‘No zero sum, no decoupling’

Choi Hoon
The author is the chief editor of the JoongAng Ilbo.

The world closely watches the mouth of a 47-year-old official of the White House. What he says can unsettle or relieve the global community. Jake Sullivan was appointed as the National Security Advisor at the youngest-ever age of 44. He is the architect of global order in a volatile period. He can offer guidance to Seoul’s approach to Beijing amid the strengthened alliance.

Sullivan spelled out U.S. policy on China in a speech titled “Renewing American Economic Leadership” at the Brookings Institution on April 27. “Our export controls will remain narrowly focused on technology that could tilt the military balance [...] We’ve implemented carefully tailored restrictions on the most advanced technology exports to China. Those restrictions are premised on straightforward national security concerns [...] They are not, as Beijing says, a ‘technology blockade’. They are focused on a narrow slice of technology and a small number of countries intent on challenging us militarily.”

The brain behind the foreign policy of Joe Biden’s administration stressed that the U.S. continues to “have a very substantial trade and investment relationship with China.” Bilateral trade between the two countries was a historic high last year, he added. The two-way trade reached $690.6 billion last year, up 5 percent on year and exceeding the previous record of $661.5 billion in 2018. That cost the U.S. the second largest trade deficit of $382.9 billion in 2022, up 8.3 percent from the previous year. The data shows that the U.S. and the global economy cannot manage inflation or economy without Made-in-China products. The U.S. is aiming “de-risking and diversifying, not decoupling” from China, Sullivan said, denying the paradigm of a zero-sum relationship between the two countries amid a new Cold War. “We’re looking to manage competition responsibly and seeking to work together with China where we can,” Sullivan said, listing climate change, macroeconomic stability, health and food security as areas the two countries can work together. Although the U.S. is competing with China on multiple dimensions, it is not looking for confrontation or conflict as that cannot benefit the interests of the American middle class, he stressed.

The direction of the new U.S. strategy on global order had surfaced in the “U.S. Foreign Policy for the Middle Class” published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 2020 with a joint contribution by Sullivan and Salman Ahmed, who joined the Biden administration as the director of policy planning at the State Department. Based on surveys and data on economic effects of U.S. foreign policy on the middle class in three U.S. heartland states of Ohio, Colorado and Nebraska, the research concluded that the U.S. should not pursue broad decoupling of American and Chinese economies despite China’s security and economic threat, as it does not help the well-being of the American middle class. The logic goes like this: 96 percent of the global population live outside the U.S. territories. The vast market provides opportunity to sell U.S. products and services. American workers saw various opportunities for the U.S. to benefit even more from China’s economic success. While the Washington should play hardball with Beijing to stop its unfair practices, the U.S. should take a constructive approach to create diplomatic space to broaden reciprocal benefits for the two countries, as continued confrontation would only dampen investment and jobs that cannot aid American middle class.

Sullivan’s realistic approach suggests a lot for U.S. allies that are being pressured to take sides clearly. In the speech at the Brookings Institution, he said, “It isn’t feasible or desirable to build everything domestically. Our objective is not autarky — it’s resilience and security in our supply chains.” The second step in the U.S. strategy is to “work with our partners to ensure they are building capacity, resilience, and inclusiveness, too,” he added. “We will unapologetically pursue our industrial strategy at home — but we are unambiguously committed to not leaving our friends behind.”

The Carnegie report also pointed out that China offers greater economic leverage to U.S. allies than the Soviets during the Cold war. Countries would prefer specific guidelines from Washington on the economic contest with China as they cannot go along with all U.S. policies. In his article “On the World After Trump,” published on Foreign Affairs on May 2018, Sullivan criticized the America First doctrine of the Trump administration as it had left the country less secure and less prosperous. He highlighted the need for America to work with other countries to address common challenges.

Sullivan’s consistent narrative on foreign and economic policy can be a helpful tip for Korea’s policymakers in their approach to China. Seoul needs to avoid provoking Beijing through coarse and suggestive remarks that can stoke negative sentiment among the Chinese people and invite a retaliation or confrontation. Korea must articulate persuasive message that can build a benign relationship with China.

Jake Sullivan, 47, the youngest-ever U.S. National Security Advisor at the White House, speaks at an event.

The message can go something like this: Korea should identify China as a key pillar to the economy, and free trade and investment between the two must be sustained for the interests of the two economies as well as the middle classes of the two countries. It must emphasize that the two should expand cooperation in common issues such as climate changes, health, and environmental issues. It must stress that its security alliance with the U.S. does not mean decoupling with China and propose to widen constructive diplomatic space.