Daria Novak, a former U.S. State Department official with significant experience in Chinese affairs, authored this column. She writes each Friday on related topics.

Chinese government officials, and even some trade experts in Beijing, breathed a quick sigh of relief as the 96-page, Phase One of the US-China trade deal was inked on January 15, 2020. But does it represent more than a short respite in the trade war?

Unlike previous American administrations President Trump demanded, and won, real concessions from the Chinese along with rules for enforcing those changes. The US stood its ground in the trade talks and refused to accept the small, incremental moves offered to and accepted without reciprocity by previous American administrations – Republican and Democrat alike. While it remains questionable that China will enforce all the new trade rules, especially if they stand in opposition to the government’s domestic economic development plan, Phase One will define the path the two nations walk going forward in 2020. For the first time there is a new law creating a domestic mechanism in China that can be used by aggrieved parties to demand a fairer playing field when it comes to the theft of intellectual property (IP).

According to the Agreement China must create a public action plan to explain how it will implement enforcement of IP rights and obligations. The requirement that China publish this enforcement data will, at a minimum, provide a more accurate method for Washington to gauge China’s progress. This was lacking in previous negotiations. In return the US has agreed only to reduce a portion of the tariffs on $360 billion in Chinese imports in the eight-chapter agreement.

President Xi Jinping now faces a robust series of provisions in the agreement related to technology transfer and intellectual property theft designed to shed light on China’s unfair trade practices. At issue for the United States is whether or not Xi will take the pragmatic steps required to implement those provisions. On the other hand, the Trump Administration is not facing any new Chinese demands on technology transfer or IP protections – with well-deserved credit going to USTR Lighthizer who negotiated Washington’s core grievance well.

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A less noticed but significant provision in the Agreement is the establishment of a Bilateral Evaluation and Dispute Resolution Office. This mechanism provides a tiered and straight-forward system headed by the USTR and a Chinese vice premier. Below them are designated positions to handle day-to-day issues and the appeals process. If no resolution can be reached there is a process in place that parties may use to escalate the complaint. In the past, US companies bristled at exposing their firms to the public scrutiny of making such a complaint. Whether the Office is a success may depend on American’s firms’ willingness to use it.

Remedial measures, according to the Agreement, are to be proportionate and not retaliatory with the goal of creating and maintaining a normal trading relationship. If the other side does not agree, the only possible recourse is to withdraw from the agreement with a 60-day written notice, an action China is not likely to take over a single issue. Talks on Phase 2 of the trade deal are likely to begin soon but not conclude until after the US Presidential this fall.

At home President Xi faces a myriad of issues related to the US economic sanctions, including a cooling domestic economy with growth slowing to levels below the required 6.2% required to achieve the country’s 10-year economic plan goal. If China’s top policymakers cannot find ways to curtail the slowdown and maintain growth there may be increased instability in the Chinese economy. This is on top of other domestic issues Xi must deal with such as the unrest in Hong Kong and the Uighur minority in western China.

Photo: Chinese government official site

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.