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I know your research interest in early childhood development grew after interning with REAP, but what first sparked your interest in early childhood development and language acquisition?

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Language develops naturally over time, but what we’re hoping to illuminate is how the language environment of a couple of families might be richer than another, showing a better trajectory of language acquisition. 

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An estimated 210,000 girls may have “gone missing” due to China’s “Later, Longer, Fewer” campaign, a birth planning policy predating the One Child Policy, according to a new study led by Stanford Health Policy researchers published by the Center for Global Development.

The study looked at hundreds of thousands of births occurring before and during the “Later, Longer, Fewer” policy to measure its effect on marriage, fertility, and sex selection behavior. The policy, which began in the 1970s and preceded China's One-Child Policy, promoted later marriage, longer gaps between successive children, and having fewer children to cut the country's population. The study emphasizes that because this policy existed before ultrasound technology was widely available — and therefore before selective abortion was an option — these missing girls must have been due to postnatal neglect of infant girls, or in the extreme, infanticide.

The authors of the new study are Grant Miller, director of the Stanford Center on Global Poverty and Development, a core faculty member at Stanford Health Policy and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Kimberly Babiarz, a research scholar at Stanford Health Policy; Paul Ma and Shige Song.

The researchers found that China’s “Longer, Later, Fewer” population control policy reduced total fertility rates by 0.9 births per woman and was directly responsible for an estimated 210,000 missing girls countrywide. The phenomenon of “missing girls” widely recognized in later years under the One Child Policy is largely thought due to sex-selective abortion after ultrasound technology spread across China.

“Prior research has shown that sex ratios rose dramatically under China's One-Child Policy, leading to stark imbalances in the numbers of men and women. But we’re finding that girls went missing earlier than previously thought, which can in part be directly attributed to birth planning policy that predates the One-Child Policy,” said Grant Miller, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development.

The top findings of the study include:

• The birth planning policy reduced fertility by 0.9 births per woman, explaining 28 percent of the overall decline during this period.

• The Later, Longer, Fewer policy is responsible for a roughly twofold increase in the use of “fertility stopping rules,” the practice of continuing to have children until the desired number of sons is achieved.

• The Later, Longer, Fewer policy is also responsible for an increase in postnatal neglect, from none to 0.3 percent of all female births in China during this period.

• Sex selection behavior was concentrated among couples with the highest demand for sons (couples that have more children but no sons), with sex ratios reaching 117 males per 100 female births among these couples.

“Population control strategies can have unforeseen consequences and human costs,” Miller said. “At the same time, as China debates the future of birth planning policies, it’s also important to note that family planning policy does not appear to be the largest driver of fertility.”

Three years into the Trump administration, “the United States and the People’s Republic of China find their bilateral relationship at a dangerous crossroads,” write Orville Schell of the Asia Society and Susan Shirk of the University of California San Diego (UCSD), co-chairs of the Task Force on U.S.-China Policy, at the opening of a recently published report, Course Correction: Toward an Effective and Sustainable China Policy. The report features the second set of findings issued by the Task Force, a group comprising China specialists from around the United States, which is convened by Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and UCSD’s 21st Century China Center and which includes Karl Eikenberry, director of APARC’s U.S.-Asia Security Initiative.

In its first report, issued in 2017, the Task Force identified the fundamental interests of the United States in its relationship with China. Since then, more stresses and strains have beset the bilateral relations between the two countries. But while “Beijing’s recent policies under Xi Jinping’s leadership are primarily driving this negative dynamic” and the “Trump administration is justified in pushing back harder against China’s actions, note Schell and Shirk, “pushback alone isn’t a strategy. It must be accompanied by the articulation of specific goals and how they can be achieved.” The new report propose a strategy to that end, which the Task Force calls “smart competition.”

APARC caught up with Ambassador Eikenberry to learn more about the report and its recommendations.

Note: the following has been edited for clarity.

How does the February 2019 report by the Task Force on U.S.-China Policy differ from its 2017 report? 

Since our Task Force’s first report was published in February 2017, the Trump Administration’s China policy has developed significantly, its defining characteristics being demonstrated in trade and economic policy and in security strategy. Our new Task Force study takes stock of the current state of U.S.-China relations and focuses on policy analysis and policy prescription. It seems clear that President Trump’s shift from a strategy of engagement to one of more explicit competition was overdue. This report suggests the best organizing principles for the management of what will likely be an increasingly competitive U.S.-China relationship in the coming years.

How does this report frame Sino-American relations?

The report underscores the fact that this is not a zero-sum game. Emphasis is placed on finding ways and means to cooperate with China when mutually advantageous—and there are many issue areas where this is or might be possible, such as climate change and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But the report also makes clear that in the domains of economic exchange, security, and political values—such as individual freedom and the primacy of the rule of law—America needs to work with like-minded allies and partners to ensure the global system that has benefitted all for over seven decades is not overturned by those seeking unilateral advantage.

