Asia-Pacific, China, Defense, Power & Security, The Global Cable Competing Against China with Randall Schriver

Our latest episode of The Global Cable features Randall Schriver, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Indo-Pacific. Prior to this, he worked in several senior roles shaping U.S. defense and foreign policy in the Pacific, and served as a Navy intelligence officer.

Assistant Secretary Schriver talks to us about whether the U.S. perceives China as a competitor, or an adversary; why the notion of a “free and open” Pacific is so important to American foreign policy; and how India’s role in the region is growing and changing.

Music & Produced by Tre Hester.

Transcript

Randall Schriver [00:00:08] We usually hasten to add that competitor doesn't mean adversary, it doesn't mean enemy, so we still have pretty robust engagement with China, including in the defense space, the mil-to-mil space. In fact, in 2018, while we were rolling these things out, the notion of strategic competitor, the NDS, it was the first calendar year that we had a Secretary of Defense visit China and a Minister of Defense visit Washington in the same calendar year - never happened before. So we continue to engage on the China side as well. And in fact, that's very important in this era of competition, because we want the competition to be benign. We don't want conflict and we don't see China as an enemy.

John Gans [00:00:50] Welcome to the Global Cable, a podcast from Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, where we discuss the world's most pressing issues with the people who work on them. I'm John Gans, the director of communications and research here at Perry World House. On today's episode, we speak to Randall Schriver, who until recently served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs at the Pentagon. Prior to that, he worked in several senior roles shaping U.S. defense and foreign policy in Asia, and served as a Navy intelligence officer. Today, Schriver talks to us about whether the United States perceives China as a competitor or an adversary; why the notion of a "free and open" Pacific is so important to American foreign policy; and how India is growing and changing the region itself. Randall Schriver, welcome to The Global Cable.

John Gans [00:01:39] So you most recently worked at the Pentagon as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs and that title - that title is a change from recent administrations which referred to the region as the Asia-Pacific. So why the change to Indo-Pacific?

Randall Schriver [00:01:56] Well, it's a little bit of rebranding, in the sense that the portfolio itself didn't change. The geography for which the job is responsible didn't change. Same is true of Indo-Pacific Command, by the way, in Hawaii, we rebranded that as well. So it's a more accurate reflection of the whole portfolio, but it's also a statement that, you know, our security interests really run across that broad swath of territory. The Chinese are more involved in the Indian Ocean and their Belt and Road Initiative certainly goes throughout South Asia. It's a reflection that the Strait of Malacca doesn't divide the Pacific from the Indian Ocean, it connects the two. And again, our security interests go across the whole broad swath. So it's largely rebranding, but we thought it was sending the right kind of signal for how we wanted to be present and committed. It's also an acknowledgement of India's growing involvement in the East Asia portion of the Indo-Pacific. You know, for many years they had this "look east" policy and people wondered, is it just "looking east" or is it "doing east"? And now they've actually rebranded themselves and call it an "act east" policy. We do see them showing up more. So that's basically what's behind it.

John Gans [00:03:05] So all these rebrandings, what do they actually mean in the region? Do people notice? Did people note that it had changed? And does the United States get credit or does it get blowback for the change?

Randall Schriver [00:03:16] Yeah, I would say overwhelmingly positive with a couple of exceptions. Probably best received in Japan and India. In fact, Japan takes credit for the term. In Prime Minister Abe's first term as prime minister, they promoted the "free and open Indo-Pacific" concept. India, obviously that sounds more inclusive for them. China's been suspicious. Most of what we do, they suspect, is some form of containment or pressure. I think there was initially some concern in ASEAN that they somehow disappeared - they went from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific, and they were sort of left out. But after a lot of engagement, they understand the ASEAN centrality is still important to the strategy. And they themselves, ASEAN has produced the Indo-Pacific Outlook. So I think we're in alignment there as well.

John Gans [00:04:08] And ASEAN is the Association for South Eastern Asian...States?

Randall Schriver [00:04:14] Nations, yes.

