Michael Sobolik, a fellow in Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC, speaks with Mark Melton about recent developments in China. In particular, Sobolik explains new revelations that the Chinese Communist Party is forcing Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang to have sterilizations and abortions, which he wrote about in Newsweek. They also talk about the United Kingdom banning Huawei from building Britain’s 5G network. Sobolik lays out why the United States opposes Huawei on this and what other countries may ban the company from their networks. He wrote about this issue in a report for the American Foreign Policy Council. The two also discuss the importance of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and how this affects geopolitics and US foreign policy. Sobolik also describes what China did to cover up the COVID-19 pandemic and the Chinese Communist Party’s misinformation campaign, which he also covered in The Diplomat and The Hill. Sobolik and Melton also talk about developments in Hong Kong, including the possibility the US and UK will accept refugees from there, and why the US declared this week that it does not recognize China’s claims to offshore resources in the South China Sea.

Rough Transcript

Mark Melton  
Welcome back to the Foreign Policy ProvCast. My name is Mark Melton and I am the managing editor for Providence. And today we are talking with Michael Sobolik, and he is a fellow in the Indo-Pacific Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. So first off, Michael, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Michael Sobolik
Hey, it’s my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on Mark. 

Mark Melton
And so we have a lot of China news going on this week in particular, but also just over the past several months. And this is a major topic and I know that Asia, in general, is an issue that Americans I think, and even for people who focus on foreign policy, there’s a lot of different things going on. And like Americans may know a good bit about Europe if they study foreign policy or the Middle East, but Asia is becoming a much, much bigger issue. And so we’re going to be talking about China today. Regular Providence are likely familiar with many of the problems in Xinjiang, especially how the Chinese Communist Party is erasing the culture of the Uyghur Muslims there. For years, we have heard about reeducation camps that imprison millions in the region. And these have been major issues for those who advocate for International Religious Liberty, especially for many of the contributors at Providence. And Michael, I know you’ve written about new revelations, including some forced sterilization. So what is going on in this region?

Michael Sobolik
Well, Mark, again, thanks for having me on to chat about all these topics. Talking about Xinjiang involves really heavy, despicable things that are happening. So right now if you look at a map, Xinjiang is China’s most western territory, it borders Central Asia, the southernmost tip of it hits some disputed territory between China and India, it borders Pakistan, and it’s at the heart of Eurasia. And what’s happening inside of this territory really brings to memory some of the darkest moments of the 20th century. So there’s a recent report that came out from the Jamestown Foundation, and a German scholar Adrian Zenz has done some really in-depth research, to bring to light, really, really dark things that are going on: specifically forced sterilizations, forced abortions, forced birth control methods, and you’ll see that all this stuff is tied into the reeducation camps that were begun a few years ago. So China, partially for anti-terror reasons, which are dubious at best, also, for economic and geopolitical reasons, are zeroing in on the Uyghur religious minority and a number of other ethnic and religious minorities in the territory as well. And they’re taking steps to forcibly reduce the share of their population in Xinjiang.

Mark Melton
And this region, from my understanding, it’s important to the Chinese because even though it might be considered remote because it’s in the far west part of China, it is actually I think, closer to Europe, or parts of Europe than parts of East China. Is that correct? And it’s part of their Belt and Road plan?

Michael Sobolik
So this is a really, really important observation you’re making. So historically, when you look at what actually has constituted China over the past centuries, Tibet, Xinjiang, even inner Mongolia, Manchuria, all of the periphery of China, this has not always been part of China’s geographical reality. So one of the biggest historical trends far predating the Chinese Communist Party has been the growth and expansion of China through its dynastic period, and certainly now under the Chinese Communist Party. So when you look at Xinjiang, its geographical proximity, as you put it, not just to Central Asia, the Middle East, but to Europe, is really important for the party’s Belt and Road Initiative, because the party is trying to create an integrated Eurasian landmass. So oftentimes when readers will read about a new Belt and Road project in the country, whether it be Southeast Asia in a country like Cambodia, or Saudi Arabia, or Egypt in the Middle East or a European country, it’s reported very straight and simply as a one-off infrastructure project or investment deal. But if you zoom out and look at what the party is trying to accomplish, they’re essentially building a new web and network of trade and commerce that hasn’t existed there before. And Xinjiang is really important for this, because it lies at the intersection of the Westernmost regions of China, the Far East, and going into not just Central Asia, but connecting to the old world in Europe. So China by doing all of this is trying to build a new economic zone that does not include primarily the United States. So for geopolitical reasons, China needs to have absolute control over the region of Xinjiang because they need it as an economic hub for the Belt and Road Initiative.

