Dec 03, 2024

I saw nothing but denial in my recent post-US-election tour of Asia, with stops in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Singapore. Taking a cue from surging global equity markets, Asians are making every effort to wish away problems at home and abroad.

Sep 30, 2024

Other than a few glib remarks, surprisingly little was said about China at this month’s US presidential debate. Former President Donald Trump asserted that his proposed import tariffs would punish “China and all of the countries that have been ripping us off for years.” Vice President Kamala Harris, for her part, disparaged China’s pandemic response, stating that President Xi Jinping “was responsible for lacking and not giving us transparency about the origins of COVID.”

Jul 19, 2024

In the so-called Third Plenum to be held on July 15-18, China’s senior leadership will have an opportunity to establish the broad outlines of a policy framework that could reshape the country’s course for the next several years. Don’t count on it. There is good reason to think that China watchers in the West have unrealistic expectations of what is to come.

May 30, 2024

The United States does not have a coherent trade policy. It has a political strategy masquerading as trade policy that has taken dead aim at China. Unsurprisingly, China has responded in kind. With the two superpowers drawing on their allies for support – the US leaning on the G7 and China turning to the Global South – economic decoupling is the least of our problems.

Apr 30, 2024

After my recent trip to Beijing to attend the 25th annual China Development Forum (CDF), the country’s most important public conference, one question keeps turning over in my head: What’s the point?

Apr 19, 2024

The current wave of anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States has been building for years. It started in the early 2000s, when US policymakers first raised national-security concerns about Huawei. China’s national technology champion, the market leader in developing new 5G telecommunications equipment, was accused of deploying digital backdoors that could enable Chinese espionage and cyber-attacks. US-led sanctions in 2018-19 stopped Huawei dead in its tracks.

Feb 29, 2024

FBI Director Christopher Wray recently upped the ante in America’s anti-China campaign. In congressional testimony on January 31, he sounded the alarm over intensified Chinese hacking activity and warned that US infrastructure – telecommunications, energy, transportation, and water – is acutely vulnerable to the Chinese state-sponsored hacker group Volt Typhoon. Front-page coverage by the New York Times added to the sense of urgency.

Jan 31, 2024

China is at a critical juncture. Its deflation-prone debt-intensive economy is seriously underperforming. Its government has become embroiled in a major superpower conflict with the United States. And it is staring down the barrel of a demographic crisis. Worst of all, Chinese authorities are responding to these challenges more with ideology and stale tactics from the past, rather than with breakthrough reforms. Imaginative solutions to tough problems are in scarce supply.

Dec 02, 2023

“A Better Biden-Xi Summit?” was the title of my commentary last month, and the emphasis was on the question mark. With good reason: Last year’

Nov 03, 2023

All eyes are on the upcoming leaders’ meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), to be held in San Francisco from November 11-17. And with good reason: there is a distinct possibility that US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet on the sidelines of this pan-regional gathering, exactly one year after their last summit in Bali on the eve of the annual G20 summit.