Affirmative Stuff A2 – Solvency

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China cannot be contained – engagement is the only route to peaceful relations with China

Affirmative Stuff

Shixin 2015
Jiao shixin, Associate Professor at the institute of International Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “The Problem with American ‘Engagement’ with China,” September 29, 2015, http://chinaus-icas.org/materials/problem-american-engagement-china/

All in all, the US engagement strategy has been motivated by two impossible goals. It is revealing that even when the United States makes significant other gains by cooperating with China, many American scholars are nonetheless disappointed by the engagement strategy. Ultimately this is because they judge the success or failure of engagement by reference to its unrealistic and impractical strategic intentions. How should the United States adjust its China policy? Some American scholars have suggested that US take tougher policy toward China, either by containing or punishing China. These recommendations raise significant concerns. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the United States implemented a policy of containment and isolation for a long time, but the policy was certainly a failure. The United States had to return to the strategic orbit of cooperation with China in the Nixon era. Today, China is very different than it was then. It is broadly integrated with the rest of the world, and has become the world’s second largest economy. The gap in relative power between China and the United States continues to narrow and China and the United States have established relationships of mutual dependence in the economic, security and global governance domains, among others. It is very difficult for us to imagine the consequences of the US implementing strategy of containing China. The Chinese saying comes to mind, 杀敌一千，自伤八百, “sacrifice eight hundred men in order to kill one thousand.” It should be obvious that strategies of containing or acting tough on China lack sense, and would lead the US into the dead-end of power politics. Since the cold-war thinking of containment is not feasible, how should U.S adjust its strategy of engagement with China? The first adjustment should be to abandon its unreasonable strategic objectives and build a China strategy on the basis of equality. China is very different from the United States, China has its own historical and national conditions, and its own political genetic makeup. Policymakers in the United States should realize that the engagement strategy is incapable of altering China’s path of developing its own model of socialism. The United States should not expect to transform China through “peaceful evolution.” Even if China somehow adopted American-style democracy, it would not behave according to America’s will. Russia introduced Western democracy after the cold war, but what happened? Russia’s experience with democracy has not improved its relations with the US, and it doesn’t conform to America’s strategic vision. The United States should not assume that the “peaceful evolution” of countries towards an American model will ensure alignment with its interests. The second adjustment is that American needs embrace the concept of “harmony without sameness.” This idea can be found in traditional Chinese thought. It means even when there are differences between people, they can still enjoy peace, harmony and cooperation. China and the United States have very different histories, political systems and paths of development. These are not a reasons for them to clash with one another, but can be reasons for establishing mutual respect, exchange and a complementary relationship. Unfortunately, the logic of the US engagement strategy is precisely opposed to this thinking. Nonetheless, we are pleased to see that some of America’s friends have accepted the Chinese way of thinking on such matters. On September 17, President Xi Jinping had a meeting with some American business representatives and former officials in Beijing. They agreed that China and US should establish “harmony without uniformity,” and should build cooperative relations. If the United States adjusts its strategy towards this direction, then engagement with China will update to Version 2.0. This revised principle of engagement should not only be the mantra for US-China relations, but also for the entire world. Third, the United States should be wary of the temptations of “global leadership” or hegemony. World politics is changing, all kinds of global issues and challenges will continue to arise that no single country can cope with alone. The world must work together to deal with global governance. This is a truth that United States also understands. In an increasingly interdependent world, leadership in global governance also means assuming greater responsibility, which is different from traditional hegemonic leadership. Unfortunately, the United States’ current engagement strategy is still to defend the international order with a view to maintaining America’s leadership. Assessed by this criteria, the strategy has been considered by many scholars to have failed already. If the United States still cannot resist the temptation of hegemony, and cannot, together with China and other big countries, assume the responsibilities and obligations of global governance the engagement strategy will not have a successful future, and it will be difficult for both China and the US to build a new type of great power relations.

