China Global

Europe’s relations with China have been on a downward trajectory the past few years. The list for this decline is long: Europe’s concerns about human rights violations in Xinjiang, Chinese sanctions on EU parliamentarians, European uneasiness about PRC plans to dominate key strategic technologies, Chinese rebuff to international law in the South China Sea and its military pressure on Taiwan. Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the resulting civilian causalities further strained relations between China and the EU as Beijing abstained in the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly and blamed the conflict on the five waves of NATO expansion. On April 1, the 23rd EU-China summit took place via video conference. President of the European Council, Charles Michel, and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, accompanied by High Representative Josep Borrell, met with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang in the morning and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the afternoon. Borell later described the meeting as a dialogue of the deaf—the Chinese side had little interest in talking about the war in Ukraine, preferring to discuss shared EU and Chinese interests. In an effort to drive a wedge between the US and the EU, Xi also called on the EU to form its own perception of China and adopt an independent China policy. In this episode, Bonnie Glaser speaks with Janka Oertel, Director of the Asia Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations to further discuss the April 1 EU-China summit and analyze the overall EU-China relationship.

On March 25, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited India and met with India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, marking the first high-level visit by a Chinese official to India since the 2020 Galwan Valley incident in which both Chinese and Indian soldiers were killed. Since the 2020 incident, both militaries have ramped up troops, weapons deployments, and infrastructure in the disputed region. Arranged at the initiative of Beijing, Wang Yi’s visit took place against the background of the ongoing war in Ukraine, in which both China and India have adopted stances on Russia’s invasion that are at odds with those of the United States, Europe, and some countries in Asia. To discuss Wang Yi’s meetings in India and the trajectory of the bilateral China-India relationship, Bonnie Glaser will speak with Dr. Tanvi Madan, senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy and director of The India Project at Brookings Institution. She is author of the book “Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War.”

On the orders of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, the Russians invaded Ukraine just after the close of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and a few weeks after Putin and Xi Jinping inked a sweeping joint statement that challenged the United States as a global power, opposed NATO enlargement, and condemned liberal democracy as a model for the world. To investigate China’s stance on the conflict and to better understand the interests that Beijing is trying to protect and advance in the Ukraine crisis, Bonnie Glaser will speak with Dr. Evan Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees research in Washington, Beijing, and New Delhi. Dr Feigenbaum previously held several roles in the State Department in the George W. Bush administration.

Link to the Arctic development white paper: 中国的北极政策-新华网 (xinhuanet.com)

Foreign press correspondents reporting in China experience a host of challenges—and not just because of the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s rigorous “zero COVID” policy. As the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China’s recently released annual report on media freedom details, foreign journalists in China are encountering increasingly stringent visa restrictions, harassment, surveillance, and risk of expulsion or even arrest.  Emily Feng joins Bonnie Glaser on China Global to discuss the challenges facing reporters in China today, as well as trends in Chinese society and Xi Jinping’s first ten years in power. Emily is NPR’s Beijing Correspondent after having previously worked for the Financial Times. She covers everything from semiconductors to girl bands and Chinese coal mines and has earned many awards, including a Human Rights Press Award and a Gracie Award for her coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The post-World War II international system was created primarily by liberal democracies committed to the rule of law, free markets, and universal human rights. They launched multilateral institutions to advance their shared values and norms. China has long said that it views the international system as unjust and unfair, but for a long time, it had little ability to change it. Today, China not only has the means, but its leader Xi Jinping—who is likely to get a third five-year term in power this fall at the 20th National Party Congress—may also have a vision for a radically altered international system. A new book called The World According to China makes the case for this proposition. Bonnie Glaser speaks with the book’s author, Dr. Elizabeth Economy, on China’s approach to the international system. Dr. Economy is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is currently on leave and is serving as senior advisor for China to the Secretary of Commerce. Views expressed are her own.

