Friends,
Greetings from Tokyo! It is hot and humid, but the dollar goes really far these days.
I spent last week in Taipei and got to talk with several folks about semiconductors, geopolitics, and what we should expect in the region over the next year. I’ll do some meetings this week in Tokyo and then back to DC where it is hot and humid, but the dollar doesn’t go quite as far.
Third Plenum
Nothing surprising out of the Third Plenum this week. All we know is that Xi and his Communist Party cadres will make the Chinese economy great again… how? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In case you want to read all 47 pages in English, the Chinese Communist Party offered a translation of the “Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization” at their website.
The Central Committee accepted the resignation of Qin Gang, the former Foreign Minister, from the the Chinese Communist Party. While General Li Shangfu (former defense minister), General Wei Fenghe (former defense minister), and General Li Yuchao (former commander of the PLA Rocket Force) were expelled from the Party. This suggests that Qin Gang got off with a lesser punishment than the other two.
Sino-American relations
In a performative temper tantrum over routine arms sales to Taiwan, Beijing canceled the so-called nuclear arms talks with the United States. It seems quite clear to me that Beijing only initiated these talks late last year in order to cancel them now to pressure the Biden Administration.
I suspect that Beijing’s supposed cooperation on fentanyl fits the same pattern. Open up negotiations on topics that are important for the United States and then hold those talks hostage to encourage “correct behavior” by Washington. It is a classic diplomatic gambit by Beijing and one that unfortunately we seem unable to grasp or to employ ourselves.
Last week I finished Vijay Gokhale’s 2021 book, The Long Game: How the Chinese negotiate with India. It’s excellent and illuminates much about Beijing’s interactions with the outside world. Gokhale is the former foreign secretary of India and his book is a practitioner’s account of diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.
How does Beijing view the U.S. Presidential Election?
I suspect that Beijing sees both enormous risks and opportunities with the coming U.S. election.
While Biden’s debate performance and the attempted assassination of Trump has boosted the chances for a second Trump Administration, I suspect Xi and his Party leaders understand that several things can change between now and November 5, to say nothing of the changes that could happen before a new team takes office on January 20.
Beijing likely views the current Biden team as lame ducks, especially as it becomes even more likely that Biden will be forced to step back and concede the nomination to another candidate. The team that Biden brought in to execute his China policy are there based on their long experience with President Biden. Some might stay on if he departs, but that isn’t guaranteed. A new democratic candidate would force the Democratic Party to re-litigate its China policy and I suspect that Beijing views that as an enormous opportunity. If for example, California Governor Gavin Newsom becomes the candidate, Beijing would view that quite positively.
On the other hand, Trump’s recent interview might give Beijing hope that they have opportunities with him as well. He dismissed the idea of a TikTok ban and called into question whether the U.S. should defend Taiwan.
I’m uncertain how Beijing weighs these various scenarios (let alone which one Chinese leaders prefer), but I’m fairly certain of one thing: Beijing thinks it will NOT be dealing with a Biden Administration in six months. This means that they will be unwilling to enter any serious negotiations before the election. President Biden’s domestic political weakness (not a partisan criticism, just an observation) has undercut the ability of his officials to deal with Beijing (the same also applies to U.S. allies and partners).
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Broken Engagement
Bob Davis, The Wire China, July 14, 2024
Our series of interviews with top U.S. policy makers of the last 30 years has revealed how and why the American approach towards China has morphed from seeking closer ties to a desire for estrangement.
Twenty-five years ago, Charlene Barshefsky, the tough-as-nails U.S. Trade Representative, negotiated China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. The deal was bound to be a winner for America, Barshefsky and the rest of the Clinton administration believed, because it tied China more closely to the U.S. and the West.
“The fundamental goal of WTO entry, from the point of view of the U.S., was to move China’s own internal reform process toward market-based economics,” she told The Wire China in 2022, in the first of two dozen interviews for the new Rules of Engagement series. “We saw a pattern in China’s economic behavior and a trajectory on which we wanted to capitalize. “
To Matt Pottinger, the Trump administration’s deputy National Security Advisor, America should quickly have realized that engagement was folly.
