China - US Grand Strategy Agreement Proposal

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release: 31 December 2010

A proposed China-US Grand Strategy Executive Agreement between Presidents Hu and Obama formally delivered today to the China’s State Council and U.S. Ambassador was drafted by John Milligan-Whyte, Dai Min and Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett with input from China’s:

  - Former Minister of Foreign Affairs;
  - Former UN ambassador,
  - Former U.S. ambassador,
  - Former Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the PLA,
  - Former Military Attaché to North Korea and Israel,
  - Former Vice Minister of Commerce,
  - President of Shanghai Institutes of International Studies,
  - China’s Central Party School Institute of International Strategic Studies,
  - Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs,
  - China Center for International Economic Exchanges,
  - China Institute For International Strategic Studies,
  - China Foundation for International & Strategic Studies,
  - Boao Forum,
  - China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

The resulting final text of the proposed executive agreement published in China Daily Online, World Politics Review and Seeking Alpha is posted for free download in the publication section at www.CenterACP.com.

The purpose of the executive agreement is to ensure that U.S. and China balance their bilateral investment and trade, never go to war with each other, the US will refrain from seeking regime change and interference in China's internal affairs and China will continue its political, legal, economic reforms.

It combines in three pages a comprehensive package of bilateral and multilateral breakthroughs not otherwise achievable in 2011 for:

  - U.S. economic recovery,
  - Increasing U.S. exports to China,
  - Balancing China-US trade,
  - Creating 12 million US jobs,
  - Reducing U.S. government deficits and debt,
  - Stabilizing the dollar, global currency and bond markets,
  - Protecting the security of sea transport,
  - Rebuilding failed states,
  - Reforming international institutions,
  - Ensuring collaboration on climate change remediation, energy efficiency, and affordable green technologies essential for rapid and effective pollution remediation globally.

To achieve greater economic stability it provides the new grand strategy and framework that align the economic and national security of the U.S. and China, which 192 other nations depend upon for economic recovery. Creating 12 million jobs for Americans in 2011-2012is essential for the U.S.’s economic recovery and creating support for the executive agreement among Democratic and Republican members of Congress, governors, mayors and the American people. In order to create the12 million U.S. jobs:

  - Chinese companies will invest up to 1 trillion U.S. dollars at the request of the U.S. President,
  - The U.S. will lift export bans on high technology,
  - China will purchase sufficient U.S. goods and services to balance their bilateral trade each year,
  - The Strategic and Economic Dialogues will become a permanently sitting commission for constant senior-level collaboration,
  - U.S. companies’ access to the Chinese market will be equal to the access that Chinese companies have in the U.S. market,
  - The U.S. and China will encourage global joint ventures between U.S. and Chinese companies.

To achieve greater geopolitical stability the executive agreement provides that:

  - The U.S. and China will hold regular joint naval exercises in Asian waters, with invitations to other regional navies; have permanent officer-exchange programs and create a joint peacekeeping force and command; and establish a joint commission collaborating constantly on U.S. and PRC technology sharing and budget expenditures.
  - There will be a reduction of China’s strike forces arrayed against Taiwan, a U.S. moratorium on arms transfers to Taiwan, and a reduction of U.S. strike forces arrayed against China. - China and the U.S. will support a reunification of North and South Korea. The U.S. will eschew its regime change goals for North Korea, which will terminate its nuclear weapons program, and China will assist North Korea’s economic reforms.
  - The U.S. and its allies will not attack or seek regime change and will eliminate trade restrictions against Iran and China will encourage Iran to suspend development of nuclear weapons.
  - China will create and invest in a South China Sea Regional Joint Development Corporation with other shareholders that have conflicting sovereignty claims and negotiate the eventual resolution of sovereignty disputes on the basis of the 2002 Declaration of the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.
  - The U.S. and China will harmonize and coordinate their roles in Asian Economic and Regional Security and relations.

The executive agreement is not a treaty, does not require U.S. Senate confirmation, does not constitute a "G2" or an alliance between the U.S. and China, nor replace existing U.S. alliances. It is an improved framework for collaboration among all UN members pursuant to the Preamble and Article I of the U.N. Charter.

Happy New Year's

I and mine are disappearing to the north to baptize our two Ethiopian daughters in an extended family celebration.

