Iran- USA: Peace or more Crisis

Hormuz, Humanitarian Language, and the Politics of Masked Coercion

The recent crisis around the Strait of Hormuz was not only a confrontation over ships, oil, and naval power. It was a struggle over language, legality, and political control. At its center stood a striking sequence: the United States declared that direct hostilities were effectively over; it then launched a new operation under the language of humanitarian necessity and freedom of navigation; it encouraged a Security Council draft resolution framed around safe passage and civilian protection; and, after a short but intense interval of pressure, the blockade or operational restrictions around Hormuz were lifted or suspended through negotiation.

This sequence matters because the crisis was not managed only at sea. It was managed through classification. Was the United States still engaged in war, or was it merely conducting a humanitarian maritime mission? Was Iran imposing a blockade, or using deterrent leverage? Was the Security Council being asked to protect stranded vessels, or to prepare the legal ground for coercive measures? The uncomfortable answer is that all these things were happening at once.

The U.S. Secretary of State’s press conference sought to draw a clean line between an earlier phase of hostilities ( Operation Epic Fury) and a new phase of maritime protection. According to this interpretation, the military confrontation had achieved its immediate objectives. Therefore, the legal and political constraints associated with ongoing hostilities, including the 60-day War Powers framework, were no longer applicable. The United States, in this telling, was no longer at war. It was responding to a humanitarian and navigational emergency caused by the obstruction of one of the world’s most vital maritime passages.

That distinction was not a technicality. It was the heart of the maneuver. By declaring hostilities over, Washington tried to move the crisis out of the domestic category of war. By launching a new mission under the language of “Freedom,” it presented itself not as a belligerent, but as a protector of stranded ships, civilian crews, international commerce, energy stability, and freedom of navigation. The United States was cast as the only actor with sufficient naval capacity to reopen the passage safely.

On the surface, the argument had force. Ships were stranded. Commercial flows were interrupted. Crews were exposed to danger. Insurance costs were rising. Energy markets were unsettled. Any prolonged disruption of Hormuz would have immediate effects on oil prices, liquefied natural gas, shipping, food costs, and the economic security of energy-importing states. A humanitarian case could therefore be made.

But humanitarian language, even when partly true, can still conceal strategic intention.

The crisis was not caused by a storm, earthquake, or accident. It emerged from a military and political confrontation involving Iran, the United States, Israel, regional powers, and the strategic control of a chokepoint through which a significant share of global energy flows. To describe the operation only as humanitarian was therefore to narrow the visible frame while hiding the coercive context that produced the emergency.

Iran’s leverage over Hormuz has always rested less on the need to close the Strait completely than on the ability to make passage appear unsafe. A full closure would be dangerous for Iran itself. It could provoke massive retaliation, alienate major energy importers, disrupt flows to countries Tehran does not wish to antagonize, and transform a regional confrontation into a global crisis. But Iran does not need total closure to exercise power. The threat of disruption may be enough.

A partial blockade, maritime harassment, drone activity, mining risks, threats to commercial vessels, selective tolls, or simply uncertainty over safe passage can produce major strategic consequences. Shipping companies hesitate. Markets react. Naval deployments increase. Governments begin emergency planning. In this sense, Iran’s power lies not only in closing Hormuz, but in making the world believe that Hormuz may become unsafe.

Washington understood this. Its response was therefore not only military. It was legal, diplomatic, and narrative-driven. The launch of a “Freedom” operation allowed the United States to reframe what might otherwise have looked like a continuation of hostilities as a protective mission. The stated purpose was not to defeat Iran, but to rescue vessels, reopen maritime passage, and defend international navigation.

The word “freedom” was carefully chosen. It belongs to a familiar American strategic vocabulary: open seas, rules-based order, global commerce, and civilian protection. It transformed pressure into guardianship.

The deeper move came through the United Nations.

The draft Security Council resolution was not a secondary detail. It was central to the strategy. The United States proposed a Security Council resolution to defend freedom of navigation and secure the Strait of Hormuz, while Reuters reported that Washington and Bahrain were pressing for U.N.-backed action and a wider maritime coalition. The draft reportedly called on Iran to cooperate with U.N. efforts to establish a humanitarian corridor through the Strait, citing disruption to aid deliveries, fertilizer shipments, and other essential goods. It also contemplated further steps, including sanctions, if Iran failed to comply.

This language served several purposes at once. It made the initiative harder for others to reject. A resolution openly framed as an anti-Iran enforcement measure would have faced immediate resistance, especially from Russia and China. But a resolution framed around safe passage, humanitarian corridors, stranded vessels, civilian crews, fertilizer shipments, aid deliveries, and freedom of navigation was more difficult to oppose.

It also helped draw Britain and France toward collaboration. London and Paris could be encouraged to support the reopening of the Strait not as participants in an American military extension of the war, but as responsible actors defending maritime safety, civilian protection, and global commerce. For Britain and France, both permanent members of the Security Council, the humanitarian framing provided political cover. They could support pressure on Iran without appearing to endorse an open-ended U.S. war.

This was precisely the attraction of the humanitarian tilt. It softened the appearance of coalition-building. It made cooperation look less like military alignment with Washington and more like responsible action to protect the global economy and civilian life. In diplomatic terms, it was a clever invitation: who could openly oppose the protection of ships, sailors, food supplies, energy flows, and humanitarian passage?

