Sylvie Zhuangin, Beijing. Apr 7, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3305386/they-will-never-use-signal-anything-again-dennis-wilder
Before becoming a senior fellow with Georgetown University’s Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues, Dennis Wilder served in the George Bush Jnr and Barack Obama administrations in a number of national security positions, including as the CIA’s deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific from 2015 to 2016.
In the latest instalment of the Open Questions series, Wilder shares his views on President Donald Trump’s cuts to the US federal government’s bureaucracy as well as the most sensitive issues determining China-US relations.
Excerpts
How do you view the current state of the Ukraine war and would you say that transatlantic relations are undergoing a significant shift? Will the post-World War II international order be fundamentally reshaped in the coming four years?
The Ukraine war is a stalemate and neither side can win on the battlefield, so President Donald Trump’s attempt to get both sides to see the futility of continued combat is very appropriate and, frankly, long overdue. America should have taken this stand a while ago.
I can’t tell you what I think a peace agreement should look like but certainly, whatever the peace agreement is, Russian President Vladimir Putin has got to make sincere promises that he will never again aggress against another country and its sovereignty.
The attack on Ukraine was outrageous and illegal. It ran against all the principles established by China and the Bandung Conference of 1955. Sovereignty is a critical point in international relations and Putin violated it.
In terms of transatlantic relations, ever since the end of World War II the US has carried a very heavy burden financially in protecting Europe and these democracies came to rely on this, instead of spending on their own defence. So yes there is a fundamental shift – again, that is long overdue.
The change, and we see it happening already, is that Europeans are responding appropriately. They are talking about doing what they need to do for their own defence. This will be good for the alliance.
Nato will have spent more on its own defence. We will have reduced our burden so we can become stronger in other ways and as long as the Nato agreement continues, from my point of view, what is happening now is a good change to the international order, not a bad change.
Some say that a rift has opened between European countries and the US since Trump’s return to the White House. What is your view and, if there is division, could Beijing benefit from it and in what way?
I think the rift is highly exaggerated. Changes in a relationship that are positive for the relationship are not a rift. I think this is exaggerated by those who would like to have the opportunity to take advantage, but will be disappointed.
Beijing has a big problem with Europe that doesn’t even involve the United States. First of all, China has been illegally supporting Russia’s war and the Europeans are very upset about that, and they’ve talked to the Chinese about this.
Secondly, the Chinese overcapacity in things like electric vehicles is a big problem, so China’s problems with Europe are separate from America’s changes in its relationship with Europe. These problems don’t go away. So again, the opportunities for China are overblown.
What do you think about Trump’s moves to cut the bureaucracy, which seem to have caused some public discontent. What might be the implications?
The 1.9 per cent of Americans – about 3 million people – who work for the US federal government make up a very small percentage of the population. Getting rid of some poor government employees will have very little effect on the American economy.
Now of course, if you are one of those government workers to be let go, no question about it you will be unhappy. But if you look across the United States and talk to the people, they want this to happen.
Americans in general have been asking for decades for someone to deal with the bloated and inefficient government bureaucracy.
The last time an American president reduced the size of the US government was under Bill Clinton when we had a “peace dividend”. But ever since, the US government keeps growing and it is inefficient. Everybody knows there is waste and fraud.
So again, we will be stronger after we cut the fat out of the government. This is not negative, but positive. As a US government employee for 36 years, I can assure you there is waste, fraud and abuse in the US government.
What would you say is the end game behind these cuts in the long run? Is it just to make the US stronger?
Yes. My Chinese friends say “we wish we could do this in China”. Do you think there’s waste and inefficiency? So maybe we are the model.
At a London School of Economics and Political Science forum in March, you said people only see Trump’s America first slogan, ignoring that it does not mean “America only”. Could you elaborate on that?
During Trump’s first term in office, he did not have a strong appreciation for our alliances and our partners. But what I am seeing now in his second term is much more understanding of the national security position of the US government.
