Viewpoint

12.07.23

China’s Vision for World Order

Johanna M. Costigan
In October, in front of leaders from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, Xi Jinping stood triumphant in a celebratory keynote address celebrating the tenth birthday of his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The speech,...

Four Principles to Guide U.S. Policy Toward China

Paul Haenle & Ali Wyne from Carnegie China
As the U.S.-China relationship becomes more competitive, how should the Biden administration approach ties with Beijing? What concepts should guide Washington’s China policy? In part one of this two-part podcast, Paul Haenle speaks with Ali Wyne,...

Conversation

05.09.20

How Will China Shape Global Governance?

Jeremy Youde, Melanie Hart & more
How is the Trump administration’s contempt for, and retreat from, multilateral bodies affecting China’s position and weight within them—or indeed its overall strategy for relations with these organizations? Do China’s leaders aspire to supplant the...

Viewpoint

08.27.18

Beijing’s Bid for Global Power in the Age of Trump

Alfred W. McCoy from TomDispatch
As the second year of Donald Trump’s presidency and sixth of Xi Jinping’s draws to a close, the world seems to be witnessing one of those epochal clashes that can change the contours of global power. Just as conflicts between American President...

A World in Transition

Paul Haenle & William J. Burns from Carnegie China
As the world is in the midst of considerable uncertainty and transition, Ambassador William J. Burns points to the emergence of rising powers like China and India, challenges to regional order in the Middle East, and revolutions in new technologies...

Hillary Clinton Says China’s Foreign Power Grab ‘a New Global Battle’

Ben Doherty and Eleanor Ainge Roy
Guardian
China’s attempt to gain political power and influence in foreign countries is “a new global battle”, Hillary Clinton has warned.

China-Africa Relations in the Xi Jinping Era

Eric Olander, Cobus van Staden & more
For much of the past 20 years, China’s strategy in Africa could be summarized in two words: invest and extract. Today, that is no longer the case. China’s agenda in Africa, and throughout much of the global south, has broadened significantly in...

Viewpoint

03.27.18

Secretary Pompeo’s First China Briefing

Robert Daly
Donald Trump’s national security documents frame China as the United States’ greatest long-term threat. This declaration caps a historic shift in America’s strategic disposition toward China. From the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979,...

Conversation

02.15.18

Is American Policy toward China Due for a ‘Reckoning’?

Charles Edel, Elizabeth Economy & more
Former diplomats Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner argue that United States policy toward China, in administrations of both parties, has relied in the past on a mistaken confidence in America’s ability to “mold China to the United States’ liking.”...

Sinica Podcast

02.14.18

China’s Rise and America’s Myopia

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
China, as we say at the beginning of each Sinica Podcast episode, is a nation that is reshaping the world. But what does that reshaping really look like, and how does—and should—the world react to China’s role in globalization?

What to Do about China's "Sharp Power"

Economist
WHEN a rising power challenges an incumbent one, war often follows.

China Gets 300 Political Parties to Endorse Xi as Peacemaker

Tingshi
Bloomberg
The signatures of almost 300 foreign political leaders on a document praising Chinese President Xi Jinping’s contribution to world peace has provided him valuable ammunition to counter arguments by those who fear the country’s rising international...

Viewpoint

11.17.17

China and the United States Are Equals. Now What?

Robert Daly
Donald Trump’s Asia trip was historic in one respect: it belatedly focused American attention on the competition between the United States and China for global primacy. China has risen, the era of uncontested American leadership has ended, and any...

Big Stakes in Beijing: A Triumphant Xi vs. A Chastised Trump

Matthew Pennington
Washington Post
When China rolls out the red carpet for Donald Trump, the grandeur of its welcome for the larger-than-life American president will mask a sobering reality.

China Offers Support to Spanish Government amid Catalonia Crisis

South China Morning Post
China understands and supports the Spanish government’s efforts to protect the country’s unity and territorial integrity, Beijing said on Thursday, amid moves by Catalonia to declare independence.

This Is What World War III with China Might Look Like

Alfred W. McCoy
Nation
For the past 50 years, American leaders have been supremely confident that they could suffer military setbacks in places like Cuba or Vietnam without having their system of global hegemony, backed by the world’s wealthiest economy and finest...

A grand bargain with China could remove North’s nuclear threat — but it would destroy America’s global influence

Michael Auslin
Los Angeles Times
With North Korea’s latest test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, one apparently capable of reaching California, the American foreign policy community is struggling to find a way — short of war — to end the threat from Pyongyang. In the media...

