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A
For a small business owner, every day is full of surprises. Some great, some not so great, like when a client cancels their order at the last minute.
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But here's a surprise you will like.
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C
Welcome to the Seneca Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program we look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents and cultural trends that can help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics and society. Join me each week for in depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. I'm Kaiser Goa, coming to you this week from Hong Kong. Sinica is supported this year by the center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a national resource center for the study of East Asia. The Sinica Podcast is and will remain free, but if you work for an organization that believes in what I'm doing with the show and with my newsletter, please consider lending your support. I'm still looking for new institutional support and the lines are, as always, open. You can reach me@cinecapodmail.com and listeners. Please support my work by becoming a paying subscriber@cinecapodcast.com seriously, help me out. I know there are a lot of substacks out there and they start to add up. I subscribe to many of them myself, but I really think this one delivers serious value for your hard earned dollar. So please do subscribe and help me to continue bringing you these conversations. I am on the road this week, as I said down in Hong Kong, giving a couple of talks and attending a conference. So rather than put out a regular episode, I'm doing something a little different and I think you're going to find it well worth your time. A few days ago on April 3, the Institute for America, China and the Future of Global Affairs ACF at Johns Hopkins SAIS hosted a day long conference in Washington called the China Debate. We are Not Politics, Technology and the Road Ahead. The organizing premise was something that resonates deeply with me, that much of our prevailing policy conversation rests on under examined assumptions and that we need more rigor, humility and intellectual honesty if we're going to navigate this moment well with the generous blessing and active encouragement of the organizers. I'm sharing the audio from that conference with you over the next couple of days. Today you'll hear two things. First, the opening welcome remarks from Jessica Chen Weiss, the David M. Lampton professor of China Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS and the inaugural Faculty Director of acf, who organized the whole event. Jessica is of course a regular on this show and is genuinely among the people working on China policy today whom I admire most. She'll lay out the intellectual stakes of the day beautifully and concisely. Then you'll hear the first panel, what China Wants, moderated by Dmitry Sevstopoulo, the US China Correspondent for the Financial Times and one of the sharpest journalists covering the beat. He's joined by a genuinely excellent group, Dan Taylor, a former senior China Intelligence Analyst at DIA and and a senior Fellow at SAIS ACF Arthur Kroeber, founding partner of Gavicol Dragonomics and one of the most clear eyed analysts of the Chinese economy anywhere, Xiaoyuquin, who's director of the Institute for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Studies at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, who brings an indispensable mainland perspective that you don't get often in these settings, and Jessica herself. Over the coming weeks, I'll be putting out the remaining sessions from the conference, which include panels on the what the United States Wants on Tech rivalry and AI competition, and a fireside chat between Henry Farrell and Alondra Nelson on where the AI race discourse goes wrong. Really strong material throughout. For now, enjoy the conversation.
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B
All right, well, welcome everybody. My name is Jessica Chen Weiss. I'm the inaugural Faculty Director of the Institute for America, China and the Future of Global affairs, or acf, here at sais. We're delighted to welcome you here today. It's a moment of great flux, which means a lot of risk, but also great opportunity. As the song by Buffalo Springfield put it, there's something happening here, but what it is ain't exactly clear. So I'm hoping that you emerge from today's conversation with a clearer picture of what exactly is happening here. And I think at this critical juncture in world history, it's vital that we look afresh at key assumptions and principles both about China, about the United States own purpose here at home and abroad, as well as about the nature of the technological developments that are reshaping our economies and societies. These, we feel, are not the debates that we're having often enough. And so today we tackle these foundational questions head on to add rigor and humility, civility and creativity, to advance A more sober strategic and evidence based conversation about U.S. public and policy conversation about China. Much of the prevailing policy conversation assumes an intrinsically zero sum competition between the United States and China, where any progress that China makes comes at an expense to or a threat to American interests. Yet we feel that this assumption has not been sufficiently unpacked. And today we interrogate the degree to which US and Chinese interests are intrinsically adversarial, competitive, but not necessarily zero sum, or even potentially complementary or cooperative. A more refined assessment on both sides of the Pacific is necessary to illuminate what a new resting state, if you will, for US China relations could be beyond whatever the summit anticipated for May ends up producing. We begin today with a whole session on what it is that China wants. And here I'm very pleased to feature one of our new ACF insights which you may have picked up on your way in. Or if not, you can scan the QR code from our senior fellow Dan Taylor on how to predict China's intentions, how to parse the Chinese leadership statements and goals in ways that don't quite add up to the common assertion that China seeks to replace the United States as the global hegemon. But this is only one way to look at China's intentions. We also need to understand the competing objectives and constraints that shape how China is navigating this moment. We look next at what the United States wants and then how China fits into that. There was a consensus, we feel, that China posed the greatest challenge to US interests and to the global order. But this administration has chosen a different approach, one centered more on economic balance and a decent peace, they call it. In the Asia Pacific. We may have in fact reached, quote, unquote, peak competition under the last administration, as a senior Biden official put it in one of the private roundtables we hosted this spring. So the old consensus may be dead, but a new consensus has not yet been born. And it is particularly important that we examine and reexamine what it is that Americans want from the US relationship with China and in the world, and that we do so by examining the evolving landscape of opinion in both parties. We then turn to the AI tech and cyber domains, because this is where many of the most vital stakes live, where unintended escalation risks sit, where the economy and society is being reorganized around this idea of pursuing AI dominance. So what does success in this domain look like? And is it sufficient to quote, unquote, beat China? And how are competing approaches to AI, to industrial strategy and cyberstability redrawing the landscape of technological competition and risk. And so that's where we will end the day with. I'm really pleased to share a conversation between Henry Farrell and Alondra Nelson on Beyond the Language of an AI race. What should we be aiming for? Who gets to decide? What is the affirmative vision that should underpin US strategy in this domain? This is a moment of great transition. I'm delighted that you're all here with us today to examine where it might lead. It is collectively ours to shape. Let's get to work. Let me first welcome the first panel up to the stage.