The same language also had domestic value in Washington. If Congress tried to invoke the War Powers framework, the administration could argue that the new operation was not a continuation of hostilities but a limited humanitarian and navigational mission. The purpose, it could claim, was not war-making but ship protection, rescue, de-mining, escort, and the reopening of passage. This did not eliminate congressional objections, but it complicated them. Humanitarian vocabulary made the operation politically harder to attack and legally harder to classify as war.

Here the relevance of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter becomes clear. The issue was not “Article 7,” but Chapter VII: the part of the Charter that allows the Security Council to determine the existence of a threat to international peace and security and then authorize binding measures. Once Hormuz was framed not merely as a bilateral U.S.-Iran confrontation but as a threat to international peace, maritime security, and civilian protection, Washington could begin inching toward a Chapter VII logic.

The path was subtle but significant: first define the obstruction of Hormuz as a humanitarian and navigational emergency; then present it as a threat to international peace and security; then seek Security Council authority for measures to restore safe passage. In political terms, this was a way to checkmate Iran. Tehran’s leverage depended on threatening disruption. A Chapter VII framework could turn that leverage into a legally recognized threat to international peace, thereby justifying sanctions, inspections, enforcement measures, or even collective maritime action.

But the approach had serious shortcomings.

First, it risked exposing the gap between humanitarian language and strategic purpose. If the resolution moved too quickly from civilian protection to coercive enforcement, the humanitarian mask would become visible.

Second, it depended on Security Council unity, which was far from guaranteed. China and Russia could resist any text that appeared to legalize U.S. pressure on Iran under humanitarian cover.

Third, it could provoke Iran to claim that the United Nations was being used to internationalize American coercion rather than resolve the crisis.

Fourth, it created a legal contradiction for Washington itself: if the situation was serious enough to require Chapter VII pressure, then it became harder to claim domestically that no meaningful hostilities remained.

This is the delicate contradiction at the heart of the episode. The United States wanted the crisis to be serious enough to justify international action, but not so serious that Congress could easily treat it as continuing war. It wanted the Security Council to view Hormuz as a threat to peace, but it wanted American domestic law to view the U.S. role as humanitarian protection. That was the legal tightrope.

Then came the diplomatic turn.

The United States and Iran were reported to be closing in on a one-page memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war and opening the way to broader negotiations. Reuters, citing Axios, reported that the proposed one-page, 14-point memorandum would formally end hostilities and initiate a 30-day negotiation period. The reported elements included a moratorium on Iranian nuclear enrichment, sanctions relief, release of frozen Iranian assets, and easing of restrictions on transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

This was not a final peace settlement. It was a compressed framework — a diplomatic page designed to stop the bleeding before the real argument began. Iran was reported to be reviewing the U.S. proposal, while key demands remained unresolved, including the nuclear file and the reopening of Hormuz. Markets reacted positively to the possibility of de-escalation, with Reuters reporting that oil prices tumbled and global markets rallied on optimism around the proposal.

The mediation channel gave the arrangement its political texture. A Pakistani source involved in the peace efforts confirmed to Reuters that the U.S. and Iran were closing in on a one-page memo to end the war. Al Jazeera also reported that the pause in U.S. Hormuz escorts followed momentum in Pakistan-led mediation, suggesting a shift toward a limited framework deal.

Saudi involvement, if present even indirectly, would fit the same logic. Gulf actors had every reason to avoid a prolonged disruption of maritime traffic and energy flows. They could support pressure on Iran, but not at the price of turning Hormuz into a long-term war zone.

China’s role also mattered. The meeting between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing added another layer to the diplomatic choreography. Reuters reported that Iran wanted a comprehensive agreement with the United States, while Chinese diplomacy pressed for stability and safe passage through Hormuz. Beijing’s position was not sentimental. China had a direct interest in preventing a prolonged energy shock, preserving access to Gulf supplies, and avoiding an escalation that could damage global trade.

This gave Iran both support and pressure. China remained a strategic partner, but it also had little interest in seeing Hormuz turned into a long-term instrument of disruption. The message to Tehran was delicate but unmistakable: use leverage, but do not burn the corridor through which your friends also breathe.

The one-page agreement therefore should be read as a diplomatic exit constructed under pressure. Its likely contents -safe passage- phased easing of restrictions, temporary de-escalation, a negotiating window, possible sanctions relief, and unresolved nuclear discussions reflected the needs of all sides. Iran needed to show that it had forced negotiation and had not surrendered under American pressure. The United States needed to show that it had protected navigation, avoided a prolonged war, and preserved leverage over Iran. Pakistan could present itself as a useful mediator. Saudi Arabia and Gulf actors could welcome the reopening of maritime flows. China could claim to support stability while protecting its energy interests.

The speed of the reversal is therefore not a weakness in the analysis. It is the proof of the strategy.

If the Freedom operation was urgently required for humanitarian reasons, why was it paused so quickly? If only the United States could protect the stranded ships, why did the mission become unnecessary almost overnight? If the crisis was grave enough to justify a Security Council resolution, why did negotiations suddenly create space for suspension?

Because the blockade, the humanitarian operation, the Security Council draft, and the one-page agreement were all parts of the same bargaining chain.

The blockade created urgency. The humanitarian operation created justification. The draft resolution created legal pressure. The possibility of British and French collaboration created coalition weight. The Chapter VII shadow created coercive threat. Pakistan’s mediation created a channel. China’s meeting with Iran created strategic pressure from a partner. The one-page agreement created an exit.