The break will do me good.  Nearly recovered from ear surgery, and beat after penning about 70,000 words for Wikistrat since early November.

Looking forward to 2011.  Hoping it treats you better than 2010 did.

See you again on Monday, the 2nd of January.

TIME on PACOM versus WAPO on PRC's DF-21D

Nice Mark Thompson post at Time.com (U.S.-Chinese War Games Ratchet Up), where he starts out by noting that now PACOM is claiming the DF-21D is already deployed - as in, the PLAN could take out a USN CV tomorrow.

So what's the deal?  WAPO citing experts saying it could be years away from effective deployment and Admiral Willard of PACOM saying the carrier killer is already deployed?

Bit of a discrepancy, huh?

My guess is that the DF-21D has been signed to the practice squad and that's emboldened Willard to declare that the Chinese are on the verge of winning the Super Bowl with the missile as presumed MVP.  These things all take time, so Willard is playing his chip as early as possible.  Justification? If he doesn't make this stink now, he believes the long-in-coming relief (e.g., pushing ahead with long-range carrier-based strike UAVs) won't arrive in time.

Is this lying? In business we call it "forward selling."  In football, they call it "throwing the receiver open."

PACOM would undoubtedly say otherwise, and I'm perfectly willing to be proven wrong, but the wording of what Willard says suggests I'm right.  I have no doubt that there are some of these missiles theoretically teed up in this mode.  I also have no doubt that it's still in testing and that to say it's operationally capable of taking out a carrier is untrue. I'm betting Willard was careful with his words so that what he says is technically true (deployed = missile in field and missile "turned on" and capable of being fired), but I think he purposefully forward sells the capability to a degree that most people would consider it pure hype.

Evidence to that effect comes at the end of the FT's front-pager announcing Willard's claim, in which the admiral himself, in the last para, is cited thusly:

Adm Willard said the new Chinese weapon was not fully operational and would probably undergo testing "for several more years." The key remaining step is a test of the entire system at sea.

And that'a the cleverness of the forward-sell:  Willard's claim gets the FT to publish a front-pager with the title "Chinese missile tilts power in the Pacific: Beijing's anti-carrier weapon is operational: Deployment challenges US naval strategy."  But the truth is, it's not "fully operational," so it's not really operational at all, and saying it's deployed can simply mean it's parked somewhere.  So Willard's claiming an operational capacity that's really not there.  Parts of a capability chain are in place, but the chain itself is not yet achieved.

Unless, of course, John Pomfret, a superb journalist, is talking to a bunch of navy experts on our side who are completely clueless about the real story on the missile, but I'm guessing he's - and they are - right on the money and that Willard is out on a truth limb.  I also find it interesting the Willard needs to suddenly come out and make this declaration days after the WAPO front-pager by Pomfret suggesting that the DF-21D is years away from being truly operationalized in its carrier killing capability (so not just a missile built and not just a missile sitting on a launcher somewhere, but the A-to-Z capability - with all the attendant tracking and sensoring nets - to find, target and hit a carrier with one of these missiles).

So, in the end, this is all a battle of headlines:  WAPO's "years away" headline does battle with Willard's "deployed and operational now*" headline (with * denoting "not fully operational").  There is no real disagreement between the pieces, it's just how the selling is being spun.  Pomfret's sell accurately notes that the capability to kill a carrier is years away, while Willard's sells the notion that just having a DF-21D capable of being fired and on the launcher signals the intent to blow up our carriers.  So no real argument on the facts, just one side (WAPO) publishing a piece deflating the arms race momentum and Willard popping up almost immediately to counter that impression with an arms race strengthening claim.

The difference here is that when the Chinese develop a capability, we say they intend to use, and when we develop a similarly threatening capability, we say we're developing it purely for defensive means.  And if both navies stuck in their backyards with these capabilities, there would be no discussion. But we have the tendency to bring ours right to China's front door, and thus the conversation begins.  We have our reasons for such a global reach. We just need to ask ourselves what we're trying to achieve here. If all we want is to propel an arms race, then objective achieved.  If we hope to cower the Chinese during their rise, then that won't work, especially over something as sensitive as Taiwan.  If we want a truly cooperative relationship with China, we'd find another route in the military realm--something less provocative than this one.  But we don't seek that route.  We say, in effect, we need to be able to make the Chinese cower right on their doorstep, and if they can't handle that as a prerequisite for our friendship, then too bad.