“I thought that we were behaving as though we were blind and deaf to the reality of the Chinese Communist Party’s ambitions, its hostility to the end-state that we were trying to achieve, and its resourcefulness in working to achieve its ambitions globally,” he said in a second Rules of Engagement interview a month later.
Launching the series, I had hoped the hour-long interviews I planned to conduct with top U.S. officials during the past six presidential administrations would help readers (and me) understand how the U.S. plotted China policy, the shift over the years from a warm embrace between the two nations to a frigid standoff, and the thinking and motivation of American decision-makers. I was looking for a way to understand the arc of U.S.-China relations.
I had reported on the American response to China since the 1990s for the Wall Street Journal and wanted to get better insight into the history I had covered and the people who made it. As a reporter, I sought to draw out the interviewees and get them to explain their thinking and not to try to convince them of my views. I suppose I had long been caught up with the possibilities of engagement, as China exploded on to the global scene. In the years I was based in China, 2011 to 2014, the notion of “Chimerica” — a deep embrace between the two nations helping to create a better world — still seemed possible, though the prospects were quickly fading.
The interviews became a kind of extended conversation between generations of government China hands. Looking over the interviews, often the sharpest disagreements weren’t between Republicans and Democrats, as I had expected. Rather, the dividing line was around 2016, after Xi Jinping entrenched his power as China’s leader and Donald Trump won the presidency. Post 2016, Washington officials, whatever their political affiliation, invariably were more disillusioned with China than their pre-Xi/Trump predecessors.
Over the past two years, I have interviewed a Speaker of the House (Nancy Pelosi), two Defense secretaries (Robert Gates and Ash Carter), one Secretary of State (Mike Pompeo), two Treasury secretaries (Larry Summers and Robert Rubin), two National Security Advisors (Steven Hadley and Robert O’Brien), a National Security Agency director (Mike Rogers), three U.S. Trade Representatives (Barshefsky, Robert Zoellick and Michael Froman), three ambassadors (Nick Burns, Gary Locke and Rahm Emanuel), and an assortment of deputy cabinet officers and other government officials deeply involved in China policy (Pottinger and Kurt Campbell, among others).
COMMENT – I think Bob Davis has done a great job with this series of interviews. His pursuit of the broader story of the shift in U.S. China policy has been incredibly helpful. The book he did with Lingling Wei (Superpower Showdown: How the Battle Between Trump and Xi Threatens a New Cold War), set the stage, but focused almost entirely on the intricacies of the trade relationship and did little to account for the broader geopolitical and security dynamics.
Since that book, Davis has set about doing a series of interviews to fill in that broader picture and describe the various factions competing over the direction of U.S. policy on China.
One thing that comes out in this piece is the confusion over the terms “diplomacy” and “engagement.” For some, these terms are synonymous, used interchangeably to describe the day-to-day dealings of Washington and Beijing. For others, the terms are different, the former being an activity and the latter a strategy.
I come down solidly in the second camp.
Diplomacy is an activity, or an element of national power, that states use when dealing with other states. Other elements of national power include information, military, and economic (if one chooses to rely on the acronym DIME). Diplomacy happens between the closest of allies and the most bitter enemies (choosing NOT to talk is a diplomatic decision and approach). When Beijing refuses to grant the U.S. Ambassador a meeting or when they cut off recently established nuclear talks (as they did this week in protest over Taiwan arms sales), these are forms of diplomacy. The United States and the PRC conduct diplomacy on a routine basis and I can’t identify anyone who advocates that Washington should not conduct “diplomacy” with Beijing. The difference in opinion is how the diplomacy should be conducted, what the goals should be, and how those diplomatic initiatives should fit within a broader strategy.
To be clear, diplomacy is not a strategy, it is an activity.
