Western nations find broad agreement on human rights, but there is divergence on some other issues, says US National Security Council’s top China official
US pledges to ‘stand together against the coercive and otherwise problematic behaviours that we see from Beijing on the economic front’
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As the United States and its European allies craft a coordinated approach to handling relations with China, both sides must do a better job at understanding and resolving areas of divergence, the White House National Security Council’s top China official said on Thursday.
Speaking in the wake of G7 and Nato summits in which the China issue featured prominently, Laura Rosenberger said the meetings had demonstrated broad convergence especially around human rights issues, but acknowledged that alignment was not absolute.
“The reality is that we’re never going to have 100 per cent convergence with any of our allies on anything,” Rosenberger said at a virtual event hosted by the Washington-based Wilson Centre. “The key for me is maximising our alignment, and where we have divergence, understanding it and managing it.”
While Rosenberger did not elaborate in detail on specific areas of divergence, she suggested that there was not yet complete convergence between Washington and European capitals on their approaches to the Indo-Pacific – a priority arena for the US government – though she said that there was “movement” towards greater alignment there.
Noting the “deep economic ties” that both the US and European countries have with China, Rosenberger said it was “important for us to understand ways that we can better support one another … in terms of resolving some of the areas where we’ve maybe been sort of opposed to one another, instead of actually supporting one another”.
Addressing differences, she added, would allow the US and allies to “stand together against the coercive and otherwise problematic behaviours that we see from Beijing on the economic front.”
The Biden administration’s nascent China policy has been distinguished by its bids to enlist allies, including European countries, to jointly take on Beijing on matters including human rights, trade policy and territorial disputes.
An early effort came in March when the US teamed with the European Union, Britain and Canada to sanction Chinese officials over Beijing’s treatment of Uygurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.
And at the recent Group of Seven meeting, Biden and other heads of state issued a strongly worded statement, pledging to work closely together as they challenged Beijing on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and transparency about the origins of Covid-19.
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A coalescence around confronting China also featured prominently at the Nato summit in Brussels, where members, for the first time in the military alliance’s history, declared that the country represented a security threat.
“If you had asked me a year ago, I would have told you that an area of divergence was lack of real recognition in Europe that China poses a direct security challenge,” said Rosenberger. “And I think that the Nato summit statement is a pretty clear indication that that is not the case any more.”
According to the NSC’s senior director for Europe, Amanda Sloat, Nato’s upcoming Strategic Concept – a periodically updated document that outlines the bloc’s priorities – will feature a “refreshed look at China”.
That stands in contrast with the current Strategic Concept, produced in 2010, that makes no mention of the country.
The push for alignment with European allies continued this week, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken travelled to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
European leaders have welcomed the US resumption of multilateralism, in sharp contrast to the go-it-alone approach that characterised the foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration.
Speaking through a translator ahead of her meeting with Blinken on Wednesday, Merkel said that the German and US administrations “had been able to find a common basis on which to tackle the geostrategic challenges of the world, not only [to] identify them but actually to agree on a common approach towards these problems” – including China and Russia.
Officials in Beijing, hoping that US-China tensions would de-escalate with the new Biden administration, have looked on with frustration as Washington courts its European allies.
Condemning what he called an attempt to interfere in China’s internal affairs, foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said earlier this month that the G7 statement revealed “the bad intentions of the US and a few other countries to create confrontation and estrangement, and widen differences and disagreements”.
