David Paul Goldman: Could China mediate the Ukraine war?
Chan CT
Guancha: Previously the editorial page of a US newspaper asked you for an Op-editorial on Ukraine. But when you finished writing, they refused to publish it. What was the reason they gave you, if any? What viewpoints or expressions that got their nerves?
Goldman: I argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine resembled the outbreak of the First World War, when all sides acted rationally according to their perceived self-interest and together created a disaster. The editorial position of all the major US newspapers assigns unilateral blame to Russia. I do not defend Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but it was set in motion by Western efforts to expand NATO to Russia’s border. In the past many prominent Americans, including Henry Kissinger as well as the present CIA chief William Burns, warned against expanding NATO and predicted exactly this disastrous outcome. But now that their warnings have proven correct, it is unacceptable to provide any context for Russia’s action in most of the major media.
Guancha: Could China mediate the Ukraine war?
Goldman: This is certainly possible. I made this argument in Asia Times on March 9. Dr. Huiyao Wang, the director of the Center for China and Globalization, proposed this in the New York Times on March 13. China is a major trading partner of both Russia and Ukraine, and Ukraine was one of the first countries to participate in the Belt and Road Initiative. China also has the resources to offer incentives for compromise in the form of reconstruction aid. But mediation depends on the readiness of both sides to compromise.
It is not clear what Russia might be willing to accept in the way of compromise. The Ukrainian position is also hard to read, because President Zelensky has talked about compromise on some occasions, and on other occasions compared Russia to Nazi Germany during World War II, that is, an evil entity with whom no compromise is possible. It is risky to mediate between two sides who do not want to compromise, because the mediator might be blamed for failure. Nonetheless I think it would be a positive step for China to try.
Guancha: After banning the Energy imports from Russia, US and Europe have turned to Latin America and Middle East countries. Will there be any structural change to the global energy landscape?
Goldman: The United States and Europe are negotiating with the oil exporters of the Persian Gulf to replace Russian energy production. I do not know what the United States is willing to concede to the Gulf countries in return for help in the energy market. It seems clear that Saudi Arabia wants the United States to help on security issues, notably the insurgency in Yemen backed by Iran.
Meanwhile Russian oil and gas continue to trade in the absence of European sanctions, while India has bought additional Russian oil, some at a discount to market prices. The disruption in the energy market is far milder than many analysts feared in February. For the time being there is no structural change. Unless Europe changes its mind about sanctions on Russian oil, there will be no structural change. Europe, to be sure, will look for alternate energy sources. Germany is buying more gas from Qatar, for example. But diversification of energy sources requires a lot of investment and a lot of time.
Guancha: Many countries are loosening up restriction, while China is sticking to the Zero-Covid policy. Will China be excluded in the Global economy in the long run?
Goldman: I’m not qualified to answer questions about epidemiology.
Guancha: Given the high inflation domestically in the US, are waging sanctions against Russia and a trade war with China simultaneously in the interests of American people?
Goldman: It depends how you view the interests of the American people. President Trump thought he would protect American jobs by imposing tariffs on imports from China, which went into effect in September 2019. But US imports from China rose by 46% by my calculation between September 2019 and December 2021. Clearly these were ineffective, because Americans paid higher prices for Chinese goods, rather than producing alternative goods at home. Tariffs failed to improve the competitiveness of American products, or the willingness of American business to invest in manufacturing. I believe that vigorous action is needed to improve American manufacturing, but tariffs do more harm than good.
Regarding Russia, national security always takes precedence over short-term economic convenience, in the United States as well as other countries. The use of force on the borders of NATO countries is a security concern of the United States. But in this case, the crisis could have been avoided if Washington had joined France and Germany in supporting the Minsk II framework for a negotiated solution in Ukraine. In the narrow sense, one could argue that the Russia sanctions entailed economic pain for Americans in the form of higher oil prices, but were justified to protect American security. But American security would have been served better through a negotiated solution before the crisis.
Guancha: Any possibility for China and the US to foster all-round/all-level technology cooperation in the near future?
Goldman: The outlook for the near future is bleak. The very near future is clouded by the Ukraine war, which motivates Washington to put more pressure on China in order to dissuade China from giving help to Russia. Of course, technological cooperation between the United States and China is already enormous. America buys $600 billion a year of Chinese products, including most of our consumer electronics. US companies have extensive production as well as research facilities in China. The two economies never have been more integrated, despite specific sanctions that stop certain areas of technological cooperation. Private business has fostered this cooperation for decades.
There are some areas of research, moreover, that are difficult to conduct outside of China, for example, Big Data medical research that draws on China’s abundance of medical data. American companies that make chip development software tools and chip-building machines depend on Chinese customers, as to the makers of smartphone chips. In the absence of specific action to suppress technological cooperation, private business will continue to expand it.
Guancha: While the US is accusing China for its lack of transparency in information and communication, we have always witnessed how strictly the info provided by many western media are selected. Do you think the Information Cocoons would hinder the understanding of American people of China, thus jeopardizing the Americans’ decision of ways dealing with China?
Goldman: We have had some disturbing examples of censorship, for example the suspension of Donald Trump’s Twitter account after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot, or the suppression of a New York Post report about alleged improper business relationships in the Biden family just before the last presidential election. At the time, 51 retired senior US intelligence officers published a statement claiming that the New York Post story was a Russian disinformation operation, and the big social media platforms suppressed the report. Recently, the New York Post story was confirmed.
These are worrying developments, but I don’t think they have much to do with American perceptions of China. The relevant information isn’t suppressed so much as ignored. Americans are very insular. More than 300,000 Chinese now study at US universities, while only 20,000 Americans study in China. Chinese civilization is very different from the West, and it takes time and effort to understand why.
One hears all the time that America made a mistake in helping China’s economic development, for example by supporting China’s membership in the World Trade Organization, because America believed that prosperity would lead China to become a liberal democracy like the United States. In fact, many Americans believed this; because we are a nation that absorbs immigrants from the whole world, including China, we assume that the rest of the world naturally should become more and more like us.
Like many countries, we like to blame outsiders for our own failings, and we associate China’s remarkable economic growth with some of our own failures, sometimes unfairly. In my view, China is a formidable competitor, and its successes should motivate Americans to abandon our complacency and work harder to maintain our technological leadership. I want China to be prosperous, secure, and a step behind the United States. But American can achieve this only by running faster, not by tripping China.