And then we wonder why our mil-mil ties are so strained.

I'm not arguing against the logic of the individual moves in the race: we scare them and they come up with capability to negate that asset, and so now we come up with AirSea Battle, whose logic I cited approvingly in a recent China Security piece. I'm arguing against the entire race itself, and I'm especially arguing against letting that race dynamic be driven by the latest forward-selling claims of military types on both sides, because, in this atmosphere, the most aggressive forward-selling wins the headline battle time and again. And the result is always the same: the countering side is driven to the next step.  At the beginning and the end of the day, everybody agrees the scenario remains unlikely, but some of us argue that we should nonetheless pursue this arms race vigorously--just in case.  And that's a self-fulfilling prophesy driven by the most militant voices on both sides.

Far-sighted types on both sides will tell you that the inevitable next stage for this race is space. And I guarantee you, that when both sides take the next step, they will have gloriously justified rationales.  Sensible-sounding, authoritative types will tell us these steps must be taken.  But the underlying logic will still suck when arrayed against the larger realities of globalization and our interdependent relationship. But we will be told these are prudent measures, all things being considered.  And the big lie will be: this is the only path possible.

Thompson quotes a recent post by me on the CSBA bombing maps and reprints one himself.  I ginned up that post because I want people to understand why the Chinese chortle when we say things like, "We have no intention of going to war with you." [For the record, the CSBA is a private-sector think tank very much in favor with the current Pentagon and this tank is widely credited with successfully selling the AirSea Battle Concept to the Defense Department, so when it publishes things, they come with the implied imprimatur of the USG]. China parks no carriers off our coast, nor does any wargames up close, nor has any air force bases within strike range.  We have all those on China, and we publish war plans in detail saying we'll bomb their entire country and destroy all their shipping and sink all their naval vessels - for starters! 

And no, I don't think its particularly "provocative" for the Chinese to develop weaponry (which they most certainly are, even if it's taking them time) to prevent our carriers from sitting off their coast with the capability of launching attacks across the breadth and depth of their mainland.  I don't find that counter odd at all.  I would find it odd if a rising power sat idly by while another nation (that wants a different political system for it) has the capability of unleashing such military strikes and routinely floats that capability along its shoreline--especially when that same country has a record of toppling regimes.

And yeah, that's pretty ballsy - or just plain stupid - when you're in the financial situation we're in. Our military remains - by and large - clueless about the larger economic interdependency we have with China.  I mean, they're aware of it, but THEY JUST DON'T GET IT. That lack of understanding, combined with the knuckleheads sprinkled across the upper reaches of the PLA and PLAN, is one dangerous combination, because this is how world orders are destroyed: ambitious people simply doing what they think is their job, and nobody with enough courage or intelligence to rein them in.

I want a strong military, and I'm on too many records to play saying that I want to use it regularly. This isn't about who's "realistic" about the world. This is about who understands the place of war in the modern era and who still wants to keep it an isolated plaything - no matter the cost or consequences.

Dangerous stuff.

I'm not picking on Willard.  I don't know the man.  He comes with the reputation of a hard-liner and he's demonstrating that.  Most guys go to PACOM and see the larger picture and push for better relations with China.  We've seen that time and again. Willard is pushing in another direction because he believes that is best, but I think such thinking takes us down a very uncertain and foolish path.  I see no strategic logic in it.  I see only community self-interest (USN, USAF) and tired historic analogies (the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere nonsense from CSBA).

Globalization is a bit too important to be left to the generals and admirals and retired colonel think-tankers.

Again, you can tell me we need to hedge on the Chinese.  That's easy.  Deciding we need to be able to fight them instantaneously right on their shoreline and destroy their entire military lest they do something we fear? That's a bit aggressive by anyone's standards. Getting up in their grill regularly on this score? Again, a bit aggressive. They don't do it to us and nobody else does it to them, so why are we so convinced we need to tee up a war with China to feel secure?  And why right now?

This is not a discussion we're having.  This is one our military is pushing along the path on its own, justifying itself on the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 (and please, don't tell me PACOM feels this bit of legislation to be a burden they must meet because it's a hunting license and certain elements on our side simply love it). The rest of America is clueless on the subject. We're told simply to be scared and accept the arms race that results.

