Viewpoint
08.04.20Reciprocity in U.S. Relations with China Should Be a Tool, Not the Whole Strategy
Since the outset of the U.S.-China trade war, critics have castigated the Trump administration for its capricious approach to relations with Beijing. They have found fault in particular with Donald Trump’s flip-flopping on sanctioning ZTE, banning U...
Viewpoint
07.30.20For Wuhan’s COVID Mourners, Little Has Been Laid to Rest
In a conversation on Weibo, Yang, 50, told me about the loss of her 24-year-old daughter, Yuxi, her only child, to COVID-19. She was grieving, of course, but she was also seeking justice for what she viewed as an avoidable death. She showed me a...
Conversation
07.21.20Is There a Future for Values-Based Engagement with China?
A key feature of current debates over U.S.-China relations is the proposition that “engagement failed,” in light of the Chinese government’s increasingly aggressive posture towards liberal values at home and on the world stage. Already on the...
Viewpoint
07.02.20It’s True That Democracy in China Is in Retreat, But Don’t Give up on It Now
China’s popularity in the world is plummeting, and antagonism between China and the United States is growing. Many blame China for allowing a series of new viruses to emerge, for failing to stop COVID-19 when it first appeared, and for not sharing...
Conversation
06.30.20How Should Democracies Respond to China’s New National Security Law for Hong Kong?
July 1 will mark 23 years since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty. Each of those years—and many that preceded them—has seen its share of disquiet over the future of the territory’s way of life and about the resilience of “one country, two...
Conversation
06.16.20China’s Zoom Bomb
In the lead-up to the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations this spring, Zoom, the U.S.-based company whose online meeting platform has rocketed to global prominence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, received requests from China’s...
Viewpoint
06.10.20For Me, the Breakdown in U.S.-China Relations Is Personal
In my childhood, they were the Red Chinese. In my husband’s upbringing, we were the American imperialists. U.S.-China reconciliation after ping-pong diplomacy enabled us to meet and marry 40 years ago. Those of us with a foot in each world find the...
Conversation
06.03.20Has COVID-19 Changed How China’s Leaders Approach National Security?
While the world is reeling from the cascading shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic, China has continued a comparatively aggressive course in its foreign policy and security posture. Not only has it continued military and paramilitary activities in the...
China in the World Podcast
05.27.20Coronavirus and the Korean Peninsula
from Carnegie China
As nations confront the pandemic, rumors of Kim Jong-un’s death and a flurry of North Korean missile tests injected even more uncertainty in the international landscape. How do views in Washington, Seoul, and Beijing differ or align on North Korea?...
Viewpoint
05.21.20A New U.S. ‘Consensus’ on China May Not Be as Solid as It Appears
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought ties between Washington and Beijing to their lowest level since the countries normalized relations in 1979, with many observers warning that they have entered into either “a new Cold War” or at least “a new type of...
Viewpoint
05.21.20How Will Historians Look Back at the Coronavirus Outbreak?
Imagine that a historian decides to reflect on the pandemic, asking quite simply, “How did it come to this?” There would be many ways of telling that story. But one way would be to chart a series of off-ramps on the road to disaster. Some of these...
China in the World Podcast
05.20.20U.S.-China Relations 2020: Coronavirus and Elections
from Carnegie China
China is facing growing international scrutiny due to its initial mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak. Countries are increasingly questioning the motives underlying Beijing’s recent international aid efforts, and there is growing concern over...
Conversation
05.19.20What Are the Right and the Wrong Ways for the U.S. to Support Taiwan?
What are the right and wrong ways for the U.S. to support Taiwan? Traditionally, America’s goals have been to deter the mainland from aggression and coercion, support Taiwan’s democratic system, strengthen economic ties, and help it maintain...
China in the World Podcast
05.14.20Missing in Action: U.S.-China Cooperation on Coronavirus
from Carnegie China
The coronavirus outbreak has highlighted the many issues in the U.S.-China relationship. Why can’t Washington and Beijing better coordinate a response to the pandemic, replicating their cooperative efforts during the 2008 financial crisis and 2014...
Conversation
05.09.20How Will China Shape Global Governance?
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...
Conversation
04.06.20What Does the Coronavirus Mean for EU-China Relations?