Engagement, as it is defined in the context of the Sino-American relationship, was a strategy (not an activity) that sought to employ economic development to drive political liberalization in the PRC. The strategy of engagement used various elements of national power (including diplomacy) to achieve an endstate. That endstate was to turn the PRC into a “responsible stakeholder” in the liberal international system, a strategic partner of the United States in upholding the rules and norms of the international system that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The journalist and scholar, Orville Schell, who has done some much to chronicle the strategy of engagement and its demise, described this endstate as making the PRC “more soluble within the existing world order.” I think that is a great way to think about what the United States was trying to achieve in the quarter century between 1990 and 2015.
Just as “containment” was the strategy employed by the United States against the Soviet Union during the First Cold War, “engagement” was the strategy employed by the United States against the PRC during the era immediately following the First Cold War. In many ways “containment” and “engagement” are mirror-image strategies. Both strategies marshal all elements of national power to achieve a goal. Both seek to avoid direct military conflict. Both rely heavily on the economic element of national power, and in many ways the economic element is the main effort of both strategies.
To say that the main effort in containment was economic may strike some as odd. I suspect that many would assert that the military element of national power was the main effort during the First Cold War with the Soviets. I think that interpretation is wrong. Containment certainly had an important military element (just as engagement has an important military element as well), but the main purpose of those military activities was to deter Soviet military adventurism and to provide sufficient security so that the United States, along with its allies and partners, could build an economic system that was superior to that of the Soviets and its satellites. The reconstruction and economic prosperity of Western Europe and Japan in the decades after WWII, alongside the wealth and prosperity of the United States, did more than missiles and tanks to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It is also important to remember that the United States employed strategies of engagement during the First Cold War even as it employed a strategy of containment against the Soviet Union. South Korea and Taiwan provide two examples of successful engagement strategies employed during the First Cold War. Both were authoritarian dictatorships throughout much of the First Cold War, but rather than shun or sanction them, the United States embraced them economically and sought to bring about political liberalization by promising greater economic prosperity with access to the U.S. market. This promise of economic prosperity encouraged dictators in both Seoul and Taipei to end martial law in the 1980s and allow for democratic elections.
This same logic animated Washington policymakers in the 1980s and 1990s as they considered what to do about the PRC. If they could successfully persuade Seoul and Taipei to turn away from the worst excesses of authoritarianism and embrace economic liberalization (and eventually democratic reforms), why couldn’t it work in Beijing.
2. Intel venture arm’s China tech stakes raises alarm in Washington
Tabby Kinder, George Hammond, Demetri Sevastopulo, and Ryan McMorrow, Financial Times, July 15, 2024
Silicon Valley chipmaker has invested in more than 40 Chinese start-ups while also receiving billions in US grants.
Intel’s venture capital arm has emerged as one of the most active foreign investors in Chinese artificial intelligence and semiconductor start-ups, at a time the $147bn chipmaker receives billions of dollars from Washington to fund a technological arms race with Beijing.
Intel Capital owns stakes in 43 China-based technology start-ups, according to an FT analysis of its portfolio. Since the venture fund was launched in the early 1990s, it has invested in more than 120 Chinese groups, according to data provider Crunchbase.
The fund, which invests off the chipmaker’s balance sheet, has continued to back fledgling Chinese companies in the past year, even as many of its American peers exited the market under pressure from US authorities.
In February Intel Capital invested in a $20mn fundraising round by Shenzhen-based AI-Link, a 5G and cloud infrastructure platform, and last year led a $91mn round for Shanghai-headquartered North Ocean Photonics, a maker of micro-optics hardware.
Rising geopolitical tensions between Washington and Beijing have led to greater scrutiny of private investment flows between the two economic powers as they jostle for technological and military supremacy.
In June, the Biden administration unveiled rules to curb US financing for Chinese technology that could have military purposes, such as AI, quantum computing and semiconductors. The regulations are expected to be finalised this year.
Intel Capital’s “investments were poster children that helped build consensus for the outbound restrictions”, according to one person familiar with the Biden administration’s thinking on the new rules.
Its current investments in China include around 16 AI start-ups and 15 in the semiconductor industry, as well as companies developing cloud services, electric vehicles, telecoms, virtual reality systems and batteries.
Intel Capital may be forced to divest from some companies once the US regulations take effect, though the US Treasury is examining whether to include some exemptions for some venture capital transactions.