Each step served the next.

Yet this should not be mistaken for a smooth American victory. The one-page agreement was not simply the generous outcome of American strategic confidence. It was also the product of pressure on Washington itself. The war had begun to generate costs that could not be contained within military calculations alone. Energy markets were shaken. Stock markets were exposed to uncertainty. Shipping and insurance networks were under stress. Public patience with another Middle Eastern war was narrowing. Congress had grounds to question whether the administration was avoiding the War Powers framework through semantic maneuvering. Internationally, Trump risked appearing isolated: strong enough to strike, but not strong enough to convert force into political settlement without mediation.

This is where Iran’s position becomes more complex than the usual language of defeat or survival allows. Iran did not need to win militarily in order to preserve leverage. It needed to endure, delay, disrupt, and force negotiation. Hormuz gave Tehran an instrument of alternative diplomacy: not diplomacy through formal concession, but diplomacy through controlled risk. By making the Strait uncertain, Iran pushed the crisis beyond the battlefield and into oil markets, insurance calculations, shipping routes, Gulf security, Chinese energy concerns, and European economic anxiety.

This did not make Iran the winner. It made Iran difficult to defeat cleanly.

Nor did it make the United States the winner. Washington could claim that it protected navigation, mobilized allies, and pushed Iran toward talks. But the very need to pause the Freedom operation, seek mediation through Pakistan, accommodate Gulf concerns, and move toward a one-page framework showed the limits of military pressure. The United States could impose costs, but it could not escape the costs of its own escalation. It could threaten Chapter VII pressure, but it could not easily secure Security Council unity. It could call the operation humanitarian, but it could not fully hide the coercive design behind the language.

The same applies to Israel. The war may have been launched with the intention of weakening Iran decisively, reshaping the regional balance, and forcing a more favorable strategic environment. But the widening of the conflict toward Hormuz showed the danger of that assumption. A war imagined as a controlled strike against Iran became a crisis for global energy, maritime trade, and international law. Once Hormuz entered the equation, the conflict stopped being only a military campaign. It became an economic and diplomatic boomerang.

This is why the question of responsibility matters. If there was no clear winner, there was still a clear origin. The blame for transforming an already volatile regional confrontation into a far-reaching war must rest primarily with those who launched it: the United States and Israel. Their assumption was that overwhelming force could impose strategic clarity. Instead, it produced strategic congestion, crowded crisis in which military pressure, humanitarian language, market panic, congressional scrutiny, allied hesitation, Chinese diplomacy, Pakistani mediation, and Iranian counter-leverage all collided.

The negotiations did not erase that responsibility. They revealed it.

The emerging agreement was not peace in the deeper sense. It was a pause produced by exhaustion, market fear, diplomatic pressure, and mutual vulnerability. Iran could not sustain prolonged disruption of Hormuz without risking isolation. The United States could not sustain open-ended coercion while pretending that hostilities had ended. Israel could not guarantee that escalation would remain geographically contained. Britain and France could not easily join a U.S.-led maritime operation if the humanitarian cover began to look like war by another name. China could support Iran politically, but not at the price of a prolonged threat to the energy arteries on which its economy depends.

Thus, the Hormuz episode did not produce a victor. It exposed the limits of all actors. Iran’s leverage was real but dangerous. America’s power was formidable but politically constrained. Israel’s military initiative was bold but strategically destabilizing. Europe’s role was cautious and derivative. China’s influence was significant but self-interested. Pakistan’s mediation became useful precisely because the main combatants needed a way out without openly admitting retreat.

In that sense, Hormuz revealed the anatomy of contemporary coercive diplomacy. The United States and Israel opened a war whose consequences quickly exceeded the battlefield. Iran answered not by defeating them militarily, but by shifting the burden of escalation onto the global economy. Washington then tried to repackage pressure as humanitarian protection, internationalize it through the Security Council, and convert its suspension into diplomatic success. But beneath that choreography lay a simpler truth: negotiation became necessary because force had reached its political limit.

The short-lived blockade of Hormuz and its rapid lifting therefore did not signal the disappearance of conflict. It revealed the choreography of modern coercion and the failure of those who believed that war could be expanded, renamed, managed, and then neatly resolved. What passed through Hormuz was not only oil and gas, but the modern grammar of power: escalation, disruption, humanitarian disguise, legal pressure, market panic, mediation, and retreat without confession.

In the end, Hormuz was not only a maritime chokepoint. It became a chokepoint of law, legitimacy, and power. Its waters carried more than energy. They carried the meaning of the conflict itself: who could define war as humanitarian action, coercion as protection, retreat as diplomacy, and temporary pause as peace. That is why the episode will matter beyond the Gulf. It showed that in the modern international order, military force may still begin a crisis, but it can no longer decide its meaning alone.

Subscribe now

Time: 11:40 am to 2:00 pm, Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Venue: Beijing (exact location to be shared upon successful registration)

Dress Code: Business

China is entering a new phase of healthcare expansion, with continued efforts to increase universal coverage, improve system efficiency, and support industry upgrading. These changes carry significant implications for domestic and multinational stakeholders alike.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Beijing aims to raise China’s average life expectancy to 80 years old, steadily moving towards a higher goal. These developments and changes are not only related to the health and well-being of the Chinese people, but also bring new development opportunities and challenges to relevant market entities.

