"Daniel Russel, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific under Obama, said Biden would take steps to avoid military escalation resulting from miscommunication. "But 'the crux of the difference if Joe Biden were elected president would be that we would have a president who set the policy,' said Russel, now with the Asia Society Policy Institute. He said that U.S. actions in the South China Sea in recent years -- such as freedom of navigation operations -- did not [...]

"'We treated China like an enemy, we named them an enemy and we’re getting what we asked for,' said Daniel Russel, an Asia Society expert who was a high-ranking foreign policy aide in the Obama administration. Xi is facing his own domestic pressures, Russel added, 'but what I don’t see is the kind of empirical evidence that he is reining in his ambitions or global strategy as a result...'" Read the full article here: Full Article

"'Beijing’s strategy isn’t just based on undermining Taiwan’s resistance, it’s also a gamble on how the US will approach the cross-strait issue,' Daniel Russel, a former top State Department official under President Barack Obama, said in Taipei on Sept. 8. 'The strongest driver of increased Chinese assertiveness is the conviction that the Western system, and the US in particular, is in decay...'" Read the full article here: Full Article

"'The Chinese have told themselves a story about why American attitudes have soured towards China,' said Daniel Russel, a former assistant secretary of state who advised the then President Barack Obama on East Asia issues. 'And in the story they tell themselves, it’s a function of things that have nothing to do with China...'" Read the full article here: Full Article

"Sen. Kelly Loeffler, a loyalist of President Donald Trump, was quick last week to add the presidential Covid-19 diagnosis to the long list of American grievances against China. Another Trump ally charged that the Chinese Communist Party 'has biologically attacked our president' and must be held accountable. Apparently, it is the Chinese Communist Party, not a disdain for masks or social distancing, that is to blame for the growing number of people in the White House who have contracted the virus..." [...]

"Now that Joe Biden has named his running mate and both US political parties have held their conventions, the 2020 election campaign is under way in earnest. The ups and downs of the summer have been just a prelude to the electoral battle of the next two months..." Read the full article here: Full Article

"Daniel Russel, a predecessor of Stilwell until early in the Trump administration, said the 'Six Assurances' made to Taipei by the administration of former President Ronald Reagan had been a 'loosely-kept secret' at best. "He said the decision to publish them looked like a compromise response to pressure from administration hawks to abandon 'strategic ambiguity' — a long-standing policy of withholding a clear-cut U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan while still showing sufficient support to deter any Chinese military adventurism..." Read the [...]

"Daniel Russel, a former Asia adviser to Barack Obama, said the US-Japan relationship was on a sound footing regardless of who succeeded Mr. Abe. But he said there was a danger that his successor would be a placeholder who would be more focused on his 'own survival and fending off rivals' meaning there would be more preoccupation on domestic politics..." Read the full article here: Full Article

"Daniel Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific who’s now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that a continuation of the Trump White House 'means that Japan is going to be put through the wringer to extract as much money as possible' in exchange for continuing to host U.S. forces. “'That is a potentially damaging, if not brutal fight, that lies ahead,' he said. 'Trump has made clear again and again that [...]

"Daniel Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific who’s now vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the 'series of very aggressive, very confrontational actions and … hostile rhetoric' on China may be aimed at the November election, 'but it’s going to have an effect that lasts long beyond that...'" Read the full article here: Full Article