Several of the report’s Task Force members were also involved in the recent China report from the Hoover Institution, Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance. Where do you think these two publications intersect and part ways?

There was some overlap among the contributors to the two reports—full disclosure, I had the opportunity to participate in both projects. I think the studies are actually complementary—the portion of Course Correction devoted to PRC overseas influence activities drew upon the findings published in Chinese Influence and American Interests.

What development is of greatest concern to you as you think about the future of Sino-American relations?

I’m most concerned about the blurring of the management of economic exchange (trade and investment issues) and security competition (which includes maintaining a technological advantage over one’s competitors). The proliferation of technologies with military applications is complicating efforts of those trying to maintain robust economic relations between China and the United States. If our economies decouple, we will have a new Cold War

Structural vs. Cosmetic Changes

Allen was far less confident, however, about the prospects of addressing structural issues with China, that is, areas where the Chinese economy is an outlier to the global economy, violates WTO rules, and greatly differs from OECD norms. This is because these core dimensions touch on the role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the government and in the economy.

He counted among these structural issues the enormous role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs); the scale of subsidies going to the technology sector and their lack of transparency; prohibitions on foreign investment in sensitive industries like telecommunications and media; the unequal treatment of foreign companies; discriminatory implementation of regulations and the lack of an appeals process; uneven implementation of IP rights; the outsized role of the CCP in the economy; the dominant role of industrial policy; Xi Jinping government’s aggressive techno-nationalism, which is manifested in its calls for indigenous innovation and for self-reliance; and its excessive control over the information space.

“China is willing to make cosmetic changes to these problems,” said Allen, “even muscular changes, but no changes to the skeleton, the core, the system under which the CCP has complete control.”

A trade deal might remove the immediate threat of tariffs as a source of friction between the United States and China, noted Allen, but the essence of the conflict is not about trade: rather, it has to do with technology. “The trade war will morph into a technology war,” he predicted, and 2019 will mark a change in that direction, making life much more complicated for both American—especially Silicon Valley—and Chinese companies.

A Security Dilemma

Both the United States and China are now locked in a “security dilemma,” noted Allen. “One side takes defensive measures which the other side perceives as aggressive measures,” and “we are ratcheting up on national security.” The U.S. Department of Commerce, for instance, is looking to change the ways of dealing with Chinese companies and to expand export controls, extending their scope to a whole new category of “emerging technologies,” regarding whose definition there is intensive debate in Washington. Depending on its scope, a broad definition could jeopardize hundreds of thousands of projects and disrupt investment and global supply chains.

On the Chinese side, Allen noted, there is a parallel process going on. In 2019, we should expect China to similarly impose tightened export controls, he cautioned, cybersecurity law, personal identification information law, data localization requirements, and a strengthened national security law that, among other requirements, will ratchet up audit requirements of American companies seeking market access and the type of companies allowed to have only Chinese-origin equipment.

Both countries have given in to exaggerated security concerns that threaten the global commons, argued Allen. “American and Chinese companies have worked together in the innovation space for years in a beautiful manner. It has been a remarkably productive exercise over the last four decades that brought tremendous benefit for everyone. You can't imagine a company like Apple without China, and you can't imagine China without a company like Apple. Now all this is being put into question.”

The heightened security measures on both sides are fraught with threats to research institutions, businesses, and the innovation ecosystem at large. Academic exchanges, students, and professors will be deemed exports of knowledge subject to technology licensing laws, cautioned Allen. He asked: “How many thousands of collaborative research ventures will be impacted?”

We are entering the technology war at the wrong time, said Allen, just as China is becoming a middle-income country with hundreds of millions of middle-class citizens who want to buy American-made goods and services that U.S. companies want to sell to them. Now is the time to take advantage of China’s transitioning to a consumption-led economy, he claimed, and “become a good friend of Chinese middle-class consumers.”

China is also forging ahead with its innovative economy, particularly in areas such as AI, 5G, and aspects of the life sciences. “This isn’t a one-way street,” emphasized Allen. “We need their brains as much as they need ours […] China will remain an innovative country, and we need to deal with that.”

“This is not a time to panic,” he pointed out, “but a time to reset and ask: ‘What are the rules of the road for technology cooperation and competition? What are the rules for enforcement and how do we enforce the new rules fairly?”

“If China follows its WTO obligations then we would get there,” Allen claimed. “But if President Xi is going to be single-minded about self-reliance and cutting foreign influence on the Chinese economy, then we’re up for rough sledding and 2019 will be a definitive year in determining the course forward.”

Trade deal or no deal, in the U.S.-China race for technology supremacy, he concluded, trust is a commodity in short supply.