Conversation
01.27.17
TPP is Dead, Now What?
On Monday, on his first full working day as president, Donald Trump officially withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (...
Conversation
01.18.17
U.S.-China Flashpoints in the Age of Trump
Over the past year, Donald Trump has vowed to “utterly destroy” ISIS, considered lifting sanctions on Russia, promised to cancel the Paris climate agreement and “dismantle” the Iran nuclear deal. But many of his most inflammatory statements are...
Conversation
01.10.17
Can Beijing’s Ivory Ban Save the Elephants?
On New Year’s Eve, Beijing announced it will ban the ivory trade in China, potentially shutting down the world’s biggest ivory market. Why did Beijing decide to curb the ivory trade? Will it put enough muscle behind it to enforce the decision?...
Conversation
12.30.16
Rex Tillerson at State: What Will He Mean for U.S.-China Relations?
On December 13, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team announced the selection of ExxonMobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State. We asked ChinaFile contributors to respond to the choice with a specific focus on how...
Conversation
12.05.16
Should Washington Recalibrate Relations with Taipei?
On Friday, Donald Trump shocked the China-watching world when news broke that he had spoken on the phone to Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The call was remarkable not for its content—Tsai’s office said she told Trump she hoped the United States “...
Conversation
11.28.16
Should Facebook Self-Censor to Enter the Chinese Market?
The social network Facebook has reportedly developed software to suppress posts from users’ feeds in targeted geographic areas, a feature created to help the giant social media network gain access to China, where it is blocked. Facebook Chief...
Conversation
11.21.16
Will China Take the Lead on Climate Change?
At a time when the world is looking to China and the United States, the leading emitters of greenhouse gasses, to cooperate under the terms of the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015, will China now take the lead in fighting climate change?
Conversation
11.15.16
Should China’s Neighbors Rely on the U.S. for Protection?
President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of neo-isolationism that could see many traditional U.S. allies in Asia left without Washington’s support in the newly roiled waters of the South- and East China Seas. What will the...
Conversation
11.09.16
How Should Trump Deal with China, and How Should China Deal with Trump?
Donald J. Trump, president-elect of the United States, spent much of his antagonistic campaign blaming China for many of America’s economic ills, and repeatedly making thinly veiled threats of a U.S. trade war with Beijing. How should Trump...
Conversation
10.27.16
What Does Xi Jinping’s Top-Down Leadership Mean for Innovation in China?
One of the hallmarks of Xi Jinping’s leadership has been a centralization of power across a whole range of areas of domestic politics. This week, the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership meets in Beijing for the sixth plenary session of its 18th...
Conversation
10.06.16
Is the Growing Pessimism About China Warranted?
from Washington QuarterlyThere are few more consequential questions in world affairs than China’s uncertain future trajectory. Assumptions of a reformist China integrated into the international community have given way in recent years to serious concerns about the nation...
Conversation
10.04.16
How Does the American Election Look to Chinese?
During the first presidential debate on September 26, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump mentioned China a dozen times. They spoke about China and jobs, currency, exports, infrastructure, cyberhacking, nuclear non-proliferation, trade, and North...
Conversation
09.21.16
What Should the U.S. Presidential Candidates Be Saying on China?
Barely eight weeks before the United States presidential election, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump have said surprisingly little about how they plan to address China—in areas ranging from the global...
Conversation
09.13.16
Can China’s Best Newspaper Survive?
On September 9, the South China Morning Post’s Chinese-language website went dark with little explanation, leading to concerns that censorship might next spread to the newspaper’s English-language coverage. Can Alibaba’s founder, Jack Ma, who has...
Conversation
09.07.16
The Hong Kong Election: What Message Does it Send Beijing?
On September 4, Hong Kong elected a batch of its youngest and most pro-democratic lawmakers yet. Six new legislators, all under 40, won on platforms that called for Hong Kongers to decide their own fate. The youngest is 23-year-old Nathan Law, a...
Conversation
09.01.16
What Can We Expect from China at the G20?
On September 4-5, heads of the world’s major economies will meet in the southeastern city of Hangzhou for the G20 summit. The meeting represents “the most significant gathering of world leaders in China’s history,” according to The New York Times...