This session will examine the trajectory of China’s healthcare reform and the development of the health and wellness sector, with particular attention to policy direction, industry trends, international dimensions, and Chinese-U.S. role in global health governance.

Key Speakers

George F. Gao

Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Former Director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Gao is a leading expert in virology and public health, with extensive experience in China’s research and healthcare governance system, including at its unprecedented juncture.

Yanzhong Huang

Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Professor at Seton Hall University

Huang has testified before U.S. congressional committees multiple times and is regularly consulted by major media outlets, the private sector, and governmental and nongovernmental organizations on global health issues and China. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His expertise includes Chinese health politics, global health security, and US-China relations.

Discussion topics include:

• Policy priorities and direction in China’s healthcare system

• Trends shaping the health and wellness sector

• Innovation and commercialization in biomedicine, including implications for pharmacetuical companies

• China’s role in global health governance

Format:

The two speakers will each deliver a short presentation, followed by a panel discussion moderated joined by Henry Huiyao Wang, founder and president of CCG. The session will conclude with an in-depth, interactive Q&A with guests.

A seated lunch will be provided.

Registration:

Seats are limited, upon paid registration.

Register now using this link:

Registration link

or scan the QR code

Subscribe now

The “The Global South: Forging Cohesion and Defining a New Era of Partnership” roundtable was moderated by Zoon Ahmed Khan, Research Fellow at CCG.

Speakers included

• Mohamed Amersi, Founder and Chairman of the Amersi Foundation;

• Rza Aliyev, Chief Strategy Officer of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center;

• Karim El Aynaoui, Executive President of the Policy Center for the New South;

• George Chen, a Partner and Chair of Digital Practice at The Asia Group (TAG);

• He Wenping, Research Fellow at the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences;

• Daniel Levy, President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP);

• Chandran Nair, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Institute for Tomorrow;

• Niu Xinchun, Academic Vice President of Ningxia University and Executive Dean of the Institute of China-Arab Studies;

• Osamu Onodera, Head of the Beijing Office and Chief Representative of North East Asia for Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO);

• Johnsen Romero, Director of the Asia Program and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy;

• Rong Ying, former Vice President of the China Institute of International Studies;

• Song Yaoming, Senior Fellow at CCG;

• and Maxime Stauffer, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance.

CCG has broadcast the video recording of this roundtable on Chinese social media platforms and uploaded it to its official YouTube channel.

This transcript is based on the video recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

And this concludes the transcript series of all open-door sessions from The 12th China and Globalization Forum.

Zoon Ahmed Khan, Research Fellow, CCG

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, for all the panellists, please find your seats. I think we’re still missing one or two speakers. But without further ado, let’s begin. I’ll introduce myself. I’m Zoon Ahmed Khan, fellow at the Centre for China and Globalization. And it’s really an honour for me to be able to chair this roundtable “The Global South: Forging Cohesion and Defining a New Era of Partnership.”

Let’s just say that the Global South, I mean, obviously is about 70 to 80% of the world’s majority. Today, one of the speakers mentioned that about 70% of the global economic growth in the next foreseeable future will come from countries outside of the U.S. and China, and we know that a vast majority of that is in the global south.

When we talk about the Global South, we’re talking about vast parts of Asia, from East Asia to the south to the Middle East. We’re talking about the African continent. We are talking about Latin America. We’re talking about regions that are geographically not very close to each other. But increasingly, what we have witnessed, in the last 10 to 15 years in particular, is a rise in the idea that the global south is not just the periphery, it is not just the silent majority, it is significant.

The Global South has also been successful in creating platforms. If you were not invited to the table, we created our own tables, including BRICS, including the SCO, and the African Union. There are so many platforms that the Global South shares today. And we also know that in recent years, the G77, which in essentially represents the Global South countries, has been able to mobilise and to create spaces for new consensus when it comes to climate change, maybe AI governance, just to name a few.

But the problem remains: How do we essentially define the Global South? Who represents the Global South? Who re, who leads the Global South? What are the collective challenges that we face as one humanity? And what are the challenges that the Global South cares the most about? We can talk about the Sustainable Development Goals. We know that climate change and most countries in the global south, even though we are not emitting the most, we remain the most climate vulnerable.

And at the same time, the issue of financing our development, I think, these are all questions that need to be addressed. Also, we need to maybe today with a very distinguished and a very diverse panel from different parts of the world with different expertise, I would like to understand from them what the core challenges are, firstly, that the Global South is facing. What are the best ways for these regions to mobilise? How can the financing of infrastructure or consensus-building on core issues be made more readily available?

And also, another speaker that I would like to quote, who mentioned that the issues are also epistemological—issues of definition. We know that the Global South collectively keeps talking about an international legal order, not the rules-based order. What does that really mean? I think if some of our speakers can also talk about what is it really the Global South? What is it that the Global South is fighting for? Obviously, representation in existing institutions of the international order, but also to not just recipients of different concepts and ideas, but also once defining what matters to them.

So I think these are some of the core ideas that we’ll begin with. And I’ll start with Mohamed Amersi, who is the founder and chair of the Mohamed Amersi. And if you could briefly talk about, you know, what are today, obviously, given the turbulent times that we are facing. We recently had the war in Iran. There’s so much that the world is facing. Where do you think the Global South stands in all of this? And what are the core challenges and solutions? Thank you.