We need our allies in Asia and elsewhere. We need them, as I said about Nato, and we will be stronger if we can get our allies to do more.
So what you will see is the Trump administration talking with our allies in Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Australia, and Taiwan. We’ve already talked to Taiwan about the fact that they need to do more for their own defence and that they don’t spend enough. These discussions will continue.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t value alliances. After all, President Trump has already had a meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) here in Washington and the value of the alliances is unquestioned. So when people say that America first means America only, they don’t understand it.
The Taiwanese leader William Lai Ching-te recently described mainland China as a “foreign hostile force”. Does this suggest that he was given tacit support by the US? What role do you think Lai may play in the US-China dynamic?
The United States is very lucky that we have an excellent representative in Taipei and his name is Raymond Greene. He speaks beautiful Chinese. He understands the Democratic Progressive Party very well, and he has had excellent conversations with Lai.
The United States is very clear with him that the status quo must be maintained by both Taipei and Beijing. Period. Full stop. No question.
Given Lai’s increasingly confrontational style, how might this affect Beijing’s stance on the overall cross-strait relationship?
I would not say that Beijing has been particularly nice to Lai. I don’t see that Beijing’s rhetoric towards him is conciliatory. Obviously Beijing expects him to kowtow. We don’t want him to kowtow.
So what is Washington’s Taiwan policy at this stage?
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it very directly the other day in a discussion with Hugh Hewitt on his podcast. I don’t need to elaborate. The American policy is consistent. It has been consistent from the Joe Biden administration, consistent to now that I see nothing that says we are changing policy on Taiwan.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest chip manufacturer, announced in March that it would invest US$100 billion in the US over the next four years.
What will be the impact on Taiwan’s economy? Will it hollow out the island’s chip industry?
The US$100 billion deal is the largest single investment ever by a foreign company in the United States. It is very significant and very helpful to rebuilding American manufacturing.
But the leader of TSMC has also said that he will retain the most sophisticated, advanced computer chip capability in Taiwan, not in the United States, so there is no danger of hollowing out the TSMC plants in Taiwan, as long as he is committed to building the highest level of computer chip in Taiwan, the people on Taiwan should not worry.
What is the likelihood of a meeting between Trump and President Xi Jinping and if it does take place, what deal should we expect?
We are far away from a Xi-Trump meeting right now. I don’t think it will happen any time soon, and the reason is that China has not responded appropriately to President Trump, who has made clear that before negotiations can begin, China needs to take positive steps on the fentanyl problem.
What has China done? China has told Trump that he should thank China for what they have done on fentanyl. They have issued a white paper suggesting that they’ve done all they can. But fentanyl from China continues to be caught at the American border in large numbers.
So how is it that all of this fentanyl is still coming to the United States if Beijing is doing such a good job?
Beijing needs to unilaterally take steps, such as imprisoning the people involved in the fentanyl trade, sentencing them, and punishing the companies involved. Until it takes those steps, I don’t think Trump is very interested in negotiations.
Look at what Mexico did when Trump said you need to do more: they put 10,000 troops on the border, they sent back dozens of gang members to the United States, they allowed the CIA to put drones over Mexico. The Mexicans didn’t say, “oh, we need to negotiate”.
My problem is, China has used this fentanyl issue as a political card. When relations were good, China did a little more on fentanyl, but when relations were bad, China did nothing.
China needs to stop using this card, because a huge number of Americans between the ages of 18 and 45 die every year. It is the largest killer of people in that age group. This should not be a political negotiation. China could do the right thing.
If those issues were addressed, do you think Xi and Trump would be more likely to meet?
The next step would be negotiations, not a meeting. The economic trade negotiations will begin, and Trump will appoint a negotiator, and President Xi will appoint a negotiator, like he did with Liu He.
There are many good steps that each side could take. China could invest in the United States and create jobs here, like TSMC is doing. Beijing could go back to the phase-one trade agreement and agree to buy US$200 billion of goods a year from the US.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration could promise that controls on hi-tech exports to China will be targeted and limited, not very wide in their scope. The Trump administration could take some companies off sanction lists, or stop some sanctions against Chinese officials.
