations in 1979 (Chi-
na retaliated by closing America’s consu-
late in Chengdu). The first hint of trouble in
Houston came when videos surfaced on-
line of Chinese diplomats hurriedly burn-
ing documents in their courtyard—an apt
metaphor for more than 40 years of dip-
lomatic engagement going up in smoke.
All this has happened under a presi-
dent, Donald Trump, who displays a perso-
nal affinity for his Chinese counterpart, Xi
Jinping, and (according to his former na-
tional security adviser, John Bolton) told
Mr Xi that building camps for Uighurs was“the right thing to do”. He has shown little
appetite for fights with China except over
trade and, to deflect blame for his response
to covid-19, the pandemic. But with time
running out in his first term—and perhaps
his presidency—hawkish officials around
him are trying to fix in concrete a more
confrontational posture than America has
adopted since before Richard Nixon went
to China almost half a century ago.
On July 23rd, at the Nixon Presidential
Library in California, Mike Pompeo, the
secretary of state, concluded a series of
four speeches in as many weeks by top offi-
cials portraying China’s regime as the
greatest threat to liberty and democracy
globally. The national security adviser,
Robert O’Brien, the fbidirector, Christo-
pher Wray, the attorney-general, William
Barr, and Mr Pompeo argued that China
sought to export its ideology and “control
thought” beyond its borders. They castigat-
ed corporate chiefs and Hollywood studios
for bowing to Beijing, warned of extensive
Chinese espionage operations in America
and contended that Mr Xi is on a decades-
long quest for “global hegemony”. Mr Pom-
peo said that America and its allies must
push China to change, or risk ceding the
21st century to Mr Xi’s authoritarian vision.
“The old paradigm of blind engagement
with China simply won’t get it done,” he
said. “If we bend the knee now, our chil-Policy towards ChinaPeering through the smoke
NEW YORK
Sino-American relations have entered a dark new era. Would that change under a
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