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xi jinping
A New Year’s Letter to President Biden
My wish for you in 2024 is to imbibe this wisdom and act on it: What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man.
Jan 01, 2024
Dear Joe,
I would wish you a Happy New Year; but it seems trite and banal, given all the challenges and troubles you and our country face in 2024—some inherited from previous administrations, others of your own making.
Americans are 10 times more likely to be shot to death than people in other wealthy countries, with homicides, suicides, and mass shootings on the increase. For the past four years, mass murders have skyrocketed into the 600s per year, breaking all past records. Since 2020 more children and teens are killed by firearms than any other cause.
Don’t these sound like war statistics?
Yes, you have established the first White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. But it is rare to find anyone in your administration making the connection between our country’s record-breaking gun violence at home and our country’s record-breaking military weapons sales across the world, to democracies and autocracies alike, having grown dramatically over the past five years. To restate, isn’t it possible that the U.S. global culture of weapons and militarism, with nearly 100 military bases ringing the world, and our long and persistent history of war (nearly 40 in your and my lifetime) rebounds back to infect our violent culture here at home?
You are generous with weapons, but dismissive of dialogue where it is most needed.
The U.S. pledged $17.5 million to a loss and damage fund for poor countries vulnerable to extreme climate damage (for which the U.S. is more responsible than any other country) at the 2023 U.N. climate conference while doling out over $100 billion in weapons and military aid in the same year to feed and fuel wars in Gaza and Ukraine, wars that destroy and contaminate, likely irreparably, the homeland and ecosystems of those peoples who survive these wars and genocide in the case of Gaza. Crumbs for climate crisis and ruined ecosystems fall from the master’s table, while feasts of weapons abound.
Our habit of war “has yielded a host of perverse results here at home,” writes war veteran and noted historian of American military history, Andrew Bacevich. Neither have our wars brought about “peace [or democracy] by even the loosest definition of the word… the opposite in most case[s].” His wise counsel: Discard militarism in favor of “prudence and pragmatism.”
You often state proudly that we are the strongest military in the world, as if it is a crown of excellence, when in fact it is a crown of thorns on our country, which hangs on a cross of iron. As former president Dwight Eisenhower memorably said in 1953: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
What felonious theft our military budget is from the 140 million poor and low-income American people, 40% of U.S. citizens, for whom the crucial Poor People’s Campaign advocates. Forty-four million Americans “struggled with hunger” in 2022, according to USDA. Diseases of despair are rampant. Our life expectancy—a critical marker of people’s overall health—is lower than all comparable wealthy countries and many other countries including China and Cuba. Recall Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s warning: “If America does not use her vast resources of wealth to end poverty and make it possible for all of God’s children to have the basic necessities of life, she too will go to hell.”
I do wish that that you had read the other Catholic president John F Kennedy’s 1963 peace speech at American University before you met recently in San Francisco with Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China. At the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile crisis, Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev opened a line of communication and held many secret talks, despite monumental political differences, for the sake of moving away from imminent nuclear war. In his 1963 address at American University, Kennedy, after stating his abhorrence of communism, praised Russia’s key role in saving Europe from Nazism while losing 20 million citizens, and he foregrounded the two countries’ shared humanity: “If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
In many diplomatic private talks and communications, also involving Pope John XXIII, Kennedy and Khrushchev laid the groundwork for ending above ground nuclear weapons testing with the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons and forging a more peaceful country-to-country relationship. Within six-and-a-half months President Kennedy was assassinated, with the CIA strongly implicated.
Xi’s remarks to a gathering of business leaders, following your more private meeting with him last November, manifests a kinship with JFK’s speech. He displayed respect for our country’s accomplishments (even if for self-serving reasons) and advocated the two countries accept political diversity in a multipolar world. Joe, if you had listened more deeply, you may have given a wiser response to a reporter’s question than your dismissive, “Yes, I think Xi is a dictator” —an off-the cuff remark that conveys little wisdom or will to work together to rescue the world from war and climate crisis and to live in a multipolar, diverse world. You are generous with weapons, but dismissive of dialogue where it is most needed.
