In this podcast, Carnegie-Tsinghua’s Paul Haenle interviews Christopher Johnson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) about Beijing’s broader security environment. Johnson argues that despite the fact that Chinese President Xi Jinping has acknowledged the failures of China’s past regional diplomatic strategy, Xi is still is revisiting old policy models with new content. In particular, he notes that the new air defense identification zone (ADIZ) created on November 23 may imply that the East China Sea and relations with Japan are excluded from Beijing's regional policy re-assessment.

Johnson expresses concern that Xi’s proposal for a new type of great-power relations between the United States and China is an attempt to re-define relations before addressing substantive initiatives. The critical question, Johnson and Haenle agree, is whether the concept can be implemented. Johnson advises leaders in Beijing and Washington look for opportunities to cooperate in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in Myanmar.

Johnson also suggests that China is becoming more active in overseas diplomacy and is placing less emphasis on its status as a developing nation. He says China’s interest in playing a larger role in Middle East diplomacy should not be dismissed. Johnson notes that one of Beijing’s greatest foreign policy challenges is trying to shed the perception of China as a neomercantialist power abroad.

Christopher Johnson

Christopher Johnson is a senior adviser and Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. He spent almost two decades serving in the U.S. government’s intelligence and foreign affairs communities. Johnson worked as a senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he played a key role in providing analytical support to policymakers during the 1996 Taiwan Strait missile crisis, the 1999 accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, the downing of a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft on Hainan Island in 2001, and the SARS epidemic in 2003. Johnson also served as an intelligence liaison to two secretaries of state and their deputies on worldwide security issues. In 2011, he was awarded the U.S. Department of State’s Superior Honor Award for outstanding support to the secretary and her senior staff.

Paul Haenle

Paul Haenle is the director of the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center. Prior to joining Carnegie, he served from June 2007 to June 2009 as the director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolian Affairs on the National Security Council staffs of former president George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.