With the Biden administration getting ready for entering the White House, the Sino-US relationship — the most important one in today’s world — faces changes or reconsideration from the Trump era. At this point it is useful to think of general principles governing international relationships, and I came up with six of them.
The Principle of Home Country Priority
Each country always puts its own interests first, well before those of others. This means, simply put, at times each country will want to rip others off if (1) it can get away from doing that and (2) doing that leads to the clear gains of its own.
Sounds mean and terrible, right? Not completely. Setting a country-wide selfish priority helps increase predictability and stability in international relationship. Knowing that every state is (or will be) trying to maximize its own interests eliminates one source of ambiguity in international decision makings. But the main benefit goes to people at home: Home country priority increases domestic stability because citizens expect their governments to work for them, not for citizens in other country or countries. With them being the taxpayers, this expectation is well within their rights.
Is this principle the same as Trump’s “America First?” Yes and no. Yes because it has long been the hidden tradition or presumption in the world —- Trump just made it explicit and worse, tilted toward his personal agenda. No because Trump’s principle operated mainly through increasing tariffs, against immigrant workers this country needs, and leaving international treaties and organizations. None of these is the right move for putting home country first and in fact, will hurt the home priority.
A lot of times “home country first” goes in resonance with the “win-win” principle. That is, home country can win but so can others. But win-win is not guaranteed, as the two principles share some scenarios but differ in others, so we should not equate them. We may have promoted Win-Win for too long and too broad and forget other possibility of win-loss or even loss-loss.
The Principle of Multi-Dimensionality
All international relationships are defined and shaped by multiple goals, considerations and preferences. Now is a good time to mention this because one of the worst top diplomats of this country, Mike Pompeo, has been trying to walk away from this and to redefine the China – US relationship by ideological differences only. This is a dangerous move not only because single dimension relationships are less stable than multiple dimensions, but also because it distorted the reality to such a degree that is blatantly stupid.
Generally speaking, after the collapse of the former Soviet Unions ideologies, together with military conflicts (hot or cold wars) based on ideologies, have been shifted to the back burner by nations in determining their international moves and policies for international relationship.
For a relatively short while this seemed clear to most people, but China’s rise has brought the “Cold War mindset” back big time. In fact, the stronger China becomes, the more popular it gets. Such a mindset makes it easy to interpret almost everything with the prism of “US’ versus ‘Them” — based on democracy, human rights, technological war and others. Some people have been carried away by it, even some of the best minds of the world have not been immune to it.
Instead of returning to the Cold War, we live in an era of NATIONAL INTERESTS. In other words, what has been the front and central driver in today’s international relationships is national interests, which is ALWAYS defined by multiple dimensions and considerations, each weighted differently and the weights themselves change dynamically. We should always say national INTERESTS in plural, never national INTEREST in singular. This does not mean political consideration is dead or no longer exists, but does mean that far more frequently politics or ideology factor has been giving bigger weights than it deserves.
The Principle of Frenemy
The best or the equilibrium way to describe international relations for all countries in the world is FRENEMY or friends and enemies in the short and long runs.
This principle can be seen as a corollary of the first two principle. Because all countries put their own interests first, and because national interests cover multiple domains or dimensions, countries are friends sometimes but enemies other times. But that is not all. If we jointly consider all dimensions rather than consider them in isolation, then countries are friends in some domain(s) but enemies in others — even at the same time (i.e., in the short run).
The Principle of Domestic Projections
Each country knows its own domestic affairs better than affairs in other countries. Asymmetry includes not just knowledge but also interests: Citizens in each country are more knowledgeable and more interested in domestic affairs than those in others. There are exceptions, and America is one of them: There are people in other countries who are more interested in and more knowledgeable about US than about their home countries.
History has proven it time and again that lacking appropriate foreign knowledge will not stop people from making judgments of others. They just project home grown knowledge onto foreign countries. Doing so incurs little cost but creates a sense of accomplishments and satisfaction. The common existence of this tendency elevates it to be one of the most important principles in international affairs and relations.
Domestic projections tend to be one to many and telescoping. Being one to many means people rely on the same home grown knowledge to derive judgments of not just one but many foreign countries. They know this is not the perfect way of understanding others but they can’t help it due to lack of more foreign knowledge.
Telescoping means to ignore the time difference and stages of development and to simply project the home image of today to others. If something exists today at home, they expect to see that in others. One direct consequence of telescoping is that the bigger the income gaps between two nations, the higher the probability of failure to transplant home images abroad. Even the most sincere goodwill makes little difference.
Deep down, domestic projections have an individual root: Each of us has a tendency to project our own preference onto others. A good example is that many Chinese are big fans of Trump, both in this country and in China. If you ask them why they like Trump in a formal survey, they will tell you things not much different from what an American Trump fan would say. What they (I am speaking mostly the Trump fans in China) may never tell you is that Trump represents everything they want to have in their wildest dreams: A billionaire or very successful businessman (or so he said himself), a man who married pretty women with good looking offspring, the top executive in the most powerful country of the world! Trump is without a doubt their icon of success! His dictatorial style of governance? That’s nothing, not even a speck of dirt on his face, only a symbol of power and strength.
The Principle of Public & Private Moments
All relationships have public and private moments between governmental leaders. Another way is to call it “Principals” and “Agents”. Principals mean the countries and their citizens, while agents are the diplomats and leaders. The latter are supposed to represent the best interests of their countries but sometimes they put their own personal interests ahead. When that happened, it is almost always the case that they shift from the public mode to private or secret mode for the transactions.
On the positive side, which agents to represent the principals can make a big difference. After all, principals are abstract or aggregate entities made up numerous agents and it is ultimately agents’ job to serve and to represent principals. The same principal — if served by different agents — could see totally different outcomes. Good agents act like a “Bridge over troubled water” quoting the song title by Simon & Garfunkel. Therefore, some of the most important public decisions may be made in private sessions.
I still clearly remembered the secret letter by President Bush to Deng, Xiaoping shortly after Deng ordered troops to enter Beijing to open fire on the mostly student demonstrators. Today I have found the original letter and in Bush’s own words to Deng Xiaoping, at one of the most sensitive times for the relationship between China and US, “First, I write in a spirit of genuine friendship, this letter coming as I’m sure you know from one who believes with a passion that good relations between the United States and China are in the fundamental interests of both countries. I have felt that way for many years. I feel more strongly that way today, in spite of the difficult circumstances.” Later in the letter, Bush even said the followings: “Sometimes in an open system such as ours it is impossible to control all leaks; but on this particular letter there are no copies, not one, outside of my own personal file….”
The Principle of Internal Sizes & External Impacts
The bigger the country, the less vulnerable to external shocks from other countries. This principle is among the most intuitive. International sanctions launched by the US for example will have a bigger impact on North Korea than on China.