China's Lazy Flacks
Or, a citation I would prefer not to receive.
An occupational hazard of critiquing U.S. foreign policy is that, on occasion, those critiques are embraced by other governments for their own purposes. For example, eighteen months ago I wrote “The United States of Sanctions” for Foreign Affairs, in which I criticized U.S. sanctioning behavior as too prolific. Ever since, China’s Foreign Ministry has been super-keen on trotting out that cite as proof of American perfidy.
The latest example of this came in response to last month’s G7 communique and leaders’ statement from the Hiroshima summit, pledging to protect each other in the face of economic coercion. In response, China Daily ran an editorial that attacked the United States and cited me. The fun bits:
At the recent G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, the United States encouraged its allies to insinuate China is guilty of "economic coercion". The Chinese Foreign Ministry has strongly refuted these groundless smears, saying the origin and headquarters of "economic coercion" is Washington. Daniel Drezner, a professor at the Tufts University, also wrote in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that successive US administrations have abused economic coercion and economic violence.
The US has been using the "economic coercion" strategy in the Asia-Pacific region to promote economic "de-sinification". In May 2022, the Joe Biden administration launched the "Indo-Pacific" Economic Framework for Prosperity that includes Japan and some Southeast Asian countries, in an attempt to create an economic sphere where its influence rivals that of China. In the field of the digital economy, the US is trying its best to build "small yards and high fences" in order to promote its digital hegemony and "digital de-sinification". It has disrupted cooperation between China and the European Union in digital trade and obstructed the process by citing differences in rules on data localization, privacy protection and open government data.
Imposing sanctions is one of Washington's widely adopted means of economic coercion. The US imposed more than 3,900 sanctions during the Donald Trump administration, equivalent to wielding the "sanctions stick" three times a day. Whether it is Alston in France, Toshiba and Toyota in Japan, or China's Huawei, they have all become victims of economic coercion by the US. The US has shown the world a "negative example" of resolving disputes through economic coercion and sanctions.
My takeaway from the repeated citation of my essay is that China’s propaganda flacks are getting lazy. Why do I say that? Let’s see….
First, all the China Daily flack had to do was look at the archives of Drezner’s World to discover my much-more-recent critique of the G7 statement:
“Economic coercion” is yet another phenomenon where the West is mortified that other actors might be doing what they have been doing themselves for such a long time. And, again, I do not begrudge the G7 taking steps to thwart Chinese economic coercion. What I find exasperating, however, is the holier-than-thou attitude that the communique evinces. The G7 is not upset about the practice of economic coercion; they are upset because they might be the target of said economic coercion.
That’s good stuff! A smarter China Daily writer could have quoted that in addition to my Foreign Affairs essay. Heck, I’m hardly the only one to notice the U.S. addiction to sanctions. The Washington Post’s Max Boot wrote a column earlier this week making a similar point: “Washington’s addiction to sanctions has gotten out of control — and is hurting the United States.” There is no need to just cite my Foreign Affairs essay over and over again — spread the wealth!
Another sign of laziness is citing the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity as an example of economic coercion. IPEF is… well, I’m not sure it’s much of anything, but one thing I am sure about is that there is zero economic coercion contained within it. Is it designed to ensure supply chains free from China? Sure! Is any IPEF member being coerced into participating? I’m pretty sure the answer to that is no. Why are they participating? It could be that they fear Chinese economic coercion more than China is willing to acknowledge.
Speaking of which: say what you will about U.S. economic coercion, but at least when the United States sanctions someone they are upfront about it. Both academic experts and think tank reports have demonstrated that China engages in plenty of economic coercion, increasingly so over the past five years. Chinese officials refuse to own up to much of it, however.
Chinese flacks are so lazy that I doubt they will ever read this newsletter. For the record however, just because I stand by all my critiques of U.S. economic statecraft does not mean I endorse any of China’s adoption of those critiques for its own foreign policy purposes. The latest China Daily editorial suggests that Chinese flacks are either unable or unwilling to understand the concept of economic coercion.
I don't know what a 'flack' is. (Perhaps it's an Americanism, I'm from Australia). But I think we can fairly call writers in the state sanctioned media of China propagandists. What any Australian can tell you is that the Chinese perfectly understand economic co-ercion and use it happily. My personal belief is that in the medium to long term China is going to find that it is not as economically powerful or dominant as it thinks it will be. It will then find out that not many countries like them very much.
Perhaps Chinese journalists aren't lazy, just fearful of putting their own words into public display for fear of retaliation