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D
Good morning, everyone. So I think you know who the panelists are because you've, you've come here to hear them speak. But let me just very, very quickly introduce them. On my right, Jessica Chen Weiss, faculty director at CISA's Institute for America, China and the Future of Global Affairs. Ambitious title. Then we have Dan Taylor, who's a former senior China intelligence analyst in the intelligence community and among other things, is a senior fellow. Also here at sais. We then have Arthur Kroeber, who's the founding partner of Gavcal Dragonomics. And finally we have Xiao Yuchin, director of the Institute for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies. So I'm going to jump right in. We're going to answer all the questions and solve all the world problems in the next 40 minutes. And if we don't solve them, then you have 20 minutes to ask questions to make up for where I have failed. Let me start a question for all of you. And Jessica, maybe I'll start with you, given that you're here. What role does China want to play in the world, and how do you think its goal or its ambition has shifted in recent years? And then a little bit later, I'm going to talk specifically about Iran. So more broadly in the last few years and looking to the future, what is China trying to do on the world stage?
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B
Thanks so much, Dmitry, and to you for being here convening this important conversation. I'd say that what China wants in the world is sort of defined by a sort of a set of minimal objectives, sovereignty, security and development. But what that means in the context of a shifting global order isn't exactly clear. They certainly want to feel safe and secure and prosperous in a world that the United States has long dominated. And so there's been an effort to create much greater legitimacy and, in fact, leadership in the international order. I think that though the role that some, I think are looking to China in this moment to Step up where the United States has perhaps pulled back. And I don't think that they're quite ready to do so. If anything, I think the Chinese leadership and experts that I've spoken with have a far greater sense of the domestic constraints that have in fact inhibited America's global leadership. And China's not eager to kind of repeat those mistakes of being an overextended global superpower while not attending to some of the more pressing challenges at home.
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D
So you see more of a kind of a. I mean, America first has taken a diversion into Iran, but you see China first as there. Is that a good way to describe China's policy?
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B
Absolutely. You may have coined it just now.
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D
Dan, the same question, what do you think?
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E
So China first. That's fascinating. I have to remember that I think it's important in my previous career we would always start trying to define terms and frame what we're talking about and look for evidence. And if you go back to what the leaders in Beijing have said, they want their role to be in the world, it gives them a lot of room to define that as they evaluate the situation. And you guys can read the paper, apparently that's out there in the hall. But this general idea that they evaluate starting point, their own level of development, their own level of various terms, comprehensive national power, and they still see themselves as being behind the so called developed nations. And there is a lot of work still to be done domestically building their own pathway toward their great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. And so that leads to a lot of internal focus on their own needs and the needs of their own population and their own development. And related to that is their evaluation of the international environment, which is, you know, we're in changes unseen in a century or whatever. We're even beyond that by now probably. So they have to think about what their place is in that environment. And I don't think they're in a particular hurry to step forward and take on huge additional burdens in the international system at a time when they are still focused on developing domestically. Yes, increasing their influence in the international system, but not replacing it or establishing one that puts tremendous additional burdens on
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D
China just very quickly. I mean, as you said, there's massive change happening right now. And what normally would happen in 10 years, 50 years sometimes feels like it's happening in a week or 24 hours in my business. Do you think the Chinese political system is nimble and adept enough to kind of adapt quickly to what's happening in real time now?
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E
Well, I think the general approach they've taken of observing the situation and finding their opportunities where they want to push themselves forward or not. They're not feeling compelled to push themselves forward. To take a leadership role everywhere means that they can evaluate this chaotic environment and they can at least believe that they have some time to adapt to it without having to do rapid change to how they approach the world. And we haven't seen them take huge changes to how they approach the international environment. They're relatively consistent even while the world is changing around them.
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D
So to anyone who watched the Muppet show back in the day, they're a bit like Statler and Waldorf up in the balcony, looking down, commenting on what's happening, but not necessarily getting involved all the time. Leading question, your Honor. I take that, Arthur, on the same broad question.
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F
Yeah, I think you should take that up with Winnie the Pooh when next you see him. Yeah. So I think Jessica's framework of sovereignty, security, and development is a good general framing. I extend that a little bit by saying I think the. So first of all, what I would say is we have to be a little bit careful here. What does China want? I have no idea. But I think we have some pretty good ideas about what Xi Jinping is aiming for. And I think we have to allow for the possibility that there are different views within the system that can't be expressed now, but could be under different leadership. So all of this is moving target. But I think broadly, there's a pretty consistent desire for, under the sovereignty rubric, freedom of action and freedom from coercion. So they invest a lot in doing things that prevent them from being coerced, basically, by the United States. And they've got increasingly effective at that. And what they want to be able to do is act freely in their own interests wherever they need to. And that is very different, I think, as both Jessica and Dan suggested, from an ambition to create a whole new structure that they then have to bear the costs of supervising. I think they see that at the moment as not a good use of resources. But I think we also have to acknowledge that freedom of action means freedom to act coercively against other actors, particularly in their neighborhood or people who are operating within the Chinese economy. So freedom of action is, I think, a much more limited goal than what you sometimes hear about ambitions to create a new global system. But it contains within it a lot of potentially difficult behaviors that are likely to create additional frictions within the international system.
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D
If I can just ask you on freedom from coercion, I mean, last year when China said to the us, you're putting all these tariffs on us, we are going to introduce a fairly draconian export control regime for rare earths. Someone told me recently Deng Xiaoping first talked about rare routes in 1964, which I thought was stunning. Why do you think China started using that toolkit for the first time last year? Were you surprised?
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F
I was a little bit surprised that they did it so aggressively. But the general. It seemed clear that they had made a decision by the time the Liberation Day tariffs came around that they needed to hit back strongly and that they needed to act differently than they had in the first trade war in 2018, where they basically just took a lot of punches and, and were not able to respond, I think they felt that they had sufficient, not only physical control over the rare earth supply chain, but also legal control through the export control regime that they had developed to put that on the table. So it was a little surprising, I guess, in terms of timing, but not surprising in terms of they've long had a desire for some kind of a counterpunch that would force the US to back off. It was very successful. And my assessment is that in Beijing they now think that they have gotten to a point of, you could call a strategic stalemate with the United States, where they're clearly constrained by things that the US can do on semiconductor controls and so forth. But they also feel like they have real ability to constrain the U.S. and that's a big win for them.
