The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2019 25 H ow did we get to a place where the United States government, egged on by clickbaiting media and others, actively shuns talking as a way of solving problems? We need look no further than the wreckage of recently abandoned treaties and international agreements to understand that Amer- ican diplomacy has indeed fallen on hard times. Whereas U.S. diplomats used to be relied on to prevent crises, to solve international problems, to devise new agreements, rules and institutions, they are now viewed by their own government with suspicion, and the word “global” has become an epithet. IS AMERICAN DIPLOMACY WITH CHINA DEAD? Susan A. Thornton served as acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs from March 2017 through July 2018, when she retired. Prior to that, she was principal deputy assistant secretary for EAP. During a 28-year Foreign Service career, she served as deputy chief of mission in Turkmenistan, in addition to postings in Beijing, Chengdu, Yerevan, Almaty and Washington, D.C. She is now a senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center and, with her family, runs a farm in Maine. China’s rise in a rapidly changing world presents a challenge that only strategic, patient, firm coalition diplomacy can meet successfully. BY SUSAN A . THORNTON FOCUS Diplomats are trained to discern how the dynamics of other countries are different from our own; how, left to their own devices, they will affect our interests; and how we might shape or harness them to service our interests, or at least not harm them. This requires curiosity, patience, listening, persistence and, above all, a realistic analysis of our interests and where they diverge or overlap with others. If a convergence of interests cannot be found and exploited through persistent, low-cost diplomacy and persuasion, we must then assess what higher costs we are willing to bear to force our interests on another country, and whether that force will succeed or fail. MANAGING COMPETITION WITH CHINA ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/BET_NOIRE