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Throughout WWII, the U.S., the Soviet Union and the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of China were formal allies. But in 1949, Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forced the KMT to flee to Taiwan. On October 1st 1949, Mao formally announced the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The strategic triangle shifted as the U.S. lost a putative (and highly authoritarian) KMT ally in China and the Soviet Union gained a Communist comrade-in-arms with the CPP.
The chumminess of this 1958 photo of Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev belies the deep rifts — both ideological and geopolitical — which had been developing in the Sino-Soviet relationship since 1956. Despite efforts to patch over the differences, the divisions continued to grow until Mao announced the split in 1964 followed by a series of formal statements. Monolithic global Communism had ceased to exist.
Fifty years ago today, Air Force One touched down in Beijing bringing President Nixon and the First Lady for their historic meeting with Mao Zedong. The Nixons’ visit to China lasted from February 21-28, 1972. It was then followed by years of rapprochement efforts — including the historic performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1973 — and culminated in the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China under President Carter in 1979. The Soviet Union was left out in the cold.
Today — February 21, 2022 — Russia announced its formal recognition of two breakaway, largely Russian-speaking enclaves in eastern Ukraine. The post-WWII order of sovereignty, rule of law, and cooperation is being challenged. Two weeks earlier, Xi Jinping chose to support Putin’s Ukraine power-play, overturning decades of official “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” policy. The U.S.-China-Russia ground has shifted yet again.
Looking back on these seventy-five years of U.S.-China-Soviet/Russia relations, I expect that I will always pause to reflect on February 21 as each year passes. February 21, 1972 was deeply promising. February 21, 2022 is deeply foreboding. In a professional sense, today’s date will likely be for me somewhat like what I feel personally as other calendar days each year remind me of my mother’s and father’s deaths (and of their lives). Artificial and arbitrary dates on a calendar which nonetheless carry deep and lasting human meaning and consequence.
Last week, ReGen 250 — the 501c3 non-profit with which the TEA Collaborative is associated — celebrated its 10th Anniversary. To mark the occasion, it’s timely to cast an eye back and quickly survey the road traveled to fix where the TEA Collaborative stands today.
We’ll cover the tech perspective, the energy & environment perspective and the PRC planning ambitions perspective in separate T-series, E-series and A-series posts this week.
My focus on technology issues, especially supply chain issues for advanced ICT (information and communications technology) products involving the U.S.-China-Taiwan triangle, was most intense prior to the founding of ReGen250 in 2011. Some highlights include:
- Three-time Invited Congressional Commission Expert Witness at the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s Public Hearings on Global Supply Chains and Cross-Straits Security Issues (109th, 108th, and 107th Sessions of the U.S. Congress)
- Director and Head of Partnership Development, Asia at the World Economic Forum (with strategic focus on ICT, Energy, Transportation, Finance industries)
- Author of The Politics of Greater China’s Integration into the Global Info Tech Supply Chain in The Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 13, No. 40; and of Taiwan’s FTA Prospects from the Global IT Supply Chain Perspective in Economic Integration, Democratization and National Security in East Asia, edited by Peter C.Y. Chow
- Green Team Leader on Cross-Straits Economics, U.S. Dept. of Defense/Defense Intelligence Agency Strategic Coercion Wargame convened by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)
- Invited Non-Governmental Expert Participant, Asian Scenario Seminar Game at the Army War College, Carlisle, PA
- Co-organizer of The Role of Taiwan in the Post-WTO Global Supply Chain Workshop at the 19th Modern Engineering & Technology Seminar
- Official Host (“Ambassador”) for the Taiwan Delegation at World Congress on Information Technology XV in Austin TX
- Featured Speaker & Seminar Consultant – RAND Corporation, MITRE Corporation
- Keynote/Plenary Speaker at large scale media (Forbes, BusinessWeek, Reuters, The Economist Conference Group) and investor (Berkshire-Hathaway-themed 3rd Annual Global Investment Conference, China’s Financial Markets Conference, New York Cleantech Investors Forum, National Association of Business Economists/NABE) conferences
- Moderator at Fabless Semiconductor Association and Wharton China Business Forum annual conference events
- Advisor on Global Business Outreach, The Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania
- Invited Think-tank Speaker: CSIS, AEI, Heritage, Brookings, etc
For the TEA Collaborative, this perspective has been brought to bear in a number of recent posts:
- Timing Matters — situates Taiwan’s role in the global supply chain for microchips and other advanced ICT products
- U.S./China Tech De-Coupling: 4 Levels of Risk — assesses the Trump Administration’s fitful tech policy toward China
- Fiddling Around with U.S.-China Tech – brings perspectives from the boardroom, the cultural sidelines and from history in reviewing Trump Administration tech policy toward China
- TikTok Endgame Against the Timeclock – surveys tensions between the U.S. and China as relates to social media companies in general and TikTok in particular
- Taiwan Straddles U.S.-China Microchip Supply Chain Fault-line – takes a sounding of Taiwan’s position as supplier of 40% of the world’s chips and 80% of the world’s most advanced chips
- 21st C. Tech Tug-of-War between China and the U.S. – takes a look at what it will take for the U.S. to compete more effectively against China to retain tech preeminence in the 21st century
This are representative of the most consequential questions and challenges underlying U.S.-China relations at the present moment. They are at the core of the whole-of-government policy review towards China now being coordinated by Kurt Campbell and the National Security Council. Ironically, these issues were dismissed by the American Enterprise Institute when Ambassador Jim Lilley introduced me to AEI for a day-long series of interviews preparatory to a possible appointment back in 2002. AEI’s conclusion at the end of the day as their senior leadership explained their decision not to make an offer? These were all questions which the free market would sort out and there’s no role for AEI or policy makers to play. Ideologically consistent perhaps but hardly prescient.
