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Q1: China's selective legitimation of its foreign policy.

Chun: 09:28In your great book, When Right Makes Might you talk about how countries use certain principles to justify their actions. China often does this by talking about sovereignty and non-interference but sometimes it applies these ideas selectively. Given your expertise how would you neutrally describe China's way of justifying its actions? In other words, do you think this pattern of using certain principles is a consistent strategy or does it create a mixed message that might affect how other countries view China's intentions?

Goddard: You know, I definitely think China is sending mixed messages. But the thing is that most countries send mixed messages because oftentimes, I would even say more often than not, when they're speaking to principles, they're doing it strategically and they're doing it to mobilize support for their own position or demobilize support for another side right? So it's not surprising that not only do you see China selectively appealing to principles of sovereignty, that you also see other countries doing so as well.Now what I actually want to talk specifically about China and UNCLOS (the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) because I think this is really interesting because it goes to this strategic type of use of rhetoric, right? So on the one hand, obviously China rejected the UNCOS ruling concerning the Philippines in 2016. But it's interesting because it very explicitly maintains to this day that it accepts thee principle even though it rejects the ruling, right? So if you look at the rhetoric that China puts out there about this to legitimate why it's accepted it, it says that UNCLOS was nothing but a ruling of driven by power politics that you can see this because of the rule of the United States, which it then points out is not a party and basically says they are over here playing power politics they being the United States and Philippines.We accept and respect international law but we reject its application in this case.I'm not making an argument that anybody's being sincere. But what's the point of this?And I would say that the point is on the one hand, obviously attempting to get its aims in the South China Sea but on the other hand, to do so at the same time saying it's working within institutions.Does that mean everybody's convinced?Absolutely not. But you don't necessarily need to be convinced.You just need to not have the reason to react strongly. So I think it's just really interesting that yes, China's playing power of politics.Everybody plays power politics with principles and China is still trying to show itself to be kind of a responsible actor within institutions.

Q2: Characteristics of Trump’s Foreign Policy

Chun: Great. The second question a different one.We have different ways of looking at how President Trump's foreign policy works.Thanks to your ideas, one idea is that Trump is kind of dividing the world into areas where big powers each have their own influence.The other idea is that Trump's foreign policy is more personal-based on his own interests as you said, (neo) Royalist networks, not a big strategic plan. So you described President Trump's foreign policy first as a kind of spheres of influence approach.And later very interestingly you called neo-royalism which is more about personal rule and royalty.So given your works, do you now think that President Trump's foreign policy is more about his personal interests or still about dividing up influence among the big powers?

Goddard: So I think and I really love this question and I just, I'm actually quite honored that people would read this work and get something from it.You know, when I wrote the piece in Foreign Affairs on great Power collusion, what I was trying to address there was the idea that after so many years of it being so obvious, a decade of rhetoric of great power competition why is it that suddenly we were seeing Trump acting in ways that seem to undercut United States power political mobilization, right?Being willing to basically abandon Ukraine, being willing to make deals at the expense of US power.So my point here was that Trump sees the world, it as being occupied by a series of dealmakers and what he's trying to do is thus he can have this system where he colludes with other like-minded, oftentimes strong men in order to advance interests.Now one of the things I said at the end of that piece was that there were some, while there were some overlaps with the Concert of Europe, the idea that you have great powers, they work together and they're going to solve the deals.I notice that they're going to make the deals.I noticed that there were some departures from that.And one of the biggest ones is that while the Concert of Europe certainly was not perfect to be clear, most of the leaders, Metternich , Castlereagh, Tsar Alexander, they believed they were acting in collective interests and they believed that they were advancing the interests of their state and of Europe as a whole.And one of the things I said is I don't see that type of long term collective interest operating within this mode.So then when I sat down to work with my co-author, Abe Newman, on the second piece in some ways, it fleshes out well if it's not for this collective interest, what is this?So that's when we begin to develop the idea that what this is about is not the collective interest of a state or a nation but it's really about the collective interest of what we call a neo-royalist clique.These cliques are networks both of a sovereign leader but also networks of capital and institutions that support it.And ultimately they're willing to work not to mobilize in the interest of a collective state certainly not a collective regional entity but ultimately a much more extractive politics right?And I think unfortunately this is what we're seeing play out right that I know this gets into the next question the national security strategy a real emphasis on extraction.You're willing to make the deals if it actually provides wealth and prosperity, wealth and prosperity not to the state but [16:08] to individuals. And you know, we can see this and states responding to it as well.You know, obviously I'm talking to you from Seoul in South Korea and one of the examples we've been using recently is the gifting of the crown.Unfortunately our allies and partners are learning quite quickly that one of the ways to kind of interact with this clique is through symbols of flattery and symbols of royalism.

Q3: Is the world moving into a multipolar system?

Chun: Okay now to two follow up questions.Yeah One is that Secretary of State Department Marco Rubio once remarked that we are moving into the world of bipolarity from bipolarity to multipolarity.So when we talk about multipolar system, do you think it's sustainable without some underlying norms as you observed in the Concert of Europe so even though there are multipoles, it is not just adversarial balance of power system.There should be some more associational type of norms underlying multipolarity.But you know, people just say that we are going into multipolar or do you think it's sustainable?

Goddard: I think that any system unipolar, bipolar, multipolar needs to have some sort of norms to organize its activities.And this does not mean strong liberal norms necessarily that tell states what to act.I'm talking kind of very baseline that you understand what are the appropriate actions to take you understand how to interpret everybody's actions and that is just very baseline at a means.So you don't end up escalating when you don't mean to. And you can look at this even in the most hostile situations.While the Soviet Union and the United States didn't, it would be hard to say they had shared norms but they absolutely had shared understandings and practices of how to behave.They had the opportunity to develop this over a decade or two.You see this for example, in the development of practices, particularly after the Cuban missile crisis, which was a little too close for everyone's comfort on mass destruction. So yeah, we're going to need to develop some practices that allow these countries to survive.

