"Reset, Prevent, Build" - the House Select Committee's strategy for economic competition with the PRC
Friends,
Lots of material this week.
The economic outlook for Beijing is not getting better (though it appears that the PRC will extend some relief to the real estate sector). Xi’s decisions to elevate security above economic prosperity continue to undermine investor and business confidence in the PRC.
In the U.S., consensus is hardening against Beijing with bipartisan proposals coming out of the House Select Committee on China to fundamentally alter the Sino-American trade and economic relationship. Hopefully, this House proposal will push the various elements of the Administration to evaluate whether they are implementing policies with a comprehensive goal in mind or whether competing factions within the Administration are seeking to achieve mutually exclusive goals.
Thanks for reading!
Matt
MUST READ
1. Hong Kong voters turn their backs on 'patriots only' election with record low turnout
Nectar Gan, CNN, December 11, 2023
Hong Kongers on Sunday delivered another apparent snub to China’s “patriots only” overhaul of the city’s electoral system, as local polls that barred the opposition from standing drew the lowest turnout in decades.
Fewer than 1.2 million Hong Kongers – just 27.5% of those eligible – voted in the district council elections, the lowest turnout in the quadrennial polls since the handover of the former British colony to Beijing’s rule in 1997 despite an all-out government push to get people to cast their ballots.
The tepid participation was a far cry from the last time such elections were held. In 2019, months of anti-government protests galvanized a historic turnout of 71% as the city’s pro-democracy camp won a landslide victory.
Four years on, Hong Kong democrats have effectively been barred from running after a major electoral overhaul that ensures only “patriots” loyal to Beijing can hold office.
Under the move, the number of directly elected district council seats was slashed by 80% to just 88 out of 470, with all candidates required to undergo national security screening and secure nominations from government-appointed committees.
After casting his ballot on Sunday morning, Hong Kong’s leader John Lee called the election “the last piece of the puzzle to implement the principles of patriots governing Hong Kong.”
COMMENT – Hong Kong used to provide a valuable preview of what the rest of the PRC could look like. The city-state’s former check-and-balances, strong legal protections, and vibrant local elections created the foundations of a prosperous society where citizens wanted to live and raise their children, start new businesses, and conduct international trade and finance.
The Chinese Communist Party has all but destroyed those foundations and made Hong Kong in to just another Chinese city.
2. China’s cyber intrusions have hit ports and utilities, officials say
Ellen Nakashima and Joseph Menn, Washington Post, December 11, 2023
A utility in Hawaii, a West Coast port and a pipeline are among the victims in the past year, officials say.
The Chinese military is ramping up its ability to disrupt key American infrastructure, including power and water utilities as well as communications and transportation systems, according to U.S. officials and industry security officials.
Hackers affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army have burrowed into the computer systems of about two dozen critical entities over the past year, these experts said.
The intrusions are part of a broader effort to develop ways to sow panic and chaos or snarl logistics in the event of a U.S.-China conflict in the Pacific, they said.
Among the victims are a water utility in Hawaii, a major West Coast port and at least one oil and gas pipeline, people familiar with the incidents told The Washington Post. The hackers also attempted to break into the operator of Texas’s power grid, which operates independently from electrical systems in the rest of the country.
Several entities outside the United States, including electric utilities, also have been victimized by the hackers, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.
None of the intrusions affected industrial control systems that operate pumps, pistons or any critical function, or caused a disruption, U.S. officials said. But they said the attention to Hawaii, which is home to the Pacific Fleet, and to at least one port as well as logistics centers suggests the Chinese military wants the ability to complicate U.S. efforts to ship troops and equipment to the region if a conflict breaks out over Taiwan.
These previously undisclosed details help fill out a picture of a cyber campaign dubbed Volt Typhoon, first detected about a year ago by the U.S. government, as the United States and China struggle to stabilize a relationship more antagonistic now than it has been in decades. Chinese military commanders refused for more than a year to speak to American counterparts even as close-call intercepts by Chinese fighter jets of U.S. spy planes surged in the western Pacific. President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed only last month to restore those communication channels.
3. Reset, Prevent, Build: A Strategy to Win America's Economic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party
U.S. House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, December 12, 2023
For a generation, the United States bet that robust economic engagement would lead the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to open its economy and financial markets and in turn to liberalize its political system and abide by the rule of law. Those reforms did not occur.