2020 promised to be an especially consequential year for the EU-China relationship, but three highly anticipated summits have been thrown into uncertainty, and diplomacy between Europe and China is now completely consumed by the coronavirus crisis.
Viewpoint
04.03.20‘We’re Hardly Heroic’
Dr. Li, a heart specialist at Wuhan No. 4 Hospital, spent the third week of March preparing for the reopening of the hospital’s general clinics, which closed on January 22, when No. 4 became a key facility for treating COVID-19 patients. After...
Conversation
03.28.20Is U.S.-China Cooperation on COVID-19 Still Possible?
Over the past two weeks, as the outbreak of the virus known has COVID-19 has accelerated its deadly spread around the world, an already collapsing U.S.-China relationship appears to be entering a period of free fall. This is happening at a moment...
The NYRB China Archive
03.26.20The Flowers Blooming in the Dark
from New York Review of Books
It’s possible to identify another period that might surpass the 1980s as China’s most open: a 10-year stretch beginning around the turn of this century, when a rich debate erupted over what lay ahead. As in the past, many of those speaking out were...
Viewpoint
03.20.20Xi Jinping May Welcome Trump’s Racism
The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a new low-point for the already strained relationship between the U.S. and China—and it could get worse in the months ahead as the toll rises and there is more urgency to assign blame. At the White House press...
Conversation
03.19.20As Its Coronavirus Outbreak Abates, China Is Trying out a New Look. Is It Working?
As the coronavirus spreads globally, China’s government is working aggressively to change its international image. In the span of just a few weeks, China has gone from the embattled epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic to presenting the country as...
Books
03.12.20China and Intervention at the UN Security Council
Oxford University Press: What explains China’s response to intervention at the UN Security Council? China and Intervention at the UN Security Council argues that status is an overlooked determinant in understanding its decisions, even in the apex cases that are shadowed by a public discourse calling for foreign-imposed regime change in Sudan, Libya, and Syria. It posits that China reconciles its status dilemma as it weighs decisions to intervene, seeking recognition from both its intervention peer groups of great powers and developing states. Understanding the impact and scope of conditions of status answers why China has taken certain positions regarding intervention and how these positions were justified. Foreign policy behavior that complies with status, and related social factors like self-image and identity, means that China can select policy options bearing material costs. China and Intervention at the UN Security Council draws on an extensive collection of data, including over two hundred interviews with UN officials and Chinese foreign policy elites, participant observation at UN Headquarters, and a dataset of Chinese-language analysis regarding foreign-imposed regime change and intervention. The book concludes with new perspectives on the malleability of China’s core interests, insights about the application of status for cooperation, and the implications of the status dilemma for rising powers.{chop}
03.05.20
China Alters Civil Society Rules, Allowing More Groups to Respond to Coronavirus
As the COVID-19 epidemic continues in China, so do the efforts of civil society organizations and concerned citizens to mitigate the harm. In the official approach to managing their involvement, there have been clumsy force-of-habit measures from...
Books
03.05.20Playing by the Informal Rules
Cambridge University Press: Growing protests in non-democratic countries are often seen as signals of regime decline. China, however, has remained stable amid surging protests. Playing by the Informal Rules highlights the importance of informal norms in structuring state-protester interactions, mitigating conflict, and explaining regime resilience. Drawing on a nationwide dataset of protest and multi-sited ethnographic research, this book presents a bird’s-eye view of Chinese contentious politics and illustrates the uneven application of informal norms across regions, social groups, and time. Through examinations of protests and their distinct implications for regime stability, Li offers a novel theoretical framework suitable for monitoring the trajectory of political contention in China and beyond. Overall, this study sheds new light on political mobilization and authoritarian resilience and provides fresh perspectives on power, rules, legitimacy, and resistance in modern societies.{chop}
Viewpoint
02.26.20Dear Chairman Xi, It’s Time for You to Go
In this open letter, the author urges Xi Jinping to step down. Xu Zhiyong went into hiding in late 2019. The following open letter, which was released on 4 February 4, 2020, was written while he was on the run. On February 15, Xu was detained in the...