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D
Yu Chen, on the broader question, yeah,
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A
I can start with what China does not want. I think China does not want to be a US style hegemon in the world. And we can start to read the Chinese official statement that our second centenary goal is to reach the level of a moderately developed country by the mid of the century. So to reach this goal, I think our foreign policy included our policy, including our policy towards the United States, work for this goal. And also I think the most important thing for China at the current stage is to make sure our national interests be protected. So in this way we have to strengthen our capability in military, economic and also security, all those sectors. And I think the past several years experience has shown to the Chinese people that this approach is the right way to reach our national goal. And also I think China wants to be a part of a group of country to rise collectively. So that's why the Chinese government talks a lot about the multipolarity. And the definition of this pole is very different comparing with the bipolar system in The Cold War era. So China still thinks it's one of the group of developing countries. So China hopes that it can play a role to work for the interests of this group of countries. So China wants to contribute to the global governance. Though the current situation is very difficult and I think that the Chinese government is very clear that we cannot overstretch our capacity. We just try to do what we are able to do.
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D
Can I ask you just to comment on one of the things that Arthur said? So China also wants freedom of action. And freedom of action can include freedom to act coercively as well. China in the past has taken economic course of action against smaller countries. Australia, Taiwan, Japan is bigger. But last year was the first time it really took major course of action against the US As China grows and takes more of a role on the world stage, do you expect it to take more coercive action against the US or do you expect it to focus more on smaller countries that, let's be frank, harder for them to defend themselves?
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A
First of all, Taiwan is not a country. Secondly,
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D
the FT calls it a country, so I have to use our language.
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A
Secondly, I don't think China's approach is a coercive one. I would rather describe China's policy as a part of our deterrence strategy. For example, the so called rare earth card that Beijing played the beginning of last October. I am personally I'm not surprised because several cases has taught the Chinese government and the researchers like me to understand that we have to strengthen our deterrence against the United States and also Japan and some other countries if they really want to challenge our national core interests. For example, I will take the case that I am more familiar with Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. You know, before her visit, the Chinese government, our Foreign Ministry, our pla, the Eastern Theater had repeatedly sent the signal that please don't go. But nobody listened. And then after her visit, the PLA had a big military exercise in the Taiwan Strait and that deterrence had been very effective. So after that, I think on the Capitol Hill there was the Taiwan Policy act. And some very symbolic things in that act has been taken away. And also I think the White House had put pressure on the Congress not to do certain things. So these cases have taught us that we need to strengthen our deterrence. It's not a kind of a coercive action. And we hope that by the way, when we do the deterrence, we also make the reassurance, try to let the outsiders, the United States, include that our policy has been consistent.
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D
Great. So staying on the same theme. Back to you, Jessica. When Donald Trump put out his national security strategy, it talked about focusing on the Western Hemisphere. There's been a lot of discussion about whether the US has taken whether Donald Trump is taking a sphere of influence approach. Do you think China is taking a sphere of influence approach?
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B
I think China is taking a networked approach. I think that they are working to establish and reinforce partnerships around the world so that they will be invulnerable to potential sanctions or cutoffs in the event of some kind of contingency. Obviously, I think China's so called core interests are largely concentrated in the Asia Pacific. So in terms of the kind of concentric circles of priority, there's certainly the greatest emphasis on especially the territorial and sovereignty claims. There's But I don't think that China is sort of ready to leave the rest of the world because I recognize that that's an important source of both leverage and insurance, I think against a potential confrontation.
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D
Yucheng, would you agree with that?
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A
I don't think that China is seeking kind of a feast of influence. It's not our policy. And of course Asia Pacific is the most important region for China. Our I still think China is a regional country with global implications. So our relations with our neighboring countries is the most important relations for us. Of course, if we talk about a great power relation, our relation with the United States, with Russia are all important. But I think the immediate neighbor is critical for China's future development.
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D
Dan, you mentioned we're going to have another party congress next year. In terms of the things we've just been discussing, do you expect any changes to come out of the party congress that will influence the direction of the things we've been discussing?
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E
No, I don't anticipate any radical change in their approach. I think going back to the discussion we've just been having now, I think that China is working through what it means to be a great power in this evolving international system. I think sometimes things slip out. I was remembering this morning the fairly infamous Yang jit statement in 2010 that there are big countries and there are small countries and that's just a fact. And that is a reality for an increasingly influential and powerful and developed China and how they interact with other countries. But then to your question, looking ahead to the next party congress, we're getting to a time most likely rolling into a fourth term for Xi Jinping where I think there will be a lot of focus on achieving goals that have been set out in the past and looking forward to getting Much closer to mid century by that time. It'll be rapidly, rapidly approaching for a lot of us at that point. So I don't see. I think they will be looking very closely at their own level of development and progress they've made over the past five years. I think that even with challenges, I think they will be generally happy with that trajectory again in a challenging environment. And I will be fascinated. And you were talking about the speed of change. You know, if you'd asked me a year ago, I think that they probably would have been able to identify the key trends in the international environment that would influence the approach they need to take going forward. I think between now and the fall of 2027, it may change three or four more times the international environment. So I think there are likely people very hard at work already thinking through these challenges to set the course for 2027, 28 and beyond.
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D
This is slightly off topic, but super quickly, given that you focused on Xi Jinping obviously a lot in your career, let's assume he does start a fourth term. Do you think we will then start talking about will Xi Jinping get a fifth term or do you think four will be it?
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E
I think he's been very careful to avoid the version of lame duck status that could come up at that point. We are a year and a half out from the next party Congress and there is no heir apparent identified, no signs that there will be one identified at the next party congress. So similar to the point I've tried to make about leaving ambiguity and room to maneuver in foreign policy and international policy, clearly he's leaving himself room to maneuver, to leave that option open as the time comes, but not to foreclose any of his own power and influence and ability to achieve his goals.
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D
And the near term, at the very end, I might ask all of you to take a wild guess on, as someone putting me to this morning, who is the J.D. vance in China, but we'll keep that for the end, or maybe the Marco Rubio who knows? Arthur, we were messaging yesterday and you were saying in the US There's a kind of a tendency to view Chinese ambitions and security concepts through the kind of the US lens, the way US Thinks about these issues and then project them onto China. Can you kind of expand a little bit? What do you mean by that?