Since its accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, the CCP has pursued a multidecade campaign of economic aggression against the United States and its allies in the name of strategically decoupling the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the global economy, making the PRC less dependent on the United States in critical sectors, while making the United States more dependent on the PRC. In response, the United States must now chart a new path that puts its national security, economic security, and values at the core of the U.S.-PRC relationship.
The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (Select Committee) has studied the PRC’s pattern of aggression and economic manipulation and recommends the following strategy for economic and technological competition with the PRC. The strategy has three pillars, and the Select Committee identified the following key findings:
Pillar I: Reset the Terms of Our Economic Relationship with the PRC
Pillar II: Stem the Flow of U.S. Capital and Technology Fueling the PRC’s Military Modernization and Human Rights Abuses
Pillar III: Invest in Technological Leadership and Build Collective Economic Resilience in Concert with Allies
COMMENT – I hope the Administration is reading this closely, it is a roadmap that the Executive Branch could align itself with and develop concrete policy actions to address the findings and implement the recommendations.
For U.S. allies, it is worth reading this as well to anticipate the direction of travel for U.S. policy on the PRC.
4. Scared Strait: Understanding the Economic and Financial Impacts of a Taiwan Crisis
Jude Blanchette, Gerard DiPippo, and Christopher B. Johnstone, CSIS, December 13, 2023
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Beijing’s demonstrations of force against Taiwan since 2022, Western governments and corporate boardrooms have increasingly debated the likelihood, timing, and methods of a possible invasion or blockade of Taiwan by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Yet the real economic and financial dimensions of a potential cross-strait conflict remain underemphasized in this policy discourse. All realistic scenarios of PRC aggression will induce fast-moving and unpredictable dynamics, many of which would manifest before the outbreak of hostilities. The Taiwan Strait is central to global maritime trade, and Taiwan is the world’s most advanced and critical semiconductor manufacturing hub. For its own part, China remains an important manufacturing and trade partner for advanced and developing economies. As such, any crisis or conflict in the Taiwan Strait would impose substantial costs on China, the United States and its allies and partners, and the global economy.
Over the past year, the CSIS Freeman Chair—along with experts from the CSIS Economics Program and CSIS Japan Chair—organized a series of closed-door Taiwan scenario exercises with members of the private sector, including hedge funds, venture capitalists, private equity, pension funds, investment banks, and multinational corporations (MNCs) from various industries. Unlike traditional tabletop exercises or war games, which often (and perhaps necessarily) hold the global economy constant or otherwise use formal models to estimate the economic impact of a Taiwan crisis, these CSIS scenarios seek to understand firm psychology by asking private sector actors to approximate how they would navigate and respond to various geopolitical shocks in the Taiwan Strait, ranging from an accidental collision to a full-scale invasion.
While the magnitude and pattern of economic and financial impacts depend on the precise nature and sequencing of events, the results from these exercises nonetheless provide some broad parameters for how investors and companies make decisions in an environment of uncertainty and imperfect information. Here are some main takeaways from these exercises.
Market actors are getting better at understanding Taiwan-related risks.
Investors are already souring on China (at the margin).
Novel and unpredicted scenarios drive volatility.
Uncertainty about the United States reaction also drives volatility.
The threat of sanctions matters.
The conflict is the sanction.
Real economy impacts would be slower to emerge.
While all lose in a conflict, China might lose more.
COMMENT – The House Select Committee’s “Reset, Prevent, Build” report above calls on Congress, the Administration, and the Federal Reserve to establish a baseline assessment of the potential impacts on the U.S. economy should Beijing start a military conflict against Taiwan or another U.S. ally or partner in the region.
There seems to be broad consensus for this kind of activity, though I have seen little movement by the U.S. Treasury or the Federal Reserve to do this kind of work.
5. The young Chinese who stood up against Xi's Covid rules
Kelly Ng, BBC, December 6, 2023
Huang Yicheng was scrolling through his social media feeds after a long day's work on 26 November 2022 when videos of crowds gathering along Shanghai's Urumqi Road caught his eye.
Holding candles they mourned the victims of a recent apartment fire in the north-western city of Urumqi. Many believe they couldn't escape due to strict Covid-19 restrictions, but Chinese authorities dispute this. The protesters also held up blank white sheets, which they said symbolised "everything we want to say but cannot say".