And that's wrong. We have a choice here and we're limiting ourselves to 19th-century logic. No wonder nobody trusts our leadership anymore. We bark and we don't listen.  We live in the past. We're clueless about the present and mostly scared about the future.

We are killing our own global leadership with such hyperbole and fear-mongering, and we deserve to taken down a peg or two in global power fora if we don't improve (already happening). Our great genius in creating this globalization is that ultimately, it does not need us to continue. It only needs our unwillingness to destroy it.

And now, even that basic intelligence is being brought into question.

Same problem, same prescription

LAT op-ed by Congressman Mike Honda, Dem from CA, by way of Chris Ridlon.

Great logic:

Given the comparatively weak Afghanistan team, and the fact that the Iraq inspector general's office is due to close in 2012 despite 50,000 troops and 80,000 defense contractors still operating in Iraq, we need a better form of oversight. Iraq and Afghanistan — and every other U.S. "contingency operation" involving billions of taxpayer dollars — should be under the watchful eye of a permanent, independent Office for Contingency Operations, with its own special inspector general. Rather than a piecemeal and reactive approach to the oversight of billions of dollars in these situations, we need a dedicated shop run by a proven investigator who can report to the National Security Council, and the Defense and State departments, without being cowed by political pressure.

We cannot afford to continue overseas relief and reconstruction efforts in an ad-hoc fashion, spending billions of taxpayer dollars under "emergency" pretexts with too few conditions and too little coordination, transparency, oversight and evaluation. It weakens our economic and national security.

You need a Department of Everything Else because the current approach simply wastes too much money and too much opportunity - and too many lives.

You can say we won't do any more of these, but you're kidding yourself. This is basically all that's left. We either do it or withdraw from the field, because fantasies of terrorists wielding loose nukes or rampaging pirates taking over globalization are silly.  There as two rogue regimes that want protection from U.S. invasion and believe nukes will buy them that (duh), and then there's the now rather symmetricized counter-terror effort spread across 75 states (SOF and drones and other nasty bits), and then there are the issues of failed states.  We can likewise fantasize about months-long bombing campaigns the width and breadth of China - that don't trigger nuclear war - but then we're into the serious nonsense.

Use your mentality.  Walk up to reality.

The strategic "tells" on China's military build-up

NOTE:  No WPR column today because journal takes off this week.

Great WAPO piece by John Pomfret (by way of David Emery) on the hollowness that is China's military rise.

Great line from Chinese expert (from China) about the inability of China's defense industry to create good engines being the "heart disease" of the PLA. Why?  It's the crux of their inability to create a solid force structure on their own, hence the need to buy so much from Russia (half of the latter's exports in arms).

So how afraid are we supposed to be about a force that buys Russian stuff?  Meanwhile, the much-feared "carrier killer" missile is . . . how many years from being operational?  Who knows.

But here's the larger logic and the real "tell" when it comes to strategic intent:  because China refuses to station troops abroad, it really doesn't have any overseas bases in the traditional sense. That, plus a paltry 3 replenishment ships and almost no training time for their subs (relative to ours) says this is nowhere close to being a blue-water force. It is - at best - a regional area-denial force, which means it's completely and narrowly defensive in scope.

And yeah, until China changes it mind about "non-interference" as represented by stationing of troops abroad, it will NEVER be a blue-water navy - simple as that.

I don't want China's navy to be offensive, but I do want it to become global over time. It can do that and remain largely defensive.  China's resource dependency demands it.

And I want that because America will need some help in the years and decades ahead.  Our fiscal reality demands it.

Merry Xmas

More Chinese media coverage

Seemingly, a second Phoenix TV story on the "term sheet" discussion coverage.

My WPR column of this week (Obstacles to a U.S.-China Partnership Made in U.S.A.?) gets translated into Chinese and then posted by:

• Xinhua.net
• ChinaDaily.com 

The Chinese essay on the "term sheet" in Lianhezaobao（联合早报) of Singapore has been re-posted by the two influential website of China. See below:

• 星岛环球网 (Website Stnn.cc) 
• 中国选举与治理网(Website China Elections and Governance)

Esquire: "When China Ruled the World" (January issue)

For the record, my 20th piece in the magazine.