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F
Yeah, I will do that, but I will first take the opportunity to just pick up on a couple of points that have been made here, which is that I think, and this I think relates to your question. So the question was, is China Interested in the spheres of influence thing, I think it's pretty clear that if they want maximum freedom of influence, freedom of action and maximum freedom from US coercion, that implies that the ultimate long term goal would be for China to have a sphere of influence within East Asia. I think that is a very clear implication. And again, I would respectfully disagree with Professor Hsiao that a short list of countries that has been on the sharp end of Chinese coercion, actual countries would include Japan, South Korea, Australia, Lithuania. The European Union created an instrument called the anti coercion instrument which they now want to use against the United States. But it was invented because they saw imminent and actual threats of economic coercion by China. So I think it is very clear that China is willing to and interested in exerting power. But I think that the projection thing is that what I detect in D.C. is a tendency to think that the Chinese must have the same concept of international power that the United States has. So if they are challenging the US in certain ways, what that must mean is that they are trying to replace the US system with their own system. And I just think that that's wrong. And I think here we've had several perspectives suggesting that Chinese government does not see it in its interest to undertake the cost and complexity of creating a whole new parallel set of structures. What they have is more narrowly defined objectives of freedom. And if you burden yourself with alliances, for example, or the cost of underwriting formal systems, that actually is a limitation on your sovereignty and freedom. So I think those two things go together. That there is a desire to project more power and influence through existing channels, sometimes to create new channels when the existing channels are not serving your interests, but for the most part shy away from the costs of building up an entire global order. So I think we need to be careful about reading into China intentions that really are reflection of US concepts of how global power is best exercised. But at the same time, I think we want to be careful about not thinking that the Chinese therefore have no ambitions because I think it's clear that they have a lot of ambitions.
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D
Let's switch to the Iran conflict. I'm curious whether all of you think that the conflict is going to have any influence on the way China views the future from a strategic perspective. Is it a short term thing? That's very volatile situation right now. Energy crisis needs to be ridden through and then we'll be back to where we were or in Beijing. Will this change the thinking on how China should operate at all? Maybe Yuchen, if You want to start
- [30:16]
A
on that one, on Iran? I think Beijing's hope is that the conflict can end as soon as possible. And also our interests in Iran and also in the whole region, Middle east can be protected and respected. And then the street of Hormuz can be reopened to traffic so that the trade order can be restored as soon as possible. Because we are a international trade country, we need to have the normal trade order. This is important. And also, if we look at Iran, I think it's both a short term event and a kind of a mid and long term event. Short term, it has a huge implication for economics, for security in the Middle east and whether it will have a spillover impact on Asia Pacific. Because right now our neighbor countries like Vietnam, like Indonesia, some South Asian countries, they have, they are very energy dependent countries right now. Their economy is in a difficult situation. China needs to help them. And also our trade with them will be in kind of a difficult situation if they, their economy continue to deteriorate. And so it's a short term perspective. If we put the midterm long term, so far, we still don't know what the Trump administration will do. The next step, will it end this conflict in two to three weeks, just like what President Trump said the day before yesterday, or it will kind of continue into more than six months or even one year? Nobody knows at the current stage. So if a situation continue to worsen, I guess here more and more people will criticize China, kinds of things. I've already heard these kind of voices that China, you support Iran, give them dual use elements. Right. And also because if we cannot buy oil from Iran, then we need to buy the oil from Russia. And then the people here would again say, you see, China, Russia, these two countries get together, all those things. I think these things are really bad for China, US Relations.
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D
But is China approaching this more in a passive way? Like at the Pentagon, people often say hope is not a policy. And so you can hope that the Strait of Hormuz will open and that everything calms down in three weeks, but you can't plan on that. So does China need to rethink what it actually does in terms of policies in the short term?
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A
Right. Economically, I think the Chinese companies these days are very frustrated because they have already invested a lot in those Gulf countries, right. In the AI industry and other industries. So I think for these companies, they have to reconsider their future plan. And for the Chinese government, we have already sent out special envoy to the regional countries, but we're kind of saying that, and also China and Pakistan jointly released a kind of an initiative, try to improve the situation on the ground. But overall, I think China's capability is limited. We cannot send our troops to the region. Right. We cannot send our military, PLA ships to the region. So what kind of things that China can do more? Personally, I don't think we can do a lot of things. And also, can I go back a little bit to the previous questions? First of all, I agree with my neighbor that we cannot use the American lens to understand Chinese goal and policies. But when you talk about coercive, it's the American's lens. And so if you look through this lens, it's very difficult for you to understand Chinese policy. And also, like my next neighbor, talk about Yang Jiechi's words in 2010, actually, the former Singapore foreign minister said that that was wrong. Yang Jiechi didn't say that. We can look at that. And also, Dimitri, you mentioned that these days, the whole thing changed so rapidly, especially for reporters like you. But I think for countries, especially for big countries like China, like the United States, we have to understand something. They are very stable. They will be there in the next 100 years. For example, Chinese culture, Chinese history, Chinese philosophy. And the same thing happened here for the Chinese. We have to understand the U.S. culture, the U.S. history, the U.S. philosophy. I think these things are very important for our future development of the bilateral relations.
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D
Okay, Dan's kind of slightly related question to what Yujun was saying. You've written that the China tends to shape the global system to benefit itself without having to show their security and management responsibilities globally. I wonder, in the context of the Iran conflict, does that change at all? And, you know, could the pla. Why. Why could the PLA not send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to join the Europeans? Oh, sorry. I mean, to join the. Actually, there's no one doing it. But. But why couldn't they.
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E
So to start on that point, of course they could, right? There's been a PLA Navy task group operating in the Gulf of Aden or series of task groups for 18 years now. They've shown the capability to operate naval assets wherever they want to. If they chose. They wanted to join such a thing. They could. I don't believe that that would be the choice that will be made in Beijing. I don't believe that they want to shoulder that burden. Should that come along? Largely because I think when you look at, if you step back to, like, when I was in government, we did a lot of discussions about so called adversary alignment. This idea that increasing ties between countries like Iran and China and Russia, North Korea, others, was something like an emerging block. Some took that much further than I would have in building those relationships. I think if that was a world we were in and we had a China that was interested in creating a new international system like that, maybe we would be in a situation where China would feel compelled to be involved in conflicts like this, more supporting their partners in the region. But of course, if you step back and look at the realities, yes, Iran is an important partner to China, but so is UAE and so is Saudi Arabia. So are the other countries in the Gulf. And they've been very careful to spread out their level of risk in different ways. So obviously it is in, in Beijing's best interest for this conflict to wrap up soon. In a lot of countries. Best interest for it to wrap up soon. I think the challenge gets to the point if this drags on for many months or beyond, or if we reach a point where there is an end state in Iran itself of essentially regime or state collapse and chaos, that leads to tremendous instability in the region, which I think, I don't think that would cause a dramatic change in China's approach to it, but it would cause them to start, have to think differently about the way they have managed their risks in the region and try to even out the stability. But, yeah, I, as a, as somebody who studied the PLA for many years, if they wanted to become involved, they could. They choose not to.