China cannot be contained – engagement is the only route to peaceful relations with China

Parker 2014
Elton C. Parker, III, Elton C. Parker III is currently serving as the Special Assistant to the President and Military Assistant to the Provost of National Defense University. A career naval aviator, his most recent tour was as Speechwriter and Special Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. The views expressed here are his own and do not represent the views, opinions, or positions of the National Defense University, The U.S. Navy, or the Department of Defense. “China: Engagement vs. Estrangement,” May 4, 2014, http://warontherocks.com/2014/05/china-engagement-vs-estrangement/

“We welcome Chinese participation, and we welcome quite frankly the growth of China as a military power in the Pacific. There is nothing wrong with that.” Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, made that statement recently when discussing the acceptance by China’s People’s Liberation Army-Navy (PLA-N) of an invitation to take part in RIMPAC, the world’s largest international maritime exercise. RIMPAC will take place in June off the coast of Hawaii, and for the first time in its 23 previous iterations, will include PLA-N forces. As a matter of fact, this will also mark the first time any Chinese forces have ever taken part in a large, U.S. military-led naval exercise, anywhere. For some, the fact that the number two U.S. admiral in the Pacific theater — his immediate boss is ADM Sam Locklear, commander of all U.S. forces in the Pacific Command area of operations — would make a statement that “we welcome” the growth of China as a military power lacks credulity, or is grossly Pollyannaish, or worse. I disagree. There is more to gain by engaging with the Chinese where we have shared or common interests, than there is by continuing to treat and view their rise in almost exclusively negative terms, or by thinking the United States can contain that rise in some way through isolation. First, hearkening back to the omnipresent importance of the narrative, our words absolutely matter, but what matters most is that the deeds match the words. The lack of that alignment is precisely what does us in (impacts our reputation, our credibility, our cachet, etc.) with unintended strategic communication missteps in examples like “the pivot”, the Syria red line, and a host of other examples that Wikileaks and Snowden have made public. Furthermore, when we look to the west, as President Obama’s recent trip shows, our audience is not only — nor at times even primarily — China. Foreign audiences are still studying and weighing our words with painstaking effort; and words without synchronized action eventually mean about as much as campaign promises. Ultimately, we must be able to account for not only the intention of the words, images, and deeds, but perhaps even more importantly, how they will be perceived, interpreted, and then translated by our multiple audiences. Thus, we need to find the fundamental and harmonic frequencies — those that resonate best and most deeply — and then zero in on transmitting them in an unrelenting fashion. As George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” This skillset is certainly not lost on our Chinese brethren, as described in an article in theWashington Free Beacon last month, which cited a study on the PLA’s embrace of a concept called“Three Warfares”, produced for the Office of Net Assessment. This report highlights the emphasis being placed on “psychological, media, and legal attacks” by China as part of an effort to “diminish or rupture U.S. ties with the South China Sea littoral states and deter governments from providing forward basing facilities or other support.” According to the report, the Pentagon defines psychological warfare as “efforts to influence or disrupt an enemy’s decisions-making capabilities, to create doubts, foment anti-leadership sentiments, and device opponents”. As such, this darker side of strategic communication — information operations — would include actions such as increasing diplomatic pressure, false narratives, harassment, and other forms of media or public opinion warfare. So how does one go about countering the so-called Three Warfares? The report advocates, logically enough, three distinct approaches: forceful legal action (“lawfare”), freedom of navigation exercises (presence), and bolstering public diplomacy (strategic messaging). Putting aside the legal lane for the lawyers leaves physical engagement and communication. Returning to Admiral Harris’s comment about welcoming the rise of China as a military power in the Pacific, I do not think his remark stretches credulity at all. Nor do I believe that he made this statement off the cuff. Instead, this measured and strategic outlook is the result of several years of critical thinking honed while a student at Harvard, Georgetown, and Oxford, and earned on the job in challenging positions wearing dual hats (a NATO one in Naples, Italy, and a State Department one in his most recent job as Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). Both of those positions