The vigil in Shanghai quickly turned into a rare protest as people began shouting for China's leader Xi Jinping to step down.
"I felt so inspired and riled up," said the 27-year-old. The next day he joined the protesters when they gathered at the same spot, after being driven away by the police the night before.
Similar "White Paper" protests erupted across China. Thousands took to the streets in the capital Beijing, in Chengdu in the south-west, in Xi'an at the centre of the country, in Wuhan, which recorded the world's first Covid cases.
One year on, those who took part in the protests, which hastened the end of China's harsh zero-Covid rules, are living between hope and fear.
The BBC spoke to four protesters who say they had hoped for a bigger political awakening. But, as the crackdown unfolded, they left the country - and some continue to keep a low profile, fearing for the safety of their families and friends back home.
"I was planning on going abroad but I never expected to have to stay here for the long term," says Yicheng, who is now in Germany. "Participating in the White Paper protests has completely changed my life's trajectory."
He - along with other protesters - was arrested by Shanghai police as they tried to break up the demonstration. He says they dragged him upside down and then shoved him onto a bus. When they were preoccupied with a fellow protester, Yicheng seized the chance to escape.
6. China chip firm powered by US tech and money avoids Biden's crackdown
Alexandra Alper and Eduardo Baptista, Reuters, December 14, 2023
A Chinese chip designer, part-owned by the country's top sanctioned chipmaker, is purchasing U.S. software and has American financial backing, relationships that underscore the difficulty Washington faces applying new rules meant to block American support for Beijing's semiconductor industry.
The company, Brite Semiconductor, offers chip design services to at least six Chinese military suppliers, a Reuters examination of company statements, regulatory filings, tenders and academic articles by People's Liberation Army (PLA) researchers and institutions found.
Its second largest shareholder and top supplier, chipmaker SMIC, was placed on the so-called U.S. entity list over alleged ties to Beijing's military, effectively barring it from receiving some goods from U.S. suppliers.
Despite those relationships, Brite boasts funding from a U.S. venture capital firm backed by Wells Fargo and a Christian university, and has continued access to sensitive U.S. technology from two California-based software companies, Synopsys and Cadence Design, documents showed. Reuters has found no evidence that Brite's relationships with U.S. firms violate any regulations.
The Biden administration, with bipartisan support, has taken pains to stop the flow of technology and investment to Bejing's chip sector, unveiling rules last October to halt some U.S. exports of chips and chipmaking tools to China and in August announcing a ban on certain new U.S. investments in the industry. It has also added dozens of Chinese companies to the entity list, many over ties to China's military.
Brite did not respond to requests for comment. The Commerce Department and the White House declined to comment. The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not comment on Brite but accused the United States of "blatant economic coercion and bullying in the field of technology."
Although not an apparent breach of any U.S. rules, Brite's access demonstrates the challenges facing Washington's bid to keep U.S. equipment and money from being used to advance China's military ambitions, and suggests the U.S. will struggle to succeed unless it targets many more companies that have slipped under its radar.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio, an influential China hawk and member of the foreign relations committee, characterized Reuters' findings on Brite as "concerning."
"Companies connected to China’s military supply chain should not have access to American technology and investment. The Biden Administration’s haphazard approach to export controls and investment restrictions clearly is not working," he said.
Others said Brite illustrates Beijing's ability to use low-profile companies to skirt American export bans on big-name Chinese firms.
"Brite is a classic example of how a US-China joint venture could end up funneling valuable semiconductor technology to SMIC and the PLA," said Martijn Rasser, managing director of Datenna, an open-source intelligence company.
COMMENT – Another deeply frustrating piece of investigative journalism.
It begs the question: If a handful of journalists at Reuters can discover all of this, why can’t the Department of Commerce (along with State, Defense, and Energy who collectively are responsible for enforcing dual-use export controls) take action to prevent it from happening?
What’s the point of having dual-use export controls if we aren’t going to fully investigate the ways in which our adversaries circumvent our controls to gain access to advanced technology they need to build a better military, which they appear on the verge of using against us and our friends?
This example, another of what seems to pop up almost every other month (here’s another example from October), suggests that discovering which PRC companies to take action against isn’t all that hard, especially when you consider that the Department of Commerce has the authority to compel U.S. companies to turn over details of their transactions that reporters can’t get access to.
