I. M. Pei, one of the most revered architects in the world, died in New York on May 16, 2019. He was 102.
Pei’s best known designs are the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the glass pyramid at the entrance to the Louvre in Paris.

While in his ancestral country of China, he is also known for designing the Fragrance Hill resort in Beijing, the iconic Hong Kong landmark of the Bank of China tower, as well as the Suzhou Museum in Jiangsu.

What he valued the most in architecture, he said, was that it “stands the test of time.”

Pei was born in Guangdong in 1917 and brought up in a well-to-do household that was steeped in Chinese tradition.

His father, Tsuyee Pei, was one of China’s leading bankers. The junior Pei spent summers in a country village, where his father’s father had lived for more than 500 years, learning the rites of ancestor worship — and Western sophistication.

Pei moved to the U.S. at the age of 18 to study at Pennsylvania, MIT and Harvard.

Mr. Pei never played down his connections to China. His children were all given Chinese names, and when he won the Pritzker Prize in 1983, widely viewed as the highest honor a living architect can receive, he used the $100,000 award to establish a scholarship fund for Chinese architecture students.

Pei did not go back to China until 1974, and he didn’t hesitate to criticize the banal, Soviet-influenced architecture that he saw. He urged the Chinese to look back at their own traditions.
The Chinese government offered him a rural site outside the city and asked him to design a resort hotel there.

The end result is the Fragrant Hill, a group of resort buildings combining the geometric modernism with traditional Chinese architecture elements.

In 1982, Pei would have a very different kind of opportunity in China when the governors of the Bank of China in Hong Kong, the bank his father had once run, travelled to New York to meet with Tsuyee Pei, who had long since left China and was living in Manhattan. Their mission was to ask the senior Pei, in a demonstration of traditional Chinese etiquette, if he would agree to allow them to invite his son to design a new skyscraper headquarters for the bank in Hong Kong. Senior Pei said yes.

It would turn out to be one of Pei’s most notable towers.

The Chinese Embassy building located in the northwest of Washington DC is also a design work by I.M. Pei.

After his death, Jame C. Jao, a co-founder of the I.M.Pei Foundation, wrote:

“Whereby I.M. Pei has been a renowned world architect who always cared about the preservation of art, culture and local heritage by integrating every element thus to inspire world architecture in modern design.”

(The above text is based on the I.M.Pei obituary The New York Times published on May 17, 2019 and a commemorative article by James Jao The China Daily published on May 17, 2019.)

The video is based on the remarks made by C.H. Tung, founding chairman of the China-United States Exchange Foundation, at a panel discussion titled “What’s Next for the World Ahead” during the Milken Institute’s 2019 Global Conference in Los Angeles on April 29, 2019.

A good US-China relation is good for China.  It's also good for America. But one other thing we must remember, good US-China relations is good for the world at large. 

There are many, many complicated issues the world needs to face. And I cannot imagine these problems can be solved by either America or by China. But together, there is a better chance.  

The China-US trade is really becoming more and more complementary. America is the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. You guess who is the largest buyer, that it's China. America is the largest producer of farm products. Who are the buyers, the largest buyer, it's China today. America is the largest producer of consumer goods of all kinds, who are the buyers, China today. So it's all happening. It's all happening very naturally, and the people in the business, they feel it. And that's why I'm also optimistic with my colleagues on the stage that I think that there is going to be hopefully a resolution.

What I'm saying is that the world is changing. But what China wants to do is to take advantage of this opportunity, make a better world for Chinese people. But also, importantly, make a better world for all of us. And may I add: do it together with the United States of America.

If China and the US is confrontational, and when there is no reason to be confrontational, you will be sure that all the other problems will be very difficult to solve. 

We have to be careful. So what I want to say to my American friends, is that US-China relations are too important. We got to figure out how we can solve this thing. It's too important for us.

Harvard Professor Joseph Nye discusses the need for the U.S. to adjust its foreign poicy attitudes. “We can’t think just of power ‘over’ other countries, we have to think of power ‘with other countries,” he asserts.

“ Whether it be transnational terrorism or whether it be cyber-relations, whether it be global pandemics, these are issues where nobody is going to be able to accomplish it by themselves, so we're going to have to develop these networks of cooperation if we're going to govern and manage these types of processes,” he says during an interview with James Chau, Editor-at-Large of China-US Focus.