Mohamed Amersi, Founder and Chairman of the Amersi Foundation

Thank you very much. Zoon Ahmed Khan and all of CCG for having me here in Beijing again. This morning, we discussed the changes in the global order. Now the focus is on the global south. We meet at a moment of profound global transition. In my view, all certainties are fading, power is diffusing, and institutions of the past are under strain.

I speak as a strong proponent of the Global South. In my view, the global south is no longer peripheral. It is increasingly central to world affairs. The key question is clear: Is the Global South a meaningful force in world affairs or merely an umbrella covering very different nations?

In my view today, it is both. It is a real political and economic reality. Countries with growing populations, rising markets and shared development concerns. But it is also an imprecise label, grouping states with very different interests, systems and priorities. Its relevance comes from facts, not slogans. It represents the majority of humanity. It includes many of the fastest-growing economies. It holds major energy, food and mineral resources. It is increasing its influence in trade, finance and diplomacy. It is central to solving climate, migration, security and development challenges.

However, its weaknesses today come from fragmentation, different geopolitical alignments, competing regional ambitions, uneven levels of development, lack of permanent institutions and a tendency to unite rhetorically but divide practically.

So the real issue is not whether the Global South exists. The real issue is whether it can become effective. To be effective, it needs common interests over abstract identity. It needs regular summits with follow-through development finance mechanisms. Coordinated negotiating platforms in global forums, research and policy networks across regions.

Thirdly, its leadership must be shared. No single country can speak for all Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and small states all need representation.

Fourthly, strategic autonomy is essential. The Global South should not become an instrument of rivalry among major powers. It must engage or align with none blindly and decide based on interests.

Fifthly, its credibility must come from delivery: infrastructure built, trade increased, poverty reduced, technology transferred, and collective positions that shape outcomes.

In my view, the honest conclusion, without cohesion, the Global South is just a label. With institutions, purpose and results, it can become one of the defining forces of the 21st century. So the choice is simple: remain a category that others describe or become a coalition that shapes the future. If it succeeds. This century will not only witness the rise of the Global South, it will also witness its leadership.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you so much. I mean, I think it’s also important to recognise that our economic representation, the rise economically of the Global South countries, our ability to interact with each other is creating a sense of a new identity. But to what extent is this a cohesive identity? I think that is, as you said, what will determine the future of the Global South, whether it’s going to be able to unite and create solutions, determine and create consensus, right?

And that’s why our topic is also today’s forging cohesion. This is active. We cannot just take the rise of the Global South, as in the rise of individual regions and economies, for granted that this will necessarily result in the structural changes that a majority of the Global South seeks.

So with that, let me invite Rza Aliyev, who is Chief Strategy Officer at the Nizami Ganjavi International Center. Rza, your organisation is also working very proactively in serving as a platform to really get the Global South voices out, to give space to Global South voices, and to help arrive at a consensus. So what’s your take about where we stand today as a Global South? And how can we really forge this kind of unity that so many of us are talking about?

Rza Aliyev, Chief Strategy Officer, Nizami Ganjavi International Center

Thank you very much, Zoon. And thank you to CCG for having me here. And yeah, I’m from Azerbaijan and would love to share my thoughts on the Global South and forging cohesion and especially defining the partnerships, a new era for partnership, because my country and our region are going through that phase.

When Mohamed Amersi mentioned the fragmentation, and in order to avoid that, to build the common interest, I think that from Azerbaijan, we have seen quite a lot. If you look at the integration of the Caucasus with Central Asia and being that hub between, let’s say, Eurasian trade, it has gone on at a really high pace. So with that, when I think about the world, and especially Eurasia, it is now being rewired by disruption.

As the only country that borders both Russia and Iran, and with two major wars happening in the region, Azerbaijan is very much affected. But at the same time, when you look at the global trade has reached a record level. I think it was around 35 trillion U.S. dollars annually. But the routes to sustain that global trade are really disrupted.

We saw that in March when all 20% of the global oil and gas flows that go through the Strait of Hormuz were disrupted. You had disruptions of the modern energy markets and then, of course, inflation in Europe and the world and oil prices going high.

So when I look at it now, it’s not an energy crisis, it’s a connectivity crisis. And having that middle corridor as an alternative for connectivity is very important. So when we look at the kind of middle corridor, especially, let’s say, the integration of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan into the Eurasian map is very important. It links China to Europe and is becoming very strategically central.

The numbers do not lie. So cargo volumes increased by 62% in 2024 and will exceed 5 million tons from China to Europe through our corridor, through the middle corridor. The rail traffic grew 60% in a year. In Azerbaijan, only last year, China-Europe trains were increased by 35% as one one third, more than one third in a year. It’s a lot. And the container shipments would increase, having increased last year by 25-fold. Those numbers are massive. And I’m sure that we’re all travelling quite a lot.

And when we see this kind of degrowth or division, when you come to Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Central Asia and the Caucasus, you actually see a lot of optimism. These are very rare places where you come and see: actually, let’s work together, let’s build those bridges.

So when we look at that structural reorientation of the Eurasian trade, why does it matter, right? So the northern corridor via Russia has closed, is closed. The maritime routes in the Middle East have very high risk now. And when you look at the east, west trade, north, south flows, energy transit routes and digital infrastructure with cheap energy, oil and gas, and large land areas, those are all really great pushes for the Global South to really find its own place at the table.