repeatedly reinforced — and his current one undoubtedly even further underscores — that in this increasingly globalized and hyper-connected world, very rarely, if ever, does a large challenge or threat to security affect only one nation; nor can the U.S. be everywhere, being all things to all people. Thus, working together, building and then leveraging partner capability and capacity are the bread and butter; the keys to confronting and then overcoming those shared transnational and even trans-regional threats and challenges. It is also a relatively safe bet that he is in lockstep with his boss, who just last week reiterated thatclimate change was the biggest long-term threat to the Asia Pacific region, emphasizing, … the increasing frequency of storms, the increasing likelihood that large tsunamis would impact as we’ve seen in Aceh and we’ve seen in Japan, impacting large population areas which will put many people at risk and disrupt the security environment. And you add to that the fact that 70% of all major disasters occur in my area of responsibility. And the admiral is not alone, nor is Mother Nature the only culprit. The recent multinational effort still underway in trying to locate and discern what exactly took place with Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 shows that we can work together in close proximity and cover a much wider operating area than any one nation attempting to “go it alone.” This activity has reminded some of the South China Sea Workshop Process started in 1989, which is a continuing dialogue process that aims to prevent, or at least mitigate, potential conflicts by exploring areas of cooperation among the littoral states in the South China Sea area. We can pursue this line of reasoning further. There are many shared challenges and threats to security that confront both China and the United States, as well as the other inhabitants of the Asia-Pacific neighborhood. Even with “the pivot,” we cannot and should not attempt to be everywhere, patrolling every strait, ensuring access to every common, enforcing freedom to all navigation, countering every pirate, etc. To the extent that we can start/continue to rely upon another nation/other nations to bring their considerable capability and capacity to the table to cooperate and collaborate — even pursuing the same objectives in parallel and for different reasons — still yields a net complementary benefit and helps to serve our greater national interests. Furthermore, as these examples show, threats and challenges do not have to be existential to create bonds. True, the bonds, like the threats and challenges, can be temporal and thus temporary; and the magnitude of the threat can also affect the strength and duration of those bonds. But what can make these bonds eternal is the element of trust, which is built primarily through persistent engagement, working together to confront and overcome shared threats and challenges, and undergirded by open, honest, and transparent communications. An example of such messaging took place a couple weeks ago when U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met with both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Minister of Defense General Chang Wanquan. Secretary Hagel asserted that he U.S. seeks military ties with China “to deepen practical cooperation in areas of common interest, and to manage competition and differences through openness and communication.” President Xi reciprocated this when he responded that the secretary’s visit to China “this time will definitely push forward the development of our new model of military-to-military relationship.” Granted, we have to apply a healthy dose of realism to this discussion; thus, we need to remember that China, as any other power, will operate first and foremost to support, protect, and further their own national interests. In fact, General Chang specifically addressed this shortly after the meeting with President Xi when he emphasized that “with the latest developments in China, it can never be contained,” and later added, “I’d like to reiterate that the territorial sovereignty issue is China’s core interest.” Thus, China may not share our perspective or agree to the same set of shared challenges; nor might it see any benefit or welcome working with others to confront those challenges, as evidenced by General Chang’s comment, “We are prepared at any time to cope with all kinds of threats and challenges … The Chinese military can assemble as soon as summoned, fight any battle and win.” But based on their words, deeds, and sizeable expenditure of resources when it comes to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions, counter-piracy missions, counter-terrorism missions, and relations with other inhabitants of the Asia-Pacific region, the Chinese already confront many of the same threats and challenges to security in the region that the United States does. Furthermore, they have publicly acknowledged the reality of working together — or at least in close proximity to — the U.S. military, as well as those of the other maritime security forces in the region, by signing the “code of conduct” agreement announced last week between the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, the Chinese chief of the PLA-N, and the heads of 22 other nations’ maritime security forces. Of course there are already caveats to when and how the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea will be enforced or be applicable, but it does establish English as the standard language used in bridge-to-bridge communication, as well as using U.S.