Q4: Can the U.S. and China find a common ground?

Chun: So in your opinion, based on the first question, do you think there might be a possibility that U.S. and China can find some common ground?

Goddard: I hope so, you know. And I think this is something that I think is what concerns me is I actually think there was a lot of push for this even as great power competition was increasing in, in 2016, 2017, there were a lot of discussions about the possibility of inadvertent escalation.I'm trying to get to some basic practices of how you might actually modulate interactions for example, in the South China Sea to keep that from happening and I feel like that dropped off significantly particularly after COVID.I hope it does pick up again.I think it can pick up again but everybody needs to realize that it's not that you don't have to get along but you do need to make sure that there's room for peaceful change and interaction.

Q5: Neo-Royalism: individual or structural causes

Chun: For the Neo-royalism. As I read your article, I wonder once President Trump is gone from 2028, is the origin of Neo Royalism a personal trait of President Trump or is more structural because we talk about Democratic backsliding in many countries

Goddard: No, and this is something that Abe and I are talking a fair amount about.So our concern is that we think a lot of this resides in the person of, of Trump but there are others, you know, Erdoğan, Putin, Orbán, Bolsonaro when he was around.But we think that even beyond those kind of mass of individuals, it's the idea of whether or not structures are in place that continue to facilitate powerful individuals in networks of really wealthy elites to be able to hold on to power.So I think for example, when you have and just to speak to the United States, there's a fair amount of wealth now for example, investment in AI that's now being driven by networks that are coming from the Gulf States.You can't simply get rid of that infrastructure once it's in place.So my concern certainly is that as the infrastructure is becoming embedded, does it continue to facilitate those types of actions?That then those elites get embedded with other institutions and groups that help legitimate them that they have a whole narrative of why these people are exceptional, why they deserve to continue to rule.So the tighter that becomes, the more ossified that becomes in society, the more likely you'll see this as an order and not just as a passing phase.

Q6: U.S. drawing attention away from China and Asia-Pacific?

Chun: Last question is about you just touched upon the new national security strategy that the Trump administration just released and there is a big discussion in South Korea as well how to look at it because it explains the very general long term plan that U.S. government should pursue in the future.In this plan, U.S. is focusing a lot on rebuilding its own economy and not talking much about the rivals like China. I counted it you know, China appears 21 times in the documents but more about economy, not really about military deterrenceSo in South Korea, there is a big discussion about the shift in US China competition.Is there any shift in U.S. China competition?And what should South Korea do if the U.S. is less focused on leading in Asia?And also there is no mention about North Korea at all. So we think that the North Korea issue is not so prioritized in the thinking of the Trump administration.So do you see some implication about it?

Goddard: So this is not a document certainly about great power competition.It's barely a document. I mean it says lots of things about national interests and security but it's not really a very clear document on security.As you mentioned it doesn't talk about North Korea it doesn't talk about Iran except to talk about operations last summer right?It very much is focused on creating a world where there is wealth extraction and prosperity and certainly not conflict. I think the things that are most important to South Korea certainly are, you know, the discussions that it, you know and this is very much part of the Trump administration that it really needs to be the partners, the security partners that basically pick up the tab on this that they in many ways are responsible for security issues that they are responsible.Another thing that's barely mentioned is Taiwan, that they are responsible for dealing with any sort of situation involving Taiwan and that they expect to kind of be able to devolve responsibility for that.So what does this mean? I mean, I think that one of the big questions that all the United States strategic partners need to be asking is there's been a lot of investment on everybody's end. Since the end of the Cold War, in what I would call binding strategies, we have necessarily bound our security to one another.Now I think during the first Trump administration there was a sense of this will pass the United States will be back and it will be rational and there will be the provision of public goods right?At this point, what are the types of decisions that need to be made?Right? And you know, I would, to put my cards on the table I'd prefer not to be, I'm not making the case I'd prefer this not to be a go-it-alone-system.I think that the United States and all of its partners have gained a lot from this type of cooperation.But when one is bound so tightly to the United States where security begins to depend on it, is it now a moment where there needs to be more regional autonomy both in both for South Korea and Japan also obviously for Europe as well.

Chun: But we are wondering about the Trump administration's China policy in the long run.So it is not very explicit in the document.

Goddard: We don't know and you know, it was interesting to me right sorry that's not that's the worst answer but I figure I'll just be honest we don't know.It's interesting because there are still China hawks obviously in the administration right and what was surprising to me about this national security strategy is the, when everybody was speculating what was it going to say there was a sense that no, there's definitely going to be a voice for China hawks.I mean they're integral they're in the Pentagon Secretary Marco Rubio used to be one.You're going to see it but you're again managing to talk about Taiwan without China in the room.And I think that what we're seeing here is that real tension in Donald Trump and in his administration. You know, again, I want to be careful here because these are not things I'm advocating for but I think for Donald Trump, I'm not sure how much he actually cares about Taiwan except for the fact that Taiwan is a huge producer of semiconductor chips right?I don't think he is somebody who cares much about, you know, a Biden administration would care about this as an example of liberal order.Others might care about this in terms of just, of, of demonstrating if not sovereignty but certainly norms of non-aggression.The mention that we see of Taiwan revolves around a lot about shipping lanes, for example.So even here this is cast as an economic issue.So I think what this suggests is and this is because there's, this is Trump himself is not indicative of where a lot of the Washington system is but Trump himself does not view Taiwan as being integral to the United States' security. ■

■ Stacie Goddard_Professor at Wellesley College.

■ Edited by Sangjun LEE, EAI Research Associate
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