Mark Melton
And what should the US do on this issue?

Michael Sobolik
So, frankly, in the past few months, there’s been a lot of positive steps that the Trump administration has taken. The most recent being implementing Global Magnitsky sanctions on high-ranking CCP officials responsible for the human rights atrocities. Chen Quanguo, who’s a member of China’s Politburo is also the party secretary of Xinjiang, and he was one of the individuals that the United States government designated under the Global Magnitsky Act. In addition to that, there’s been good interagency cooperation, which I know the term ‘interagency’ easily puts people to sleep because it’s not bright, shiny, or interesting. But it’s the true work of governance. And it really is important. And we saw this recently where a number of agencies -State Commerce, Treasury- all came together and warned US companies that you need to be taking Xinjiang out of your supply chains, because it’s a matter of US law, that we will not import goods that were manufactured by slave labor, full stop. 

Beyond that, future steps that folks in Washington should consider closely: not just looking at individuals responsible for human rights violations, not just looking at commerce leaving Xinjiang, although both of those things are very important. Washington needs to find a way to target Xinjiang’s role in the Belt and Road. Because the best way they get the party’s attention is not to stop your response at symbolic or entry level policy responses, we need to have strategic policy options that actually hit the party where it hurts. And one way that could easily do that would be not just to sanction exports from the region that were slave labor manufactured, but to sanction commerce passing through the region. Because, again, the party needs Xinjiang as a hub for commerce. And if there’s a way that the United States can sanction that flow of commerce, that will not only penalize the party in a much more intense way, it actually stymies the Belt and Road Project itself.

Mark Melton
I believe I heard recently or read recently that there was a shipment of hair that came to the US and it looked like it came from Xinjiang if I’m pronouncing that right. Are you familiar with that? Or…

Michael Sobolik
Yes, yes. 

Mark Melton
So what happened there? What’s going on?

Michael Sobolik
So this is really good work by US Customs and Border Enforcement. It is their job, their duty to ensure that whatever comes into the United States, is compliant with US laws. And it’s not a matter of sanctions, it’s actually a matter of statute, that the United States will not accept any imports that were slave labor produced. So that was dutiful enforcement of the laws that are already on the books and it’s something that we need to be incredibly vigilant at doing. And even more than that, the United States has to socialize that understanding and that commitment of enforcement amongst our friends and allies, because there is a limit of our effectiveness if we’re only standing alone in response to what China is doing. The more we can integrate and work with our partners in Europe especially, and throughout the Muslim world, the better.

Mark Melton
And speaking about Belt and Road and our allies, one of the major news issues this week is that the United Kingdom decided to ban Huawei, and the US has been opposed to Huawei building 5G networks in other countries. And first off, like before we get into the UK decision, what are America’s concerns with Huawei?

Michael Sobolik
So if you listen to how the Chinese Communist Party describes Huawei, it’s a private company, not unlike companies that Americans are familiar with, like Verizon, AT&T, or European countries like Ericsson and Nokia. However, in reality, I think it was the US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence back in 2012 or so under Mike Rogers. They conducted an in-depth investigation into the roots of Huawei, the history of the company, the makeup of the company, its associations, not just with the Chinese Communist Party, but with the People’s Liberation Army. And the report from the US House of Representatives, which has since been echoed by executive branch agencies is that Huawei is a Chinese intelligence arm thinly veiled as a telecommunications company. It has all of the capabilities to track, detect, surveil information, and to take that information in real-time. 

So a practical example of this and I don’t want to get too deep into technology because it can get super nerdy super fast. But right now most Americans use 4G networks. At any network an operation is constituted in two main areas: you have the core of your telecommunications network, which is where all of the sensitive encrypted information gets read, your credit card information is encrypted until it reaches the core. And it’s all of the queries are resolved in a secure fashion there. The edge of the network, which is closer in proximity to where Americans live, where they work, this is where your tablet, your phone, your computer, basically enters the telecommunications environment. And Huawei equipment and US 4G networks and 4G networks around the world have been present at the edge. 

