Derek Grossman speaks at Xiangshan Forum in Beijing.
Derek Grossman is a senior defense analyst at RAND focused on a range of national security policy and Indo-Pacific security issues. He closely tracks intensifying U.S.-China competition throughout the region, including Asia and Oceania. Grossman was interviewed recently by Huang Zhijin, a reporter for China-US Focus, at the recent Xiangshan Forum in Beijing.
Huang Zhijin:
This is the first time you have attended the Xiangshan Forum. How do you feel and what do you think was the most important thing that you got out of it?
Derek Grossman:
Thanks for having me. I always gain tremendous insights from Chinese interlocutors on Beijing’s position on a range of issues. The challenge as an American, of course, is getting the opportunity to engage with folks on the ground, and that’s why I’m thrilled to be here at the 11th Beijing Xiangshan Forum this week.
Huang Zhijin:
Two U.S. presidential debates have been held. To what degree has the China card been played in this election cycle? It seems that China policies, or issues related to China, have not been hotly debated. How do you evaluate the impact of the general election so far on China-U.S. relations?
Derek Grossman:
I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that the two nominees didn’t fully lay out their policies on China, because a national debate is only 90 minutes long and they have to answer many different questions on many different topics. So I do anticipate in the coming days and weeks to hear more about China from each of the nominees. But let’s also be honest that time is short, right? I think as of today we have 54 days between now and Nov. 5. And I don’t really expect a full fledged explanation of how they would seek to approach China, or for that matter the broader Indo-Pacific region between now and then.
Huang Zhijin:
Is it because the two major political parties have reached consensus about a “tough on China” approach, so both nominees want to be viewed as more hawkish on China than anticipated, and so there is no need for further debate on this thorny issue?
Derek Grossman:
I think broadly speaking you are probably right, but there may be some slight differences, or possibly more major differences, with Trump. So, with Kamala Harris, she’s currently serving as vice president for President Joe Biden. Based on her own comments on China, I think she will mostly, if not entirely, retain Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy for now. That means continuing to enhance alliances and partnerships in the Indo-Pacific to counter China.
Trump in his first administration actually initiated the Indo-Pacific strategy. It’s likely that he would continue to do that into a second term, but I just raise one potential caveat, which is that in Trump Part 1 he had certain people around him who really believed in countering China. These are some of the more traditional Republican type of appointees. In a Part 2, it’s not entirely clear that he would pick the same personnel. As we say in Washington, policy is personnel or personnel is policy. So if he decides to choose people who are more of the MAGA persuasion, you may see a far more isolationist or retrenched foreign policy that features the U.S. essentially turning its back on the region.
I think China would welcome that. There is a possibility of that, but we don’t know who Donald Trump would pick or what kinds of policies they would therefore promote.
Huang Zhijin:
Will the economic and trade relationship be much worse if Trump wins?
Derek Grossman:
That makes sense. I agree because when you look back at his first administration, he’s the one who accused China of stealing U.S. jobs — among other countries, too. He also tried to negotiate a trade framework that disadvantaged China and advantaged the United States.
However, Trump was an extraordinarily transactional president, meaning that there is the possibility of an opportunity — a possibility that he would decide to not follow through on his own Indo-Pacific strategy. He could decide that if China were to give something to the United States, whatever those things are, then that would be worthwhile for the U.S. to respond in kind with some sort of grand bargain.
So I would not rule that out when you look at Kamala Harris. That’s far less likely, if not virtually a zero chance she would do something like that.
Huang Zhijin:
Are you implying the Chinese government would prefer to deal with another Donald Trump administration?
Derek Grossman:
That’s hard to answer. I feel like Beijing’s view on this has been a bit of a mystery for outsiders, but I do think that the answer to your question is kind of slightly more favorable to Trump because of that possibility of a grand bargain of a more transactional president who’s willing to look the other way on some of the things that we have traditionally tried to dissuade Beijing from doing. Maybe he’ll look the other way on those things to get something out of China, something that China is willing to give.
Huang Zhijin:
If there were a grand bargain with China, what are the potential bargaining chips for Donald Trump, besides tariffs? Like Taiwan or U.S. military maneuvers in the South China Sea vis-a-vis China and the Philippines?