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B
Yeah.
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D
So Donald Trump, unless he postpones again, is going to go to Beijing the middle of May. What do you think the Chinese want from that summit? Do they want something strategic? Is it more tactical? Does Xi Jinping want to buy soybeans to keep Trump happy and his old friends in Iowa? I mean, how should we gauge the level of ambition for what we think is going to come out? Maybe. Arthur, do you want to start on that one?
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F
Yeah. Well, who knows? We'll find out when they go.
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D
You can't leave the room unless you give people the answer.
- [38:00]
F
Well, I give the honest answer first and then I give the required answer later. Yeah. So I think from the Chinese perspective, I think the overall objective here is maintain stability in the US Relationship. It is still by far the most important bilateral relationship. The trade and investment ties are still quite considerable. Chinese reliance and US Technology is quite large. And just the overall desire of the Chinese government is to have as stable as possible an international environment to operate within. So I think that is really the underlying goal. I think with the Rare Earths tool, they have put a marker down that they have the ability to push back against what they would consider to be unreasonable demands. And so what they can give, in a sense, is quite limited. So, yeah, I think some additional purchase commitments, trade things, would be desirable from their standpoint to stabilize the relationship. It seems like they are receptive to this idea that Jamison Greer has put forward of a Board of Trade to kind of manage the trade relationship. I think that's a viable concept. I think bigger asks could include some kind of signaling that there would be an ability for Chinese companies to invest in the United States in a more secure manner. I think that's very fraught and difficult, but I think that would be part of the desire. And again, I think the calculation there would be, if you have more Chinese companies investing in the US that is a stabilizing influence because it creates constituencies in the US that benefit directly from the China relationship. But whether we're going to be able to see any progress on that, I think is a little bit questionable. And then clearly they would also like to see a scaling back of US Export controls and technology and some changes in the policy wording of the US Regarding Taiwan. My view at the moment would be that they're very unlikely to get any of that out of this, but simply something that stabilizes the trade relationship and stabilizes the overall relationship, at least for another year or two, I think would be perceived as a win.
- [40:24]
D
One thing Donald Trump has said, not in the context of the summit, but at the Detroit Auto show, he said something along the lines of, I would welcome, possibly would welcome, Chinese investment in the electric vehicle industry here or Chinese companies coming in. Do you think that's feasible at all?
- [40:40]
F
Well, my personal view is that if you got a significant directional signal that the US Was open to substantial Chinese investment in whatever sector, I think that would be very, very important. Because right now I think the consensus view is that essentially any Chinese investment is ipso facto a security risk. And so if you can do anything that flips that narrative, that could be very significant. So I think we need to watch that very closely. I'm not super optimistic on what can occur in May. I think electric vehicles is just too tough because of the lobbying power of the domestic auto industry. I think battery investments are quite possible because the domestic auto industry has an interest. The Chinese battery companies clearly have a big interest. They would love to gain access to the US Market. So there is, I think, a potential opening there that is politically viable. But even so, it is Tough, because I think any kind of technology oriented investment by Chinese companies in the US Would immediately attract a lot of fire. And I just don't have a clear sense on how much political risk Trump is interested in taking on that. It's easy to say things on the campaign trail, but to actually do something is a higher cost. And I don't have a clear view of how he assesses that cost.
- [42:04]
D
So, Jessica, when my editors ask me next week to predict what's going to come out, what should I tell them? What should I write?
- [42:11]
B
Well, there will be some nice pictures, you know, and some handshakes. I think that the pomp and the circumstance is like, at a minimum, I think for both these leaders, they're going to be focused on that. Reportedly there's less preparation for some of these kinds of kind of substantive details, you know. But beyond that, I think that part of the reason why I think these conversations are so important is sort of what are we aiming at, like beneath that? Because I think there will be a kind of temptation to say, oh, this was, you know, these are giveaways. But in fact, I certainly think, agree that on the Chinese side, there's actually a pretty dim assessment of just how much can be done with an administration that is so mercurial and that might not be, you know, may not stick to its own positions from a given week to the next, let alone in the broader context of the conversation in Washington, D.C. and across the United States.
- [42:59]
D
So you're not expecting some huge big bang deal and we're all going to go.
- [43:03]
B
If I did, we would have had a different conversation up here. I think it really does require us returning to the fundamentals because so little, I think, might, I mean, of course it could because the president can make a whole lot of things happen. But unless we situate that in the broader conversation, I think my bet is that it will be kind of thin on substance, much pushed to either a board of trade, maybe a board of investment. We could ideally get something on the kind of to signal that the movement of people between the two countries, these sort of ordinary connections between societies, that, that is to the benefit of both countries, both in understanding the other and in kind of. Right. Sizing our own, you know, assessments of where the other's sort of strengths and challenges lie.
- [43:47]
D
Dan, anything you want to add or subtract to that?
- [43:50]
E
I would just add that it's not unique to how Beijing approaches this administration. But they, they have always, they put a lot of emphasis on leader level discussions to set a tone for Other discussions like we've had discussions in the last administration about the bally spirit after the summit and the Busan spirit now in this administration because I think it gives them not that they expect a huge set of agreements from President Trump at this first meeting, but it enables them throughout discussions at various other levels throughout the year to point back to what they hope to be a very congenial, positive meeting between the leaders that then would inform how the discussions go further at different levels going forward. And there's the potential for future. Obviously we went into the year thinking up to four leader level meetings this year, which in the context of a mercurial good term to describe the administration, the touch points at the leader level helps them keep the stability in the rest of the discussions throughout the year, I think not an analyst of the US Political system, but it'll be interesting to see if the administration wants to do any of these larger things that we're talking about, whether they feel compelled to push faster because of a potential shift in Congress after the midterms. And so I don't know. And we have had various conflicting reports about the level of preparation for in this town for what they want to achieve out of these summits. But you never know.