So, the thinking has been for a long time that as long as the network’s core is secure -and basically meaning if there’s no dubious technology infrastructure equipment inside of the core, then you can put whatever you want at the edge, save a ton of money on cheap Huawei equipment, and you won’t have any security risks. So what’s really interesting about this is when the Brits were considering whether or not to use Huawei equipment in a 5G network, US officials, Matthew Pottinger, from the National Security Council among them, flew over to the United Kingdom and told them, “look US intelligence reveals in no uncertain terms that in 4G networks, if you have Huawei equipment even at the edge of your network, even where most of the secure transactions aren’t being resolved, Huawei has a way to intercept encrypted information flowing through their equipment and decrypt it, and essentially track whatever is flowing towards the core.” So that’s a lot of linguistic way of basically saying, “even if you try to like do your best to keep Huawei equipment out of the most sensitive part is your network, it’s not going to be enough, because they have all the capabilities they need to get your information.” And in a 5G network for a variety of reasons, it’ll be even easier for them to do that. So the reason this is important for the United States is because in Europe we have sensitive equities all throughout the region, especially by virtue not just of NATO, but of our Five Eyes intelligence partnerships with the UK, obviously, being our partner in Europe, also in our own hemisphere, with Canada, and then Australia and New Zealand as well. So this matters because if you have a situation, imagine a worst case scenario and the US is either preparing for military mobilization, or there’s intelligence assets in the field that are moving are about to conduct an operation. In a military scenario, DOD has been pretty transparent about this that by necessity, some operations will flow over open networks. They can’t put everything over classified networks. So if Huawei has their equipment in a country’s telecommunications infrastructure and the US military sends information about a pending operation over open networks, that is something that Huawei can detect before we mobilize. This is on the face of it a huge problem for US national security and this was something that I dove into, in a paper that I wrote in March and kind of laid out what that scenario could look like. But for privacy reasons, but even for national security reasons, it’s a big concern.

Mark Melton
And why are other countries allowing Huawei to build these 5G networks? Is it because it’s cheaper? Or what’s the issue?

Michael Sobolik
So the deal with China for many, many years has been “bring them into the global economy, reap the windfall, not just of saving a ton of money with cheap Chinese products, but reaping the benefits of accessing the Chinese market,” and in doing so, hoping that that economic commerce and the socialization of China among the free world would change them politically. This certainly has not happened. If we’ve seen anything in the past few months in the wake of the Coronavirus, it’s that China’s impact on the world has been so much greater than the world’s impact on China has been. So I think you’ve had a lot of countries, the US included, who have been looking for ways to save money and you have a company like Huawei that poses as a private company, but in reality, it’s subsidized by the Chinese government, by the state. So when you have other companies like a Nokia or an Ericsson that are competing against Huawei, it’s not truly a free market environment, because you have a state-backed company posing as a private firm, that are undercutting its competitors in ways that Nokia, Ericsson, and others just are unable to meet. So it’s a problem to a degree of the West’s own making. And it’s going to take a lot of work to turn the ship around.

Mark Melton
So the United Kingdom, like we have already mentioned, has decided to ban Huawei. Are there other countries that are going to do the same you think? Or what’s next? 

Michael Sobolik
Great question. So to your point, yes, the United Kingdom this week released their decision indicating that by 2027 the telecommunication networks inside of Britain will have to get rid of Huawei equipment. In the meantime, providers will still be able to continue to use Huawei until the end of 2020. So this more than anything, shows how complicated all this stuff is because policymakers in Washington would love it to be as easy as snapping your fingers and Huawei completely disappearing. The fact is, a lot of their equipment is so tightly knit into networks that already exist. So decoupling from Huawei or purging systems from their equipment is going to take time, but it’s a step in the right direction. And as far as other countries go, Singapore recently announced that they were not going to be using Huawei. Other Five Eyes countries have made similar decisions as well. One of the big countries to watch right now is Germany. Germany, one of if not the most influential country within the European Union, has been teetering for quite a while about a final Huawei decision. And the EU recently introduced some regulations that are not necessarily binding on its members. It discourages high-risk vendors inside of their networks, but it doesn’t have any prohibitions on Huawei or anything. So watching how Germany proceeds will be important.

Mark Melton
And a little bit ago, you had mentioned the Coronavirus and COVID-19, which obviously is having a huge impact here. The very fact that we are not in my offices recording this podcast in person and we’re having to do it remotely is because of all of the pandemic stuff that’s been going on here that came out Wuhan. Can you give a quick review of what China did to cover up the pandemic in its early days?

