What’s US to Do with China in the Time of Corona and After?

To: Freakonomics,

In the Feakonomics podcast covering US policy regarding China post the Corona virus outbreak, your guests discussed the errors that have been made by successive US Administrations, consequences from policies and policy changes, and necessity of changes that must be made. There was a general acknowledgement that the basic US policy has been to engage with China as an economic partner with the expectation that trade and economic benefits would lead China toward being a more open and dependable partner. Your guests then noted that this ‘expectation’ has been held for decades without any meaningful evidence that it was working and plenty of instance where it clearly was not.

This led to the question of what is the US to do regarding China? The general consensus seemed to be that the US had to make its interests and policy requirements clear, react accordingly to our interests, when policies are not complied with, and establish our policies on a collaborative basis with other nations. Nothing wrong with those objectives and the principles for creating a beneficial global trading environment and mutual international stability unless you don’t achieve them. The ultimate goal is to reduce activities that are threating to peace and coexistence. But of course, as noted above, this has not been the results of US’s policies in a number of areas. The willingness of China to inform the rest of the world regarding the Corona virus outbreak being the most recent failure and example.

The recommendations that the two experts made to improve/fix these problems were reasonable and I would say aligned with traditional diplomatic and ideological views. However, they reflect more or less the same methodologies and strategies that have been used with the less than stellar successes before. They may be advocating more stringent measures, such as changing the adage: “Trust but verify” to “Don’t Trust and verify”. However, that may not mean much. I would contend that the words they changed don’t work and it just sound more forceful but is in fact not at all different. The inclusion of the term “verify” negates any relevance to trusting or not trusting in another party. What the experts should be proposing, and what those officials and advisers who will be crafting and negotiating new policies and agreements need to do, is undertake some basic problem-solving methodology in understanding the problem and what solutions enable the US to achieve its goals? For example, if China is not to have military installations on the artificial islands that they created, as China assured would be the case; then a ‘verification’ mechanism isn’t a solution it’s just a necessary tool required. The question is: What was the policy, and what about it contained the solution for military equipment being placed on the isles? It appears that a policy for the islands was completely absent and overlooked anything actually dealing with the isles, i.e., they didn’t solve the problem; most likely because they didn’t adequately understand the problem.

Most of the failures with foreign policies are due to the difference between what the policy’s intentions are versus what the policy accounts for achieving. The Corona virus was a failure of China being open about and informing its international partners, or the rest of the world in general, about a health risk. This is not the first time China has tired to hide and limit any information about a health risk from the rest of the world. There’s an international policy via the WHO but there isn’t anything in the policy that makes it a sound, reasoned and effective policy because it’s based on “trust”, there is no method of verification, and worst of all there is no reason to comply if you choose not to. These are solvable defects in how the US and I hope the rest of the world deals with and manages diplomacy and international policies. All that is required is that the diplomats, world leaders, policy experts, and political interests understand they need a STEM-based support group who can take their work and translate it into a real plan and policy that would accomplish the goals they have identified as desired but not accounted for in the efforts of those who do this work today.

This is an area where the cross-over between different fields would add tremendous value to a process that fails miserably today.