There are many areas where we can come to agreements. After the negotiators have come to something, then the two leaders can sit down and meet.
Some have argued that the differences in economic models between China and the US are not just about policy choices but are determined by long-standing debates on the role of government in the economy, which stem from deep historical and ideological roots.
For example, the United States’ free-market philosophy is rooted in thinkers like John Locke and Milton Friedman, while China’s state-centric approach has been influenced by Legalism traditions dating back over 2,000 years. What do you think?
There is Chinese exceptionalism and American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism is based on the idea that we are the city on the hill. We have created the ideal society through a combination of democracy and capitalism.
Our system is very much based on individual freedoms, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, so we think we have the ideal model.
But Beijing also thinks it has the ideal model. And their model is based on a combination of communism and Confucianism, and it is very much based less on the individual than on collective harmony.
And so in the socialist system that China practices, its economy is collectively based. For example, it is not a consumer-led economy which is about consumer sovereignty. Xi Jinping is much more interested in the collective and therefore in the state-led economy.
So we have two very fundamentally different political and economic systems and we both believe we have the best system in the world.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty will expire in 2026. China has said repeatedly that its nuclear capabilities are not on the same level as the US or Russia and refused to engage in nuclear arms talks.
Do you think China may engage more in future negotiations? Europe is also working on developing its own nuclear deterrence strategy. How might that affect global security?
I’ve been trying to get the Chinese to have strategic security talks ever since I was in the White House in 2004, and it’s been very frustrating. We were only successful once in getting a senior general from the PLA’s strategic rocket force to come to Washington when George W. Bush was president.
I went to that meeting and the Chinese officer shouted at us in his speech. He didn’t want to be there nor talk to us. It was quite clear that the only reason he was there was because former president Hu Jintao told him that he had to be there.
But he had no interest in discussing his nuclear forces. Because China’s nuclear force was small, and they believed that by hiding the force, it gave them an advantage.
What I hope today is that with China building 360 new ICBM sites and increasing its nuclear weapons stockpile dramatically, the Chinese may be more comfortable now with coming to strategic stability talks.
In terms of other countries, I am much less worried about Europe than I am about Asia. The constant building by the North Koreans of nuclear capabilities, and the inability of China to stop them, will lead to pressure in South Korea and Japan to think about building their own nuclear capabilities.
Both countries have plenty of capability to do this, and it will become harder and harder for the United States to argue with these countries that they should not build their own nuclear weapons as the North Korean threat grows.
What are your thoughts on the idea that is being expressed as “East rising, West declining”? If the US does decline, would it create an opportunity for China? If so, how realistic is it for China to move towards the centre of the global stage?
I am very tired of this line of analysis. After the Vietnam war, Mao Zedong said we were finished. After the 9/11 terrorist attack, and after the 2008 financial crisis, Chinese scholars said the US was finished. China’s ability to predict this is not very strong today.
The Magnificent Seven – Microsoft, Google, Tesla, Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Amazon – are the most dynamic companies in the world. DeepSeek was only a derivative of ChatGPT.
China has not invented anything like ChatGPT, and I will predict that the Magnificent Seven are going to lead the way in frontier technologies for the next two decades at least, and China will just be following behind, so where is this East rising?
We were also told the Chinese economy would be bigger than the American economy and it’s not going to happen for a long time.
Given the current situation, especially with Trump’s influence, how do you see middle powers such as Britain and Australia navigating their positions? Will they face greater pressure in choosing a side when balancing respective ties with China and the US?
People don’t understand our allies very well if they think that they just follow our policies. There is a new Labour government in Britain, which I spoke to when I was in London. It has its own China policy that is very different from our policy today. We can be comfortable with that. Britain has its own national needs. It has its own economic needs.