However, the US group has slowed down its dealmaking in China over the past 18 months, according to data provider ITjuzi, completing just three deals since the start of 2023. Investment controls and a slowdown in the Chinese economy, as well as lasting repercussions from Beijing’s crackdown on tech companies, have hit start-up valuations and viability.
A report by a US House China committee in February said that American venture capital firms had invested billions of dollars into companies that were fuelling China’s “military, surveillance state and Uyghur genocide”. This includes funnelling $1.9bn into AI companies and a further $1.2bn into semiconductors.
The report singled out five US venture firms — Sequoia, GGV, GSR Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures and Walden International — but did not mention Intel Capital, despite the fund becoming one of the largest US investors in China after the departure of some of its rivals.
Intel Capital is “way more active” than Qualcomm’s venture arm in China, said the head of a large US fund with a long history of doing business in China. “Intel is active in everything.”
John Moolenaar, Republican head of the House China committee, said the case highlighted the need for tighter regulation.
“The Chinese Communist party remembers the old communist slogan that ‘the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them’,” said Moolenaar. “We need strong outbound capital restrictions to prevent American firms from investing in companies closely tied to the CCP’s armed forces.”
Intel Capital declined to comment.
COMMENT – As examples like this come to light, the demands for substantial outbound investment restrictions will only grow.
Intel has been lobbying for years to get taxpayer subsidies to protect it from the growing threat posed by the PRC and has sought to portray itself as an American company that will safeguard U.S. national security interests. All while providing the funds and knowhow to the PRC to build its owe advanced semiconductor industry and undermine U.S. national security interests.
3. China says it has halted arms-control talks with US over Taiwan
Reuters, July 17, 2024
China has halted nascent nuclear-arms-control talks with the United States, its foreign ministry said on Wednesday, in a protest of Washington's arms sales to the democratically governed island of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.
The Chinese decision deals a potentially serious setback to global arms-control efforts, with Beijing joining Moscow in refusing to discuss with Washington measures to curb a nuclear-arms race, analysts said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said repeated U.S. arms sales to Taiwan in recent months had "seriously compromised the political atmosphere for continuing the arms-control consultations."
"Consequently, the Chinese side has decided to hold off discussion with the U.S. on a new round of consultations on arms control and non-proliferation. The responsibility fully lies with the U.S.," Lin told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
Lin said China was willing to maintain communication on international arms control, but that the U.S. "must respect China's core interests and create necessary conditions for dialogue and exchange."
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said China has chosen to follow Russia's lead by asserting that arms-control engagement cannot proceed while there are other challenges in the bilateral relationship.
"We think this approach undermines strategic stability, it increases the risk of arms-race dynamics," Miller told reporters.
"Unfortunately, by suspending these consultations, China has chosen not to pursue efforts that would manage strategic risks and prevent costly arms races, but we the United States will remain open to developing and implementing concrete risk-reduction measures with China."
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration advocates a policy of "compartmentalization," in which nuclear-arms-control talks are segregated from other contentious Sino-U.S. issues.
COMMENT – I think it is pretty safe to assume that the only reason Beijing initiated the so-called “nuclear talks” late last year was to have something to cancel when the Administration approved its next routine Taiwan arms sales. (I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Beijing hold the supposed cooperation on fentanyl precursors hostage in a similar way.)
This is simply a diplomatic gambit on the part of Beijing to put pressure on the Biden Administration. They know there are strong voices in the arms control negotiation community who will question the wisdom of Taiwan arms sales when they threaten nascent nuclear arms talks with Beijing. I don’t think there is much chance the Biden Administration would cave to that pressure, but Beijing loses nothing by canceling something they were never serious about. If they can create fractures and rifts within competing elements in the Biden Administration, that might be quite valuable in the future.