The Beijing Olympics will be held next month, and China faces both the challenge of Covid-19 spreading to several Chinese cities and growing criticism of its policy in Xinjiang, which has led some countries—including the United States—to declare diplomatic boycotts. Taking place in March, the National People’s Congress will have important implications for China’s economic policy, among other issues. Personnel rotations around the country are already beginning to take place and will continue throughout the year, as the Chinese Communist Party prepares for the all-important National Party Congress slated for the fall. Apart from bestowing a third five-year term in power to Xi Jinping, what else should we expect from the upcoming Party Congress? Jude Blanchette speaks with Bonnie Glaser on the key developments of 2022. He holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His first book is China’s New Red Guards: The Return of Radicalism and the Rebirth of Mao Zedong.

China’s engagement with countries in Latin America and the Caribbean has grown significantly in the past decade. The Chinese government describes its cooperation with the region as focused on numerous areas: trade and investment, agriculture, energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and technological innovation. Nineteen governments across Latin America and the Caribbean have joined Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative. Competition between China and Taiwan in the region remains fierce, with eight countries maintaining diplomatic relations with Taipei and the remaining 25 recognizing Beijing. Nicaragua was the latest to switch recognition to the PRC on December 9, 2021. US concerns about Chinese activities and objectives in the region are on the rise. In the final year of the Trump administration, the United States issued a strategic framework for the Western hemisphere, which included among its priorities countering economic aggression and malign political influence from external actors such as China. The 2021 Posture Statement of the US Southern Command warns that China is “seeking to establish global logistics and basing infrastructure in our hemisphere.” Dr. Evan Ellis joins Bonnie Glaser to discuss Chinese intentions, influence, and impact in Latin America and the Caribbean. He is a research professor of Latin American Studies at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and previously served in the State Department on the Policy Planning Staff.

Next February, the 2022 Winter Olympics are scheduled to be held in Beijing, the venue of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Preparation for the Games is well underway and China has said that it looks forward to welcoming the athletes; but due to the coronavirus pandemic, Beijing has banned foreign spectators, as did Japan when it hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics. As the 2022 Olympics near, several countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, and Lithuania, have announced a diplomatic boycott of the competition, and others may do so as well. So far, all countries will allow their athletes to compete. The diplomatic boycotts are a response to concerns about China’s human rights practices, especially in Xinjiang, where at least one million Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities have been subject to involuntary detention in what China labels “reeducation camps.” Countries have very limited leverage over Chinese domestic human rights practices, and some argue that the Olympics provides a rare opportunity to voice the international community’s concerns in a way that could shine a spotlight on China’s human rights violations. In an August 2021 survey, just under half of Americans stated that they believe China’s human rights record should prevent it from hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics, while 33 percent were uncertain. Please note that this podcast was recorded just prior to the Biden administration’s announcement that it would not send officials to the Olympic Games. Bonnie Glaser talks with Susan Brownell about the upcoming Olympics and, more broadly, about the role of sports in China and what the Olympics means to the Chinese people and to the Chinese Communist Party. Dr. Susan Brownell is a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She was a Fulbright Senior Researcher at Beijing Sport University and competed on the Chinese track and field team at the Chinese National College Games in 1986. She is also the author of Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic.

The U.S.-China relationship is in unchartered waters. The bilateral frameworks and mechanisms that existed in the past are now widely seen as inadequate to address the current complex and contentious relationship. The Biden administration put forth a three-pronged approach to the bilateral relationship: being competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be. The Chinese side emphasizes principles to guide the relationship, including mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. Against this background, the two countries’ leaders, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, held their first virtual meeting on November 16. They had previously held two phone calls since Biden’s inauguration. This meeting was intended to enable a comprehensive strategic discussion about how to manage the differences between the United States and China and how to proceed with cooperation where the interests of the two countries align. Presidents Biden and Xi talked for 3.5 hours. To discuss this meeting and its implications for the U.S.-China relationship, Dr. Da Wei joins Bonnie Glaser. Da Wei is a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University and a senior research fellow at Tsinghua’s Center for International Security and Strategy. He has worked in China’s think tank and university communities for more than two decades and is among China’s top experts on the United States and U.S.-China relations.