Intro:

There's a moment in part two of Quentin Tarantino's revenge epic, Kill Bill, in which legendary martial-arts master Pai Mei teaches the Bride how to exact her revenge by delivering the killer blows instantly and then waiting for her nemesis to drop. Pai Mei "hits you with his fingertips at five different pressure points on your body, and then lets you walk away. But once you've taken five steps, your heart explodes inside your body and you fall to the floor."

And the battle is over before it really begins.

Okay, a gruesome analogy, perhaps, but apt. I'm here to tell you that America plunged its fingertips into the Middle Kingdom's body politic across the 1970s, beginning with Nixon going to China in 1972 and culminating with Jimmy Carter's normalization of relations in 1979. The first embrace allowed aged Mao Tse-tung to extinguish his nonstop internal purge known as the Cultural Revolution by firewalling his fears of Soviet antagonism. The second cemented China's wary-but-increasingly-warm relationship with the United States and allowed Deng Xiaoping, who narrowly survived Mao's insanities, to dismantle the dead emperor's dysfunctional socialist model, quietly burying Marx with the most revolutionary of eulogies — to get rich is glorious!

Deng chose wisely: Reversing Mikhail Gorbachev's subsequent logic, he focused on the economics while putting off the politics. This decision later earned him the sobriquet "the butcher of Tiananmen" when, in 1989, the political expectations of students quickly outpaced the Party's willingness for self-examination. But it likewise locked China onto a historical pathway from which it cannot escape, or what I call the five D's of the dragon's decline from world-beater to world-benefactor: demographics, decrepitude, dependency, defensiveness, and — most disabling of all — democratization.

Let us begin this journey right where Deng did, with a focus on the family.

Read the entire article at Esquire.com or in the January issue now on newstands.

Our plans to bomb the length and breadth of China

From AirSea Battle:  A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept, by Jan Van Tol and others at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Under the section, "Blind PLA ISR Systems," this is the map of all the sites we'd presumably want to bomb as early in the campaign as possible:

Then in the section, "Executing a Missile Suppression Campaign," here's all the sites we'd want to hit early as well:

Then here's the sub bases we'd need to strike as part of our "Defeating the PLA submarine force":

It's interesting for our president to meet China's and sign a joint declaration where both sides say they don't consider the other to be an enemy and then to have a Pentagon-favorite military think tank publish maps of strike sites all over China that we'd want to hit in the opening days of our war with the Mainland over Taiwan.

When you're that open with your plans, it's hard to describe anything the Chinese do in return as particularly "provocative." And yet, we do offer Beijing the benefit of our transparency on the subject.

Me?  If somebody publishes maps of the U.S. delineating all the places they'd want to bomb on the first day of the war . . . I'd take that kinda personally.  No, I'm not naive enough to believe the Chinese don't have theirs. But it takes a certain chutzpah to publish yours so openly while decrying Chinese "provocations" and "throwing their weight around."  China hasn't waged war in a very long time.  The U.S. does so regularly.  Whose maps should we take more seriously?

I know, I know. We must think these bad thoughts in order to prevent their occurrence. I'm sure we have similar maps for every country in the world yes?  Just to be certain?

Fox Business News interview on Esquire China piece & "term sheet" proposal

COMMENTARY:  Felt I did alright considering all the pain meds over the past few days (I went cold turkey this ayem).  My right ear certainly stands out!  If you look closely, you'll see black-and-blue bruising.  The ENT basically had to enter my ear canal from behind the ear, so it's like he cut it off and then sewed it back on--hence the absurd swelling and why my ear sticks out so.  But trust me, I look 1000% better than the day before, and then the day before that, and so on. When I got home Friday, I looked like some CG monster!

Feed was nice into my left ear, and because I couldn't hear anything out of my right, I was sort of nicely insulated (i.e., no listening to myself live in the room and feeling disconnected from my interviewer in NYC). Jerry sat off to my right and watched the whole show quietly, but he found it weird that I would suddenly speak and then go silent and then speak and then go silent and . . ..

Felt it was a decent performance, considering the surgery recovery and all.  Nice limo ride into Indy for it, which Jerry enjoyed.  Felt I mentioned Esquire and my Beijing partners sufficiently, and the book and Wikistrat got nice plugs.  Obviously could have gone on far longer and there was so much more ground I wanted to cover, but there you have it in 5-6 minutes.

Final indignity:  vid stops right when I blink, like somebody turned the robot off!