My wish for you in 2024 is to imbibe this wisdom and act on it: What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your fellow man. That is the core of the Torah, the New Testament, the Quran, and other religious traditions. Make it your own, end the U.S. addiction to war, and save your country’s soul and your own.
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Can the US and China Keep the Peace in 2024?
Given the dangers in Taiwan and the South China Sea, Presidents Biden and Xi will have to exercise extreme patience and prudence to prevent the ignition of a full-blown crisis next year.
Dec 24, 2023
This hasn’t exactly been a year of good news when it comes to our war-torn, beleaguered planet, but on November 15, U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping took one small step back from the precipice. Until they talked in a mansion near San Francisco, it seemed as if their countries were locked in a downward spiral of taunts and provocations that might, many experts feared, result in a full-blown crisis, even a war—even, god save us all, the world’s first nuclear war. Thanks to that encounter, though, such dangers appear to have receded. Still, the looming question facing both countries is whether that retreat from disaster—what the Chinese are now calling the “San Francisco vision”—will last through 2024.
Prior to the summit, there seemed few discernible obstacles to some kind of trainwreck, whether a complete breakdown in relations, a disastrous trade war, or even a military clash over Taiwan or contested islands in the South China Sea. Beginning with last February’s Chinese balloon incident and continuing with a series of bitter trade disputes and recurring naval and air incidents over the summer and fall, events seemed to be leading with a certain grim inevitability toward some sort of catastrophe. After one such incident last spring, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman warned that “the smallest misstep by either side could ignite a U.S.-China war that would make Ukraine look like a neighborhood dust-up.”
In recent months, top leaders in both Beijing and Washington were becoming ever more concerned that a major U.S.-China crisis—and certainly a war—would prove catastrophic for all involved. Even a major trade war, they understood, would create economic chaos on both sides of the Pacific. A complete breakdown in relations would undermine any efforts to come to grips with the climate crisis, prevent new pandemics, or disrupt illegal drug networks. And a war? Well, every authoritative nongovernmental simulation of a U.S.-China conflict has ended in staggering losses for both sides, as well as a significant possibility of nuclear escalation (and there’s no reason to assume that simulations conducted by the American and Chinese militaries have turned out any differently).
As Xi reportedly asked Biden, “Should [the U.S. and China] engage in mutually beneficial cooperation or antagonism and confrontation? This is a fundamental question on which disastrous mistakes must be avoided.”
As summer turned into fall, both sides were still searching for a mutually acceptable “offramp” from catastrophe. For months, top officials had been visiting each other’s capitals in a frantic effort to bring a growing sense of crisis under control. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Beijing in June (a trip rescheduled after he cancelled a February visit thanks to that balloon incident); Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in July; and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in August. Similarly, Foreign Minister Wang Yi traveled to Washington in October. Their meetings, according toNew York Times reporters Vivian Wang and David Pierson, were arranged “in the hope of arresting the downward spiral” in relations and to pave the way for a Biden-Xi meeting that might truly ease tensions.
Mission Accomplished?
Not surprisingly, for both Biden and Xi, the primary objective of the San Francisco summit was to halt that downward spiral. As Xi reportedly asked Biden, “Should [the U.S. and China] engage in mutually beneficial cooperation or antagonism and confrontation? This is a fundamental question on which disastrous mistakes must be avoided.”
From all accounts, it appears that the two presidents did at least stop the slide toward confrontation. While acknowledging that competition would continue unabated, both sides agreed to “manage” their differences in a “responsible” manner and avoid conflict-inducing behavior. While the United States and China “are in competition,” Biden reportedly told Xi, “the world expects the United States and China to manage competition responsibly to prevent it from veering into conflict, confrontation, or a new Cold War.” Xi reportedly endorsed this precept, saying that China would strive to manage its differences with Washington in a peaceful fashion.