John Gans [00:04:17] Yes. Just clarifying for our readers and testing myself here today! So one of the biggest challenges in the region, whatever you call it, is China's rise. The Defense Department has helped promote the idea of competition with China, both in, I think, the U.S. government, but also in the region, as part of our turn to what has been referred to and called affectionately, or just nomenclature wise, as great power competition, it's the return of great power competition. Now, that term isn't without controversy. Is it useful? And what are its uses and what are its downsides, both in U.S. government, at the Defense Department, but also in the wider region and with China?

Randall Schriver [00:04:58] I think it's useful. I'm probably biased, but I think it's helped us start to change the mindset of the defense enterprise. You know, we were largely involved in the Middle East with counterterrorism missions, non-state actors, counterinsurgency. So, getting the enterprise aligned in a different way - sometimes the words matter, the terminology matters. You'll find in our National Defense Strategy - which nests under the National Security Strategy - this notion that return of great power competition and China as a strategic competitor is really the new organizing principle. So for a department like D.O.D, $750 billion budget, two and a half million people, it's important to to have that strategic guidance to create the alignment and get the whole enterprise rowing in the same direction. And I think that's what we're trying to do.

We usually hasten to add - competitor doesn't mean adversary, it doesn't mean enemy. So we still have pretty robust engagement with China, including in the defense space, the mil-to-mil space. In fact, in 2018, while we were rolling these things out, the notion of strategic competitor, the NDS, it was the first calendar year that we had a Secretary of Defense visit China, and a Minister of Defense visit Washington, in the same calendar year - never happened before. So we continue to engage on the China side as well. And in fact, that's very important in this era of competition, because we want the competition to be benign. We don't want conflict and we don't see China as an enemy.

John Gans [00:06:32] In your conversations with other, I guess, peers and colleagues around the region, was it a term that was accepted as clearly defining what everybody was seeing? Or was it seen as a sort of an evolution that people had to get used to?

Randall Schriver [00:06:49] No, I think it was widely accepted as, "OK, now you're speaking in ways that are consistent with objective reality, we see this growing competition." And if you actually read what the Chinese have been writing and listen to what they've been saying for a long time, they've already been there. I have a friend who says the first line of encryption for the Chinese is Chinese. But if you actually read the Chinese language materials, open source, they've talked about us as enemy number one, as a competitor for a long time. So I think it's it's mostly been received as consistent with objective reality. And just another story about Secretary Mattis's visit to China, one of those two visits I mentioned. He sat down with his counterpart for the first time and he said, "I knew you were going to read every word of our NDS. I know you were going to be watching our speeches. And I wanted to start our conversation from a place of reality, of objective truth. Now we can talk about how we keep this environment safe, how we try to build out the more cooperative aspects of the relationship so it's not largely defined by competition, but by cooperation." And that seem to be well received by the Chinese side.

John Gans [00:08:00] You specialized in the Pacific over the course of your career, whether in the Navy, in government, and in the private sector. Besides the US-China competition, what are some of the other big factors at play in the Asia-Pacific, the Indo-Pacific?

Randall Schriver [00:08:15] Well, I think if you look back to the Obama administration, which you were part of, the notion of a rebalance or pivot was not just from Middle East, from Europe, to the Asia-Pacific. It was a rebalancing within the region. We were heavily present in Northeast Asia for legacy reasons. Our forward deployed forces are really in two places, South Korea and Japan. But the notion of more access presence activities in Southeast Asia was part of the Obama plan, and something that we've carried forward through the Trump administration. I think it's very important. Southeast Asia is very dynamic. Six hundred million people, a younger part of the region where northeast Asia is aging rapidly, and the demographics aren't good for the future. So Southeast Asia is really a place of critical importance and a bit of a swing vote, if you will, a lot of Chinese influence there. A lot of interest in not having to choose between the United States and China. So smart engagement there, I think is really important. And I just point out one relationship in particular, Vietnam. We poll, as a country, 94 percent favorable in Vietnam - and think about how recent our conflict was. That's pretty remarkable. I'm not sure we're 94 percent favorable in a U.S. state right now. But I made seven visits to Vietnam as an assistant secretary in two years. That's a lot. First aircraft carrier visit since our conflict last year, we're gonna have another one this year. So a lot happening in that relationship that's positive. And I see a lot of that through Southeast Asia as well.

John Gans [00:09:49] So just to build on that a little bit. What does a state like Vietnam want? How do they see the US-China competition and what do they want out of a relationship with China, and what do they want out of the region themselves?