And that means that “we're condemned to cooperate, because if we don't, we are really just condemned,” he says.

In an interview with James Chau Editor-at-Large of China-US Focus, Harvard Professor Joseph Nye likens the current state of the U.S.-China relationship as a “cooperative rivalry.” He says that there are going to be elements of rivalry— take for example, issues like the South China Sea, but there are going to be areas of cooperation, areas like climate change. “We have to learn to realize that the relationship is going to be complex, but if we lose sight of the cooperative part of the relationship, we're all going to be the worse off for it,” he says.

Nye also dismisses the assertion that China is an existential threat to the United States. “I think in the long run, the US and China do not present existential threats to each other. Neither of us is trying to destroy the other. And that means that the rivalry is something we can manage.”

He Yafei argues that the balance of power is shifting in favor of emerging markets, causing anxieties among US elites that “the world is not theirs anymore.”  Nobody can live about the rules in a world of shared interests and responsibilities and shared destiny, he asserts.

He Yafei, Former Vice Foreign Minister of PRC. 

At a meeting on the margins of the G20 in Argentina, President Xi Jinping of China and US President Donald Trump agreed not to escalate the trade tensions between the two largest economies and give time for negotiators to reach a deal. Veteran Chinese diplomat He Yafei gives his takes on what lies ahead.

He Yafei, Former Vice Foreign Minister of PRC.

Key words: US-China trade war, Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, G20 Buenos Aires summit

China's well-documented air quality problems, and its status as the world leader in greenhouse gas emissions, have given the country a bad rap. Nonetheless, China is now the world’s leading producer of renewable energy and has gained global attention for its efforts to address its energy dependence problems. This video explains the nation's efforts in growing a more sustainable economy supported by green energy, including expanding wind and solar power generation, reducing dependency on coal, rolling out the “cap and trade” system to cut emissions, as well as its commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement.

Keywords: Renewable Energy, Green Energy, Paris Climate Agreement, Cap and Trade, China’s economy.

The escalating trade war has raised important concerns for the U.S. and China to negotiate including jobs, deficit, and growth. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says on its website “Trade Works. Tariffs Don’t.” It predicts that the tariffs will cause “extremely significant damage” to conservative-leaning states: Idaho, South Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana, Alabama, and South Carolina. 3M is bracing itself for a 10 million dollar hit. Harley-Davidson is earmarking extra costs this year of up to 20 million dollars. General Electric is anticipating up to 400 million dollars in raised costs. Nor will the damage be limited to the U.S. Christine Lagarde of IMF compares the outlook for the global economy to “clouds on the horizon getting darker by the day.”

How much debt does China have, and could it cause a financial crisis? Can it cut down on debt without sacrificing its targets for economic growth ?

In recent years, economists around the world have warned of China’s surging debt-to-GDP ratio, which Forbes called “China's Debt Bomb.” But how much debt does China actually have, and could it cause a financial crisis?

Between 2007 and 2014, China’s total debt quadrupled. Estimates vary, but the International Monetary Fund puts China's total debt at 230% of gross domestic product (GDP.) China’s central government in 2017 estimated that it was around 260%. The U.S.’s debt, by comparison, is 105%, according to the U.S. bureau of public debt.

Where did China’s debt come from? Economists argue that China’s spectacular growth over the past few decades has led to rising credit and the rapid accumulation of debt. China’s debt buildup since the global financial crisis has been one of the largest in modern history. Nearly half of new debt since 2007 is in the property sector and related industries, with considerable debt held by China’s local governments, state-owned companies, and the “shadow banking” sector of unregulated non-bank lenders. However, unlike some advanced economies, such as the U.S., China’s household debt and total government debt are relatively low.

Last year, the ratings agency Moody’s downgraded China's credit rating, highlighting global concern over the amount of debt the world’s second-largest economy holds.

At last year’s 19th Party Congress, Chinese President Xi Jinping classified debt as one of the three major risks to the country’s stability. The government began a campaign to reduce corporate debt, tighten controls on local government spending, reign in unregulated non-bank lenders, and increase oversight in the banking sector. It also readjusted to prioritize quality of economic growth over quantity. Consequently, the pace of debt buildup during 2017 was much slower than in previous years.

China has taken measures to address its rapidly accumulating debt. But can it cut down on debt without sacrificing its targets for economic growth? That remains to be seen.