Satellite Photos Reveal Underground Construction at Chinese Military Base

Joshua Berlinger
CNN
New satellite imagery of China's first overseas military base reveal it to be bigger and more secure than previously thought.

China Sends Troops to Djibouti, Establishes First Overseas Military Base

Brad Lendon and Steve George
CNN
China has dispatched troops to Djibouti in advance of formally establishing the country's first overseas military base.

Recreating China’s Imagined Empire

Ian Johnson from New York Review of Books
China’s influence in the world has become a persistent theme of these early days of the Donald Trump era. During his campaign, Trump portrayed China (not entirely incorrectly) as the leading malefactor in the politics of international trade—holding...

Conversation

03.15.17

How Does China’s Imperial Past Shape Its Foreign Policy Today?

Pamela Kyle Crossley, Jeremiah Jenne & more
Throughout most of history China dominated Asia, up until what many Chinese refer to as the “century of humiliation”—when Japan and Western powers invaded or otherwise interfered between 1839 and 1949. Now, with China on the rise again, are Beijing’...

What Would Closer U.S.-Russia Relations Mean for China?

Paul Haenle, Andrew S. Weiss & more from Carnegie China
The Trump administration has spurred a debate in the United States on how to best manage the complex bilateral relationship with Russia. Paul Haenle sat down with Carnegie scholars Andrew Weiss, Paul Stronski, and Alexander Gabuev on the sidelines...

Books

02.28.17

Everything Under the Heavens

Howard W. French
From the former New York Times Asia correspondent and author of China’s Second Continent, an incisive investigation of China’s ideological development as it becomes an ever more aggressive player in regional and global diplomacy.For many years after its reform and opening in 1978, China maintained an attitude of false modesty about its ambitions. That role, reports Howard French, has been set aside. China has asserted its place among the global heavyweights, revealing its plans for pan-Asian dominance by building its navy, increasing territorial claims to areas like the South China Sea, and diplomatically bullying smaller players. Underlying this attitude is a strain of thinking that casts China’s present-day actions in decidedly historical terms, as the path to restoring the dynastic glory of the past. If we understand how that historical identity relates to current actions, in ways ideological, philosophical, and even legal, we can learn to forecast just what kind of global power China stands to become–and to interact wisely with a future peer.Steeped in deeply researched history as well as on-the-ground reporting, this is French at his revelatory best. —Penguin Random House{chop}

Viewpoint

01.19.17

Do We Want to Live in China’s World?

Robert Daly
Each weekday morning, I cross D.C.’s National Mall and pass a sign on Constitution Avenue bearing an epigram by the U.S. architect Daniel Burnham: Make No Little Plans. And every morning, these words make me think not of Burnham’s 20th century...

Conversation

01.18.17

U.S.-China Flashpoints in the Age of Trump

Zha Daojiong, Isaac Stone Fish & more
Over the past year, Donald Trump has vowed to “utterly destroy” ISIS, considered lifting sanctions on Russia, promised to cancel the Paris climate agreement and “dismantle” the Iran nuclear deal. But many of his most inflammatory statements are...

Stoking Tensions with China

New York Times
No relationship is more vital to international stability than that between the United States and China, but now there are dangerous new uncertainties

China Weighs Response to New U.S. Trade Foe

Mark Magnier
Wall Street Journal
Beijing considers retaliatory steps after Trump appoints China trade skeptic Peter Navarro

China Cites ’The Art of War’ as Trump Signals Trade Battle

Bloomberg
You can kill 1,000 enemies, but you would also lose 800 soldiers

China Touts its Own Trade Pact as U.S.-Backed One Withers

John Lyons, Mark Magnier, and William...
Wall Street Journal
Nations begin to coalesce around China-led trade group after Trump reiterates plan to withdraw from TPP

As Trump Tweets about SNL and Hamilton, China’s Xi Embraces a New, Powerful Role

Zheping Huang and Heather Timmons
Quartz
Trump’s talk of increasing trade barriers and disdain for global organizations and agreements could create a more isolationist US, leaving China to fill the gap

China Just Won the U.S. Election

James Palmer
Foreign Policy
China’s leaders are looking forward to a President Trump who offers less resistance and more hypocrisy. But Beijing's triumph may cost it in the end

Hong Kong Umbrellas, Chinese Maoism, Trump, Duterte, and Brexit: What’s the Link?

Bilahari Kausikan
South China Morning Post
Why the global order is becoming ever more uncertain

On Duterte’s Heels, Malaysia is the Next Asian Country to Embrace China

Simon Denyer
Washington Post
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak called himself a “true friend” of China, determined to take their relationship to "new heights"

Li Keqiang Becomes First Chinese Premier to Visit Cuba

Catherine Putz
Diplomat
The world’s largest and smallest communist states have had stable relations for years.

