00:00Ambassador Emanuel, you may proceed.
00:03Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to the ranking member, the members of the committee.
00:07It's an honor to appear before you today.
00:10I obviously don't have the eloquence of the Aussie accent or the show and tell of the ranking member, my good friend.
00:17For more than 60 years, the partnership between the United States and Japan
00:21has been the cornerstone of both peace and prosperity in a free and open Indo-Pacific.
00:26As ambassador, I sought to deepen our ties and confront our common challenges,
00:32none greater than China's most pernicious and persistent tool, economic coercion.
00:38China has made coercion its currency of economic statecraft and retaliation or replacement for negotiation.
00:46And where it cannot conquer through division, it chips away through corruption and control.
00:50In 2010, China cut off exports of critical rare earth minerals, as noted earlier, to Japan,
00:58hitting Japanese industry and consumers over a dispute involving the Senkaku Islands.
01:03After 2012, confrontation between Manila and Beijing in the South China Sea,
01:09China quarantined fruit exports from the Philippines and sent vessels to protect Chinese fishermen
01:14and blocking Philippine fishing boats.
01:182016, after Seoul, South Korea decided to deploy the U.S. THAAD missile system to protect itself from North Korea launches,
01:27Beijing orchestrated boycotts by Chinese consumers and tourists, punishing South Korea for acting in its own self-defense.
01:35When Lithuania in 2021 allowed a Taiwanese office to open, China banned all bilateral trade.
01:42China slapped import restrictions on a range of Australian goods, coal, barley, beef, copper, and wheat,
01:49over Australia's calls for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 in 2020.
01:56Sometimes China's coercion is overt and obvious.
02:02Other times it's covert and conniving.
02:05It also exerts softer pressure.
02:08As it did with the National Basketball Association, which succumbed to Chinese pressure over one team's general manager,
02:15tweeting support in 2019 for pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
02:21More recently, Beijing has refused to export a type of magnet, as noted by the ranking member's comments,
02:28essential for industrial manufacturers here in the United States.
02:31Most dramatically, Ford halted production of certain advanced vehicles, including their facility in the city of Chicago,
02:40their oldest plant in the United States.
02:42Our country, with the largest economy in the world, sits atop many rare-earth minerals, vital to our future prosperity.
02:51But China has a near-monopoly, 90%, on the ability to process them.
02:57China's coercion and message is not limited, in this instance, to the American audience alone.
03:03It's playing out across the global theater, as other nations observe.
03:08Regardless of the method, the message from China is the same.
03:12Submit or suffer.
03:14Beijing exerts economic pressure to achieve its political goals and bend nations to its political will.
03:21Their goal is clear.
03:23Isolate one to intimidate all.
03:27Ours must be to isolate the isolator, through an alliance to counter China's coercion.
03:33As a 31st U.S. Ambassador to Japan, I saw up close and clear-eyed how China pursues its geopolitical goals,
03:39not through innovation and inspiration, but through intimidation and infiltration.
03:45During my time in Tokyo, the embassy issued an unprecedented report on Chinese coercion
03:51to neutralize this tool that Beijing perfected over the last 15 years.
03:56The takeaway?
03:57To secure our standing in the 21st century, America and its allies need an anti-coercion coalition
04:02to counter China's aggression.
04:06Beijing's bullying is not a foreign policy.
04:10But an example of a failure of one.
04:13Nevertheless, the world's response has been scattered, slow, and too often silent.
04:20Continuing on the current course is a recipe for continued coercion.
04:25The United States cannot afford to be alone, passive, or partisan in the strategic competition.
04:30Cutting off our allies, cutting off our research and development,
04:33and treating investments in key industries like semiconductors is tradable.
04:37Our unilateral disarmament of our strongest advantages as a country.
04:43We must lead a resilient anti-coercion coalition to resist economic intimidation and respond with strength when deterrence fails.
04:51It should be based on mutual commitments that are public and reciprocal.
04:54First, as I called in a piece about a year ago in the Wall Street Journal,
05:00such a coalition would need the economic equivalent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Article 5.
05:06An attack on one is attack on all at its core.
05:09Look no further, farther rather, than what the EU adopted in 2023 after Lithuania was coerced by China,
05:18an anti-coercion instrument that focuses on deterrence and allows for retaliatory policies by the EU.
05:25Countries should support allies under economic assault with a unified response.
05:31Resilience requires a willingness to retaliate in recognizing China's weaknesses and prepared to go after them.
05:38I know that you find it surprising that I would advocate that.
05:41Nations would insulate themselves from China's pressure through collective resilience.
05:47That requires leveraging alliances.
05:50When I arrived in Japan, I worked to expand trilateral ties.
05:54Today, Tokyo, Washington, and Seoul, as well as Tokyo, Washington, and Manila, are not just allies.
06:00We're aligned.
06:02We strengthened our economic ties, enhanced our military readiness, and deepened our intelligence sharing.
06:09Second, America cannot self-emulate.
06:11Second, the Chinese undoubtedly understand how important intellectual property and advanced research are to their own ambitions.
06:18It's a false choice to suggest the U.S. must pick between free markets and government intervention.
06:24To maintain our economic sovereignty, we must have both and invest in our advantages.
06:29Talent from around the world that comes to America.
06:33Research and development.
06:34Science.
06:35Our universities.
06:36Surrendering our strengths is self-defeating.
06:39Finally, nations must have our own tools of economic cooperation, which can be used to shore up supply chain resilience.
06:48Reshoring without friendshoring will not succeed.
06:52In other words, we must offer victims real relief in real time from China's coercive trade actions, including export credit lines and expedited licensing.
07:02Australia's response to China's coercion is the best example of how to replicate going forward.
07:10And if I could, and I know I'm past my time, conclude with one single story.
07:16During my tenure in Tokyo, China banned Japanese seafood from its market, citing false concerns about contamination from Fukushima area.
07:27As ambassador and working with the Indo-PACOM in Honolulu, our military, we exposed the hypocrisy and coercion with photos of Chinese fishing boats operating in Japanese water fishing, having banned the Japanese fish.
07:45To show the safety of the seafood, I know you find it shocking, but I went swimming and surfing in Fukushima with members of the parliament and publicly ate local seafood and vegetables.
07:59I also led efforts to have our U.S. military bases purchase Japanese seafood and served it proudly at both the residence of the ambassador and at the embassy.
08:07And took a number of you also, when you visited, shopping at the local Fukushima area in Tokyo.
08:15At a very public campaign, China recently abandoned its boycott of Japanese seafood.
08:23Now, if I could, if one skinny ambassador with a big mouth could do that, imagine what countries could achieve together.
08:33Cracking the code of coercion isn't impossible.
08:36It takes unity and sustained resolve and respect for our allies.
08:42We are in a strategic competition between free nations that innovate and a surveillance state that imitates.
08:50Between democratic resilience and authoritarian reliance.
08:55United, coordinated and committed, an anti-coercion coalition is the best offense and the best defense against China's campaign of intimidation.
09:03Again, thank you very much for this honor to testify today.
09:07Thank you, Ambassador.
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