The global scientific consensus, most prominently supported by the work of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), assesses with high confidence a global warming increase of 1 °C as measured against preindustrial levels. Currently experienced effects from the 1 °C global warming which has already occurred include: loss of sea ice and glacial shrinking, accelerated sea level rises, shifting atmospheric and oceanic currents, longer and more intense heat waves and hurricane seasons. Impacts on the biosphere include the shifting of plant and animal ranges, earlier plant and tree flowering, and rapid declines in bio- diversity. All of these changes threaten the equilibrium of the planet and, more fundamentally, the continued viability of human adaptation to the planet.
The most recent comprehensive report issued by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018 compares the difference in impacts on human societies (the ‘delta’) if global warming is allowed to reach 2 °C as opposed to being stabilized at 1.5 °C above preindustrial levels. These delta effects2 include: an additional 10 million people endangered by sea level rise; several hundred million more people made susceptible to poverty; 50% more people exposed to water stress; loss of 1.5 million additional tons of global annual catch for marine fisheries; the number of plant and animal species on which human life depends losing half their habitat.
Clearly, the challenge is epochal. Even assuming that all countries in the world fulfill their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) pledged in the Paris Agreement, the world is currently on track to exceed 1.5° C by 2050 and to remain well above that threshold into the next century.
At a national level, the challenge is no less urgent or less central to societal well-being. Even for an administration notably skeptical of climate change science and aggressively committed to deregulating and redefining environmental standards so as to lessen the severity of threat assessments, the outlook remains dire. According to the Trump Administration’s most recent Climate Assessment3, which synthesizes the data and projections from thirteen federal agencies, key risks facing the nation as a direct result of climate change include risks to communities, the economy, water quality, citizen health, ecosystems, agricultural and food supply; the nation’s infrastructure; and the nation’s defense. To quote directly several specific examples:
- “Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth;”
- “Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure and property and impede the rate of economic growth over this century;”
- “The quality and quantity of water available for use by people and ecosystems across the country are being affected by climate change, increasing risks and costs to agriculture, energy production, industry, recreation and the environment;”
- “Impacts from climate change on extreme weather and climate-related events, air quality, and the transmission of disease through insects and pests, food and water increasingly threaten the health and well-being of the American people, particularly populations that are already vulnerable;”
- “Ecosystems and the benefits they provide to society are being altered by climate change and these impacts are projected to continue. Without substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, transformative impacts on some ecosystems will occur; some coral reef and sea ice ecosystems are already experiencing such transformational changes;”
- “Rising temperatures, extreme heat, drought, wildfire on rangelands, and heavy downpours are expected to increasingly disrupt agricultural productivity in the United States. Expected increases in challenges to livestock health, declines in crop yields and quality, and changes in extreme events in the United States and abroad threaten rural livelihoods, sustainable food security, and price stability;”
- “Our Nation’s aging and deteriorating infrastructure is further stressed by increases in heavy precipitation events, coastal flooding, heat, wildfire, and other extreme events, as well as changes to average precipitation and temperature. Without adaptation, climate change will continue to degrade infrastructure performance over the rest of the century, with the potential for cascading impacts that threaten our economy, national security, essential services and health and well-being.”These effects are felt most directly at the local level. This is because the costs which climate change inflicts globally and nationally – costs of community disruption, slowing economic growth, deteriorating water quality, ecosystem disequilibrium, and infrastructural decay – are mostly borne at the local level. To address this challenge, the City of Philadelphia, like most major cities in the country and many counties and townships as well, has its own Climate Action Plan. Generally, these local plans have three major components: (1) at the grassroots level, the plan serves to connect with various stakeholder groups such as businesses, educational institutions, residential associations, and engaged constituencies to raise awareness and help coordinate common effort; (2) at the local governmental level, the plan articulates the limited number of focal areas where local government has determined its scarce dollars canhave greatest, proactive impact; and (3) at the supra-local governmental level, these plans serve as the blueprints for collaboration with other cities and regions, as the justification for federal budget requests, and as the channel for consolidating and reporting local ‘carbon emissions savings’ into the Paris Agreement NDC process.
As we have learned with the COVID-19 pandemic, a straightforward scientific fact can be politically complicated. Acknowledging and addressing human-caused climate change is politically complex in the U.S. at this moment. So is cooperating with China on anything. Recognizing those complexities does not, however, absolve us of the responsibility to find a way forward on both the science and the international relations.
1.5° is where the U.S. and China must meet.
______Assessing China / The TEA Collaborative______ 
