🧵This piece by Peter Navarro in today’s @FT completes a bizarre narrative arc in which the administration now argues that the war is Ukraine’s fault enabled by India instead of Russia”s fault enabled by China and others. It is pure strategic malpractice. ft.com/content/286160… 2: Navarro says all sorts of things. The larger issue is that the secretary of State and other principals authorized it. So those who know better and are supposed to balance American interests either agree with it, don’t agree with it but authorized it anyway, or just don’t care.

1:🧵on America's misperception of Asian challenges and aspirations. In this deep dive into America's role in Asia, I pull the thread on several themes that have dominated my work for over a decade and concern me hugely as a strategist and former diplomat: pacificpolarity.substack.com/p/evan-feigenb… 2: America's oversecuritization of its approach to Asia - Washington is long on security and short on pretty much everything else. As I sometimes tartly put it, the United States is in serious danger of becoming "the Hessians of Asia."

1: It takes a unique kind of nihilism to think that everything the U.S. has done internationally was a scam except to project military power. Keep our market open? Scam. Trade pacts? Scam. Write rules from which others benefit too? Scam. Foreign assistance? Scam. Alliances? Scam. 2: There seems to be a lot of this going around. All these tools, from foreign assistance to alliances, had a deep well of bipartisan support for decades. They reflected a certain optimism not just about America’s role in the world but also about what America would gain not lose.

1: Blasts from my past. Have spent 15 years writing on (1) why "US vs. China" bipolarity is the wrong frame for the future of Asia; (2) the collision of economics and security; and (3) why pan-Asian ideas and institutions aren't "made in China." Here are some of my favorites. 2: From 2011, when Xi Jinping was barely out of the provinces and two years before China proposed the Belt and Road: Asia is being reconnected after a multicentury hiatus; the US is losing the plot and risks being marginalized; China isn't the only actor. csis.org/analysis/twq-w…

1: No, it really isn't fine. For one, it infantilizes third countries. And it doesn't reflect the complex experience many of them have had with China. BRI is not "a debt and confiscation program," although there are indeed very troubling cases. Above all, whining isn't competing.

https://twitter.com/Joe_Webster_CRR/status/1666979803495292928

2: The irony is that the US doesn't need to do this. There is plenty of suspicion of Chinese intent across the world today, including the Global South. Experience is an good teacher, so governments are learning and bargaining differently with China while mass publics demand more.

1: Some background from me for the Xi trip to Moscow, where I expect Beijing to reinforce an entente that is both unsentimental and directed largely at shared ambivalence about (1) US foreign policy, (2) tools of US statecraft, e.g., sanctions, and (3) backfooting Washington. 2: A piece I wrote on Day 1 of Putin's war in Ukraine. I argued that Beijing faced irreconcilable interests and therefore had to choose among them or tack back and forth under the glare of international scrutiny. carnegieendowment.org/2022/02/24/chi…

1: Here's a new paper in our seven region @CarnegieEndow #ChinaLocalGlobal initiative. Yuan Wang from @DukeKunshan and @Hangwei_Li ex @SOASpolitics explore how differing media norms in Kenya and Ethiopia yielded differing PR strategies by Chinese firms. carnegieendowment.org/2023/02/27/afr… 2: The paper focuses on the corporate communication strategies of three Chinese state firms involved in two flagship rail projects in Africa: the Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, constructed by CRBC, and the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway in Ethiopia, constructed by CCECC and CREC.

1: We’ve added a whopping 11 new scholars to our Washington-based @CarnegieEndow Asia programs over the last three years - six full-time and five nonresident scholars. They are brilliant, innovative, and disruptive to conventional wisdom. If you don’t read their work, you should! 2: Our unique #IndianOceanInitiative and our islands program are both led by the amazing @darshanabaruah. Her work explores maritime security, India’s naval strategy, island agency in shaping great power competition, and maritime partnerships. carnegieendowment.org/experts/1253

1: A few folks asked me to elaborate on this. I'll try. And please note that I don't mean to pick on the Kahl speech per se, since his speech isn't really about China. But the way China is framed there is (1) endemic in US rhetoric but (2) spectacularly ineffective, in my view.

https://twitter.com/EvanFeigenbaum/status/1593623323136638977

2: To be blunt, experience and intuition tell me that Washington is delusional if thinks this kind of stark, binary message on China is going to work in most regions of the world - inclusive of, but not limited to, the Middle East and North Africa.

https://twitter.com/DOD_Policy/status/1593628730676711424?s=20&t=FOVtK9QCzIRIzd1u-srUvg

1: Two things jump out at me immediately from the US readout: The first is the reference to joint working groups - suggests a basis for (modest) progress and that there was some Chinese give on the suspension of various dialogues after the Pelosi visit. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/… 2: The second is the repeat of the language @Bundeskanzler extracted from Xi on Russia's nuclear threats. Includes the boilerplate about "should never be fought and can never be won" but also the "opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine" specifically.