-standard code word terminology and phonetic alphabet for abbreviated transmissions. There will be growing pains as this is the region’s first code of conduct for unplanned encounters between ships and aircraft. When we meet each other in the air or on/under the sea, friction will more than likely be present. However, this is more than we had several months ago when the USS Cowpens was almost collided with by a PLA-N cruiser. As Admiral Wu Shengli, the PLA-N head, stated, “This is a milestone document that is highly significant to navies in the region in promoting communication and reducing misjudgment and misunderstanding.” In addition, this is a direct result of doing exactly what both ADM Harris and ADM Locklear have called for: engaging more often, more closely, and more directly. The top two economies in the world benefit far more by working together against threats to their common markets and pursuits, than working in isolation or even at crossed purposes. As the United States has learned and shown successfully in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe, when we build partnerships based on persistent engagement and mutual trust, then as our partners’ capabilities and eventually their capacities grow, good things happen. Ideal? Not always. Good? More often than not. Thus, in partial response to John Mearsheimer’s lingering question of “Can China rise peacefully?” my answer would be “Maybe.” But we, the United States and our vitally important partners and allies in the region, have far more say in that than some would like to admit, particularly when we work together. More engagement, not less, is the recommendation for building trust between two powers like China and the United States. Presence, adherence to the rule of law, and messaging — both physical (training and exercises, and sharing of best practices) as well as verbal — our Americanized version of the Three Warfares. Again, words matter; however, the “pivot/rebalance” is nothing without action. Therefore, it comes down to presence: persistent physical presence with a purpose. Unpredictable or shadow presence like episodic unplanned/unsynchronized flyovers, ship visits tied to no exercise, brief touch-and-go of a few boots on the ground, and promises of future capabilities have little lasting effect. Forward-basing the USS George Washington and the U.S. 7th Fleet in Japan makes a statement; permanently basing another aircraft carrier or a large deck amphibious ship or even one of our hospital ships in Singapore makes a statement; moving an air wing/element from Kadena to Vietnam or the Philippines makes a statement. But so, too, do the appointments of high quality professionals with political clout to key leadership positions like ambassador and assistant secretary, as does leaving these posts vacant for extended periods of time. Take back control of the narrative — say what we think, say what we will do, and then do it. This action should help answer the questions increasingly being asked about our commitment, our credibility, and our focus. We must make our case to the world of what is and what is not acceptable behavior (based on international law), announce treaty obligations (both what allies expect of us, as well as what we expect from them), and then continue to engage often and directly with our Chinese counterparts and partners and allies in the region. We can start with shared and overlapping interests, and work outward from there to see what else is possible. Ultimately, the bottom line is this: I see more good from pursuing a strategy of engagement than one of estrangement. I think we do our interests and ourselves a disservice by only painting the rise of China as solely adversarial. Competitor? At times, absolutely. Occasional cooperator and collaborator? Why not? If we continue to label “them” as adversarial (or even as being more prone to competitor than collaborator), we are likely to see that become a self-fulfilling prophecy. A realistic perspective says we have to take steps toward creating the ideal, while always planning for the worst. We have enough plans already on the shelf to deal with all of the negatives should “competition” turn into “conflict.” So why not focus the majority of the rest of our time on taking the long view, being assertive but not aggressive, and focusing on potential areas for cooperation to influence a positive strategic environment and series of relationships that seek to remove as many sources of potential conflict as possible? We should take advantage of this “rise” while we can, and while both countries are here near the top of the heap, because ultimately, both of us will not be here forever.