There is also the chance that Biden will drop out of the Presidential race and there is no guarantee that the national security team that Biden brought in to implement his China policy would remain in a Harris Administration (… if it were a Gavin Newsom Administration next January, then ploys like this might actually work)
The other objective of this gambit is to make it harder for the United States to carry out its own nuclear recapitalization program (modernizing the First Cold War era nuclear infrastructure which has been delayed for at least a quarter century). It is in Beijing’s interest to pour sand in the gears of funding and policy decisions behind U.S. nuclear recapitalization… if Beijing can delay those efforts by starting and stopping nuclear talks, it might be able to achieve its own parity or advantage in the nuclear domain.
4. ‘Society doesn’t want my kids’: China’s single women forced abroad to freeze their eggs
Amy Hawkins, The Guardian, July 17, 2024
When Yang Li* turned 30, she gave herself three years to decide whether or not she wanted to have children. But as the years ticked by, working a busy job in Beijing, Yang felt none the wiser about if or when she wanted to become a mother. So last year, a month shy of her 34th birthday, she decided to freeze her eggs.
The problem was, as a single woman in China, no fertility clinic would help her. Despite China’s push to boost the birthrate, only married couples with fertility problems can use egg-freezing services or any kind of assisted reproductive technologies.
“I talked to a doctor, and she told me that to freeze my eggs in China, I either need a husband or I need to have cancer. And I told her, I don’t want either,” Yang remembers.
After researching various options online, Yang travelled to the Czech Republic in September to undergo an egg retrieval and freezing process. The whole treatment cost her about 25,000 yuan (£2,660) plus an annual storage fee. She plans to go back for another round this year.
Yang is part of a growing generation of educated, urban women who are delaying marriage and motherhood – much to the chagrin of China’s leaders. Last year China’s birth rate fell to a record low of 6.39 per 1,000 people and the population shrank by almost 3 million. Boosting China’s birthrate has been linked to the goal of national rejuvenation and Xi Jinping, China’s president, has called on society to “actively cultivate a new culture of marriage and childbearing”.
The use of “social egg freezing” – for the purposes of delaying having a baby until later in life – is seen by China’s leadership as antithetical to such a drive. Barred from accessing the services that tens of thousands of women in other countries avail themselves of each year, Chinese women with the means are looking overseas to preserve their hopes of becoming a mother later in life.
Chinese social media, in particular Xiaohongshu, a female-focused app with more than 200 million users, is awash with young women exchanging tips on where to go to procure the treatment.
COMMENT – I think it is going to be very difficult for the Party to adapt and respond to changing social demands by its citizens.
5. The Winners from U.S.-China Decoupling
Agathe Demarais, Foreign Policy, July 15, 2024
From Malaysia to Mexico, some countries are gearing up to benefit from economic fragmentation.
A full decoupling of the Chinese and Western economies could be a costly proposition. The International Monetary Fund estimates that it could shave around 7 percent off global GDP in the longer term, a loss equivalent to $7.4 trillion or about the size of the French and German economies combined.
The IMF also predicts that developing economies would be hit hardest if Washington and Beijing were to cut economic ties. But what these aggregate figures miss is that is that some emerging economies will be winners from decoupling—or, as its somewhat milder form is called today, de-risking. In fact, some emerging countries are fast positioning themselves to benefit as China and the West rewire their supply chains—for example, by serving as industrial and trade hubs between both sides or by playing one side against the other for investment support.
COMMENT – I think Agathe Demarais has made an important contribution with this piece.
Much of the commentary (and teeth gnashing) assumes that third countries will suffer, rather than benefit, from the relative decoupling/derisking from the PRC. Yet as this shift plays out, third countries will take advantage of the PRC’s relative loss.
While it is true that Beijing is also taking advantage of this diversification in the short term, they are not in the same boat. For the foreseeable future, the PRC economy will depend upon exporting manufactured goods to the U.S. and European markets (no other markets can absorb and buy Chinese exports at the same scale as the U.S. and European markets can). As the U.S. and Europe seek to reduce their dependency on PRC manufactured goods this will encourage third countries to become manufacturing competitors to the PRC (Huawei building a factory in Malaysia does not help the PRC Government with maintaining jobs for Chinese citizens).