In light of this example, a report by House Chairman Michael McCaul last week on the Bureau of Industry and Security is instructive. His “Bureau of Industry and Security: 90-Day Review Report” describes some of the pathologies impacting the country’s inability to enforce its own export controls. As Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, McCaul heads the committee of jurisdiction for U.S. export controls.
McCaul’s report is damning as it examines the performance and behavior of Commerce Department officials in both the Trump and Biden Administrations… Appendix I summarizes the “problems” and “recommendations.”
7. Why the U.S. and Chinese militaries still aren’t talking despite a Biden-Xi agreement
Lara Seligman and Phelim Kine, Politico, December 13, 2023
It’s been almost a month since Joe Biden and Xi Jinping agreed that the defense chiefs should stay connected.
President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart last month touted an agreement to resume military communications as a step toward better relations. But almost four weeks later, the two sides appear no closer to ending the 16-month standoff between defense teams.
U.S. officials say a significant hurdle is the fact that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has yet to appoint a new minister of defense to replace Gen. Li Shangfu, who was ousted in October. That means that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has no counterpart to call or meet with — and Beijing has not yet offered up a suitable replacement.
“We certainly urge them to designate somebody soon,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council, told reporters. “We’re eager to get those comms going.”
DOD officials say logistical conversations are taking place in order to get the senior leader meetings on the schedule. But some expressed frustration at the lack of progress, blaming stonewalling from the Chinese side.
“We’ve seen a long list of excuses and delays over the past two years,” said one DOD official, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive talks.
Beijing’s foot-dragging in resuming high level military communications adds a dangerous level of instability to an already fraught relationship. Even before Beijing cut those links, U.S.-China military communications systems were highly unreliable. Their absence at a time of rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait — including Chinese air and naval harassment across the median line separating Taiwan and China — deprives Washington and Beijing of reliable high-level channels essential to de-escalating encounters between their militaries.
COMMENT – This should not surprise anyone.
I disagree with the U.S. officials who put forth the excuse that a replacement Defense Minister hasn’t been named… Lara and Phelim should have pushed back on that excuse.
Since the disappearance of General Li Shangfu in the late summer, it is not like Beijing has stopped its senior-level military diplomacy. In fact, the Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission, General Zhang Youxia, has been quite active… here he is last month in Moscow meeting with Putin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu:
A month earlier, here he is hosting Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Beijing:
Or here he is in October 2023 with the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister:
Also in October, General Zhang Youxia met with his Mongolian counterpart, Gursed Saikhanbayar, the Mongolian Minister of Defense.
Instead of waiting for Beijing to name a new “defense minister,” the U.S. should demand that Secretary Austin’s counterpart be General Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission.
In the Chinese system, the “defense minister” is junior to the two Vice Chairmen of the Central Military Commission. If we are serious about opening real lines of communication between the U.S. and the PRC militaries, we must not let the DoD fall back into the habit of pretending that the PRC defense minister is the counterpart of the U.S. Secretary of Defense.
Country to popular belief, the PRC’s Ministry of National Defense does NOT command the PLA. The PLA is commanded by the Central Military Commission which sits outside the PRC Government system. The CMC is the body that the Chinese Communist Party employs to command and control the military on behalf of the Party (not the Government). The Ministry’s main job is to serve as a liaison both within the PRC Government to other ministries, but also with foreign militaries that Beijing wants to keep at an arm’s distance from the PLA.
For years we have made the mistake of allowing the U.S. Secretary of Defense to communicate through a liaison office instead of meeting directly with the leadership of the actual body which controls the PLA.
Now that the defense minister, General Li Shangfu, has been disappeared we should press hard to have this mistake corrected and place US-PRC military communications on the proper level.