Conversation
08.25.16
Could China Now Defeat the United States in a Battle Over the South China Sea or Taiwan?
Chinese Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping kicked off the latest round of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reforms at a September 3, 2015 military parade. The reforms could result in a leaner, more combat-effective PLA. This could create new...
Conversation
08.18.16
What Would China Look Like Today Had Zhao Ziyang Survived?
Almost 500 previously unpublished documents about Zhao Ziyang, the bold reformer who served as China’s premier (1980-1987) and Communist Party general secretary (1987-1989), were smuggled out of China and published in late July by the Chinese...
Conversation
08.10.16
Is Big Data Increasing Beijing’s Capacity for Control?
China’s authoritarian government is using big data to develop credit scoring systems, and is urging data-sharing between companies and governments, putting ordinary Chinese squarely in the digital spotlight. How should Chinese netizens and global...
Conversation
08.03.16
What Does Uber’s Retreat Say About the Ability of U.S. Internet Innovators to Succeed in China?
In early August, news broke that Uber would sell its China business to Didi Chuxing, its largest rival on the Mainland. Uber is just the latest in a series of tech companies—including Google, Twitter, and Amazon, among others—that found the...
Conversation
07.20.16
How Should the Republican Party Approach China Policy?
On Tuesday, delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, chose Donald J. Trump as their nominee for President of the United States. We asked a range of contributors how the Republican Party should approach China policy.
Conversation
07.12.16
China’s Claims in the South China Sea Rejected
On Tuesday in the Hague, the Permanent Court of Arbitration rejected China’s claims that a scattering of rocks and reefs in the contested South China Sea qualify as Exclusive Economic Zones for China. The court found in favor of the Philippines’...
Conversation
07.08.16
Why Is There So Much Talk of China’s Bleeding Money?
China has seen its foreign reserves depleted for months, but economists don’t agree about why: Is it because Chinese people are buying offshore assets, such as real estate? Because Chinese companies are paying down their foreign debt? Or both? Or...
Conversation
06.30.16
Where Is China’s Internet Headed?
Lu Wei, the often combative Chinese official known as China’s “Internet Czar,” will step down, and is to be replaced by a former deputy of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The personnel change comes after a period of mounting restrictions on China’s...
Conversation
06.24.16
Is Europe Prepared to Deal with the China Challenge?
Chinese President Xi Jinping is on a grand tour of the western end of the “New Silk Road,” in visits to Serbia and Poland this week before he returns to Beijing via Uzbekistan, a more eastern outpost on China’s expanding 21st...
Conversation
06.13.16
A War of Words Over the South China Sea
Beginning earlier this year, four-star Admiral Harry Harris, the U.S. Navy’s top commander in the Pacific, has spoken out in speeches, interviews, private meetings, and testimony to Congress urging that the U.S. take more aggressive action...
Conversation
05.16.16
Escalation in the South China Sea
International tensions are rising over the shipping lanes and land formations in the South China Sea. Last week, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force scrambled fighter jets in response to a U.S. Navy ship sailing near the disputed Fiery Cross...
Conversation
05.05.16
How Should Global Stakeholders Respond to China’s New NGO Management Law?
A new law gives broad powers to China’s police in regulating and surveilling the activities of foreign NGOs in China. The law would require foreign groups including foundations, charities, advocacy organizations, and academic exchange programs to...
Conversation
05.01.16
Xi Jinping’s New Military Position
Late last week, China’s news media were filled with images of President and Party General Secretary Xi Jinping touring the joint battle command center of the Central Military Commission, dressed for the occasion in combat fatigues. The occasion for...
Conversation
04.19.16
Fifty Years Later, How Is the Cultural Revolution Still Present in Life in China?
Fifty years ago this May 16, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong launched the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a chaotic, terrifying, and often deadly decade-long campaign to “purify” C.C.P. ideology and reassert his political...
Conversation
04.12.16
Should Internet Censorship Be Considered a Trade Issue?
A new report from the Office of the United States Trade Representative lists, for the first time, Chinese Internet censorship as a trade barrier. The possible implications are complex: it could strengthen the hand of U.S. businesses, but also...
