So thread on the proposal by the working group. I'm going to break these up into various issues. First, the group is comprised of both foreign and Chinese professors in roughly equal measure. I didn't run stats but most Chinese work at Chinese universities and are known 1/n
CCP boosters. Keep that in mind going forward. Almost all foreign professors as best I know them, with a couple exceptions, have no real experience in China other than the 4 Seasons/Ritz tour crowd. All of this will be important later but note it at the outset. 2/n
Second, the proposal makes no actual policy or negotiation proposals, but rather a rather broad frameworks of how to proceed. This isn't necessarily wrong but important to note. Why it matters is that it is difficult to see how functionally, their framework would move beyond 3/n
Pre-Trump status quo in general terms. I'll get more into specifics later, but very difficult to see how this would meaningfully advance anything or change policies. Third, given the non-Chinese professors general inexperience, the framework proposed basically reads like 4/n
a CCP wish list of how to proceed while not acknowledging at all US security concerns. It is so friendly to not pushing changes that it is not difficult at all to conceive a scenario where this framework is used to justify widespread closing off between each side. 5/n
Let's take a couple of examples. The group lays out what they consider a middle ground between each side by arguing their framework "allows countries considerable latitude at home to design a wide variety of industrial policies , technological systems, and social standards." 6/n
The CCP could not have dreamed of a better objective. It gets better. They write that "allow(s) countries to use well calibrated policies...to protect their industrial, technological, and social policy choices...without imposing unnecessary and asymmetric burdens on... 7/n
foreign actors." Again, this almost directly from CCP trade and industrial handbook. This is also why it could easily be used to justify significant additional closing of each market. The group divides negotiations into four specific categories and how countries should 8/n
work to handle those issues. Fundamentally in one sense, their proposals of four policy/problem buckets are reasonable. Let me emphasize, it may not be exactly how I would break them up or link them or the exact channel/methods I would use to address a specific problem but 9/n
their approach is reasonable and logic if just considering the technical issues at hand. It is lacking enormously in one fundamental respect which destroys any hope of using the framework to proceed. It lacks any sense of realism about Chinese economic policy, politics, and 10/n
Public policy creation in China in 2019 and really for at least the past decade. For example, they detail their proposal of Bucket 2 where country A has a policy which harms Country B. They negotiate in a good faith manner to "scale back" the harmful policy. This is great 11/n
and reasonable text book economic and negotiation trade off but completely and entirely divorced from the reality of how China has operated for really the past decade. If we are dealing with a good faith counter party, this is a reasonable approach. What complicates this 12/n
Is that the group previously gave each side pretty much free reign to protect pretty much anything they want to protect from industry to social policy. In fact, that is what Beijing has done on every policy when these issues have arisen over the past 20 years. For instance 13/n
When China overbuilds steel mills and start dumping, they claim it is a world problem and they will not negotiate domestic closures. Same thing with social media platforms. This working group has written a document which essentially is a pre-2017 status quo document 14/n
That gives cover to every CCP economic and social policy. This is also why I say, this document essentially can be used to justify significant additional decoupling even though the group says that was not their intent. Only once in Bucket 3 do they mention anything about 15/n
issues like sensitive technology. They say trade barriers can be used on a targeted basis. This effectively justifies a wide range of policies promoting decoupling and policies the CCP uses to justify pretty much anything. US clearly has national security objectives 16/n
Focused on Huawei. China has used these descriptions to justify pretty much everything over the past 10-20 years. It is very difficult to see how this is anything but a pre-2017 status quo urging. At the beginning, I mentioned that Chinese professors included many CCP hawks 17/n
Such as Justin Lin. The Non-Chinese professors were largely comprised on known people but virtually none have significant Chinese expertise. The letters in support were filled with CCP buzzwords while the non-Chinese professors talked from economic or legal textbooks 18/n
About how to solve problems in very rational ways. The dichotomy is clear in the document. The document lacks any basis in reality and was clearly steered in a manner to effectively justify CCP policies and a pre-2017 status quo. This is a fundamentally flawed document 19/n
Lacking any basis in 2019 CCP reality. Couple in no talk of security or human rights and this document belongs alongside the Open Letter this due I suspect to profound naivety. Let's move to more realistic approaches. Done.
