Ukraine unhappily found itself at the center of the impeachment drama that played out in Washington last fall and during the first weeks of 2020. That threatened the resiliency of the U.S.-Ukraine relationship, a relationship that serves the interests of both countries.

With Donald Trump’s impeachment trial now in the past, Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainians undoubtedly hope that their country will no longer feature so prominently in U.S. domestic politics. That would be good, but it may not happen.

Last year, Trump sought to get senior Ukrainian officials to announce an investigation of a political rival and extorted Kyiv to do so by withholding military assistance and a White House visit. Revelations of those actions led to the third presidential impeachment in American history. Last week, Republican senators voted to find Trump not guilty, disregarding damning testimony, rejecting further witnesses, and ignoring a courageous floor speech by their colleague Mitt Romney.

The impeachment hearings and trial proved a difficult time for Ukraine and for its friends in America. It had to be especially painful for Ukrainians to hear reports that the U.S. president referred to their country as a “terrible place” with “terrible people” and one of the “most corrupt countries.”

Impeachment is now over, but Ukraine may find itself again an object in U.S. politics, as America ramps up for the November presidential election.

Start with Trump. Rejecting the analysis of the U.S. intelligence community, State Department and Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, the president has bought fully into the Kremlin disinformation lie that it was Ukraine—not Russia—that interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “They [Ukrainians] tried to take me down.” Mr. Trump revels in playing the victim. As the campaign heats up, he almost certainly will depict himself as the victim of the “Ukraine hoax.” He will repeat the falsehood that the Ukrainian government organized an effort to sabotage his 2016 bid for the presidency.

If anyone believes Trump will let this go, or that the impeachment experience left him somewhat chastened, look at how he has behaved in the week since his acquittal.

Then there is Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, who oversaw the effort to extort Kyiv. He wants to drag Ukraine into U.S. domestic politics. He continues pursuit of the discredited claim that former Vice President Joe Biden sought to have Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin fired to protect his son, and he is not going away. Attorney General William Barr said he would take information provided by Giuliani, even though Giuliani himself reportedly is under U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

In the Senate, Lindsey Graham plans to conduct hearings to investigate the Bidens and their connection to corruption in Ukraine. Mr. Graham, who has become one of the president’s biggest cheerleaders, seeks to boost Mr. Trump’s reelection prospects.

So Ukraine may find itself again enmeshed in American politics. How should Kyiv respond?

First, Zelensky and the Ukrainian government should keep walking that narrow path that they have walked successfully over the past five months: say or do nothing that would antagonize either Trump or Democrats in the Congress.

The Ukrainian president can continue to stay silent when Trump asserts that he said there was no pressure; Ukraine gains nothing by contradicting and alienating the U.S. president. By the same token, the Ukrainian government should not announce or launch bogus investigations, which would undermine the strong bipartisan support that Ukraine has enjoyed in both the House of Representatives and Senate for nearly three decades. This is a real asset for Ukraine, which should do nothing that would risk it.

Second, Kyiv should work to change the unflattering narrative that has taken hold in the United States. It has good news stories to tell. The Ukrainian government and Rada should work to get members of the House and Senate, particularly Republicans, to visit and see for themselves how the country is changing. Kyiv should send some of the bright young faces in government and Rada to Washington to tell their country’s story, not just in the halls of Congress but on CNN, PBS, Fox News and MSNBC.

Third, Ukraine’s political leadership should take steps that will reinforce the story of a country changing for the better, despite being the victim of Russian aggression: press the fight against corruption; enact and implement land reform; get back on program with the International Monetary Fund, which offers low-interest credits and a seal of approval that will help attract foreign investment.

After the last half-year, few in Ukraine presumably want their country again in the middle of American politics. If that nevertheless happens, Kyiv needs to position itself to avert damage to U.S.-Ukraine relations or to Ukraine’s image in the United States.

Steven Pifer, a William Perry research fellow at Stanford University, served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000.