Authoritarianism
8. NATO official calls for blocking China's support of Russia
Shigeru Seno, Nikkei Asia, December 12, 2023
9. Wall Street Puts a ‘Sell’ on Its China Holdings
Lingling Wei, Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2023
10. Caging the Tech Capitalists
Ya-Wen Lei, The Wire China, December 10, 2023
11. China News Outlet Closure Reflects Political Sensitivities Over Beijing, Leadership Says
Liam Scott, Voice of America, December 11, 2023
12. The ‘Alternate Ethics’ of Chinese Journalism
Ryan Ho Kilpatrick and Emily H. C. Chua, China Media Project, December 11, 2023
13. Looking beyond China: Why it’s time to refresh the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy
James Crabtree, European Council on Foreign Relations, December 4, 2023
14. China ‘not willing’ to cooperate on fentanyl crisis until institute was removed from blacklist, US official testifies
Khushboo Razdan, South China Morning Post, December 13, 2023
15. The Vicious Cycle of Rumor in China
David Bandurski, China Media Project, December 7, 2023
16. After arrests and deportations, Mongolians worry about Chinese reach
Christian Shepherd, Washington Post, December 10, 2023
17. Chinese forces approached close to Taiwan coast to 'intimidate' voters before key elections - sources
Yimou Lee, Reuters, December 13, 2023
18. China raises complaint over Taiwan's participation in COP28
Reuters, December 9, 2023
19. China’s failed charm campaign
Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, December 11, 2023
20. How to China-Proof the Global Economy
Peter E. Harrell, Foreign Affairs, December 12, 2023
21. Lawmakers Call for Raising Tariffs and Severing Economic Ties with China
Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport, New York Times, December 12, 2023
22. US hits Turkish and Chinese companies over Russia trade
Chris Cook, Max Seddon, Adam Samson, and Felicia Schwartz, Financial Times, December 12, 2023
23. House committee calls for reset on China-U.S. economic relations
Cate Cadell, Washington Post, December 12, 2023
Environmental Harms
24. World carbon dioxide emissions increase again, driven by China, India and aviation
Seth Borenstein, Associated Press, December 4, 2023
25. Will China save the planet or destroy it?
The Economist, November 27, 2023
Foreign Interference and Coercion
26. China Ramps Up Efforts to Interfere in Taiwan’s Coming Elections
William Yang, Voice of America, December 12, 2023
27. Xi Asks Vietnam to Stop Outsider Efforts to ‘Mess Up’ Region
Zibang Xiao, Bloomberg, December 13, 2023
28. Beyond business as usual: A China strategy for Poland
Alicja Bachulska, European Council on Foreign Relations, December 4, 2023
29. China offers Taiwan colonel US$15 million to defect via CH-47 Chinook
Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, December 11, 2023
30. French documentary reveals TikTok's attempts to influence Taiwan elections
Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, December 5, 2023
31. Taiwan intelligence says China leadership discussed election interference -sources
Yimou Lee, Reuters, December 8, 2023
Human Rights and Religious Persecution
32. Inside the decades-long fight over Yahoo’s misdeeds in China
Eileen Guo, MIT Technology Review, December 12, 2023
33. China is hardening against dissent, rights groups say as they mark International Human Rights Day
Sylvia Hui and Huizhong Wu, Associated Press, December 10, 2023
34. Treasury Designates Perpetrators of Human Rights Abuse and Commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
U.S. Department of Treasury, December 8, 2023
35. ‘I Have No Future’: China’s Rebel Influencer Is Still Paying a Price
Li Yuan, New York Times, December 12, 2023
36. He blew the whistle on Amazon. He’s still paying the price
Yuan Yang, Financial Times, December 7, 2023
Industrial Policies and Economic Espionage
37. Xi Disappoints Investors by Skipping Signal for Big Stimulus
Bloomberg, December 12, 2023
38. China population: with falling fertility rate ‘an unavoidable norm’, Beijing told focus should shift to people not numbers
Luna Sun, South China Morning Post, December 12, 2023
39. NASA opens door to cooperation with China on Moon rock research
Dennis Normile, Science, December 7, 2023
40. In global shipping, it’s China vs South Korea, and Seoul is securing its shipbuilding secrets
Frank Chen, South China Morning Post, December 13, 2023
41. TSMC, Labor Unions Reach Labor Accord for Phoenix Chip Site
Mackenzie Hawkins, Bloomberg, December 6, 2023
42. Chine-Europe: l’impossible découplage économique [China-Europe: impossible economic decoupling]