Australia is the same. Australia is much more dependent on trade with China than we are. Of course they’re going to take a different stance in their relationship with Beijing, but that doesn’t undercut the strategic alliance, which remains strong.
The Australian military has been with us in every conflict we have fought since World War II. They will be there with us.
How would India benefit from the tension between the US and China?
Indians will always go their own way. They will never be part of the American strategic alliance – nor part of a strategic alliance with anybody. The Indians cherish their independence. They are the leaders of what’s called the non-aligned movement and will always remain that way.
So will they play the United States off against China and play the United States off against Russia? Yes, of course they will. That is where the Indians like to be, and we have to accept that’s the Indian position in the world.
How do you envision the Quad – the US alliance with Australia, India and Japan – and the Aukus agreement on nuclear-powered submarines between the US, Britain and Australia, under Trump 2.0?
There is a review going on right now on Aukus, as there are some problems with the nuclear submarine programme. I’m not sure what the conclusion will be.
There are some in the Trump administration, such as Elbridge Colby, who think the submarine programme is not a good idea. I think this is an open question. I don’t know the answer to what the future of Aukus will look like, but I think it will be rethought a bit.
One of the things people don’t understand about the Quad is that it is much less about strategic military matters and much more about cooperation on health and economic issues.
People misread the Quad. If you look at the Quad website, you will see that they do a lot of things that have nothing to do with strategic military issues. The Quad is successful in that regard but again, the Indians are not going to become part of a strategic alliance.
Will ideological confrontation be less of a priority in US competition with China during Trump’s second term? For example, could the issue of Tibet and the choice of the next Dalai Lama become another thorny issue?
The United States has not had a president who was a real businessman since Harry Truman, who owned a hat store in Missouri.
Now, Trump is a businessman. He thinks geo-economically, not geo- strategically. He wants reciprocal trade agreements with everybody around the world that benefit the American worker. That is his focus.
Look at what he has proposed in Ukraine – to buy rare earths from the Ukrainians. His argument is that it would be a better security guarantee than putting American forces in there, because it would be an economic stake for the US, which forms protection for Ukraine.
It’s a different ideology. It’s the ideology of a capitalist, of a businessman. And he is very different from past American presidents who were part of the national security elite of the United States. He never was part of that elite, and he doesn’t think in those terms.
On the Dalai Lama, the selection of the next Dalai Lama will be upon us in the next 10 years. The way that Beijing handled the Panchen Lama was atrocious from the American point of view. It was a rights violation.
The fact that the Tibetans chose a Panchen Lama, then Beijing made the boy disappear and chose its own young man has created a big flag between Americans who believe in religious freedom and Beijing.
If Beijing once again decides that it will choose the next Dalai Lama, there is going to be a big problem.
The Dalai Lama is now 89 years old and is unlikely to live beyond 100. Thus the issue of his reincarnation will be upon us all. China will want to control the process as it did with the Panchen Lama. The US will want to support the autonomous decision making of the international leadership of Tibetan Buddhism.
What areas do you see that could provide opportunities for substantive cooperation between China and the US?
There are certainly areas for American and Chinese cooperation. As I said on the drugs trade, this could be a win-win if China would stop the gangs from doing what they are doing.
In the trade area, we can have a win-win result. Trump has said China can invest in the US.
The Japanese were in trouble with the US in the 1980s until they started building car factories there and then the relationship became much smoother. China ought to look at that model.
There are areas on disease control and on food security for the Global South. For Africa and other areas, we should be working together.
The African population in the next few decades will explode in size. This will cause problems in food security and stability. The two great economic powers need to work together on Africa but right now, we are not.
Also on the issue of North Korea, neither side is interested in a conflict on the Korean peninsula. It would be very helpful of the Chinese to get the North Koreans back to the negotiating table.
We will be competing in the Global South. There’s no question. And that is one of the many areas of US-China competition. This is a good thing. The Global South countries have options and can leverage us against each other.
If I were sitting in a Global South country, I would be figuring out how I can get the most benefits out of Beijing and out of Washington.
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