Pressure advocates do not account for the evolution of US-Chinese interests – engagement is the only option that can solve
Russel 2014
“Daniel R. Russel, Assistant Secreatary, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Testimony Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Washington, DC,” June 25, 2014, http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2014/06/228415.htm

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the establishment of official diplomatic relations between the United States and China. We have made remarkable progress since the era of back-channel messaging and secret trips. The scope of today’s U.S.-China relationship was unimaginable when President Nixon made his historic visit in 1972 to China. Yet there is still enormous potential for progress in the U.S.-China relationship. Progress that will yield benefits to the citizens of both countries, our neighbors, and the world. To realize this progress and these benefits, we seek to ensure that the relationship is not defined by strategic rivalry, but by fair and healthy competition, by practical cooperation on priority issues, and by constructive management of our differences and disagreements. Where interests overlap, we will seek to expand cooperation with China. These areas include economic prosperity, a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue, and a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases. Where they diverge – and we have significant and well-known areas of disagreement – we will work to ensure that our differences are constructively managed. Mr. Chairman, there are those who argue that cold war-like rivalry is inevitable and that the United States and China are condemned to a zero-sum struggle for supremacy, if not conflict. I reject such mechanistic thinking. As anyone who has served in government can tell you, this deterministic analysis overlooks the role of leaders who have the ability to set policy and to shape relationships. It gives short shrift to the fact that our two economies are becoming increasingly intertwined, which increases each side’s stake in the success of the other. It undervalues the fact that leaders in Washington and Beijing are fully cognizant of the risk of unintended strategic rivalry between an emerging power and an established power and have agreed to take deliberate actions to prevent such an outcome. And it ignores the reality of the past 35 years – that, in spite of our differences, U.S.-China relations have steadily grown deeper and stronger – and in doing so, we have built a very resilient relationship. We view China’s economic growth as complementary to the region’s prosperity, and China’s expanded role in the region can be complementary to the sustained U.S. strategic engagement in the Asia-Pacific. We and our partners in the region want China’s rise to contribute to the stability and continued development of the region. As President Obama and Secretary Kerry have made very clear, we do not seek to contain China; to the contrary, we welcome the emergence of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China. We believe all countries, and particularly emerging powers like China, should recognize the self-benefit of upholding basic rules and norms on which the international system is built; these are rules and norms which China has participated in formulating and shaping, and they are rules and norms that it continues to benefit from. In this context, we are encouraging China to exercise restraint in dealing with its neighbors and show respect for universal values and international law both at home and abroad. A key element of our approach to the Asia-Pacific region, often called the rebalance, is strengthening America’s alliances and partnerships in the region. This contributes directly to the stable security environment that has underpinned the region’s – and China’s – dramatic economic growth and development. A second element is working to build up regional institutions in order to uphold the international rules-based system and create platforms for the countries and leaders to work on priority strategic, economic, and other issues. These institutions help develop habits of cooperation and promote respect for the interests of all parties. A third key element has been expanding and deepening our relationships with important emerging countries such as China, including through regular and high-level dialogue. In just two weeks, our countries will hold the sixth round of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue – the “S&ED” – in Beijing. This annual dialogue is unique in its level and scope. It is led on the U.S. side by Secretaries Kerry and Lew and brings a number of Cabinet-level and other senior U.S. government officials together with their Chinese counterparts to work on the major issues facing us. The breadth of the agenda in the two tracks – strategic and economic – reflects the breadth of modern U.S.-China relations. The S&ED is an important vehicle for making progress in the pursuit of a cooperative and constructive relationship; for building a “new model” that disproves the thesis that the United States and China are somehow destined for strategic rivalry and confrontation. The S&ED is an important forum for the United States and China to take stock of and set goals for the bilateral relationship, to review regional and international developments and explain our respective policies, to coordinate and seek practical areas of cooperation on important issues of mutual interest, and to constructively manage areas of difference through candid, high-level discussions. Let me preview of some of the topics for upcoming discussions at this year’s S&ED: We will exchange views and explore prospects for progress on regional challenges, including Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Ukraine, Iraq, and maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas; The world’s two largest economies will work on strengthening the global economic recovery; The world’s two biggest energy consumers and carbon emitters will work on combating climate change, and expand cooperation on clean energy; We will discuss global challenges ranging from cyber security to counterterrorism to wildlife trafficking, and the United States will raise our concerns over human rights; Secretary Kerry will co-chair the annual U.S.-China High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange, which supports exchange programs that build the foundation for mutual understanding and trust; And Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and his Chinese counterpart will hold the U.S.-China Strategic Security Dialogue (SSD), our highest-ranking joint civilian-military exchange with China, where we will conduct frank discussions on some of the most sensitive strategic issues in the relationship. The S&ED and our numerous other dialogues and official exchanges with the Chinese each year reflect the importance we attach to managing this relationship. This level and pace of engagement show the commitment of both sides to producing tangible benefits for our two peoples, the Asia-Pacific region, and the global community. The United States and China have a vital stake in each other’s success. That is why we maintain an intensive schedule of engagement; President Obama and President Xi met in Sunnylands, California, a year ago and have met twice more since then. The President plans to visit Beijing in November when China hosts APEC. Secretary Kerry, as well as numerous Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officials, have visited China already in 2014 and have met with Chinese counterparts in the United States or at international fora. We work with China in virtually all important international arenas, including the UN, the G20, the East Asia Summit, and APEC where we are cooperating closely on regulatory transparency, supply chain efficiencies, promoting clean and renewable energy, cross-border education, and combatting corruption and bribery. Our relationship touches on nearly every regional and global issue, and, as such, requires sustained, high-level attention. Moreover, few of these issues can be effectively addressed if China and the United States do not cooperate.