As you mentioned, in Nizami Ganjavi International Centre, which I co founded, we have the, it’s the largest club of the former and current presidents and prime ministers. But what we are really proud of is bringing those voices of the former heads of state and current heads of state of the Global South, of the small island developing states, of the countries in Africa, in Latin America, all in one place and really start building those bridges and bringing the optimism to it.

So, Zoon, you asked, what should we do? What’s the path forward? So I would recommend to the distinguished audience three solutions. One is to really build the corridors of execution, not just connectivity, because 10 years ago, I studied here at Tsinghua, and 10 years ago, when the Belt and Road Initiative was launched by President Xi’s vision, it was a lot about infrastructure development investments. What I would urge us to do is not to just build that infrastructure, but to really use it as the corridors of execution; that synergy should be cultural cooperation, should be business cooperation, should be political cooperation.

Second would be empowering the regional connectors. Countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan are multi-faith, multinational countries. So, really positioning them as anchors of stability and integration would be really great and would increase the motivation for us to do even more.

And lastly, I would say it’s what we are doing with my organisation as well. We’re trying to redefine multilateralism. Because what we see is that the diplomacy, the current multilateralism, is not really working. So we’re really focusing on redefining it, and with the inputs of organisations like CCG Foundation, etc. Having that dialogue, really trying to push forward with redefining it and identifying the new paths, is very important.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you so much. I think, I mean, especially obviously, I mean, this was a very rich intervention. I feel like you mentioned, 10 years ago, when the Belt and Road was initially announced, it was essentially about hard infrastructure, right? But how to utilise that, how to create that regional consensus, how to create the will, and how to build those ecosystems to utilise that infrastructure effectively? I feel that not many countries are able to do, not many regions are able to build, shape their regional agendas, especially South Asia, which is one-fifth of the world’s population, but the least connected in many ways. So I think, yeah, we have examples within the Global South where we have success stories that can be emulated.

Now let’s welcome Karim El Aynaoui, who is Executive President, Policy Center for the New South. And I would like to know your perspective on how we can overcome the challenges that the Global South is generally facing. And what do you think are the core strategies that countries within the Global South can employ to build a better understanding of leadership values within the South? What can be done to build more regional consensus to promote development? Thank you.

Karim El Aynaoui, Executive President of the Policy Center for the New South

Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m speaking from Africa, from Morocco, a middle-income country. And I think, without getting into discussions on the concept, the Global South is here because we need to give it a name, but it’s happening because there is space. And that space is, of course, created by exogenous shocks. We’re all facing a change that is coming from decisions that are not ours, and it includes advanced economies, by the way.

And they are winners and losers. I would say on average, what we call the Global South is winning in a way, particularly those countries that are stable, that are sort of at peace internally, and that are not in a conflict area. And their strategic value is changing in the eyes of the losers on the advanced economy side.

If I take a country like Morocco, we are much more interesting for Europe than we were a couple of years ago, for many reasons. So, Zoon, it is as much something you can intellectualise as something that is just a fact of perception, of how we see each other. And I think that has changed. We don’t see the world as we used to see it, and our partners are not seeing us as they used to see us.

My worry is that there can be some kind of reaction there, and I’m seeing things here and there that are sort of pointing in that direction, like reacting to this very quickly multiplying alliances. It’s a bit of a mess. I think this sort of bubbling moment maybe makes sense, but I don’t think this is the end of what we’re seeing.

So there’s diversity, and I’m not sure if you give to the Global South, let’s say, the leadership of the world, I’m not sure we are going to do better than what was done after 1945. So we have to be modest.

And we are facing many challenges. As an economist, I can’t resist. But there’s a long list of challenges, the last one being the oil price shock, but there are many others. There is defence spending increasing everywhere; there are fiscal policy pressures, the scars of the multiple crises since the 2010s. There are, of course, the macro pressures, inflation might be back, and there’s a long list. Then there are also demands from populations: protection and social safety nets. So the demands for development are there.

So governments are under pressure, and they have to deliver, and they need to be organised. They need to be organised and efficient. So it’s an efficiency problem. We’re all facing that. Some advanced economies, you add to that demography, etc. I think apart from a few countries, we are all in that same sort of situation.

And what matters most for us, and I’ll conclude on that, is really financing development. It remains at the centre, and that includes a country like China that wants to escape the middle-income trap. It’s not easy. You need to increase productivity across the board. We need to organise our own finance. ODA is, in the medium to long run, dead. And we need to organise that. We need institutions. There’s an attempt. If I speak from the African standpoint, we need to multiply by 10,20 the size of the African Development Bank, for instance, for example. So that’s, I think this is going to remain with us, the challenge of development.

And I would say there will be some regional groupings in terms of countries, but I do not believe in a sort of global changing world order with a Global South that is coalesced, organised, and capable of bringing back a rules-based order. That was not utopia for the rest of the world. By the way, it should be noted. I mean, ask the Iraqis, ask many nations, if the post-Second World War order was a sort of paradise. That’s not the case.

So you don’t want to be a reactionist by defending that kind of order. We need to invent something together. And we will need, as a South, to take our responsibilities as well. It’s easy to be against something and to criticise, but it’s something else to build that other. And I think there are few countries that are capable of doing so, that can contribute to that. But within the spirit I’ve tried to describe.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you so much. I think a very valid point that in the end, the challenges we face require tangible investments, right? So, in infrastructure, financing, education, all of that, and regional cooperation, this is all very central to where we wish to see ourselves, if you want to continue to progress.