Governments in those third countries will want their citizens to get good manufacturing jobs and that will mean that there will be fewer manufacturing jobs for Chinese citizens. As a greater proportion of the manufacturing pie gets moved out of the PRC, Chinese workers will be the biggest losers (think the loses to manufacturing communities in the U.S. when jobs moved overseas).
This will hit the PRC and its citizens even harder, as Chinese workers aren’t yet wealthy enough to cushion these loses. The PRC Government has already maxed out its borrowing with massive infrastructure and real estate boondoggles that are never likely to generate returns. Its overseas investments are equally ill-advised as seen with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which Beijing has poured $65 billion into with very little to show for it.
As Malaysia, Mexico, Indonesia and India become important manufacturing hubs, this will only drive bigger wedges between these countries and the PRC. The Chinese market will not become a serious destination for their manufactured goods (Chinese citizens can’t consume the products they currently make), which means that Chinese workers will face increasing competition from Indian and Mexican workers in the markets they all will sell to: U.S. and Europe. As the U.S. and Europe place tariffs on Chinese manufactured goods this will impose a heavy penalty on PRC manufacturing and give a great boost to manufacturing elsewhere. None of us should be surprised when Beijing retaliates against these third countries.
Authoritarianism
6. China ramps ups military education for younger ages to help sow ‘seeds’ of patriotism
Amber Wang, South China Morning Post, July 16, 2024
7. Intense Online Censorship Seeks to Dampen Scandal Over Unwashed Fuel Tankers Transporting Cooking Oil
Cindy Carter, China Digital Times, July 12, 2024
8. What China means when it says “peace”
The Economist, July 11, 2024
9. Taiwan monitors Chinese military surge, calls China a threat to stability
Ben Blanchard and Roger Tung, Reuters, July 11, 2024
10. China's Communist Party charts technology- and security-focused development for reviving the economy
Elaine Kurtenbach, Associated Press, July 17, 2024
11. Can Xi keep a lid on China’s mounting social strains?
Joe Leahy, Kai Waluszewski, and Sun Yu, Financial Times, July 14, 2024
12. China Puts Power of State Behind AI—and Risks Strangling It
Liza Lin, Wall Street Journal, July 16, 2024
13. Taiwan’s Blunt-Talking Leader Faces China’s Backlash
Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien, New York Times, July 16, 2024