Michael Sobolik
Absolutely. So looking at the actions of the Chinese Communist Party from say, November or December of 2019 to where we are today July of 2020, you’d notice a distinct form movement flow. And it’s really instructive to understand how the party operates. So what began first was basically a hush campaign. Doctors in Wuhan began to discover this novel virus and WeChat message groups and emails and everything… the medical community in Wuhan began to sound the alarm and then you had government entities, the party coming down and say “hey, you need to be quiet about this, you need to destroy test samples, you need to cease any public or even private mention that this even exists.” And the big face of all this is a Chinese Dr. Li Wenliang, who was one of the first physicians in China to raise the alarm, then he was detained and silenced and later passed away because of the virus. So China began to try to silence but obviously, silencing people doesn’t stop a virus from spreading. So when the issue became so big that China couldn’t deny that it was there, you saw the party move into a second response, a second disinformation response.

If you recall, February, March or so, that story that the party began to amplify about how the the United States Army was actually the one who brought the Coronavirus to Wuhan. It’s easy for Americans to see a story like that and roll our eyes and say, “Oh my gosh, no one is going to take this seriously.” But that response misses the main audience for that propaganda. China wasn’t trying to convince the rest of the world that America brought the virus to Wuhan. That story was meant for the people of China. And the reason the party did that was because in a perfect world, the party wants to work with their people to push a common narrative together that protects the political monopoly that the party has. If the party needs to crack down on dissidents -like we saw in Hong Kong recently- if the party needs to be incredibly aggressive, to defend its political monopoly, they will do so. But they would prefer to do that in a cooperative way with the people. So when you have a nationalist story, blaming a foreign country for a problem inside of your own country, that’s basically a way to play on anger. And the party has historically been very good at doing this. 

But then, by this point, this is no longer just a China problem. It’s a global problem. It’s a global pandemic. So you see, probably in March going into April, the party pushing this massive global scale, charm offensive, where the party went on this big campaign to push to export personal protective equipment to be cast and seen as a net health care goods provider. They want it to be seen as the source of the solution because around this time, America was just going into lockdowns and Europe was really struggling and the West was just beginning to come to grips with this. So China wanted to be seen as the Savior. And the reason this didn’t work out, in the end, was because a lot of the health equipment that China was bringing overseas, countries would say, “wait a second, we sold you this months ago and now you’re trying to sell it back to us at a profit, but you’re trying to make it look like foreign aid.” That doesn’t build goodwill with anybody. And on top of that, a lot of the equipment that China produced and they then tried to send abroad was defective. So then you have a lot of the world not only upset about China, because of their failure to contain the virus, but now they’re being taken advantage of. So the fourth stage that the Chinese Communist Party went into, which is where we are today -still in July- the CCP has turned to a very aggressive response, where they’re leveraging not just personal protective equipment, but access to their market to try to shape the speech and behavior of foreign governments. 

A great example is Australia. Australia made a public call for an international inquiry into the origins of the virus, basically to hold China accountable. The CCP responded by putting upwards of like an 80% tariff on Australia’s barley exports. And you saw other countries, European countries, begin to upgrade their relations with Taiwan. In response, China would say “oh, do you still want personal protective equipment or not?” So there’s a lot of leveraging and aggressive action that the party has taken and it’s interesting because the initial response of the CCP was to silence their own people. Now, months later, the party is trying to silence any attempt to hold it accountable, then it’s this arc of the party where they were unable to end this on beneficial terms. So now they’re going to further degrees even if it’s aggressive or loses them some reputation like there they are in an all-out push to defend the party’s integrity and to defend their political monopoly.

Mark Melton
The two questions I have. So first, like this misinformation campaign, you mentioned that it’s mostly targeted toward the Chinese population. Are there other populations globally that are taking it seriously? Because I think I’ve heard some people who have -from other countries- who have kind of latched on to this idea that the US brought it to Wuhan through I believe the US military, you said. And so are there other countries that are doing this, and then second off, like what should the US do in response to this?

Michael Sobolik
Yeah. So first off, I’ve been keeping an eye out to see if other countries began to mimic or if specific diplomats began to mimic that talking point about the US Army. I haven’t seen a whole lot of it. Actually, it’s really interesting; I was scrolling, for whatever reason I was scrolling through Twitter timelines today, and I noticed that a tweet from a Chinese diplomat months ago pushing this propaganda point, had been deleted. So you don’t hear the party talking about that specific push as much today. So again, I really do see that story of the army bringing it to China as more for internal reasons than external reasons. But what you do see right now are some countries doubling down on relations with China, even after everything that’s happened. 