Books
02.24.20Fateful Triangle
Brookings Institution Press: In this Asian century, scholars, officials, and journalists are increasingly focused on the fate of the rivalry between China and India. They see the U.S.’s relationships with the two Asian giants as now intertwined, after having followed separate paths during the Cold War.In Fateful Triangle, Tanvi Madan argues that China’s influence on the U.S.-India relationship is neither a recent nor a momentary phenomenon. Drawing on documents from India and the United States, she shows that American and Indian perceptions of and policy toward China significantly shaped U.S.-India relations in three crucial decades, from 1949 to 1979. Fateful Triangle updates our understanding of the diplomatic history of U.S.-India relations, highlighting China’s central role in it; reassesses the origins and practice of Indian foreign policy and nonalignment; and provides historical context for the interactions between the three countries.Madan’s assessment of this formative period in the triangular relationship is of more than historic interest. A key question today is whether the United States and India can, or should, develop ever-closer ties as a way of countering China’s desire to be the dominant power in the broader Asian region. Fateful Triangle argues that history shows such a partnership is neither inevitable nor impossible. A desire to offset China brought the two countries closer together in the past, and could do so again. A look to history, however, also shows that shared perceptions of an external threat from China are necessary, but insufficient, to bring India and the United States into a close and sustained alignment. That requires agreement on the nature and urgency of the threat, as well as how to approach the threat strategically, economically, and ideologically.With its long view, Fateful Triangle offers insights for both present and future policymakers as they tackle a fateful, and evolving, triangle that has regional and global implications.{chop}
Books
02.18.20Vigil
Columbia Global Reports: The rise of Hong Kong is the story of a miraculous post-war boom, when Chinese refugees flocked to a small British colony, and, in less than 50 years, transformed it into one of the great financial centers of the world. The unraveling of Hong Kong, on the other hand, shatters the grand illusion of China ever having the intention of allowing democratic norms to take root inside its borders. Hong Kong’s people were subjects of the British Empire for more than a hundred years, and now seem destined to remain the subordinates of today’s greatest rising power.But although we are witnessing the death of Hong Kong as we know it, this is also the story of the biggest challenge to China’s authoritarianism in 30 years. Activists who are passionately committed to defending the special qualities of a home they love are fighting against Beijing’s crafty efforts to bring the city into its fold—of making it a centerpiece of its “Greater Bay Area” megalopolis.Jeffrey Wasserstrom draws on his many visits to the city, and knowledge of the history of repression and resistance, to help us understand the deep roots and the broad significance of the events we see unfolding day by day in Hong Kong. The result is a riveting tale of tragedy but also heroism—one of the great David-versus-Goliath battles of our time, pitting determined street protesters against the intransigence of Xi Jinping, the most ambitious leader of China since the days of Mao.{chop}
Viewpoint
02.10.20Viral Alarm: When Fury Overcomes Fear
Overnight, the country found itself in the grip of a devastating crisis; fear was stalking the land. The authorities proved themselves to be at a loss and the cost of their behavior was soon visited upon the common people. Before long, the...
Conversation
02.09.20Public Anger Over Coronavirus Is Mounting. Will It Matter?
The coronavirus outbreak that exploded three weeks ago in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has prompted the most severe government actions in three decades. Cities are closed down, transport links broken, and tens of millions of people effectively...
Culture
02.06.20What a Picture of China’s One-Child Policy Leaves Out
Brainwashed? Reflections on Propaganda in One Child NationBy Jie LiOne Child Nation, a documentary distributed by Amazon Studios which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, is becoming one of the most influential films about China in the United...
Viewpoint
01.29.20How Much Could a New Virus Damage Beijing’s Legitimacy?
A month into the coronavirus epidemic that has swept across China, the details of the Chinese government’s political and administrative response remain highly ambiguous. What has been unmistakable, however, is the volume and intensity of social...
Books
01.27.20The Art of Political Control in China
Cambridge University Press: When and why do people obey political authority when it runs against their own interests to do so? This book is about the channels beyond direct repression through which China’s authoritarian state controls protest and implements ambitious policies from sweeping urbanization schemes that have displaced millions to family planning initiatives like the one-child policy. Daniel C. Mattingly argues that China’s remarkable state capacity is not simply a product of coercive institutions such as the secret police or the military. Instead, the state uses local civil society groups as hidden but effective tools of informal control to suppress dissent and implement far-reaching policies.Drawing on evidence from qualitative case studies, experiments, and national surveys, the book challenges the conventional wisdom that a robust civil society strengthens political responsiveness. Surprisingly, it is communities that lack strong civil society groups that find it easiest to act collectively and spontaneously resist the state.{chop}
Viewpoint
01.14.20Why Aren’t More Countries Confronting China over Xinjiang?