Engagement is the only tenable solution to China
deLisle no date
Jacques deLisle, University of Pennsylvania and the Foreign Policy Research Institute, “China’s Uneven Human Rights Progress and the Problem of Causation,” no publication date provided, http://carnegieendowment.org/files/delisle.pdf

Human rights conditions in the PRC remain inadequate, but they have improved greatly, if unevenly, over nearly three decades during which the United States has pursued a policy of engagement. Improvement has been greatest in the last decade and a half when the U.S.’s policy of engagement has become more robust. Gains in economic and social rights, which China emphasizes, have been significant. Almost thirty years of nearly double-digit growth has created the means. Although inequality has soared, new wealth has been shared sufficiently widely that Chinese enjoy a far higher standard of living than a generation or a decade ago. Hundreds of millions have risen from poverty that precluded basic economic rights. Reforms to economic laws and policies have created meaningful if incomplete property rights. Economic and political reforms have greatly increased mobility, replacing the near-serfdom of the hukou system established under Mao. Political freedoms have increased although they remain limited. The regime no longer requires citizens to engage in political movements or voice support for official ideology. Although still facing severe restrictions, domestic media are freer to report government malfeasance. Access to foreign media has greatly increased. Tolerance for religion has grown. Tens of millions of Chinese participate in state-approved institutions and underground “house churches” and similar organizations that survive despite crackdowns. Although the law on the books and its implementation remain inadequate, reformer laws are far more compatible with international human rights norms than was true during the Mao and Deng eras. In 1979, the PRC’s first systematic substantive criminal law and criminal procedure law promised to end tyrannical and chaotic imposition of punishment under color of political authority. Two decades later, these laws’ successors removed provisions that were most objectionable on human rights grounds: politically charged “counter-revolutionary” crime (although substituting disturbingly similar crimes of endangering state security and disturbing public order), lack of a presumption of innocence, permissibility of punishment by analogy, and limited access to counsel, opportunity to confront evidence and other due process protections (although the 1990s changes promised only limited improvement on these latter matters). Accession to the U.N. Covenant entails further reforms. Formally non-criminal but liberty-depriving “reeducation through labor” and “shelter and investigation” have undergone substantial if incompletely implemented reforms, with the former restricted to shorter terms and subjected to judicial review and the latter officially banned. 2 Ordinary Chinese now bring, and often win, lawsuits challenging state actions, participate in nascent public hearings on laws and regulations, and join nongovernmental organizations. China now has media and academic outlets for regime critics ranging from the pro-liberalization “right” such as Cao Siyuan (a policy entrepreneur who presses for constitutionalism and human rights) or Li Jianqiang (a lawyer, essayist and leader in the weiquan movement that seeks enforcement of legal rights as a means to social change) to the “new leftist” Wang Hui (editor of Dushu and critic of China’s rising inequality) or Gong Xiantian (the Peking University professor whose critique of the “anti-socialist” property law helped delay the legislation’s passage until March 2007). Although they have faced harassment and threats to their livelihoods and freedom, gadflies and mavericks dot the Chinese landscape: AIDS activists (such as Gao Yaojie, who was prohibited and then grudgingly allowed to travel abroad to receive awards), whistleblowers (such as People’s Liberation Army doctor Jiang Yanyong who exposed the SARS cover-up), criminal defense lawyers taking politically charged cases (such as Mo Shaoping and Gao Zhisheng), lawyer-activists representing expropriated property rights-holders or victims of coerced sterilization (such as Zhu Jiuhui and Chen Guancheng), and policy-intellectuals pressing for human rights, constitutionalism, civil society and economic reform (such as Yu Keping and Cao Siyuan). While the drama here pales in comparison to Democracy Wall in 1978 and Tiananmen in 1989, this sustained, multifaceted, mutually independent, and partially tolerated set of reformers and critics was unimaginable three decades ago and nonexistent through much of the 1990s. Some areas, including political speech, organized political participation and religion, have lagged. The regime still tolerates no meaningful political party other than the Communist Party. Organized dissent such as the Tiananmen Movement, fledgling autonomous political organizations such as the China Democracy Party, and less conventional groups with political agendas such as Falun Gong have been quashed. Harsh sanctions have befallen leaders and, sometimes, followers in the “incidents” (now numbering around 80,000 in official counts) of protests by workers who have been laid off by declining state-owned enterprises, peasants whose land rights have been expropriated by local governments collaborating with developers, and others. Democratic