Iran, for instance, announced some big economic deals with China just this week, and one of China’s biggest economic -or not economic- diplomatic investments, Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, and even Egypt and others, China is doing everything it can to maintain goodwill with those countries. And even in the Middle East, you see Muslim majority countries defending what China is doing to Muslims in Xinjiang. 

So this whole episode we’re all living through with the Coronavirus is revealing a lot about geopolitics. And we’re nowhere near where we were during the Cold War with like a Western bloc and an Eastern Bloc because the world is so much more integrated economically now than we were then. But we are learning a lot about nations that are still comfortable, not just trading with China, but partnering with China as a friend and an ally. And it’s a development that even after all that China has done, they still have a number of countries that are willing to hold common cause with them. 

And to your second question, what should the United States do? One of the simplest things is to step back and ask a question: why is it that the CCP is so afraid of the free flow of information? Because when you look at that four-part arc story that we just discussed, the common thread through it all, is the party’s ongoing attempt to control what is known, what is discussed, what is perceived as truth. And this is a story that is endemic not just throughout the party’s history since 1949, but in any dictatorship or any authoritarian regime. So one of the best ways that the US can capitalize on this is to continue in any way we can to work with non-governmental organizations to empower Chinese citizens to either circumvent or penetrate the firewall censorship in their own country. China’s internet dominance within the PRC is one of the sine qua non of what sovereignty means to the party. They have to control the internet. The United States needs to look at that and realize that this is a weakness and a vulnerability that the party has and we should double down on any investments or creative ideas we have to help the Chinese people break through that.

Mark Melton
So recently on the ProvCast, I spoke with Olivia Enos about the situation in Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist Party passing a new national security law there that threatens the democracy movement there. This effectively ends the ‘one country two systems’ arrangement. And as you had mentioned earlier of how China through its Belt and Road and through its other negotiations there is developing relations with these other countries that has survived even though the pandemic might have threatened it… But one of the things I’ve noticed with the Hong Kong is many countries in the West  -United States and others- are condemning China, whereas other countries are not condemning it. And there seems to be a correlation between whether they have Belt and Road programs in their countries and how they respond to Hong Kong. So first off, my first question is, is there any truth to that? Do we see a correlation between the Belt and Road and how other nations are treating the Hong Kong situation? And what have been the developments here? And I have one more question, but I’ll let you kind of take those first.

Michael Sobolik
The Belt and Road is such an insidious foreign policy tool that the party has because the party has the ability with massive amounts of foreign currency reserves and money that they’re able to offer as investment, that they can offer investment deals or infrastructure projects at a massive scale that dwarfs the international community’s ability to match or to meet. So when you have a foreign government that is choosing between significant economic growth inside of their own country through partnership with China versus condemning China for human rights abuses, it is not lost on them that they cannot do both of those things at the same time. And if you track the countries who have called China out versus those who haven’t, figuring out whether or not they’re Belt and Road recipients are Belt and Road partners, is a really quick way to find out where they’re going to stand on human rights.

Mark Melton
What are some of the developments that have occurred over the last month on this issue?

Michael Sobolik
So with Hong Kong, the tide really began to turn when the party announced national security legislation for the Island City. And that was a bombshell because for decades, the party had pushed the government and in Hong Kong to do this. And if you look at Hong Kong’s Basic Law, they are obligated to do so. But the reason they haven’t is because whenever any Hong Kong government would try to introduce national security legislation, it would be met with stiff resistance from the Hong Kong people. And I think it’s kind of helpful to actually unpack what national security legislation means because in the context of America, we hear that and we think of “Oh, that must be a bill that authorizes like military activities or stuff like that.” In the Chinese context, it’s much different. The specific terms that the party uses to define national security are immensely broad. So concepts of secessionism, splitism, stuff like that, like weird words that -like Americans haven’t thought of secessionism since the 19th century with our civil war- but in the Chinese context, secessionism is interpreted as any attempt to talk about a political reality that does not include the Chinese Communist Party or even talk about political reform within the current system. 

So national security legislation is essentially legislation limiting free speech, limiting political debate. And this is in violation of the high degree of autonomy that Hong Kong was guaranteed, because when the British handed over Hong Kong back to China in 1997, it was done so under the expectation that when it came to matters of self governance, in domestic matters, Hong Kong would have its own legal system, its own political system. So the national security legislation push changed everything and shortly thereafter, President Trump held his Rose Garden Press Conference in late May, and said that the United States was undertaking serious reviews about its treatment with Hong Kong and this was around the same time that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decertified or rather was unable to certify that Hong Kong was actually autonomous from China. And since then, China’s rubber stamp legislature passed the bill. And then at this point, it’s anyone’s guess but I would venture that the United States has more actions forthcoming in here. 