Marie Charrel, Le Monde, December 4, 2023 – ORIGINAL IN FRENCH
43. U.S. Companies Are Finding It Hard to Avoid China
Stella Yifan Xie, Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2023
44. Why Volkswagen Is Hiring 3,000 Engineers in China
Keith Bradsher and Melissa Eddy, New York Times, December 12, 2023
45. India’s NSE set to take Hong Kong’s spot among world’s largest markets
John Reed and Andy Lin, Financial Times, December 10, 2023
46. Why Biden’s EV Tax Credit Could Become Hard to Claim
Scott Patterson and Andrew Duehren, Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2023
47. Chinese Leaders Vow to Step Up Support for Flagging Economy
Stella Yifan Xie and Jason Douglas, Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2023
Cyber & Information Technology
48. The great nanometer chip race
Cheng Ting-fang and Lauly Li, Nikkei Asia, December 13, 2023
49. Huawei to start building first European factory in France in 2024
Reuters, South China Morning Post, December 12, 2023
50. Taiwanese tech startups pile into ASEAN amid risks in China
Dylan Loh, Nikkei Asia, December 12, 2023
51. Tech war: China memory chip maker CXMT may have made a breakthrough amid US sanctions, paper indicates
Che Pan, South China Morning Post, December 13, 2023
52. US Is Looking into Nvidia’s AI Chips for China, Raimondo Says
Mackenzie Hawkins, Bloomberg, December 11, 2023
53. The Untold Story of a Massive Hack at HHS in Covid’s Early Days
Jordan Robertson and Riley Griffin, Bloomberg, December 6, 2023
54. How super app Red influences Chinese-speaking diaspora in Australia
Iris Zhao, ABC News, December 9, 2023
55. Apple Aims to Make a Quarter of the World’s iPhones in India
Rajesh Roy and Yang Jie, Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2023
56. US judge upholds Texas TikTok ban on state-owned devices
David Shepardson, Reuters, December 12, 2023
Military and Security Threats
57. Micronesia’s ex-leader, urging US funds for Pacific islands and warning of China war, stirs debate
Khushboo Razdan, South China Morning Post, December 13, 2023
58. Chinese oil giant CNOOC looks underground to store fuel reserves
Hayley Wong, South China Morning Post, December 10, 2023
59. Philippines summons China ambassador after South China Sea confrontations
Aljazeera, December 11, 2023
60. U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea
Matthew Miller, U.S. Department of State, December 10, 2023
61. Philippines: Statement by the Spokesperson on provocative actions in the South China Sea
EEAS Press Team, European Union, December 11, 2023
62. South China Sea: Philippine and Chinese vessels collide in contested waters
George Wright, BBC, December 9, 2023
63. The Big One
Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., Foreign Affairs, December 12, 2023
64. China APT Cracks Cisco Firmware in Attacks Against the US and Japan
Nate Nelson, Dark Reading, September 27, 2023
65. Estonia, Finland want to investigate NewNew Polar Bear vessel in China
Baltic Times, November 27, 2023
66. Alarm Grows Over Weakened Militaries and Empty Arsenals in Europe
Max Colchester, David Luhnow, and Bojan Pancevski, Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2023
67. What It Feels Like to Be the Target of China’s Water Cannons
Camille Elemia, New York Times, December 11, 2023
One Belt, One Road Strategy
68. As Italy Exits BRI, Radio Silence
Dalia Parete, China Media Project, December 13, 2023
69. World Bank Warns Record Debt Burdens Haunt Developing Economies
Alan Rappeport, New York Times, December 13, 2023
R. Evan Ellis, Dialogo Americas, December 13, 2023
Opinion Pieces
71. China’s Rising Anti-Semitism
Aaron Sarin, Persuasion, December 11, 2023
72. The American Way of Economic War
Paul Krugman, Foreign Affairs, December 6, 2023
73. The West is wrong about China's economy
Philip Pilkington, UnHerd, December 11, 2023
74. It’s Time to Remove Hostile Chinese Outposts
Marco Rubio and Christopher Smith, RealClearWorld, December 11, 2023
75. China faces the risk of a debt-deflation loop
Chetan Ahya, Financial Times, December 12, 2023
76. U.S. and China must seize opening to discuss military AI risks
Sam Bresnick, Nikkei Asia, December 12, 2023
77. China’s Economy Is OK. The Problem Is Its Politics
Minxin Pei, Bloomberg, December 12, 2023
78. India-China dynamics in multilateral and minilateral organizations
Syed Akbaruddin, Indrani Bagchi, and Tanvi Madan, Brookings, December 13, 2023
79. Biden just lowered the pressure on China’s latest human rights violations
Josh Rogin, Washington Post, December 12, 2023