In this spirit, Biden and Xi took several modest steps to improve relations and prevent incidents that might result in unintended conflict, including a Chinese promise to cooperate with the U.S. in combating the trade in the narcotic drug fentanyl and the resumption of high-level military-to-military communications. In a notable first, the two also “affirmed the need to address the risks of advanced [artificial intelligence] systems and improve AI safety through U.S.-China government talks.” They also put their stamp of approval on a series of cooperative steps agreed to by their climate envoys John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua to mutually combat climate change.
Still, neither president agreed to any fundamental alterations in policy that might have truly shifted bilateral relations in a more cooperative direction. In fact, on the most crucial issues dividing the two countries—Taiwan, trade, and technology transfers—they made no progress. As Xue Gong, a China scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, put it, whatever the two presidents did accomplish, “the Biden-Xi meeting will not change the direction of U.S.-China relations away from strategic competition.”
With that still the defining constant in relations and both leaders under immense pressure from domestic constituencies—the military, ultra-nationalist political factions, and assorted industry groups—to hang tough on key bilateral issues, don’t be surprised if the slide towards crisis and confrontation regains momentum in 2024.
The Trials to Come
Assuming U.S. and Chinese leaders remain committed to a nonconfrontational stance, they will face powerful forces driving them ever closer to the abyss, including both seemingly intractable issues that divide their countries and deeply entrenched domestic interests intent on provoking a confrontation.
Although several highly contentious issues have the potential to ignite a crisis in 2024, the two with the greatest potential to provoke disaster are Taiwan and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
A self-governing island that increasingly seeks to pursue its own destiny, Taiwan is viewed by Chinese officials as a renegade province that should rightfully fall under Beijing’s control. When the U.S. established formal diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979, it acknowledged the Chinese position “that there is one China and Taiwan is part of China.” That “one China” principle has remained Washington’s official policy ever since, but is now under increasing pressure as ever more Taiwanese seek to abandon their ties with the PRC and establish a purely sovereign state—a step that Chinese leaders have repeatedly warned could result in a military response. Many American officials believe that Beijing would indeed launch an invasion of the island should the Taiwanese declare their independence and that, in turn, could easily result in U.S. military intervention and a full-scale war.
Joe Biden could face a major military crisis remarkably early in 2024.
For now, the Biden administration’s response to a possible Chinese invasion is governed by a principle of “strategic ambiguity” under which military intervention is implied but not guaranteed. According to the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, any attempt by China to seize Taiwan by military means will be considered a matter “of grave concern to the United States,” but not one automatically requiring a military response. In recent years, however, increasing numbers of prominent Washington politicians have called for the replacement of “strategic ambiguity” with a doctrine of “strategic clarity,” which would include an unequivocal pledge to defend Taiwan in case of an invasion. President Biden has lent credence to this stance by repeatedly claiming that it is U.S. policy (it isn’t), obliging his aides to eternally walk back his words.
Of course, the question of how China and the U.S. would respond to a Taiwanese declaration of independence has yet to be put to the test. The island’s current leadership, drawn from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has so far accepted that, given the way Taiwan is slowly achieving de facto independence through diplomatic outreach and economic prowess, there’s no need to rush a formal declaration. But presidential elections in Taiwan this coming January and the possible emergence of another DPP-dominated administration could, some believe, trigger just such a move—or, in anticipation of it, a Chinese invasion.
Should the DPP candidate William Lai win on January 13, the Biden administration might come under enormous pressure from Republicans—and many Democrats—to accelerate the already rapid pace of arms deliveries to the island. That would, of course, be viewed by Beijing as tacit American support for an accelerated drive toward independence and (presumably) increase its inclination to invade. In other words, Joe Biden could face a major military crisis remarkably early in 2024.