On Fox Business News today b/t 1100-1130 EST

The details:

SHOW: FOX BUSINESS DAYTIME
ANCHORS: DAGEN MCDOWELL & CONNELL MCSHANE
INTERVIEW WINDOW: 11:00-11:30AM ET

I hope to post link to online video once it's up.  Waiting on Fox.

Meanwhile:

• Singaporean Chinese-language newspaper Lianhezaobao covers the term sheet solution
• That story's picked up by Ta Kung Pao.

POSTSCRIPT:  Got to WFYI (local PBS) early and had some fun with son Jerry.

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WPR's The New Rules: Obstacles to a U.S.-China Partnership Made in U.S.A.?

 

In a column two weeks ago, I described the outlines of a proposed grand-strategic bargain between China and the United States. Basically, the "term sheet" that I helped draw up proposed various bilateral compromises over the security issues -- Taiwan, North Korea, Iran and the South China Sea, among others -- that keep the relationship clouded by profound strategic mistrust. The resulting climate of confidence would encourage Beijing to invest some of the trillions of dollars it holds more directly into our economy, instead of simply using them to facilitate our skyrocketing public debt. Since the column appeared, I and my co-authors spent two weeks in Beijing meeting with top government-sponsored think tanks and retired Chinese senior diplomats to discuss and revise the proposal. I thought it would be useful to report on this dialogue.

Read the entire column at World Politics Review.

The final version of the Sino-American grand strategy "term sheet"

Downloadable PDF

U.S.-P.R.C. Presidential Executive Agreement 

For Peaceful Coexistence & Economically Balanced Relationship 

Prepared by John Milligan-Whyte, Dai Min and Thomas P.M. Barnett 

Dec. 14th, 2010 

Presidents of U.S. and P.R.C. sign an executive agreement containing each nation’s pledge that: 

1. U.S. and P.R.C will never go to war with the other; 
2. Each will respect the other’s sovereignty and distinct political and economic systems; 
3. U.S. pledge to eschew regime change in P.R.C. and of non-interference in its internal affairs; 
4. P.R.C pledges to continue its economic, social, and political reforms. 

Taiwan 

Pledged demilitarization of Taiwan situation, to include: 

• Informal U.S. moratorium on arms transfers to Taiwan; 
• U.S. President’s adherence to defense requirements of Taiwan Relations Act of1979 is achieved through the following alternative means; 
• P.R.C. reduction of strike forces arrayed against Island; 
• U.S. reduction of strike forces arrayed against P.R.C. Mainland; and 
• Negotiation and promulgation of confidence building measures between U.S. and P.R.C. militaries. 

North Korea 

Pledged de-escalation of strategic uncertainty surrounding North Korea nuclear program, to include: 

• U.S. eschews regime change in North Korea; 
• P.R.C. encourages North Korea to adopt economic reform policies to be implemented on terms appropriate to North Korea’s own situation; 
• North Korea agrees to terminate nuclear program and resume economic cooperation with South Korea; and 
• U.S. and P.R.C. support peaceful reunification of North and South Korea on terms and timetable determined by North and South Korea. 

Iran 

Pledged management of relations with Iran to include: 

• U.S. eschews regime change in Iran; 
• P.R.C to support Iran’s peaceful development of its nuclear energy program; 
• Iran to willingly submit to regular international inspections of its nuclear energy program; and 
• U.S. to eliminate trade restrictions and promote trade with Iran. 

South China Sea & East China Sea 

Pledged management of sovereignty disputes to be solved peacefully and bilaterally, to include: 

• P.R.C. sets up multilateral South China Sea Regional Joint Development Corporation with neighboring claimant states; and 
• P.R.C. pledges to negotiate resolution of all such disputes on the basis of the P.R.C.-ASEAN agreement entitled, “The 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea.” 

ASEAN Economic and Peacekeeping Collaboration 

U.S. and P.R.C pledge: 

• Harmonization and coordination of their respective roles in regional economic and security forums; 
• Pursuit of peaceful coexistence in their bilateral relations with other Asian nations; and 
• Promotion of economic stability and growth of ASEAN nations in their multilateral relations within ASEAN, APEC, etc. 