Derek Grossman:
Something like that, I’m not going to speculate, but I would just say that there are issues out there that could be bargained away. Let’s also look at what Trump has said about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said he would solve it on Day One. How is he going to solve it on Day One? There’s going to have to be something that the United States offers Russia. And as we’ve seen from former president Trump’s statements about NATO, for example, he's not too pleased with defense spending and burden sharing within NATO. He has talked about how if one country doesn’t pay enough, then he’ll let Russia do whatever it wants to that country. That type of rhetoric speaks to a more transactional approach, which again I think China would welcome.
Comparatively, you could also say that China welcomes predictability and stability. But the problem is the predictability and stability that you get with a Kamala Harris administration is an Indo-Pacific strategy that is meant to counter or contain China with no possibility of a grand bargain.
Huang Zhijin:
If Kamala Harris wins this election, many observers say she will continue many of President Biden’s foreign policies. Will her administration become a second term of President Biden? Any difference she wants to make when she deals with China?
Derek Grossman:
It’s very interesting if you look at her VP choice, Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota. He has been to China 30 times and knows China inside and out. You would think that would be an advantage, a good thing, right? You have somebody on your team who knows something about China. Kamala Harris obviously thinks that way.
The conservative criticism of Walz has mostly been that he’s been to China so many times, so how can we actually trust him? He’s been to “communist China” too many times. He is somehow someone who cannot be trusted on China policy. I think that is absurd. When did being an expert on an issue make it so that you cannot be trusted on that issue? So I think it’s an asset that Walz has been here in China many times. And also look at the fact that Kamala Harris has never been to China. She met President Xi once on the sidelines of a summit but has never been to China. So I think if she were to get elected, having Walz there is going to be a tremendous advantage.
Huang Zhijin:
Donald Trump said he would solve the Ukraine war on Day One, and his VP choice, JD Vance, also wants to reorient the U.S. toward the Indo-Pacific region, particularly East Asia, to counter China. Do you think under a second Trump administration the conservatives will push Trump’s America to reconcile with Russia to counter China? How much will the China-Russia relationship be affected?
Derek Grossman：
The conservatives are not a monolith and there’s different groups, but the Trumpist wing of it, you could argue, is all of the Republican Party now. But I think on this particular issue, there are a number of folks who would agree to triangulate using Russia against China. But the reality is that’s going to be extremely difficult to do, because Trump — even during his first administration — had moments where he was tough on Russia as well. This is before Russia invaded Ukraine. There’s a kind of momentum in U.S. policy toward Russia that is trending in a very negative direction. So that’s going to be hard to reverse.
Then there’s also the fact that the Russia-China relationship is at a historic high. That is something that the U.S. can’t really do anything about. As far as I’m concerned, I mean, maybe try to have a better relationship with China to explain why Russia is not China’s friend. But when China also believes that the U.S. has a hegemonic interest in the world, maintaining its primacy in the world, Russia is also whispering in China’s ear. That’s the case. It's going to be very difficult to pull that off as well. Therefore, my short answer is that using Russia to counter China is extremely unlikely.
Huang Zhijin:
Do you think Taiwan will become another Ukraine in the next five or ten years?
Derek Grossman:
I mean, God forbid.
Huang Zhijin:
Because the U.S. lawmakers and some in defense circles say the U.S. needs to prepare for the possibility of China taking Taiwan by force by 2027.
Derek Grossman:
Yeah. The U.S. government has not given specifics on the evidence that would lead them to that conclusion. There must be something; I don’t think they would just talk about it openly without any kind of evidence undergirding it. But that said, now that the 2027 conversation is out in the public, China has responded and said that “we have no plans” for 2027. If China did have plans, they probably have to revise them, because now the United States knows that there is one.
Anyway, so there’s that kind of intelligence, a back-and-forth portion of the U.S.-China relationship vis-a-vis Taiwan. But I hope and pray that cooler heads prevail on the Taiwan issue, because it literally could devolve into World War III or nuclear war. And that’s not something that’s good for either side or for global peace and stability.
