THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 15 SPEAKING OUT Robert S. Wang, a retired Foreign Service officer, is a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service from 2018 to 2023. During a 32-year career with the Department of State, Mr. Wang served overseas in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Taiwan, and Beijing, where he was deputy chief of mission from 2011 to 2013. He served as the U.S. senior official for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (2013-2015) and retired in 2016. D uring his term in office over the past four years, President Joe Biden highlighted the global struggle between democracies and autocracies and underscored the need for the United States to help defend and strengthen the post–World War II rulesbased liberal international order. For this effort, the administration inaugurated and co-hosted an annual Summit for Democracy with the participation of leaders from up to 100 countries who have made a range of specific commitments to advance human rights and democracy, counter authoritarianism, and fight corruption. At the same time, the United States provided crucial military assistance to Ukraine in the wake of Russia’s invasion and built and strengthened security alliances in Europe and Asia, while increasing worldwide development assistance and taking measures to respond to China’s increasingly aggressive and coercive political, military, and trade policies. In its February 2022 “Indo-Pacific Strategy of the United States” document, the Biden administration specifically called attention to the mounting challenges in the region, particularly citing Beijing’s actions “from the economic coercion of Australia to the conflict along the Line of Actual Control with India to the growing pressure on Taiwan and bullying of neighbors in the East and South China Seas. … In the process, the PRC is also undermining human rights and international law, including freedom of navigation, as well as other principles that have brought stability and prosperity to the Indo-Pacific.” Nonetheless, while calling for collective efforts to address these challenges, the strategy states: “Our objective is not to change the PRC [emphasis added] but to shape the strategic environment in which it operates, building a balance of influence in the world that is maximally favorable to the United States, our allies and partners, and the interests and values we share.” This phrasing deliberately avoids stating clearly the ultimate goal of getting China, itself, to accept and abide by the values and principles of the rules-based liberal international order, which the United States has worked to promote globally since the end of WWII and to advance with respect to China since establishment of diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1979. In so doing, the administration appears to be acknowledging the difficulty of achieving this goal (without being accused of seeking “regime change”) while continuing “to manage our competition with the PRC responsibly.” Beijing’s Narrative: Interests vs. Values Meanwhile, Beijing has continued to promote its narrative that the U.S.-China rivalry is primarily a competition of national interests as opposed to values. That is, the United States as a status quo power is seeking to contain and suppress China as a rising power (popularized in the concept of the “Thucydides Trap”). In April 2013, shortly after Xi Jinping assumed power, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) issued an internal communiqué (“Document Nine”) warning that “Western anti-China forces” were seeking to spread Western ideas and values (such Defending Values: The Case for Strategic Clarity BY ROBERT S. WANG Beijing has continued to promote its narrative that the U.S.-China rivalry is primarily a competition of national interests as opposed to values.
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