And then the other point, I couldn’t resonate more with it, that it’s easy to criticise, but do we want to build something new? Do we want greater, fairer representation within the existing order? Most Global South countries do not talk about a rules-based order. We don’t agree with that language in general, right? We talk about a law-based international order, a UN-centred international order. So how do we build the consensus and partnerships to increase our representation within that UN-centred international order?

Now let’s welcome George Chen, Partner and Chair of Digital Practice, The Asia Group. From your vantage point, what are the challenges and solutions for the Global South?

George Chen, Partner and Chair of Digital Practice, The Asia Group (TAG)

Thank you. Thanks for having me here. Since there are quite a number of Schwarzman students and alumni here, I also want to share my other hat: I also teach at Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University. It is great to see many old and new friends here.

I focus more on the technology aspect, given my background. I worked for some of the largest internet companies, American companies, before my current role at The Asia Group. My worry is that AI is not going to make the situation for the Global South better, but rather more divided and more unequal in terms of economic development, plus many other non-economic issues, social issues.

I can offer my assessment based on my own experience. Before talking about AI, I think we should talk about the internet. If you think about the Global South, with all countries and continents combined, this is basically the largest internet market by user numbers. However, if you do a very simple calculation, many Global South countries still use those very popular, large U.S. platforms on a daily basis. In some countries, one company’s app basically means the internet, for various reasons. But the in-country support for online scams, online safety, and lots of other issues is still very limited. This is still the older social media and internet era. It is like a tiny percentage compared with how many people and resources American tech companies have in Europe or in the U.S.

Now we come to the AI era. Even though many of the leading companies in the world spend tens of billions of dollars every quarter developing the world’s largest language models, that does not really mean much support for Global South countries, either. In the AI race, it is very clear that this is very much a race between the U.S. and China. In the U.S., most of the models we see are closed. China is advocating open models, and that gives a ray of hope to many Global South countries, very much from a cost-efficiency perspective. I think that could be a game-changer.

If you compare this with the old internet or social media era, I think the AI-related risks, in terms of economic impact, cannot be underestimated in Global South countries. I have not really seen a push to call for more equal and fair access to those AI resources. What does that mean for economic development in the next 10 or 20 years? So far, perhaps, we have only seen 10 per cent of AI’s potential. That is my worry.

Last year, the Chinese government organised the World AI Conference in Shanghai. Premier Li Qiang called for a new model of AI governance that should also involve more countries. Global South countries should have a seat at the table, rather than having other big powers decide how the rules and standards should be written. If you go back 30 or 40 years, the whole birth of the internet was a very American thing. You did not really see other countries participating in the rules or standard-setting. But now every country should have a chance. I very much support the UN-based approach, even though America is not a big fan of the UN model these days. I will finish here. Thank you.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you. Given the paucity of time, it would be interesting to understand what kind of institutions or what kind of mobilisation Global South countries can achieve within the UN system. Maybe regions can be represented. How do they build the technical expertise to determine what these standards should be? How long would that take? These are important questions to think about.

I know there is one other speaker on this panel who has expertise on this topic, and whose view might differ a bit, so it will be interesting to listen to that too.

Now, let us invite He Wenping, Research Fellow at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

From your perspective, one of the issues we all want to address and try to understand is: what is the way for the Global South to really mobilise? Should we have stronger regionalism and regional platforms that can interact with one another? Is it really through the UN system? Do we have good examples of how collective issues of the Global South have been tackled without strong regional platforms? I think climate justice, for example, would be one of them. I know you have deep expertise on this topic and where the Global South is headed, so we look forward to your perspective. Thank you.

He Wenping, Research Fellow at the Institute of West Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

Thank you very much, Zoon. I am very happy to join this forum. I still remember that last year, when I joined the 11th China and Globalisation Forum, we also touched upon the Global South, its rising influence, and how it has developed. I think the answer is obviously yes.

We can see this from different perspectives. From the perspective of economic development, you can see that the world is now focused on China. China is a leading Global South country. It shows very strong resilience in economic development. The year 2026 is the starting year of our 15th Five-Year Plan. You can see this in the GDP growth in the first quarter, the first three months, and also in the number of expos organised in Guangzhou, Haikou, and other places.

Personally, I have engaged with quite a lot of businesspeople from Arab countries and from the African continent. They all come to China to join these expos. From the first day of May next month, China will issue a zero-tariff policy for all African countries that have diplomatic ties with China. This is another very strong force for strengthening and improving trade and economic ties between China and Africa, a major Global South continent.

If we look from another perspective, such as institution-building, we will see that the Global South, of course, plays a very constructive role in pushing ideas such as multilateralism. As we were just debating, do we marginalise the UN, or do we put the UN at the centre?

Now we have seen many global geopolitical conflicts going on. Obviously, wars, whether in Gaza, Iran, or elsewhere, have sidelined and marginalised UN authority. But Global South countries would like to see the UN continue to play its fundamental role.

In this direction, we will see that Africa’s voice is also on the rise. For example, by the end of last year, South Africa had successfully hosted the G20. This was the first time the G20 had taken place on the African continent. Even though there was quite a lot of pressure from the United States to boycott this G20, we have seen a very successful G20 summit hosted by South Africa. This is another proof that, whether the U.S. is there or not, Africa’s strong momentum for hosting the G20 remained on track, and the meeting took place successfully.