- [45:19]
D
Yuchen. I mean, there's a growing level of frustration in Washington among China experts, China watchers, that it's harder and harder to get information out of the Trump administration. There's not many background briefings for journalists. A lot of the decisions are top down. And often people in the different agencies frankly don't know what's going on. If I can be very blunt, is it any better in Beijing?
- [45:43]
A
I think the situation in Beijing is much better than here. First of all, now that you said
- [45:49]
D
that, I'm going to ask you to tell me what's going to happen in May.
- [45:52]
A
But okay, first of all, as a think tank researcher, we have huge demand from Beijing and also the Shanghai municipal government that the officials in the central government and also in the Shanghai local government try to ask us for policy recommendations, policy analysis, help them to understand what the Trump administration is thinking about. But it's a huge challenge for us. That's why I keep visiting Washington, trying to meet different people here and try to understand what the situation going on here. And with regard to the summit meeting, I think first of all, I hope that this summit will not be delayed again because right now for this bilateral relationship, the summit and also the two presidents phone conversation, phone calls are the most important momentum to push this bilateral to be stable and to Move forward. So this is the first thing. The second is more than two weeks ago when I was here, I had kind of a roundtable with U.S. colleagues. One of them said that the summit will be a skinny summit. I don't know whether it will be skinny or a little bit, kind of more things on the table. But no matter how many results will come out of the summit, I think as long as President Trump can go to Beijing, it's a good news for our bilateral relations. So I hope that in the second half of this year President Xi can visit the United States and also that the two presidents can go to APEC and also G20 summit. I think these kind of exchanges are very important. I really hope President Trump can go to Shenzhen and visit all those companies. And I think it's kind of an eye opening thing for him to do.
- [47:46]
D
Yeah, as a journalist, we're not supposed to give policy recommendations, but I wrote a story once about golf courses in Shenzhen. I'm not a golfer, but you might want to sell that to Donald Trump. That might be a pro tip. My final question was going to be on Taiwan, but I want to be faithful and go to Q and A. But if no one asks a question about Taiwan, wink wink. I will come back and take the last five minutes. So let's go to the audience. If you can put your hand up and give us your name and affiliation and keep your questions short because as an Irishman who grew up in bars, I will cut you off ruthlessly if you go on for too long. Let's start with the gentleman in the very frontier in the gray sweater.
- [48:28]
B
Hi. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking your
- [48:30]
F
time down here, spending time with us
- [48:33]
B
and giving such insightful talk. My name is Eric.
- [48:36]
D
I'm here with sais first year.
- [48:39]
B
My question is more for Dr. Xiao,
- [48:41]
F
but I'm open to hearing thoughts from the panelists.
- [48:44]
B
You mentioned that China has this interest in contributing to global governance. Do you think that means sort of
- [48:50]
F
like a necessary transition from autocracy to democracy? If not, how can they meaningfully contribute
- [48:56]
E
to that initiative without compromising themselves ideologically?
- [49:00]
F
Thank you.
- [49:01]
A
I don't think what you said to transform from a so called autocracy to a democracy is the precondition for China to contribute for global governance. First of all, I don't like the framework of autocracy versus democracy. Secondly, China has already been contributing to global governance in cyberspace, in climate change, in a lot of the topics. So I don't think this is a kind of a thing really important for China's contribution in the future.
- [49:30]
D
Let's go. The very back guy standing up. Hi, thank you, Seth, with the Semiconductor Industry association and University of Chicago. Just quick question on technology. I know we'll get to it later in another panel, but just talk to
- [49:42]
E
us a little bit about the H2
- [49:44]
D
hundreds and the H20s and China's perspective on them and limiting them from importing into China. So it's the question whether China wants H200 or not. Exactly. Okay, Arthur, that sounds like.
- [50:01]
F
Yeah, so I think. So this, for those who are not deeply in the weeds in this, these are the advanced or a, a Nvidia AI chip that is not their most advanced, but was sufficiently advanced to be subject to US Export controls. Donald Trump lifted the export controls last fall, and then the Chinese government got very cagey about whether they were going to allow their companies to import them. And I think what this illustrates is that China has got two agendas which go into tension. So one is they want their AI industry to progress as fast as possible, and that is a reason for allowing imports of these chips. On the other hand, they want in the long run to free themselves from dependence on US technology, including these advanced chips. And they've been promoting domestic alternatives to this particular type of AI training chip. And so they're kind of caught between, oh, is our main objective to promote the short term development of the AI industry, or is our main objective to promote the long term development of our domestic chip industry, which means that we won't have to worry about these kinds of choke points in the future. And I expect that where this is going to fall out is that there will be some limited formal imports allowed to kind of split the difference between these two things. There are definitely some requirements for domestic companies to buy domestic chips in order to keep the domestic industry going. And there is an active gray or black market in these chips which evade the export controls and the Chinese import controls altogether. And this is kind of tacitly agreed to by pretty much all of the parties in the transaction. So it's kind of a messy compromise. And I think that's going to characterize a lot of the technology debate in China in the years ahead. They continue to rely a lot on US Imports, but they also have this objective of creating substitutes to those imports, which is going to take them a long time to achieve.
- [52:17]
D
Do you think it partly depends on how tough conditions are The Commerce Department attaches to each license to sell the chips.
- [52:25]
F
It probably has something to do with that. And I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of what's under negotiation right now. But I would stress that the gray market channels are pretty large and pretty active. So even if you don't get formal imports of these things, it is possible to get informal imports at not the scale that they would ideally like, but at significant scale for the achievement of, you know, particular priority tasks.
- [52:52]
D
Okay. Woman in the frontier in the kind of brown sweater.
- [52:55]
B
It's a dress.
- [52:56]
D
Oh, it's a dress. I'm sorry.