Books

04.18.16

China’s Future

David Shambaugh
China’s future arguably is the most consequential question in global affairs. Having enjoyed unprecedented levels of growth, China is at a critical juncture in the development of its economy, society, polity, national security, and international relations. The direction the nation takes at this turning point will determine whether it stalls or continues to develop and prosper.Will China be successful in implementing a new wave of transformational reforms that could last decades and make it the world’s leading superpower? Or will its leaders shy away from the drastic changes required because the regime’s power is at risk? If so, will that lead to prolonged stagnation or even regime collapse? Might China move down a more liberal or even democratic path? Or will China instead emerge as a hard, authoritarian, and aggressive superstate?In this new book, David Shambaugh argues that these potential pathways are all possibilities—but they depend on key decisions yet to be made by China’s leaders, different pressures from within Chinese society, as well as actions taken by other nations. Assessing these scenarios and their implications, he offers a thoughtful and clear study of China’s future for all those seeking to understand the country’s likely trajectory over the coming decade and beyond. —Polity Press{chop}

Features

04.28.15

Where Do We Draw the Line on Balancing China?

from Foreign Policy
Is it time for the United States to get serious about balancing China? According to Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis, the answer is an emphatic yes. In a new Council on Foreign Relations report, they portray China as steadily seeking to increase...

Books

04.23.15

Intimate Rivals

Sheila A. Smith
No country feels China’s rise more deeply than Japan. Through intricate case studies of visits by Japanese politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine, conflicts over the boundaries of economic zones in the East China Sea, concerns about food safety, and strategies of island defense, Sheila A. Smith explores the policy issues testing the Japanese government as it tries to navigate its relationship with an advancing China.Smith finds that Japan’s interactions with China extend far beyond the negotiations between diplomats and include a broad array of social actors intent on influencing the Sino-Japanese relationship. Some of the tensions complicating Japan’s encounters with China, such as those surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine or territorial disputes, have deep roots in the postwar era, and political advocates seeking a stronger Japanese state organize themselves around these causes. Other tensions manifest themselves during the institutional and regulatory reform of maritime boundary and food safety issues.Smith scrutinizes the role of the Japanese government in coping with contention as China’s influence grows and Japanese citizens demand more protection. Underlying the government’s efforts is Japan’s insecurity about its own capacity for change and its waning status as the leading economy in Asia. For many, China’s rise means Japan’s decline, and Smith suggests how Japan can maintain its regional and global clout as confidence in its postwar diplomatic and security approach diminishes.—Columbia University Press{chop}

Reports

04.01.15

U.S.-China 21: The Future of U.S.-China Relations Under Xi Jinping

Kevin Rudd
Harvard University
We are, therefore, seeing the emergence of an asymmetric world in which the fulcrums of economic and military power are no longer co-located, but, in fact, are beginning to diverge significantly. Political power, through the agency of foreign policy...

Reports

04.01.15

Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China

Robert D. Blackwill, Ashley J. Tellis
Council on Foreign Relations
China represents and will remain the most significant competitor to the United States for decades to come. As such, the need for a more coherent U.S. response to increasing Chinese power is long overdue. Because the American effort to “integrate”...

Reports

06.01.14

Decoding China’s Emerging “Great Power” Strategy in Asia

Christopher K. Johnson, Ernest Z. Bower, Victor D. Cha, Michael J. Green, Matthew P. Goodman
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
The course charted by China’s reemergence as a great power over the next few decades represents the primary strategic challenge for the U.S.-Japan security alliance and for the East Asian security landscape writ large. If China’s economic, military...

Viewpoint

03.06.14

Can America Win in a New Era of Competition with China?

Geoff Dyer
Beijing was in a state of heightened anxiety and had been for weeks. Each day in the run-up to the National Day parade, the security measures seemed to get a little bit tighter. Our apartment building had a distant view of Jianguomen, which is the...

Sinica Podcast

11.19.13

Partners and Rivals

Kaiser Kuo & Jeremy Goldkorn from Sinica Podcast
Few will dispute that the Sino-American relationship constitutes the most important bilateral relationship of our time, shedding a sort of lunar influence on international politics which helps shape not only the dynamic of global tensions, but also...

Calm Down, Washington: China Doesn’t Really Want to ‘De-Americanize’

Max Fisher
Washington Post
We can calm down on the threat to "de-Americanize". The fact that China is so rightly panicked about the possibility of a U.S. default just goes to show that Beijing knows it is, and will long continue to be, reliant on a U.S.-...