The South China Sea dispute could produce a similar crisis in short order. That fracas stems from the fact that Beijing has declared sovereignty over nearly the entire South China Sea—an extension of the western Pacific bounded by China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Borneo, and Vietnam—along with the islands found within it. Such claims have been challenged by that sea’s other bordering states, which argue that, under international law (notably the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea) they are entitled to sovereignty over the islands that fall within their individual “exclusive economic zones” (EEZs). In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled on a petition from the Philippines that China’s claims were invalid and that the Philippines and its neighbors were indeed entitled to control their respective EEZs. China promptly both protested the ruling and announced its intention to disregard it.
Chinese control over those islands and their surrounding waters would have significant economic and strategic implications. To begin with, it extends China’s defense perimeter several hundred miles from its coastline, complicating any future U.S. plans to attack the mainland while making a PRC assault on U.S. and allied bases in the region far easier. The South China Sea also harbors major fisheries, an important source of sustenance for China and its neighbors, as well as vast reserves of oil and natural gas coveted by all the states in the region. China has consistently sought to monopolize those resources.
To facilitate its control over the area, the PRC has established military installations on many of the islands, while using its coast guard and maritime militias to drive off the fishing boats and oil-drilling vessels of other states, even ramming some of those ships. On October 22, for example, a large Chinese coast guard vessel bumped into a smaller Philippine one seeking to reinforce a small outpost of Philippines Marines located on the Second Thomas Shoal, an islet claimed by both countries.
In both the U.S. and China, vast military-industrial operations have blossomed, fed by mammoth government disbursements intended to bolster their ability to defeat the other’s military in all-out, high-tech combat.
In reaction to such moves, officials in Washington have repeatedly asserted that the U.S. will assist allies affected by Chinese “bullying.” As Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared in July at a meeting with Australian officials in Brisbane, “We’ll continue to support our allies and partners as they defend themselves from bullying behavior.” Three months later, following that clash at the Second Thomas Shoal, Washington reaffirmed its obligation to defend the Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, should Filipino forces, ships, or aircraft come under armed attack, including “those of its coast guard—anywhere in the South China Sea.”
In other words, a future clash between Chinese vessels and those of one of Washington’s treaty partners or close allies could easily escalate into a major confrontation. Just what form that might take or where it might lead is, of course, impossible to say. But it’s worth noting that, in recent South China Sea exercises, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command has conducted large-scale combat drills, involving multiple aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. Any U.S. military response on such a scale would undoubtedly prompt a comparable Chinese reaction, setting in motion a potential spiral of escalation. Assuming that China continues its policy of harassing the fishing and exploration activities of its southern neighbors, a clash of this sort could occur at almost any time.
Resisting Bellicose Impulses
Given the dangers in Taiwan and the South China Sea, Presidents Biden and Xi will have to exercise extreme patience and prudence to prevent the ignition of a full-blown crisis in 2024. Hopefully, the understanding they developed in San Francisco, along with new crisis-management tools like enhanced military-to-military communications, will help them manage any problems that do arise. In doing so, however, they will have to overcome both the escalatory dynamics built into those disputes and bellicose domestic pressures from powerful political and industrial factions that view intense military competition with the other side (if not necessarily war) as attractive and necessary.
In both the U.S. and China, vast military-industrial operations have blossomed, fed by mammoth government disbursements intended to bolster their ability to defeat the other’s military in all-out, high-tech combat. In this hothouse environment, military bureaucracies and arms-makers on each side have come to assume that perpetuating an environment of mutual suspicion and hostility could prove advantageous, leaving key politicians ever more obliged to shower them with money and power. On December 13 and 14, for example, the U.S. Senate and House, seemingly incapable of passing anything else, approved a record defense policy bill that authorized $886 billion in military spending in 2024 ($28 billion more than in 2023), with most of the increase earmarked for ships, planes, and missiles intended primarily for a possible future war with China. American military leaders—and politicians representing districts with a high concentration of defense contractors—are sure to request even greater spending increases in future years to overcome “the China threat.”
