ChinaFile Conversation
The ChinaFile Conversation is a regular, real-time discussion of China news, from a group of the world’s leading China experts.
Last Updated: March 22, 2022
Conversation
05.23.13China and the Other Asian Giant: Where are Relations with India Headed?
Mike Kulma:Earlier this week at an Asia Society forum on U.S.-China economic relations, Dr. Henry Kissinger remarked that when the U.S. first started down the path of normalizing relations with China in the early 1970s, the economic relationship and...
Conversation
05.21.13U.S.-China Economic Relations—What Will the Next Decade Bring?
On Monday, within hours of the announcement that Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet U.S. President Barack Obama on a visit to California on June 7-8, Tung Chee-hwa, the former Chief Executive and President of the Executive Council of Hong Kong,...
Conversation
05.16.13China: What’s Going Right?
Michael Zhao:On a recent trip to China, meeting mostly with former colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, I got a dose of optimism and hope for one aspect of the motherland. In terms of science, or laying down a solid foundation for better...
Conversation
05.14.13Why Can’t China Make Its Food Safe?—Or Can It?
The month my wife and I moved to Beijing in 2004, I saw a bag of oatmeal at our local grocery store prominently labeled: “NOT POLLUTED!” How funny that this would be a selling point, we thought.But 7 years later as we prepared to return to the US,...
Conversation
05.10.13What’s China’s Game in the Middle East?
Rachel Beitarie:Xi Jinping’s four point proposal for a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement is interesting not so much for its content, as for its source. While China has maintained the appearance of being involved in Middle East politics for years,...
Conversation
05.07.13Why Is a 1995 Poisoning Case the Top Topic on Chinese Social Media?
With a population base of 1.3 billion people, China has no shortage of strange and gruesome crimes, but the attempted murder of Zhu Ling by thallium poisoning in 1995 is burning up China’s social media long after the trails have gone cold. Zhu, a...
Conversation
05.02.13Does Promoting “Core Interests” Do China More Harm Than Good?
On April 30, as tensions around China’s claims to territories in the South- and East China Seas continued to simmer, we began what proved to be a popular ChinaFile Conversation, asking the question, What's Really at the Core of China’s ‘Core...
Conversation
04.30.13What’s Really at the Core of China’s “Core Interests”?
Shai Oster:It’s Pilates diplomacy—work on your core. China’s diplomats keep talking about China’s core interests and it’s a growing list. In 2011, China included its political system and social stability as core interests. This year, it has added a...
Conversation
04.25.13Hollywood in China—What’s the Price of Admission?
Last week, DreamWorks Animation (DWA), the Hollywood studio behind the worldwide blockbuster Kung Fu Panda films, announced that it will cooperate with the China Film Group (CFG) on an animated feature called Tibet Code, an adventure story based on...
Conversation
04.23.13How Would You Spend (the Next) $300 Million on U.S.-China Relations?
Orville Schell:When Stephen A. Schwarzman announced his new $300 million program aimed at sending foreign scholars to Tsinghua University in Beijing the way Rhodes Scholarship, set up by the businessman and statesman Cecil Rhodes in 1902 began...
Conversation
04.18.13How Fast Is China’s Slowdown Coming, and What Should Beijing Do About It?
Slower Chinese GDP growth is not a bad thing if it’s happening for the right reasons. But it’s not happening for the right reasons.Instead of reining in credit to try to curb over-investment, Chinese authorities have allowed a renewed explosion in...
Conversation
04.16.13Why is China Still Messing with the Foreign Press?
To those raised in the Marxist tradition, nothing in the media happens by accident. In China, the flagship newspapers are still the “throat and tongue” of the ruling party, and their work is directed by the Party’s Propaganda Department...