Originally in the Kyiv Post

In a recent interview with People's Daily Online, APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar reflects on some of the milestones in the developing and diversifying relationship between the United States and China over the past forty years. The interview is part of a series of short documentaries produced by People's Daily Online West USA to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the United States and China in 1979. The series was premiered at the San Francisco Public Library on January 18, 2020.

"So much of my career has been devoted to this relationship, [to] making this relationship work," says Fingar. He recounts how his own interest in China was sparked as a student in an anthropology class, where he began trying to understand why China and the United States "did things differently."

That initial question led him to a lifetime of building connections between the two countries, both in academia and government. Fingar was instrumental in launching Stanford's U.S.-China Relations Program in 1975, which promoted the exchange of learning, technology, and training between U.S. academics and students and their Chinese counterparts.

The focus on promoting U.S.-China engagement continues to inform Fingar’s perspectives today. "I'm concerned about the relationship [between the U.S. and China], but I'm not worried about it. I'm confident that both sides understand the stakes, [and] both sides understand the pressures to make this work".

Watch the interview below:

Speaking on Monday about Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Ukraine’s foreign minister said “please don’t drag us into your [America’s] internal political processes.”  Unfortunately, Republicans appear intent on doing precisely that, as they repeat the false Russian claim that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 US election.

Republicans see this as part of their effort to defend President Trump. In doing so, they put at risk America’s long-standing support for its Ukrainian partner.

The US government and large bipartisan majorities in Congress have backed Ukraine since the early 1990s, when it regained independence following the Soviet Union’s collapse. By the end of the decade, Congressionally-approved assistance for Ukraine had reached USD 300-400 million per year.

When Ukrainians took to the streets in the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity, their striving for democracy won interest and support from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill.

Such Congressional support offered Kyiv grounds for comfort when Trump became president in 2017. Candidate Trump had suggested he might recognize the illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia. He also questioned the sanctions imposed on Moscow for its seizure of Crimea and subsequent aggression in eastern Ukraine.

Despite Trump’s apparent skepticism about Ukraine and his reluctance to criticize Vladimir Putin (or Russian actions), Congress continued to back Ukraine. It regularly voted by wide margins to approve funding for reform and military assistance for Kyiv while pressing the administration to bolster sanctions on Russia.

Things took a turn last September with the revelation of Trump’s effort to extort Ukraine’s president into investigating his possible 2020 political opponent by withholding an Oval Office visit and military assistance. The president’s alleged abuse of power led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives in December.

I tried to assure my Ukrainian interlocutors that, whatever President Trump did, they had an ace in the hole: the bipartisan support their country enjoyed from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress. This was support that, if necessary, would produce veto-proof votes to aid Ukraine. Today, I am not so sure.

It has long been clear that Trump buys Moscow’s disinformation line that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 US election. It is true that individual Ukrainian officials criticized candidate Trump, just as officials from many European countries did. But it was Russian intelligence agencies, with Putin’s approval, that hacked the Democratic National Committee’s e-mails and gave them to Wikileaks. It is Russia’s Internet Research Agency that used social media to sow division among Americans.

However, in November and December as they sought to defend Trump against impeachment, Republicans began to make the Russian argument that Ukraine had interfered. There were many examples of this from Republicans who will sit in judgment as the Senate conducts the impeachment trial. Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) commented, “I think both Russia and Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election.” Meanwhile, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) argued, “There’s no difference in the way Russians put their finger early on, on the scale and how Ukrainian officials did it,” and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated bluntly, “Ukraine blatantly interfered in our election.”

We can expect more such charges in the coming days. Republicans have put themselves on a slippery slope as regards support for Ukraine.

Will Republicans who assert that the Ukrainian government interfered in the US election vote in the future to approve assistance for Ukraine? And, if they can separate their espousal of the Kremlin’s talking point from their votes on assistance, how do they defend to constituents and others less sympathetic to Ukraine a vote to assist the country that they say interfered in the 2016 US election?

This is dangerous ground that could undermine US support for a country whose success is in America’s national interest.

Steven Pifer, a William Perry research fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, is a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

Read the Rest at The Atlantic Council