Huang Zhijin:
But the U.S. is still sending military weapons to Taiwan. In order to “manage” the risks and avoid miscalculation and war, is it possible for both the United States and China to reach a new deal or consensus on Taiwan beyond the three joint communiques?
Derek Grossman:
The thing I worry about is that agreements that have been signed in the past, such as the three joint communiques, get outmoded by the new realities. When China signed those agreements in the 1970s and early 80s, China was weak, the U.S. was strong. Now China is much stronger and could be stronger than the U.S. in the years to come. So do those three communiques have the same ability to bind Beijing to certain behavior as they did once before? I’m not so sure.
Here’s a good example. Look at the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China was a signatory to that. They were in the room when that agreement was developed. Off the record, I’ve spoken to a Chinese interlocutor who told me that the UNCLOS no longer fits a great power because China is now a great power. China signed that when it was weak, and now it’s strong and getting stronger. So why not use that might to promote China’s core interests in the South China Sea? So that’s actually what worries me. And it’s not just me, a lot of Americans are worried about this as well. And I think that’s reflected in both the Trump and Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategies.
Huang Zhijin:
How about the Taiwan leader, Lai Ching-te? Do you think he is different from his predecessor Tsai? And will he push the formal independence agenda in the next four or five years?
Derek Grossman:
I highly doubt it. I say that not because he doesn’t want to but because he knows the consequences of it.
Huang Zhijin:
Let’s zoom out a little bit in this region. China’s peripheral security environment is becoming more challenging because of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy in which the U.S. is rallying its allies like Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines to counterbalance China. Do you think the strategy is a China containment strategy?
Derek Grossman:
I do believe that the U.S. strategy is, at a minimum, to compete against China. But on the far end there is a containment aspect to it. And this goes back to a lack of trust between China and the United States on what Beijing’s current and future intentions are in the region.
I see the U.S. strategy continuing, and from Beijing’s perspective, countries like the Philippines, Japan and Australia to some extent are doing things that they wouldn’t normally do if not for the United States. But I would point to the fact that there is growing interaction between all of these U.S. allies and partners, apart from their relationship with the U.S., which underscores that they are genuinely concerned.
In the context of their cooperation with the United States, they come to us for assistance. It’s not like we are begging them to engage with us to use them as pawns against Beijing. They are coming to us with legitimate concerns. So, are we to turn them away and say, “Deal with it on your own,” or as allies (in the case of Australia, the Philippines and Japan) or with partners (Vietnam, for example) or with Taiwan. Should we just turn them away and tell them to go deal with it on your own? That is unbecoming of a great power and especially a great power that has specific interests it wants to achieve and certain values it wants to promote.
Huang Zhijin:
Do you think the U.S. is trying to bait China into a conflict? Those who hold this kind of view think that the United States want to weaken or wreck China, dragging China into another conflict during a regional or global power grab in next decades.
Derek Grossman:
Absolutely not. I think that’s a very unfortunate perception here that I’ve kind of felt since I landed. And that’s why I make these kinds of trips because I learn a lot from them. At the risk of nuclear war? I would say that is profoundly wrong.
Huang Zhijin:
President Biden has said the U.S. will come to the defense of Taiwan. Do you think the American political elites are moving away from the so-called “strategic ambiguity”and will it be continued in the future?
Derek Grossman:
Yeah, that’s a good question. President Biden is the first president to say, on four separate occasions without hesitation or caveat that we would assist Taiwan militarily if it were attacked. But I would look at the wording here. We would “assist” them militarily. What does that really mean? Does that mean boots on the ground? It could mean boots on the ground. But it could also mean just the way we’re supporting Ukraine right now, with security assistance but no boots on the ground. So it’s unclear. But I take your point that Biden, in saying that on four separate occasions, has really set the precedent now for future presidents to do the same thing. That could be Trump too. I don’t think he would because anything Biden did is wrong in his view. We have real evidence from his first term on how he handles things. And the reality is he prioritized China over Taiwan. So that’s interesting. People he had around him, like Matthew Pottinger and John Bolton, were very interested in and prioritized the defense of Taiwan, but President Trump himself did not.