14. China Hits Back at NATO After Rare Rebuke
Wenxin Fan, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2024
15. Trump VP Pick Vance Says China Is the ‘Biggest Threat’ to US
Bloomberg, July 15, 2024
16. China pulls plug on 'Wild Child,' a movie about troubled street kids
Qian Lang, Radio Free Asia, July 8, 2024
17. A contaminated cooking oil scandal in China has provoked outrage and raised fears over safety
Gavin Butler and Kai Feng, ABC News, July 12, 2024
18. China Is Holding a Major Meeting on the Economy That You Can’t Watch
Chris Buckley and Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 15, 2024
Environmental Harms
19. China’s emissions of two potent greenhouse gases rise 78% in decade
Ellen McNally, The Guardian, July 15, 2024
20. China's state rare-earth players bleed red ink as prices fall
Kenji Kawase, Nikkei Asia, July 16, 2024
21. Are China’s blue carbon credits a free pass to harm its oceans?
Xia Zhijian, Eco-Business, July 16, 2024
22. VIDEO – Unpacking China's reports on environmental issues in South China Sea
CNA, July 11, 2024
23. The environmental cost of China's addiction to cement
India Bourke, BBC, April 23, 2024
24. Philippines rejects China's accusation of environmental damage in South China Sea
Karen Lema, Reuters, July 9, 2024
Foreign Interference and Coercion
25. Canada Said to Have Mapped Out Secret Chinese Police Operations
Alberto Nardelli, Alex Wickham, and Laura Dhillon Kane, Bloomberg, July 13, 2024
26. CCP-linked professional associations in France and their role in technology transfer
René Bigey, Sinopsis, July 14, 2024
27. Engagement With China Has Had a Multifaceted Impact on Latin American Democracy
R. Evan Ellis, The Diplomat, July 5, 2024
28. How a Border Dispute Bedevils Ties Between India and China
Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Bloomberg, July 10, 2024
29. China Sanctions Six US Defense Companies for Taiwan Arms Sale
Foster Wong, Bloomberg, July 12, 2024
30. China views America’s presidential nightmare with mirth—and disquiet
The Economist, July 11, 2024
31. US, Finland, Canada Forge Icebreaker Ship Pact to Counter Russia, China in Arctic
Laura Dhillon Kane and Josh Wingrove, Bloomberg, July 11, 2024
32. China’s battery giant taps Europe’s elite to expand supply chain
Kaye Wiggins, Gloria Li, Ryan McMorrow, Harry Dempsey, and Arjun Neil Alim, Financial Times, July 11, 2024