Mark Melton
So what is the US going to do next on this issue?

Michael Sobolik
That’s a great question. So a number of things are likely. One, there’s a big sanctions bill, I believe it’s called the Hong Kong Autonomy Act that’s just recently passed both houses of Congress. As of today, it’s on the President’s desk. That would sanction Chinese financial centers and individuals that were responsible for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy. Those sanctions, if implemented, would be severe and directed at Chinese banks. So that’s one option that the United States could take. 

Another that’s gotten a lot of attention, another piece of legislation, I think it’s called the Hong Kong Safe Harbor Act. And that’s essentially a push to help Chinese or other Hong Kong dissidents leave Hong Kong and come to China because Hong Kong is simply not a safe place for the political activity of those people anymore. So the question there is, will the Chinese Communist Party let them leave Hong Kong? I’m sadly skeptical about the likelihood of that. Yet we saw Great Britain make a similar announcement that they would allow a number of Hong Kongers to come to the UK, even have a path to citizenship and then China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs basically said in so many words, “we will not let them depart from Hong Kong.” So I think the United States is still reviewing a number of steps but I would watch this space closely and expect to see a lot of movement in the next few weeks and months. 

Mark Melton
One last issue I wanted to cover, because it’s a big news item for this week, but I also want to make sure that I’m respectful of your time. Just kind of the US this week announced that it would not recognize China’s claims to offshore resources in the South China Sea. And of course, this is a big deal, because a third of global maritime trade moves through these waters. And, you know, China has claimed these waters through the Nine-dash line and so forth. But I’m not sure if any other countries actually recognize those claims. So my first question, or to kind of put these all together: why hadn’t the US announced that it didn’t recognize these claims earlier? And are there other countries that might accept China’s claims that they have the right to these resources?

Michael Sobolik
So it’s funny when I saw the report the other day, I had the exact same question you had of “man, this really feels like something we should have done a while ago.” And I think the explanation for that is pretty simple. China began to push in the South China Sea around 2012-2013. And around that time, the Obama administration, its top foreign policy priority was the Iran Nuclear Deal and they needed China’s cooperation to get that deal because it had to go through the UN Security Council where China is a permanent member. So for many, many years, the Obama administration’s China policy was subservient to their Iran policy. And the big China initiatives that President Obama was pushing, like the climate agreement, made it difficult for him to be politically confrontational with the Chinese Communist Party. 

To President Obama’s credit, his Department of Defense began to take a more concerted and somewhat assertive actions in the South China Sea near the end of his second term. But it certainly didn’t rise anywhere close to the level of the response that the United States needed to have. And I think one of the reasons that you saw a number of countries, the Philippines being one, really cozy up to China over the past few years, even as their American maritime claims were being challenged by China, is because the United States hasn’t really been offering a whole lot of countervailing reassurance or confrontation to what China has been doing. But this announcement now is really important for one main reason. A lot of countries in Southeast Asia and frankly, for that matter in Europe, the Middle East, in a lot of key regions in the globe, a lot of countries are caught between the defense relationship they have with the United States and the economic relationship they have with China. And as long as we have been hesitant to confront China or compete with China in a strategic way, it’s made a lot of countries feel frozen between Washington and Beijing. With the United States openly opposing China’s excessive claims in the South China Sea, I see it hopefully as a prelude of more things to come. 

But for now, diplomatically, it certainly means that it frees up other countries to follow in the wake of Washington’s announcement and begin to announce their own issues with the sovereignty claims. That may or may not happen, but I think in the long term, the more impactful thing and something that we should watch closely is the nature of of military movement and exercises of the United States within these waters. Because China wants to have control over the air, sea, and under the sea, the entirety of the South China Sea. The United States is going to have to follow this up with dedicated patrols, maybe even more regular [comments] than we have been doing up until now, and hopefully move in the direction of bilateral or multilateral exercises in these waters with other countries that China is trying to box out. So it’s hopefully a prelude of more things to come, but I’d file it under the category of ‘better late than never.’

Mark Melton
Well, Michael thank you so much for coming on. I know there’s a lot more that we can talk about and we’ll have to continue that conversation later. Again, thank you so much for joining us on the Foreign Policy ProvCast.

Michael Sobolik
Hey it’s my pleasure, Mark. Thanks again for having me.