- [52:58]
B
Thank you so much for giving us this talk. I'm Helen Zhang, the director of research in the office of Eric Schmidt. My wonderful colleague Selena will be speaking later on the tech panel, but I wanted to ask a question about the Trump administration and what they should be doing and thinking on China. So recently I'd spoken to someone from within the administration who shall remain nameless, but they said that they're really rudderless, quote, unquote, on how they should approach China and what the top three priorities should be. I know we have a session on what the US Wants next, but from this panel, I'd love to hear what you think the top three priorities should be in engaging with China across all the different domains. Tech, economics, trade, et cetera.
- [53:35]
D
What they should be or what they are?
- [53:37]
B
What they should be?
- [53:37]
D
What they should be.
- [53:38]
E
Okay.
- [53:38]
B
What they are, we don't know.
- [53:39]
D
Okay. All right. Jessica, do you want to.
- [53:42]
B
Well, that's a. Yeah. It's a big question. I mean, I think that, in general, the. The fact that the conversation inside the administration is, I think, in some ways, hemmed in, and the Chinese expectations of what's possible is hemmed in by the broader conversation in Washington is really important because whatever happens at the summit is only so fragile and can only last as long as the administration lasts, or even those within his administration want it to last. And so I think that the, you know, the broader ambition of finding some kind of new resting place, I think has to do with making sure that the terms of the economic relationship work for Americans, not just American companies. I think there's probably a sense that certain interests are probably more, you know, in favor with the administration. But I think that having a broader sense, and I think that means moving those concerns to the fore and finding ways to mitigate the security risks, rather than assume that because China could potentially spy or potentially do this tech transfer, that means we should just keep them out. I think right now, the default is to just keep them out, assume that that will be the way to assure American safety, security, and prosperity, when, in fact, it seems Like China is going to be moving quickly ahead into the future with the rest of the world. The United States is going to be a little bit left behind. And so I think, you know, the prioritization here is partly it's what the United States should be doing with China, but it's also about what the United States should be doing on its own terms to better balance the sort of economic and security kind of trade offs here. We know that in China there's this same debate, right? How much do you want to move faster forward versus hedge against some of these security risks? And then I'll just reiterate again that I think this people to people piece of it is so important. Chinese students in the United States, perhaps Trump believes this, but I don't know that the rest of the administration is on board with that, let alone with a Chinese investment. I think that the United States has a lot to learn. And we'll hear in the next session from Jonas, my colleague here, who has written a great piece too on how is it that you can compete with China's manufacturing competitiveness really may not be about keeping them out, but in fact we need to learn more from their advances. And so there may be maybe it's on batteries as sort of a narrow technological path where far from China coming in and stealing American technology. In fact, we have a lot to learn the other way around. So I guess that's where I would focus. Of course, there are really big priorities around keeping the, you know, things under control in the Taiwan Strait, which I know you want to ask about. So it's hard to boil it down to three, but those are some starters.
- [56:16]
D
Can I ask one quick follow up? What impact is the state of US China relations having on the appetite for Americans to study either Chinese language or kind of China related area studies or Chinese studies? Is there a chilling effect or are people more interested because it's such a fascinating topic?
- [56:35]
B
I mean, I think the latent interest is there, but I think in terms of numbers we are certainly down. And I don't think it helps that sort of the kind of funding for the study of Chinese language at traditional centers of excellence throughout the United States has been way cut along with a lot of other kind of funding for higher education. And to add it to that is the concern that if you go to China, what kinds of positions in the United States government could you get in the future? And apparently I hear it so bad that even in the embassy in Beijing they don't have enough kind of qualified Americans with the language expertise to staff this kind of a visit. So we're in dire straits here. Right. And so I think that there is real ample room for the administration to signal that we need to reverse this. That in fact there are these, you know, in addition to, for instance, the Hopkins Nanjing center or the Schwarzman program at Tsinghua, that the United States has a real national security interest and economic interest in having more Americans understand Chinese, not just by learning it in Taiwan, where it's great to visit, but also by being on the ground in China. And that these folks will not be penalized. In fact, they will be rewarded with future career opportunities in the United States.
- [57:42]
D
Okay, gentleman in the frontier, Julian.
- [57:45]
F
Hi, my name is Julian Ventura. I'm a former Mexican ambassador in Beijing. On investment and looking toward the summit, there's a big North American dimension to whatever comes out in terms of a China US Economic relationship and a lot
- [57:59]
E
of pressure from the US For Ottawa
- [58:01]
F
and Mexico City to align a lot of these issues. My sense is that President Trump's going to be more pragmatic on investment decisions
- [58:10]
E
vis a vis some of his inner circle. Could you dive in a little deeper
- [58:13]
F
on what if we see the outcomes in terms of a possibility of investment announcements would be more of a joint venture kind of model or the kind of generic, very difficult to enforce commitments to increase investment in the US that he has been promoting in the framework agreements with other countries around the world.
- [58:35]
D
Who would like to talk to Arthur? Looks like you're.
- [58:37]
F
Yeah, yeah. There's certainly a possibility that you could just come up with some big number attached to a vague statement of intent, which has been the case with these other investment deals. And it really doesn't go anywhere that is very possible. And Trump might be happy with that. And my understanding is that there is a division of opinion among his staffers on this, that Ambassador Greer wants a skinny summit that focuses only on trade and leaves the other stuff out of it, and that Secretary Bessen maybe has a broader view on that. So I think there's a lot that we just don't know about how that's going to fall out. My best case scenario is that they come up with, well, so number one, they have mentioned that there is going to be this board of investment. No one really knows what that is. So if some flesh is put on that and it becomes clear that that is a mechanism to essentially create a secure channel for Chinese investment in the United States, that would be a good outcome. Even if you didn't have any specific deals within that, there would be a Lot of questions because that would run up against the statutory authority of the committee and foreign investment in the United States cfius. So how you balance that, I don't know. The other thing I think that could happen is that they come up with a couple of pilot projects, which the easiest one would be something in the battery industry where you have a link up between CATL via licensing agreement or joint venture with one of the existing automakers. That is something that's been frequently talked about, could be done as essentially a demonstration project. But this is all speculation. We basically have no idea. And as I've said before, it's not at all clear to me what Trump's calculation of the politics of this is. Where does he think this is just something that he should keep talking about in a vague way and that's fine, or does he have an ambition to do something much more specific? We just don't know on that.
- [60:39]
D
I would just say read the Financial Times over the next six weeks we will try and answer that question. And if we fail, call me on it next time I'm here. Let's go to the gentleman in the middle.