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
33. Hong Kong should prepare ‘civil force’ to counter Western criticism over human rights, lawmakers say
Hans Tse, Hong Kong Free Press, July 15, 2024
34. China's Tibet policy under brighter spotlight after U.S. law, U.N. review
Kenji Kawase, Nikkei Asia, July 16, 2024
35. China releases tortured rights lawyer Chang Weiping
Kitty Wang, Radio Free Asia, July 9, 2024
36. Chinese police target dissidents, petitioners ahead of plenum
Qian Lang, Radio Free Asia, July 10, 2024
37. A Young Chinese Dissident Finds a Less Lonely Life in Exile
Shen Lu, Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2024
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
38. China’s third plenum: US executives eye first-hand insights from economy-centric conclave
Kandy Wong, South China Morning Post, July 16, 2024
39. Xi Jinping’s Great Economic Rewiring Is Cushioning China’s Slowdown
Bloomberg, July 15, 2024
40. The EV trade war between China and the West heats up
The Economist, July 10, 2024
41. Apple’s India Sales Surge 33% to Record in Shift from China
Sankalp Phartiyal, Bloomberg, July 15, 2024
42. Housing, once the ticket to wealth in China, is now draining fortunes
Christian Shepherd and Lyric Li, Washington Post, July 16, 2024
43. China asks WTO to set up panel for U.S. EV subsidies dispute
Nikkei Asia, July 15, 2024
44. U.S. chip equipment makers rely on China for 40% of sales
Kosuke Shimizu, Nikkei Asia, July 13, 2024
45. Chinese finance firms ask Hong Kong staff to pay back part of their bonuses
Bloomberg, South China Morning Post, July 16, 2024
46. A spate of stabbings has sparked online debate about China’s economic woes
Jessie Yeung, CNN, July 17, 2024
47. China third plenum: Communist Party meets to set direction for troubled economy
Simone McCarthy, CNN, July 14, 2024
48. Foreign carmakers in China face 'increasingly precarious' position, consultancy says
Evelyn Cheng and Sonia Heng, CNBC, July 15, 2024
49. China’s Economy: Current Trends and Issues
Congressional Research Service, July 9, 2024
50. Sanctions Spark Race to Bottom for China’s Lower-End Chipmakers
Zhai Shaohui, Qin Min, and Wu Peiyue, Caixin Global, July 12, 2024
51. China plenum to deliver policy agenda hindered by conflicting goals
Kevin Yao, Reuters, July 11, 2024
52. The One-Child Policy Supercharged China's Economic Miracle. Now It's Paying the Price.
Liyan Qi and Ming Li, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2024
53. China’s Lopsided Economy Loses Steam
Jason Douglas, Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2024
54. Rare-Earth Prices Are in the Doldrums. China Wants to Keep Them That Way.
Enes Morina, Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2024
55. China’s economic growth slows in second quarter
Thomas Hale, Financial Times, July 15, 2024
56. China’s Economy Slows Sharply as Housing Troubles Squeeze Spending
Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 14, 2024
57. Italy to offer defunct Stellantis brands to Chinese automakers, report says
Reuters, July 12, 2024
58. China new home prices fall at fastest pace in 9 years, more support needed
Liangping Gao and Ryan Woo, Reuters, July 14, 2024
59. For global investors, China is a slow-burning trade
Laura Matthews, Carolina Mandl. and Rae Wee, Reuters, July 16, 2024
60. China Reaches Record Trade Surplus, Raising Alarm Abroad
Keith Bradsher, New York Times, July 12, 2024
61. Biden Announces Tariffs on Chinese Metals Routed Through Mexico
Ana Swanson, New York Times, July 10, 2024
Cyber & Information Technology
62. Evolving Chinese cyber threat 'should worry us all': U.K. cyber head
Naoya Yoshino, Nikkei Asia, July 12, 2024
63. Huawei completes US$1.4 billion campus in Shanghai ‘with 100 cafes’ to lure foreign talent
Iris Deng, South China Morning Post, July 15, 2024
64. Huawei officially opens its 2,600-acre R&D center in Shanghai, will accommodate over 35,000 scientists and engineers
Jowi Morales, Tom’s Hardware, July 14, 2024
65. China’s ‘rising star’ in chip design software cuts up to half its workforce amid market headwinds
Che Pan, South China Morning Post, July 11, 2024
66. The next front in U.S.-China tech battle? Underwater cables that power the global internet
Ryan Browne, CNBC, July 16, 2024
67. China deploys censors to create socialist AI
Ryan McMorrow and Tina Hu, Financial Times, July 17, 2024
68. Island of riches: Taiwan reaps benefits of AI boom
Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, July 16, 2024
Military and Security Threats
69. Chinese team says it can track US warships using free low-resolution satellite images
Stephen Chen, South China Morning Post, July 15, 2024
70. Giant ship sent near disputed shoals to show ability to ‘outlast Manila’
Zhao Ziwen, South China Morning Post, July 12, 2024
71. China Will Host Senior Officials of Hamas and Fatah, Longtime Adversaries
Adam Rasgon and Vivian Wang, New York Times, July 15, 2024
72. Chinese soldiers gear up for winter warfare
Anushka Saxena, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, July 16, 2024
73. How China Rebuilt a Cambodian Naval Base
Agnes Chang and Hannah Beech, New York Times, July 14, 2024
74. China poses ‘deadly’ threat to UK, says former NATO boss
Lucy Fisher, Financial Times, July 15, 2024
75. Chinese EV laser maker fights back against Pentagon blacklisting
Edward White and Demetri Sevastopulo, Financial Times, July 13, 2024
One Belt, One Road Strategy
76. Palau says China exerting 'new level' of pressure
Shaun Turton, Nikkei Asia, July 16, 2024
77. How Communist Party of China is spreading the “Chinese Governance initiative” globally
Nadia Helmy, Modern Diplomacy, July 18, 2024
78. China keen to pursue Belt and Road projects: Premier Li to new Nepal PM Oli
Business Standard, July 18, 2024
79. Nepalese government approves China rail link
Mark Simmons, International Railway Journal, July 15, 2024
80. How Is China’s Economic Transition Affecting Its Relations with Africa?
Zainab Usman and Tang Xiaoyang, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, May 30, 2024
81. China’s Arm Sales and Military Diplomacy in Africa
Antonio Graceffo, Geopolitical Monitor, July 11, 2024
Opinion Pieces
82. The Taiwan Debate Is Heading in a Dangerous Direction
Paul Triolo, The Wire China, July 14, 2024
83. China was home for 25 years, but I can’t go back. Here’s why.
Anne Stevenson-Yang, Washington Post, July 15, 2024
84. Xi Is Doing Things His Way. That’s Not Helping China
Karishma Vaswani, Bloomberg, July 11, 2024
85. 25 Years On, Falun Gong Still Firmly in Beijing’s Repressive Sights
Levi Browde and Larry Liu, The Diplomat, July 10, 2024
86. The West Is Misreading China in the South China Sea
F. Andrew Wolf, Jr., Geopolitical Monitor, July 11, 2024
87. Back to the Basics: How Many People Are in the People’s Liberation Army?
Shanshan Mei and Dennis J. Blasko, War on the Rocks, July 12, 2024
88. NATO Wakes Up to the China Threat
The Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, July 11, 2024