Randall Schriver [00:10:00] Well, I mentioned we poll at 94 percent favorable, the Chinese poll in single digits. So for historical reasons, but also recent behavior and activities on the part of the Chinese, they're feeling pretty squeezed. The Chinese have made it difficult for them to explore and extract energy resources in their EEZ. On the other side, the damming of the Mekong has also put a different kind of squeeze on them. So they worry about energy security. They have rolling blackouts in the Saigon area at present.

So they want some reassurance that we'll perform that role of security guarantor, keep the South China Sea international, and don't allow the Chinese to erode that quality over time, and enforce their expansive illegal sovereignty claim of the "nine-dash line". They want some reassurance that we, along with others, will promote that "free and open" concept in a way that allows them to do what they think is legally their right to do, which is, you know, explore extracts, enjoy the benefits of having that EEZ.

John Gans [00:11:05] So an EEZ is?

Randall Schriver [00:11:07] I'm sorry, an exclusive economic zone, I believe that's 200 nautical miles out.

John Gans [00:11:12] So this is as someone who's spent a lot of time at the Pentagon, it's always important to get these acronyms defined and clarified.

Randall Schriver [00:11:18] I'm only a month out!

John Gans [00:11:19] So it'll take you a couple more weeks! You just mentioned a little bit about America's commitment to freedom of the seas, of the skies, freedom of navigation, and other things. So why has the United States been so committed to that? And typically the Defense Department, you would think, focuses on security and things along those lines and defending the country, I would say. How does the U.S. military's role in protecting those freedoms, how does that play into your day job as assistant secretary, and how do you see the future of that in practice in the region?

Randall Schriver [00:11:56] Well, it's certainly a global policy and approach to oceans, seas, international water spaces throughout the world. I think where we see a lot of pushback and pressure is in the South China Sea, because of this expansive sovereignty claim that the Chinese have. Anytime they've been challenged legally, they've lost; anybody with any background in international maritime law looks at that nine-dash line and says it's got no basis in legal standing, but in fact, they're actually doing things to try to operationalize that sovereignty claim. And I would certainly point to the militarization of the seven or so outposts that they've built out. Despite Xi Jinping's pledge to President Obama that he wouldn't do so, they did this land reclamation project, which, by the way, destroyed a lot of coral reef, tremendous environmental damage and affecting fisheries and the like.

They made infrastructure development on these outposts, and have now deployed military system. So there's a real possibility that they're going to start acting in ways that enforce that whole sovereignty claim, the whole nine-dash line. And that's a huge percentage of the world's commerce, energy, all these things. So we see it as in our interest, because we have global interests, and those principles of international law, freedom of the seas are so key. But we're really joined by virtually every other country in the world, particularly maritime countries, who see benefit from the same principles being upheld. We talk about them as being near-universal. I can't say universal if the Chinese are signing these agreements, but not honoring them and are in fact trying to diminish their significance or erode them. But they're near-universal. We hear from most countries in the region that they very much support our freedom of navigationoperations, even when we challenge their claims. So we don't hear pushback from Vietnam or Indonesia or Taiwan if we're challenging one of their claims, because they know that means we're gonna do the same with the PRC and that's what they want.

John Gans [00:14:08] And if you could just explain for our listeners, what does it mean to challenge a claim? How does that actually work? What does that mean in practice, in terms of what the military does?

Randall Schriver [00:14:17] So the way the United States defines it flows from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which defines twelve nautical miles of water from your territory - and there's a deeper, more expansive definition of that, dealing with Continental Shelf, et cetera - but that's your sovereign water, if, in fact, your claim is a legitimate one and a recognized one. Where there's disputes, our position is that those should be resolved peacefully between the claimants.

And if there's a party that's acting inconsistently with that, we may seek to challenge their claim by going inside that twelve nautical mile area. So the claimant would say, "you're in our territorial waters." We would say, "no, it's either in dispute or this is not a legitimate claim," because of the the elevation of the feature or whatever it may be. So it's basically going inside twelve nautical miles.