China has justified its repressive actions in Xinjiang as a response to a series of terror attacks attributed to Uighurs. But the measures Chinese authorities have employed have attracted international condemnation. In July, the United Nations...
Postcard
01.09.20As Taiwan’s Election Nears, A Sense of Foreboding Grips Voters from Different Camps
On the evening of December 29, at a rally in front of Democratic Progressive Party headquarters in Taipei, hundreds of people are shouting in unison. They support Tsai Ing-wen, the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) candidate in Taiwan’s January 11...
Conversation
01.08.20China: The Year Ahead
As 2019 drew to a close, ChinaFile asked contributors to write about their expectations for China in 2020.
Depth of Field
12.31.19‘Nowhere to Dock’
from Yuanjin Photo
In 2019, Depth of Field showcased stories covering a range of topics: Shi Yangkun’s nostaglic exploration of China’s last collective villages, Zhu Lingyu’s careful and artisitic portrayal of survivors of sexual violence, and cities seen through the...
Conversation
12.30.19What’s Next for Taiwan?
On January 11, Taiwanese will go to the polls. Their election pits the incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which favors greater distance from Beijing, against Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomingtang,...
Viewpoint
12.11.19Is Violence in Hong Kong’s Protests Turning off Moderates?
As protests in Hong Kong have become more violent, have the demographics of the protesters changed? The level of violence employed by protesters as well as the police force has escalated to new heights ever since July 21, when alleged triad members...
China in the World Podcast
12.11.19Are China and Russia Getting Too Close for Comfort?
from Carnegie China
Discussion of U.S.-China-Russia relations often focuses on how American policy is driving Moscow and Beijing closer together. This analysis, however, ignores important factors limiting cooperation between China and Russia and preventing the two...
Conversation
12.09.19What Does Beijing Want from the Pacific Islands?
In late September, Pacific Island countries the Solomon Islands and Kiribati switched their diplomatic allegiances from Taiwan to China. That month, a Beijing-based company signed a secretive deal granting it exclusive development rights for the...
The NYRB China Archive
11.26.19How China’s Rise Has Forced Hong Kong’s Decline
from New York Review of Books
For nearly six months, people around the world have watched the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong with one question in the back of their minds: When will Beijing lose patience and the repression begin? Journalists expecting to cover Tiananmen II...
Viewpoint
11.14.19Violence by Hong Kong Protesters Won’t Advance Their Cause
I have watched with growing concern as violence has intensified in Hong Kong. I have been deeply dismayed to see escalating police violence, which has fundamentally damaged the reputation of a police force once known as among Asia’s best. And I have...
Conversation
11.04.19How Should Universities Respond to China’s Growing Presence on Their Campuses?
How should universities encourage respectful dialogue on contentious issues involving China, while at the same time fostering an environment free of intimidation, harassment, and violence? And how should university administrators and governments...
Reports
11.01.19Scanning the Horizon
Bertram Lang
International Civil Society Centre
China’s growing influence in the world has been identified as one of the top global trends influencing the trajectory and development of other major trends relating to sustainable development. China’s relevance for civil society organisations (CSOs...
Books
10.24.19Rebranding China
Stanford University Press: China is intensely conscious of its status, both at home and abroad. This concern is often interpreted as an undivided desire for higher standing as a global leader. Yet, Chinese political elites heatedly debate the nation’s role as it becomes an increasingly important player in international affairs. At times, China positions itself not as a nascent global power but as a fragile developing country. Contradictory posturing makes decoding China’s foreign policy a challenge, generating anxiety and uncertainty in many parts of the world. Using the metaphor of “rebranding” to understand China’s varying displays of status, Xiaoyu Pu analyzes a rising China’s challenges and dilemmas on the global stage.As competing pressures mount across domestic, regional, and international audiences, China must pivot between different representational tactics. Rebranding China demystifies how the state represents its global position by analyzing recent military transformations, regional diplomacy, and international financial negotiations. Drawing on a sweeping body of research, including original Chinese sources and interdisciplinary ideas from sociology, psychology, and international relations, this book puts forward a framework for interpreting China’s foreign policy.{chop}
Conversation
10.24.19Can China’s Government Advance Its Case on Twitter?