Military-to-Military Ties 

U.S and P.R.C. pledge to cooperate on international and non-traditional security issues, to include: 

• Lifting of U.S. embargo on military sales to China; 
• Regular scheduling of joint naval exercises in Asian waters, with standing invitations to other regional navies; 
• Permanent expansion of officer-exchange program; 
• Creation of joint peacekeeping force/command in conjunction with other countries within the UN Security Council framework; 
• Expansion of U.S.-P.R.C Maritime and Military Security Agreement to include frequency of U.S. close-in reconnaissance; and 
• Establlishment of joint commission collaborating annually on U.S. and P.R.C. technology sharing and transparency of budget expenditures. 

Existing and Future International Institutions and Issues 

U.S. and P.R.C. pledge to support continued reform of existing institutions (e.g., UN, IMF, World Bank, WTO, G20) to better reflect the evolving global economy and international issues, to include climate change, Doha Agreement, etc. 

Strategic and Economic Dialogue (SED) 

To implement the new collaborations: 

• SED becomes permanently sitting commission for continuous senior-level communications and collaboration on economic and security issues; and 
• SED reviews all existing tariffs, WTO complaints, and other trade and economic disputes and issues. 

P.R.C. Investment into U.S. Economy 

P.R.C. pledges to invest up to 1 trillion USD directly into U.S. companies at direction of U.S. President in exchange for: 

• U.S. removes trade restrictions and high-technology export bans with P.R.C.; 
• P.R.C. commits to purchase sufficient amount of U.S. goods/services to balance bilateral trade on annual basis; 
• P.R.C. companies’ access to U.S. market made equal to that of U.S. companies access to P.R.C. market; 
• Ownership limit for new P.R.C. investments in U.S.-owned or controlled corporations limited to 45 percent of shares, with additional 10 percent reserved for preferred equity/pension funds on a case-by-case basis and final 45 percent remaining with non-P.R.C. ownership; 
• Ownership limit for new U.S. companies’ investments in P.R.C. limited to 45 percent with additional 10 percent reserved for preferred equity/pension funds on a case-by-case basis and final 45 percent remaining with P.R.C. ownership; 
• U.S. and P.R.C. to facilitate global joint ventures between U.S. and P.R.C. companies, with initial example to involve major U.S. firm, possibly General Motors; and 
• U.S. and P.R.C. to collaborate in SED on goal of full employment throughout each economy, targeting in particular areas suffering inordinate unemployment or needing special economic growth arrangements. 

Other Areas of Bilateral and Multilateral Cooperation 

P.R.C. and U.S. to collaborate: 

• Implementing principles in the Preamble, Article 1 of the UN Charter; 
• Rehabilitation of failing and failed states seeking assistance; 
• Combining U.S. and P.R.C. markets, technology and financing to ensure affordable costs for all nations of effective pollution remediation and sustainable energy and financing of globally needed technology; and 
• Joint space exploration with other UN member states. 

No Creation or Operation of “G2” Arrangement 

Nothing in this Executive Agreement constitutes, is intended to, nor permits the creation or operation of a “G2”, and instead this Agreement: 

• Establishes an improved framework of collaboration among the U.S., P.R.C. and other UN member states; 
• Neither seeks nor infers any formal alliance between the U.S. and P.R.C.; and 
• Creates a new U.S. and P.R.C. partnership commitment to the Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in the UN Charter. 

Mutually agreed on the _______day of_________ 2011. 

____________________________________            ______________________________________ 

President of the United States Barack Obama           People’s Republic of China President Hu Jintao 

What Europe did, then what America accomplished

From Mike Nelson by way of Talking Points Memo.

What I got from it:  

Life was bad in the usual way, and then the Industrial Revolution made it much better in the West.  Then rising Europe turned to colonialism and that created a godawful have/have-not world system that was doomed once the greedy Europeans turned on each other in "world wars." Then the US-style of globalization kicked in, eventually creating the better world we know today by creating the opportunities for the "rest" to advance. 

Our polite European host skips all the ugly colonial realities, and instead just notes the tremendous inequality that defined the middle period.  It's a painfully selective way to capture the past two centuries.