1: The US and China are seriously talking past each other. This is not just about Pelosi. The US thinks this is about Chinese coercion. The Chinese think this is about a drift from “one China” to "one China, one Taiwan." That disconnect will lead to a very unstable new baseline. 2: The US line, reflected in comments by Blinken, Sullivan, and Kirby is that everything is normal, "routine," consistent with precedent, nothing to see here, and that the principal issue here is that Beijing is throwing a tantrum over a nothingburger and should knock it off.

1/4 The US and Japan have had a security alliance for decades. But they now aim to layer a deepened technology and innovation alliance atop this enduring security and economic alliance. In important twinned essays, my #CarnegieAsia teammate @kenjikushida explores what this means. 2/4 For one, while official Washington and Tokyo have committed to make technology collaboration a centerpiece of US-Japan relations, the critical step will be to enhance *private* sector–led innovation, not least in Silicon Valley. carnegieendowment.org/2022/03/09/how…

1: Thread ... Today, the US launched a new economic initiative with Taiwan. Good news. The US benefits from robust economic ties with Asia’s seventh- largest economy, America’s tenth-largest trading partner in goods, and an important link in global high-technology supply chains.

https://twitter.com/USTradeRep/status/1531986927263657984

2: And Taiwan benefits too from robust economic ties to the United States—one of its top five export markets and an essential technology partner. Taiwan, incidentally, discovered Silicon Valley decades before much of the rest of the world did, driving entrepreneurial growth.

1: Good piece on competition in Central Asia with quotes from a #CarnegieAsia scholar and external author. My two cents: If the US wants to compete, it had best treat countries as subjects of their own stories, not objects of America's own competition with another external power.

https://twitter.com/Navbahor/status/1526580085427523585

2: Central Asian elites are nobody's fools about Chinese power. But they aren't naive about American power either. And with Taliban victory, much of what's happening in the region has, frankly, been de-Americanized and is instead being regionalized. They, not we, drive the play.

1: A quick thread on China's policy evolution, tactical positioning, and strategic choices in the face of the Russian invasion and the dramatic events now unfolding in Ukraine. Beijing will not want Washington to frame its alternatives and choices but balance its own interests. 2: Not suprisiungly, in my view, the Chinese will be selfish about their own interests. They are in a difficult spot because they are attempting (both rhetorically and substantively) to balance three goals that, quite simply, *cannot* be reconciled ...

1/5: For those of you speculating about what the Chinese will now say about Donetsk/Luhansk, you might look at what China said in 2008 about Abkhazia and South Ossetia. For example: fmprc.gov.cn/ce/ceit/ita/fy… 2/5: Second example: fmprc.gov.cn/ce/cemy/eng/fy…

1: A fantastic new study in our @CarnegieEndow #ChinaLocalGlobal initiative. @julianagj explores how national, provincial and corporate players in Argentina pushed Chinese investors to support the country's energy transition and help revitalize their grid. carnegieendowment.org/2021/12/22/how… 2: Her paper closely examines Chinese investment and loan activities in Argentina’s solar and wind power sectors. An adaptive partnership has evolved among key actors and institutions, strengthening alignment between Argentina's own development objectives and Chinese investments.

1: Thread ... I've spent much of the pandemic building programs at @CarnegieEndow but I've done a good bit of writing too, and a boatload of podcasts and talks. Some highlights: five on Taiwan, two on Korea, four on U.S. statecraft in Asia, three on China, two for the historians. 2: Taiwan #1 ... In the first of three big studies of Taiwan's competitiveness, I argued that its innovation advantage is in danger of eroding without a revitalized strategy and much more diverse investments in human capital and next-generation industries: carnegieendowment.org/2020/01/29/ass…

1: I’m absolutely thrilled to launch my new volume with colleague @MikeNelson—“The Korean Way With Data: How the World’s Most Wired Country is Forging a Third Way.” It’s part of our big buildout underway at @CarnegieEndow on technology futures in Asia: carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/17/kor… 2: I’m deeply grateful to @KoreaFoundation for its support of the project, and to our fabulous Korean colleagues: Jang GyeHyun, Lim Jong-in, So Jeong Kim, Nohyoung Park, Sunha Bae, and Kyung Sin “KS” Park. @KoreaFoundUSA.

1: China-funded railway projects in the Brazilian Amazon met a thicket of local resistance. In the Ferrogrão, Chinese and Brazilian players adapted. This terrific new paper in our @CarnegieEndow #ChinaLocalGlobal project explores these adaptive dynamics: carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/04/wha… 2: The authors, @AAbdenur, @mafolly and @msantoro1978, show learning on both sides in the mitigation and management of socio-environmental risks around Chinese investments in Brazil's transportation infrastructure. They explore ongoing negotiations, plans, and controversies.

1: Thread: Many argue that China exports its developmental model and imposes it on other countries. But Chinese players also extend their influence by working through local actors and institutions while adapting and assimilating local and traditional forms, norms, and practices. 2: With the generous support of @FordFoundation @CarnegieEndow is developing an innovative body of research on Chinese engagement in seven regions of the world—Africa, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, the Pacific, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.