elections reach only the lowest-level committees in the countryside and are often manipulated. Unauthorized religious groups (such as “house churches”) encounter intermittent suppression and “cults” (such as Falun Gong) face systematic repression. Although brutal methods and strict implementation of the so-called “single child family” policy have waned, restrictions on reproductive freedoms persist, as do coercive means to enforce them. Criminal justice and not-formally-criminal sanctions remain deeply troubling, with trial processes remaining cursory and sometimes secretive (especially in politically charged cases), multi-year incarcerations still dispensed without court process, torture continuing despite official prohibitions, and executions in China outnumbering those in the rest of the world (and for acts that would not be capital offenses in other 3 death penalty jurisdictions but that fall among China’s nearly seventy crimes punishable by death). Human rights progress also has faced reversals. The most striking came after Tiananmen Movement of 1989, with imprisonments and executions imposed after perfunctory procedures, and silencing of officials, journalists, academics and others who had sympathized with the movement. Earlier, more modest retrenchments came with drives against crime (bringing harsher penalties and weakened procedural protections, especially for acts threatening social order), “spiritual pollution” (targeting liberal ideas that came with the first market-oriented reforms and opening to the outside world), ideas of “alienation” under socialism and Marxist “humanism” (quashing reform-minded intellectuals within the Party), and “bourgeois liberalization” (ending a period of relative political openness and toppling designated successor Hu Yaobang whose death in 1989 was the catalyst for the Tiananmen Demonstrations). “Strike hard” campaigns and anti-corruption drives began in the middle 1990s and have increased criminal sanctions and undercut procedural protections. In the 1990s and 2000s, the most notable setback has been the crackdown on Falun Gong, declared an “evil cult” and the most severe challenge to the Party and state since 1989. Its adherents have faced detention and abuse, some of it fatal. Periodic campaigns targeting “house churches” have limited religious liberties of adherents to more mainstream faiths. In some areas, the Hu Jintao period has brought troubling turns. Intellectuals report a chilled atmosphere for heterodox ideas for political and legal reform. Long in decline, restrictions on media—especially “new media”—recently have increased. Bold journals such as Bingdian and Nanfang Zhoumou have faced closure, firings or criticism for their temerity in exposing inconvenient truths or offering critical views. Among conservative elements in the top elite, arguments against greater legality have resurfaced, including calls for limits to the independence of the legal system and warnings that foreign and hostile forces—including those with human rights agendas—are using China’s legal institutions to undermine the system. Although it did produce greater transparency in government, the SARS crisis triggered regime reactions that were not human rights-friendly, including mandating severe penalties for those charged with spreading false information. Despite Hu-era “populism,” the social safety net has continued to fray. Rising concern about unrest has brought repression and prosecution of those involved in protests and scrutiny of civil society organizations. Nonetheless, overall progress in Chinese human rights has marked the post-Mao Reform Era, and has coincided with the American policy of engagement that accompanied normalization of U.S.-PRC relations in 1979. The Post-Tiananmen and “second wave” Reform Era reacceleration of improvement in human rights conditions corresponds to deepening and expansion of U.S. engagement during the Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies. This has reflected growth of government-to-government interactions, including on human rights-related issues, that attended a steep rise in trade (which grew from near-zero levels in 1979 to over $30 billion in 1992 to approximately $300 billion today) and investment (which now includes 20,000 U.S.-invested enterprises 4 and around $60 billion in cumulative investment, much of it since 1992). Increased engagement also included a new emphasis on human rights as the shock of the Tiananmen Incident and the end of the Cold War removed “veils” or “lenses” that had made human rights peripheral to Washington’s post-normalization China (if not broader foreign) policy. Correlation, of course, is not causation. Many of the factors that have contributed to human rights gains are not products of U.S. policy. U.S. policy has only sometimes— and often only indirectly—affected them. Counterfactuals also obscure causation. It is impossible to show that human rights conditions in China would not have been better if U.S. policy had been tougher. Nonetheless, much evidence supports the claim that engagement has worked better than a much harder line would have.

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Pressure Counterplan 1nc text

Affirmative Stuff A2 – Solvency

Affirmative Stuff

A2 – Solvency

Pressure Fails

Pressure only antagonizes China and turns the counterplan – economic interdependence requires the maintenance of good relations

China cannot be contained – engagement is the only route to peaceful relations with China