Conversation
03.21.16
Cracks in Xi Jinping’s Fortress?
Two remarkable documents emerged from China last week—the essay “A Thousand Yes-Men Cannot Equal One Honest Advisor,” which appeared on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and an open letter calling for Xi Jinping’s...
Conversation
03.11.16
Is China Doing Enough for the Environment?
This week, at their biggest annual session in Beijing, Chinese lawmakers are expected to ratify the country’s 13th Five-Year Plan, which contains many new measures to address rampant pollution of the country’s air, soil, and water. Will the plan...
Conversation
03.04.16
Xi Jinping: A Cult of Personality?
By some accounts, Chinese Presdient Xi Jinping is the most powerful leader the country has had since Mao Zedong. One arrow in his quiver that echoes Mao’s armory is Xi’s embrace of popular song, listened to these days not on the radio or over a...
Conversation
02.23.16
How Long Can China’s Internet Thrive if the Rest of the World Gets Shut Out?
Last week, Chinese authorities announced that as of March 10, foreign-invested companies would not be allowed...
Conversation
01.27.16
Is George Soros Right that China’s Headed for a Hard Landing?
On Tuesday in an article headlined, “Declaring War on China’s Currency? Ha ha,” the People’s Daily attacked billionaire investor George Soros for suggesting he might short the renminbi. The Chinese currency has dropped 5.7 percent since August...
Conversation
01.13.16
Does Chinese Investment Pose a Threat to Hollywood?
The Wanda Group, China’s leading real estate developer, on Monday paid $3.5 billion for a controlling stake in Hollywood studio Legendary Entertainment, maker of Jurassic World, among other global blockbusters. At a time when Hollywood...
Conversation
01.06.16
The North Korean Bomb Test—What's Next?
On Wednesday, North Korea claimed that it had tested a hydrogen bomb, bringing to four the number of nuclear weapons it has set off on its own territory since 2006. The act drew international condemnation, prompting us to ask: What’s different...
Conversation
12.15.15
Can an Alibaba ‘Morning Post’ Aid China’s Image Overseas?
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is buying the Hong Kong media group of the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the leading independent English-language newspaper in the former British colony where freedom of the press has resisted control by the...
Conversation
12.09.15
Is China a Leader or Laggard on Climate Change?
As ongoing climate talks wind down at COP21 this week, participants in and observers of the summit in Paris wrote in to share their assessment of the message coming from the official delegation from China, currently the world’s largest emitter of...
Conversation
12.03.15
Does the Renminbi’s Elevation to Global Currency Matter?
On November 30, the International Monetary Fund approved the Chinese renminbi, also known as the yuan, as one of the world’s leading currencies, underscoring the country’s rising global financial importance. What’s behind the decision and what...
Conversation
11.24.15
The China Africa Relationship: Crossroads or Cliff?
As we approach the sixth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit in Johannesburg, we try better to understand the main issues that surely will arise when Chinese President Xi Jinping and South African President Jacob Zuma meet on...
Conversation
11.19.15
Is China a Credible Partner in Fighting Terror?
In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said, “China is also a victim of terrorism....
Conversation
11.18.15
How Can China’s Neighbors Make Progress at APEC?
Ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit next week, we asked a group of experts from China’s neighboring countries what they thought the main thrust of discussion in Manila should be. If host, the Philippines, under pressure...
Conversation
11.02.15
How Far Have China’s Economic Reforms Come over the Past Year?
As the Chinese Communist Party leadership wrapped up its Fifth Plenum, the meeting at which the Party’s leadership set the Five Year Plan that will shape economic policy through 2020, what progress has been made on the “...
Conversation
10.28.15
Making Waves in the South China Sea
Challenging China’s newly assertive behavior in the South China Sea, this week the U.S. Navy sailed some of its biggest ships inside the nine-dash line, exercising its claim to freedom of movement in international waters plied by billions in...
Conversation
10.20.15
Britain: ‘China’s Best Partner in the West’?
This week, Xi Jinping is in Great Britain for a state visit, his first since assuming leadership of China nearly three years ago. Britain’s government under David Cameron has signaled—increasingly loudly in recent months—that it hopes to usher in...