He Wenping, Research Fellow, West Asia and Africa Studies Institute of the China Academy of Social Sciences
May 28, 2019
A senior U.S. State Department official’s inflammatory comments about a “Clash of Civilizations” reignited debate about how to view history and differing cultures. The Conference on Asian Civilizations Dialogue, hosted in Beijing this May, offered a more level-headed and equitable path to understand civilizational differences.
James H. Nolt, Adjunct Professor at New York University
May 24, 2019
President Trump never intended to resolve the trade war he created with China. Instead, he will leverage his tariffs to blackmail China into following his way.
Zhao Minghao, Professor, Institute of International Studies, Fudan University, and China Forum Expert.
May 24, 2019
Why was the Chinese government unwilling to accept Trump’s last minute demands during trade talks? Look to history: 2019 marks the centenary of the anti-imperialist May 4th movement. China can hardly be accepted to surrender to a 21st-century “unequal treaty”—if the US government understood this aspect of Chinese culture better, negotiations would proceed more smoothly.
Zheng Yu, Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
May 24, 2019
The Trump administration has begun applying military pressure on China, not only in traditional areas of friction such as the South China Sea and Taiwan, but using arms control. Recent American withdrawal from the US-Russia INF Treaty may be part of a strategy to draw China into a potential new nuclear agreement.
Wei Jianguo, Former Vice Minister, China's Ministry of Commerce
May 24, 2019
The trade war has not gone as U.S. policymakers expected—China has not given up easily. This overconfidence came from an inflated view of America’s market boom, which is merely a short-term “sugar high” produced by Republican tax cuts. A more serious misjudgment was underestimating China’s economic strength and national resolve.
Zhang Monan, Deputy Director of Institute of American and European Studies, CCIEE
May 23, 2019
While the current China-US trade war is undoubtedly hurting both economies, the conflict may prove beneficial Chinese society in the long sweep of history—the conflict may provide a catalyst to push forward a new model of Chinese reform and opening based on high standards.
Shang-Jin Wei, Professor, Finance and Economics at Columbia University
May 23, 2019
Trade negotiations between the United States and China have broken down because the US government says the Chinese were walking back their agreement on matters that had previously been addressed. US negotiators and President Donald Trump were furious, and on May 10, Trump more than doubled US tariffs on $200 billion worth of imports from China. The lead Chinese negotiator, Liu He, told reporters that, because a final agreement was not reached, revisions were not “walked back,” a line that the US side does not seem to buy. The Chinese government has now retaliated, announcing that it will raise tariffs on $60 billion worth of US goods.
Ramses Amer, Associated Fellow, Institute for Security & Development Policy, Sweden
Li Jianwei, Director and Research Fellow, National Institute for South China Sea Studies
May 21, 2019
The recent crisis in Venezuela showed diverging Chinese and American attitudes towards global governance: China’s longstanding commitment to non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs, and rejection of military force as a tool of diplomacy; contrasted with the Trump administration’s response, that displayed America’s penchant for interventionism backed up by the US military.
Tom Watkins, President and CEO of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County, FL
May 20, 2019
While China’s Belt and Road Initiative offers a solution to problems that require international assistance to address, this is not Beijing’s altruism at work. The BRI is still a money-making investment and an opportunity for China to increase its connectivity throughout the globe.
Minxin Pei, Tom and Margot Pritzker ’72 Professor of Government , Claremont McKenna College
May 17, 2019
Late last month at a security forum in Washington, DC, Kiron Skinner, Director of Policy Planning for the US Department of State, described today’s US-China conflict as “a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology, and the United States hasn’t had that before.” As a trial balloon, this apparent attempt to define the Trump administration’s confrontation with China did not fly.