Screenshot of former Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger’s March 10 appearance at an online discussion hosted by the Mansfield Center at the University of Montana
Former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger told a March 10 seminar on U.S.-China relations that the Chinese Communist government is not acting as a “confident government” but out of “fear” of its own people. “A potential “flashpoint” for a future U.S.-China confrontation would be the CCP’s own behavior and institutional weaknesses. Bomen also pointed out that the Biden administration’s upcoming “quadripartite talks” with Asian allies are a powerful countermeasure to the Chinese Communist Party.
At a seminar on U.S.-China rivalry at the University of Montana’s Mansfield Center, Bomen accused the CCP of using the open platforms of democracies such as the United States to conduct “information warfare,” including spreading disinformation, using political propaganda to fuel divisions and suspicion of democracy in Western societies, and gathering intelligence and personal information about citizens to conduct “influence operations. “He also criticized the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts in recent years to promote “influence operations. He also criticized the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Communist virus Epidemic in recent years, saying it could be a potential “flashpoint” for a U.S.-China confrontation.
These are not the actions of an assertive government,” Bomen said. These are the actions of an extremely paranoid government. This government fears its own people far more than it fears the United States. It fears its own people first and foremost. If you look at the money that the Chinese Communist Party spends on internal surveillance and internal security. It far exceeds the amount of money they spend on the military. And the Chinese Communist Party’s military is sometimes called in to participate in the repression of civilians in the country. We saw this in the 1989 student massacre in Tiananmen Square. So I think the inherent weakness of the Chinese Communist system is itself a potential flashpoint.”
According to Bomen, the Biden Administration has somewhat continued the Trump administration’s strategy toward the CCP, citing in particular the Biden administration’s breakthrough in promoting the U.S.-Japan-India-Australia “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue” (Quad).
The Trump Administration, for which Bomen works, has actively promoted the concept of the Quadripartite Security Dialogue, leading to the first Quadripartite Cabinet-level talks and a series of sub-Cabinet-level talks. Now, the Biden administration has taken the Quadripartite Security Dialogue to a new level. President Biden will meet online with the leaders of Japan, India and Australia on Friday (March 12). This is the first Time that the four countries have met at the leadership level.
Bomen noted that the Quadripartite Security Dialogue is a counterweight to the Chinese Communist Party’s Asia-Pacific strategy.
The Chinese Communist Party’s strategy is to create a hierarchical, and in some ways almost imperial, sphere of influence in Asia centered on the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. So the Quadripartite Security Dialogue can help counteract and prevent an outcome where the sovereignty and independence of the Communist Party’s neighbors is weakened and ultimately prosperity and security is compromised.”
On the issue of strategy toward the CCP, Bomen does not agree with the recommendations made in a strategy paper toward the CCP titled “The Longer Telegraph” in January of this year. The document, written by an anonymous “former senior U.S. government official,” recommended that the primary goal of the strategy toward the Communist Party of China be to enable the Communist Party to continue to operate within a liberal international order led by the United States rather than to establish a hostile order. The document also recommends that the U.S. target the CCP by replacing CCP leader Xi Jinping rather than overthrowing the Communist Party and the CCP regime.
According to Bomen, the goals set out in the strategy paper against the CCP are “contrary to the laws of nature” and “like trying to train a great white shark to become a broad-snouted dolphin.
Convincing the Chinese Communist Party to support a liberal international order led by the United States without creating an authoritarian alternative is an unrealistic goal,” he said. That’s what we’ve tried to achieve in the past, and we’ve adopted 30 years of failed policy toward the CCP to do so. It is like telling the Communist Party to end Leninist one-party dictatorship. Beijing interprets this proposal as some form of regime change.”
Booming also argues that it is also unrealistic to cut off Communist Party leader Xi Jinping from the entire Communist Party. He notes that Xi represents the CCP’s long-standing grand strategy and vision, and that he has simply utilized some of the harsher measures to accelerate their implementation. According to Booming, the critique should still be directed at the CCP as a whole.
My view is that there should be a price to pay for being a member of the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. If you’re part of that party, that means you’re partly responsible for the shame of the Chinese nation, like the genocide that’s happening. I don’t think these acts represent the Chinese people, and they don’t represent the Chinese nation, but they do represent the Chinese Communist Party. So I don’t think we should be timid about criticizing the CCP or its ideology and the terrible atrocities it has committed.”
Bomen noted that countering the aggressive behavior of the CCP has a high bipartisan consensus in Washington. After reading the Biden administration’s interim strategic guidance to the CCP, he believes it continues the hardline style and is consistent with the bipartisan consensus. He noted that this is a “new geostrategic reality” that all sides must face.
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