How successful have Chinese officials been at their use of English-language social media? Has the Chinese Party-state’s use of Facebook and Twitter been good or bad for Chinese soft power?
Conversation
10.18.19The Future of Huawei in Europe
On October 9, the European Commission and the European Agency for Cybersecurity released their long-awaited risk assessment of the region’s 5G network. Written with input from all 28 European Union members, the report warned about a 5G supplier from...
Postcard
10.17.19‘If We Give up on Our Husbands Today, Tomorrow Our Children Will Be Ashamed of Us’
This is a story about fear and the attempt to conquer fear. The wives of some of the lawyers who disappeared in China’s “709” crackdown have suffered house arrest, threats, and suppression. In their search to find their husbands, they hope no longer...
Conversation
10.10.19What Just Happened with the NBA in China?
Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted—and then quickly deleted—a post supporting the protests in Hong Kong. The tweet generated an immediate outcry. The Chinese Basketball Association announced it was suspending cooperation with the...
Conversation
10.04.19Taiwan Is Losing Allies. What Should Taipei (and D.C.) Do?
In a single week in September, the two Pacific nations of Kiribati and the Solomon Islands both switched their diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Beijing, reducing the number of countries that still recognize Taiwan to 14 (and the Vatican)...
Viewpoint
10.01.19We Need to Pull U.S.-China Relations Back from the Brink. Here’s How.
Like it or not, the U.S. and China are in the process of “decoupling.” The two countries find themselves drifting dangerously back into a state of growing distrust, and even antagonism. Both sides have their narratives and grievances that prevent...
Culture
09.30.19The Same Old ‘China Story’ Keeps Chinese Sci-Fi Earthbound
In the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic on October 1, China’s television regulator has mandated that all television channels only air patriotic shows. The ban might be short-lived, but it has kept the news in the headlines and...
Viewpoint
09.28.19A Birthday Letter to the People’s Republic
Dear People’s Republic, Or should I call you, China? I am writing to you on the eve of your 70th birthday. 70, what an age. “For a man to live to 70 has been rare since ancient times,” the poet Du Fu wrote in the eighth century. You have outlived...
Features
09.21.19Which European Companies Are Working in Xinjiang?
Foreign companies continue to conduct business in Xinjiang despite widespread evidence of human rights abuse. This list identifies 68 European companies with ties to Xinjiang ranging from building infrastructure and investing in joint ventures to...
Viewpoint
09.18.19Beyond Hawks and Doves
Two recent documents—as well as the critiques they have elicited—furnish the basis for a more nuanced debate on U.S. policy towards China. First, on July 4, a group of roughly 100 figures from the policy, military, business, and academic communities...
Conversation
09.13.19Why Is the FBI Investigating Americans Who Study in China?
Over the last two years, the FBI has questioned at least five U.S. citizens who have studied at Yenching Academy, a Master’s degree program hosted by Peking University. The purpose of the interviews, according to NPR, is to “ascertain whether they...
China in the World Podcast
09.05.19Is the U.S.-China Relationship in Free Fall?: Part II
from Carnegie China
Da Wei argues that shifting domestic politics in China and the United States are negatively impacting bilateral ties. In Washington, there is no longer widespread support for engagement with China. In Beijing, debates over the role of the state in...
China in the World Podcast
09.05.19Is the U.S.-China Relationship in Free Fall?: Part I
from Carnegie China
The Trump administration has focused China’s attention on the need to address underlying issues in the bilateral relationship, but it has overstepped. Trump’s use of tariffs has hardened Chinese views and limited Beijing’s ability to make...
Conversation
08.27.19Can China’s Government Replace Hong Kong?
As the Hong Kong protests enter their fourth month with no end in sight, on August 18 Beijing announced that the nearby Chinese metropolis of Shenzhen would again become a new type of special economic zone. In a clear message to Hong Kong, the plan...