- [60:49]
F
Hi. Thank you. I'm shorter, I'm glad to be seen. My name is Yan Liu. I represent the China Institute at University of Alberta in Canada. Let me pretend to be Canadian, which I am not. So in a talk like this is so easy to forget that there are
- [61:03]
E
other states in the world that also have some influence on what the order looks like.
- [61:08]
F
So my question is, since you have convinced me that China's intentions are limited, I am just wondering are the interactions
- [61:15]
E
or the signals sent by those so called middle powers given China more options expanding what's possible even beyond China's own imagination?
- [61:23]
F
Or are we still hearing cheap talk,
- [61:25]
E
which is a popular term in ir? Thank you.
- [61:29]
D
Who wants to address that? Dan?
- [61:34]
E
So what I would say on that is that even in sort of the peak competition era, in the past administration, China was very actively working to engage with a variety of countries around the world. There was a large focus on Europe because of the economic relationships there, other US allies and partners building those relationships. And I think that they are an environment now. Clearly China and these countries like Canada see an opportunity for greater cooperation largely driven by US Policies. I don't believe this is a major shift or a chance for China to grab the allies away from the U.S. i think China is looking at maybe the U.S. pushing these allies away and providing opportunities to deepen those relationships, but not in a fundamentally changed way.
- [62:24]
D
Does anyone have a question on Taiwan, Taiwan, don't shift on me.
- [62:30]
B
We'll tee it up.
- [62:31]
E
Nitai Daetal from the National Committee on US China Relations. First to Professor Hsiao. I'm wondering what your thoughts are from
- [62:38]
B
the perspective from Beijing on the trip of the KMT chairwoman to China. Do you think that what is the calculus from Beijing in terms of influencing kind of Taiwan's domestic political environment in advance of the kind of KMT leadership
- [62:56]
E
races and the presidential election in a
- [62:59]
B
few years as well as do you think? I know there's talk about a skinny summit, but do you think there are aspirations in Beijing of some sort of grand bargain that in the next few years with a Trump presidency that there's some larger deal to be made over the status of Taiwan and then for maybe.
- [63:16]
D
Justin, let's keep it there because we've only got three minutes. So you've already asked two, so I'm going to stop you. But Yujun, do you want to go first?
- [63:22]
A
Yeah. First of all, about Zhen Liwen's visit to the Chinese mainland. Gen Liwen, as the new chairwoman of kmt, she publicly said, I am a Chinese and I support 1992 consensus. So that's why Beijing would like to invite her to visit the mainland. Beijing understands comprehensively about the kind of internal disputes within kmt. So Beijing thinks that it's important to invite Zhang to visit the mainland in order to send a message to other members within KMT and also DPP members and also the Taiwan people that as long as you commit to 92 consensus, as long as you commit to Taiwan is a part of China, we can have this kind of dialogue and communication. And secondly, about Zheng's visit, I think the three stops, Jiangsu Province, Shanghai and also Beijing. So I guess I haven't seen the detailed agenda, but I guess when she visits Jiangsu and Shanghai, she will focus more on those functional issues like Taiwan business people who live on the mainland, their interests need to be protected and also the two sides of cross strait need to cooperate on AI industry, tourism and other industries. So CPC and the KMT need to discuss on those issues. Overall, I think Zheng's visit to the mainland is a positive thing for cross strait relations. I think here a lot of colleagues, they look at Zheng's visit like kind of a terrible thing. But I don't agree with this analysis. And then to answer your question, whether Beijing and Washington will have a grand bargain on the Taiwan question, my thought is here because President Trump is so distracted, he has so many things to take care and, and I think his instincts, sometimes he has some instinct thoughts about certain things in our bilateral relations which is very good but he does not have people to implement. So just like President Nixon has Dr. Kissinger but I haven't seen here who is the Dr. Kissinger for President Trump. So if you need to have some grand bargain, you have to have people on the table to discuss right now for this coming summit. I don't think the two working teams really have a substantial dialogue on the Taiwan question. Yeah.
- [65:53]
D
Jessica, did you want to weigh in on grand bargain on Taiwan? Likely. Not likely.
- [65:57]
B
I think unlikely for exactly the same reasons. And to add to that, not only is there no interlocutor, I think but there's also no sense that this would be a lasting change. And so some words might take place but the actual question of what happens afterward, I think there are two sensitive to the fears that there might be a reneging and you know, leave Xi Jinping with egg on his face to want to aspire too hard for that.
- [66:20]
D
So just to wrap up, we've got minus one minute but I'm going to take it. It's that who wants to be a millionaire moment but you can't call a friend and you've no lifeline. Who is the J.D. vance or Marco Rubio in China? Give me one name that everyone should Google and do a bit of research on. Arthur's ready.
- [66:39]
F
Xi Jinping.
- [66:39]
D
Xi Jinping, Good answer. Who wants to go next?
- [66:47]
E
Somebody that nobody is tracking. Who's a lot younger than Xi Jinping. Generational skip.
- [66:52]
D
So like the demographic party until Joe Biden came along.
- [66:55]
B
I'll say that I grew up in a family of doctors and do no harm is the first most important principle. And so to name somebody would almost certainly to be put a target on them.
- [67:06]
D
You're not going to get away that easily. Come on, one name. No.
- [67:11]
A
Can I say something?
- [67:12]
D
Yeah, of course, yeah. I'm relying on you to give me the actual name.
- [67:17]
A
I think here the Chinese. First of all, I'm a person who studied US politics and US foreign policy. Secondly, I think here the China so called China Studies. Here you focus too much on our President Xi and who's the next, you know, who will follow him, things like this. I think here the researchers need to focus more on the policies and what are the logics behind those policies and why CPC would like to adopt or implement all those policies. I think this is the key. And here I haven't sensed that those serious China watchers or policy researchers, they have shifted the focus. I think that is the most important thing.
- [68:03]
D
Personalities in politics are fun. So Yu Chun, you also didn't give
- [68:09]
A
me a name again, I'm the American expert.
- [68:16]
D
On that note, I think the conventional wisdom is it'll be Xi Jinping or someone we've never heard of who maybe calls Xi Jinping. Thank you very much to the panel for a great discussion. Thank you to the audience for good questions, and thank you.
- [68:51]
A
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