John Gans [00:15:19] So let's go to a questionnaire from a person who knew a thing or two about freedom, Ben Franklin, who was one of Penn's first trustees. Three hundred years ago, he developed a questionnaire he used for conversations among fellow Philadelphians interested in current and global affairs. We've updated it for use today and to anchor our Global Cable podcast. These are short questions that can have short answers - or long ones, depending on what mood you're in. So the first one is, who would you most like to meet today, or in history, and why?

Randall Schriver [00:15:53] I'll go with history, I'll say, I'd love to talk to Ted Williams, who was a Hall of Fame baseball player, but he also served his country twice in conflict. He served in World War Two as a pilot, and then again in Korea as a Marine pilot. So somebody who I admired as an athlete, but had this tremendous commitment of service to the country as well. I'd be pretty fascinated to alk to him.

John Gans [00:16:17] And he's one of the world's - I mean, he was considered one of the best fighter pilots around, right?

Randall Schriver [00:16:21] He was considered very good. In fact, there's a great story - and if I had this conversation, I would ask him about it. He was actually John Glenn's wingman for a couple of missions in the Korean War. And John Glenn used to tell stories about having Ted Williams on his wing, which was pretty interesting.

John Gans [00:16:41] Not a bad guy to have over there, I would assume, or playing on your baseball team, I assume. So have you read recently anything or seen any movies recently or listened to anything, podcast, music or anything related to world affairs or the Asia-Pacific that our listeners might be interested in?

Randall Schriver [00:17:00] Just saw 1917, which I'd recommend.

John Gans [00:17:02] The movie about not the Asia-Pacific!

Randall Schriver [00:17:07] Yeah, the other theater! I just finished up a book called On Desperate Ground, which is Hampton Sides' book about the disastrous campaign in the Chosin River Valley during the Korean War. That was a very compelling story about their experiences there.

John Gans [00:17:28] What made it so compelling?

Randall Schriver [00:17:31] Absolutely horrible senior decision-making from MacArthur and some of his close advisers, his intelligence officer. They basically sent young men into a very desperate situation, horrible weather, horrible tactical conditions. And, of course, they took extreme heavy losses. But their retreats, and how they managed to preserve a good portion of the Marine division, is just an absolutely fascinating story, and a great story of American innovation and entrepreneurship, how they dealt with bridges that had been destroyed. And, you know, trying to extract themselves in quick enough order that they're not all decimated, is just fascinating. But it's also a reminder of you need to be clear-eyed and very sober when you make these kinds of decisions that put our Americans in harm's way.

John Gans [00:18:28] Is there any individual in the United States or elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific who's done something interesting or something that deserves praise or attention? Anybody out there?

Randall Schriver [00:18:38] Yeah, you know, I think I'll I'll say our ambassador in South Korea right now, just in case he's listening now. He's a friend and mentor of mine. But Ambassador Harry Harris, who served as our commander of Pacific Forces before the Indo-Pacific change. He's in a very tough position right now, he's got a tough job. And I think he's doing it quite well, representing America's interests in South Korea. It's a challenging time with our discussions over burden-sharing, with what's happening with the movement or lack thereof, I should say, on diplomacy with North Korea. And so I think Admiral Harris - now Ambassador Harris - is doing a tremendous job representing us.

John Gans [00:19:22] The last question is, can you think of anything in particular right now which Penn or Penn students can do to be of service to the country or to the world, to the Asia-Pacific?

Randall Schriver [00:19:31] Yeah, I mean, this may not be a new or original idea, but I think people should still give a hard look at joining the military, military service. I came out of Williams College a long time ago, 1989. Five hundred students in the graduating class, I was one of three who went into the military. It's not only service to the country, but it's the most respected brand in the country. The most respected institution by far - more so than the clergy, than academia, than business. But it's also a place to learn some things that would be very difficult to learn elsewhere. Leadership skills, for example. The military trains you to lead, judges you on how you lead, promotes you or doesn't promote you based on how well you take care of people. When I joined the military, I wanted to serve the country, I wanted to see the world. I did all that. But I also was trained to lead. And every position I've had professionally since then, I've been in a leadership management position and learned a lot as a junior officer in the military. So I think people should give a look at that.

John Gans [00:20:38] Randy Schriver, thank you so much for joining us. And thanks for being here on The Global Cable.

Randall Schriver [00:20:41] Thanks for having me!