A similar dynamic fuels the funding efforts of top Chinese military-industrial officials, who no doubt are citing evidence of Washington’s drive to overpower China to demand a reciprocal buildup, including (all too ominously) of their country’s nuclear forces. In addition, in both countries, various political and media figures continue to benefit by harping on the “China threat” or the “America threat,” adding to the pressure on top officials to take strong action in response to any perceived provocation by the other side.
That being the case, Presidents Biden and Xi are likely to face a series of demanding challenges in 2024 from the seemingly intractable disputes between their two nations. Under the best of circumstances, perhaps they’ll be able to avoid a major blow-up, while making progress on less contentious issues like climate change and drug trafficking. To do so, however, they’ll have to resist powerful forces of entrenched bellicosity. If they can’t, the fierce wars in Ukraine and Gaza in 2023 could end up looking like relatively minor events as the two great powers face off against each other in a conflict that could all too literally take this planet to hell and back.
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The US and China Should Push for an Ambitious Plastics Treaty
With the two nations taking steps towards a more harmonized agenda on climate change mitigation, we would expect these leading plastic producer countries to also show leadership in relation to plastics.
Nov 18, 2023
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in California this week in their first meeting in person in over a year. The two countries released a joint climate statement this week and committed to work together more closely to fight climate change.
World leaders are also gathering this week in Nairobi, Kenya, at the United Nation’s Third Session (INC-3) to craft an ambitious Global Plastics Treaty to end plastic pollution. This is a huge opportunity to show the world what the U.S. and China can do to address climate change, phase out fossil fuels, and end all forms of plastic pollution in every stage of the life cycle.
This week’s statement reaffirmed their commitment to address climate change, and to end plastic pollution and work together and with others to develop an internationally legally binding instrument. On both climate and plastics, it is critical that the U.S. and China work with the rest of the world.
The ongoing negotiations for the plastics treaty are a unique opportunity to show how the ambitious targets for net-zero emissions set by U.S. and China can be translated to an effective international agreement focusing on one of the most emissions-intensive industries.
Scientists, including myself, have demonstrated the connection between unsustainable production and consumption of plastics and the climate crisis. Plastics are a fully integrated link of the fossil fuel value chain—99% of plastics are derived from fossil fuels, primarily oil and gas fractions—as well as a core and growing business of many of the largest fossil fuel firms. This has in recent years led to a deeper fossil fuel lock-in for plastics. Plastics are associated with around 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and this share is expected to grow rapidly in the coming decades if projections for continued growth of plastic production materialize.
Of particular concern is the rapid growth of plastic production in countries and regions with energy systems and plastic feedstocks that use coal, leading to GHG emissions from plastics production growing at a higher rate than production itself. Plastic producers have very limited targets and programs for reducing their GHG emissions such as through renewable energy. And necessary long-term targets for eliminating the use of fossil fuel feedstocks are completely absent. So far international climate policy has largely ignored the need to phase out fossil fuels for both energy and plastic feedstocks.
It is clear that one of the most effective ways of mitigating climate change impacts as well as all other forms of pollution associated with plastics is to restrict future production. This has been identified by scientists as a central goal for the Global Plastics Treaty and is one of the key requirements for the treaty emphasized by the global Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastics Treaty.
Civil society organizations and business leaders from around the world agree, and have rallied around a call for a treaty that prioritizes production reduction. And they have pointed out that the treaty is too focused on downstream measures which will be inadequate for meeting the challenge.
With China and the U.S. taking steps towards a more internationally harmonized agenda on climate change mitigation, we would expect these leading plastic producer countries to also show leadership in relation to plastics. The ongoing negotiations for the plastics treaty are a unique opportunity to show how the ambitious targets for net-zero emissions set by U.S. and China can be translated to an effective international agreement focusing on one of the most emissions-intensive industries.
It is imperative, for the climate as well as both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, that the plastics treaty addresses the full life cycle of plastics through measures and interventions in production, consumption, and end-of-life management.
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