An examination of China’s official media and reports reveals that the Chinese reports heavily cited major English news sources and have not added many comments to their reporting so far. Translations of the first two Xinhua reports after the early hours of the shooting can be found at the end of the article. – Juan Zhang, Senior Writer The attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 shocked Americans and people around the world. How did China, which is locked in “a full-scale, full-spectrum strategic great-power competition for wealth a ..read more

The U.S.-China Perception Monitor is happy to provide a diversion from the normal security studies and policy fare with a series of interviews from experts on the history and interpretation of Chinese film. We begin with Ying Zhu, a celebrated scholar of Chinese film and television and author of Hollywood in China: Behind the Scenes of the World’s Largest Movie Market (2022) and Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television (2013). Competing film industries remain an under-appreciated aspect of economic competition and cooperation internationally. Chinese international blockbusters ..read more

As relations between the governments in Beijing and Manila continue to worsen, the election in Taiwan of President Lai Ching-te has brought new, if unsurprising, scrutiny from the mainland. However, as Renard Sexton observes, not much has changed in terms of the attitudes of the Taiwanese government or many of its people toward China. As before, neither a call for independence nor unification will be forthcoming. This has not stopped U.S. lawmakers from introducing pre-emptive sanction policies should Beijing be too aggressive in its military actions around Taiwan. Given the deepening U.S.-P ..read more

Nathaniel Sher, a policy analyst based in Washington, recently wrote an excellent piece examining Vice President Kamala Harris’ views on China. With increasing calls for Joe Biden to step aside following his poor performance in the first presidential debate, Harris emerges as the most logical replacement should Biden decide to withdraw. In his analysis, Sher asks,  “According to the White House, the Vice President visited “more than 19 countries, and … [met] with more than 150 world leaders.” Can we learn much from her experience in the role?” Before her vice presidency, Harris’s polit ..read more

Although this interview touches on NATO’s interests and relations in the Indo-Pacific, it was conducted before NATO accused China of supplying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. NATO’s official concern with China is still relatively recent. While relations between China and European member states have their own friction points, this recent statement cannot be understood outside of the broader context provided in the interview below. As Dr. Freeman points out, the Indo-Pacific 4 (Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand) may be interested in maintaining healthy trade relations with China, bu ..read more

Since Xi Jinping’s rise to power, China’s wolf warrior diplomacy has been accompanied by a series of retaliatory sanctions against Western corporations and individuals. While politically motivated, China’s sanction strategy is largely reactive to Western sanctions, and thus often ineffectual. This reactive approach is in contradiction to the assertiveness associated with China’s recent diplomatic strategies and highlights a lack of cohesion in China’s posture toward what it views as its adversaries in the West. It is, therefore, worth examining the history and legal framework of China’s sanc ..read more

Emerging Voices for U.S.-China Cooperation Inaugural Conference October 16, 2024 Beijing, China Sponsored by The Carter Center & the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies CALL FOR PAPERS The inaugural Emerging Voices for U.S.-China Cooperation conference will be held on October 16, 2024, as an in-person event in Beijing, China. The conference is co-organized by The Carter Center and the Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies. Our purpose is to serve as a forum for early career professionals and academics working to advance opportunities for U.S.-China cooperation. We ..read more

[Editor’s Note: Diplomacy is an inherently elite affair. It is officials and heads of state, not tourists, academics, and athletes, that conduct the marquee work of signing treaties, opening embassies, and setting trade policy. Yet, people-to-people diplomacy is never very far from view underneath all the summitry. In the United States, a small but growing number of university students and researchers from the People’s Republic of China have had their lives and careers severely disrupted as a result of diplomatic tension between the two countries. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping ..read more

In a recent blog post, Mr. Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, explained his views on the delicate dynamics between peaceful reunification of the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan and the use of military force “Our commitment to a peaceful resolution does not mean we will abandon the use of force or retreat in the face of extreme provocation,” Hu wrote. “Our efforts towards peaceful reunification are not out of fear of war, nor do they imply that we must avoid conflict under all circumstances.”  Hu Xijin Photographer: Gilles Sabrie/Bloomberg As Taiwan’s new lead ..read more

[Editor’s Note: Michael A. Szonyi, Frank Wen-xiung Wu Professor of Chinese history in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, is a scholar of late imperial Chinese history. He specializes in using historical anthropology and fieldwork to study the social history of China’s southeastern coast. After researching the history of the military households of the Ming dynasty, he published The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China. Following the end of China’s “Zero-COVID” policy, Szonyi traveled to China for field research, where he ..read more