Esquire's Politics Blog: Obama's Afghanistan Review, Decoded

So the White House just released its much-anticipated review of our ongoing military efforts in Afghanistan (and Pakistan, mind you). And while President Obama, Bob Gates, and Hillary Clinton took pains to explain in a press conference on Thursday that "this continues to be a very difficult endeavor," it can also be very difficult to parse propaganda from, you know, the actual end of a modern war. But since this is a reasonably well-written document that the president's talking about here — and since it more or less outlines the past, present, and future of our troops' presence in region in a still-untidy five pages — it seems worthwhile to deconstruct the review line-by-line... and (white) lie-by-lie. Here goes.

Read the entire post at Esquire's The Politics Blog.

Under the knife: revision tympanoplasty

Illustration found here.

A tympanoplasty, as defined by Wikipedia:

Tympanoplasty is the surgical operation performed for the reconstruction of the eardrum (tympanic membrane) and/or the small bones of the middle ear (ossicles). The term 'myringoplasty' refers to repair of the tympanic membrane alone^[1].

There are several options for treating a perforated eardrum. If the perforation is from recent trauma, many ear, nose and throat specialists will elect to watch and see if it heals on its own. After that, surgery may be considered. Tympanoplasty can be performed through the ear canal or through an incision behind the ear. The surgeon takes a graft from the tissues under the skin around the ear and uses it to reconstruct the eardrum. One of the most common graft sites is from the tragus. The surgery takes ½ to 1 hour if done through the ear canal and 2⅓ to 3 hours if an incision is needed. It is done under localor general anesthesia. It is done on an outpatient basis and is successful 85-90% of the time.

Both my eardrums fell apart in my youth, after countless ear infections.  I had my right ear drum grafted big-time in high school, and my left one done in college.  Both surgeries were successful.

I have never had any trouble with the left one, but about six months ago I got a perforation on the right.  At first, it was thought to be a cyst, since it was high up on the membrane versus the usual hole at the bottom. CT said otherwise, so just a simple hole requiring a patch and no work on the bones behind.

What I have today is thus defined as a revision of a previous tympanoplasty. I am eager to have it done, because the hole creates a certain amount of dizziness and constant ringing in my right ear - two things I remember from the previous situation. 

No complaint, as the original graft held for over three decades.

Our Africans take snow in stride

It is weird to see how quickly Metsu and Abebu absorb things. Still kind of slow on English because they speak a lot of Sidamo to each other, but that's a fair trade-off for their clear comfort level with us--understanding they still get to act like a 4- and 2-year-old, respectively, and throw fits now and then.

Anyway, first snow for them while I'm in China.  They head right out and play in it, like they've seen it a hundred times.

Several inches last night, so today, after workday put in (easy when jet lag wakes you up at 0400!), I go out and shovel up a ramp going down front lawn and into our cul-de-sac, and I get it smoothed out by putting Metsu in a blow-up inner tube and hurling her down the incline.  She hops on readily like she's fully read into the subject already, and whoosh!  Down she goes several times until the path is hard and slick.  Then she takes turns with Abebu, Vonne Mei and Jerry.  Abebu watches Metsu do it once and then she's eager to step up and get whisked down the lawn.  No fear whatsoever.

I guess I was expecting more wonderment. Instead, the two of them dive right in like the rest.  I mean, these two grew up about five degrees above the equator.  I can't believe they have anything to compare it to, but they just laugh it all off.

More Chinese coverage of grand strategy "solution" term sheet

Found here at the newspaper Ta Kung Pao.  This is a shot, left to right, of John Milligan-Whyte of the Center for America-China Partnership (New York/Beijing), President Chen Yulu of Beijing Foreign Studies University (which trains the bulk of China's diplomats), me, and Dai Min also of the Center.  That was last Saturday late afternoon/evening.  Across the table were a bunch of senior policy-experts/academics, the anchor of CCTV4 (I recognized her from watching her in DC when I catch it) and other press.  Beyond them were four rows of audience from all over the place. They did simultaneous translation (I'm wearing an earpiece you can't see). Maybe total audience of 60-75.

It was a good event:  opening bit from Chen, 5 or so from Dai Min, 20 or so from me, then John for 20, and then an hour of questions. Later a dinner.

The second s/c-ite comes from Phoenix TV out of Hong Kong. Basic summary of event (citing Takungpao story) and then interview of expert.

Filming was done by the Center of all of meetings.  I am expecting to have access to some edited compilation in the near term.  When I do, I will embed here from Center's site.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek pickup of my China Daily article

Found here.

Back home, finally.  Couple of days to get things done and then I have ear drum fixed.