Finally, I would also like to add to what previous speakers said about cultural cooperation. This year, 2026, is what we call the China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges. This year, there will be more than 600 activities taking place in China. I have already been involved in several cultural exchanges. Just recently, the National Museum of China hosted beautiful African wood sculptures. Those works may still be there. If anyone in this room would like to enjoy African art, you can go there and take a look. This is part of it.

I have also personally engaged with many African human-resources training seminars organised in China. Now, more and more experts from different backgrounds are coming to China to deepen their understanding of China. This is happening through very rich people-to-people communication.

Also, academic exchanges. For example, my institute has now established contacts with African think tanks and built joint research centres. The first one has already signed documents in Ethiopia, another one will be in South Africa, and the third one will be in Senegal. So you see that these research centres are no longer only in China. We now go to our partner countries to do joint research.

If we put all these things together, we will see the big picture: Global South solidarity is not becoming looser and looser. I think it is becoming stronger and stronger.

I noticed that just yesterday or the day before yesterday, BRICS countries, at the special-envoy or deputy-foreign-minister level, were meeting in New Delhi, India, to talk about how to handle the Middle East issue. So on big international hot-button issues, the Global South also does not remain silent. It now makes its voice heard, as on the Gaza issue. I still remember that the BRICS countries immediately organised an online summit to issue a joint stance on this international issue. This is also gradually improving their influence. Of course, Pakistan plays a very fundamental role in mediating those conflicts as well. I will stop here.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you so much. I think your intervention is something that probably many people, especially foreigners who have been living in China for a few years, or have lived here, can relate to: the countless small partnerships that may not seem to make much of a difference on the surface, but really do.

I remember one of the first research projects I got involved in at Tsinghua, back in 2015 or 2016. It was a think-tank project between China and what, at that time, we called the Muslim world. What we realised was that there was not a lot of interaction between the media, academics, and think tanks of China and many of the Belt and Road countries. At that time, in the first phase, most of them were predominantly Muslim countries.

One of the issues was: How do we understand each other if we are not communicating with each other? Many would call that an issue of dual Orientalism. If we are not able to understand China’s development model and perspective, and vice versa, then how do we build synergy with each other? How do we cooperate and partner?

So in the last 10 to 12 years, as you rightly mentioned, a lot of progress has been made, and a lot of progress still needs to continue to be made. To try and address this, and to understand the impact of the current trajectory, let us invite Daniel Levy, President of the U.S./Middle East Project.

Daniel, my question for you would also be this: obviously, the Global South is a reality that everyone is talking about, and we know there are collective challenges we face. But where do you think the Global South should ideally be headed? What should the ideal goal be in the next 10 to 15 years? What are the core challenges that it should focus on addressing? What kind of progress should we be looking towards if we really want to become more significant on the global stage?

Daniel Levy, President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP)

Thank you so much. It is good to be here in person this time. I am going to take a stab at the question you posed by going a route that starts with—and I apologise; I do not want to be a slave to the news cycle—the war currently rages, because I think that will have tremendous implications for all the questions we are addressing here, including where we would like to go.

So I am starting from a narrow space, but one with very broad implications, and one that also plays to my own expertise and background. The role of Israel in this is front and centre, and I will be a bit blunt.

There are many explanations as to what this war is about, but I do not think one can understand it without understanding a vision for West Asia, which has tremendous implications for what we are referring to, albeit, I would argue, problematically, as the Global South. I am sure someone else will pick up on that. It has implications vis-à-vis the U.S., vis-à-vis the West, and the knock-on effects of this.

My starting point is that this is a dangerous confluence of three things.

First of all, U.S. decline anxiety and the attempt to reassert primacy and preponderance are coming to the fore in this war, with a regional ally in Israel that has a specific way of working American power. That is not conspiratorial. Read the reports on what happened in the White House Situation Room that led to this war. That is the first thing. This is an area where military, geo-economic, and other tools have traditionally been deployed by the U.S. Iran has, of course, in many respects been the epicentre of how the U.S. Treasury was weaponised: access to the U.S. financial system, to the dollar system, to banks, etc.

The second component. I would argue we are in a phase of the Israeli, or Zionist, project which is qualitatively different from the past, and which poses new challenges. Israel, I would argue, is in a phase of systemic crisis: ideological extremism, overextension, and legitimacy erosion. And it is driving it to do things where everyone is now impacted.

Thirdly, I think this poses an acute choice for Europe. Having granted Israel impunity over Gaza and empowered that extremism, Europe now faces a choice. Does it go with what Marco Rubio offered at the Munich Security Conference—of a Western century, essentially a return to colonialism—or does Europe find its enlightened pragmatism?

So let me bang on by saying that what I think we are seeing, and it is important to spend a short moment on this, is an attempt at fragmentation in West Asia. I want to briefly explain what I mean by that. I would call it the project of Greater Israel dominion, or hard-power hegemony.

Many people hear that and say: Oh, that is a territorial project, that is a settlement project. It is much more than that. It begins with a zero-sum approach to the Palestinian question, but it is also about that only being successful if you have a region of fragmented, collapsing, chaotic states. Israel is not the only actor that contributes to that, but it is a key actor now.

So that is about the countries that can be weakened, but it is also about the countries that can be co-opted. I would argue that Israel has a vision for the GCC in which the fallout from this conflict in the GCC is intentional. Israel talks about being not just a regional but a global superpower. Türkiye is next. And it is about nodes of connectivity. They have talked about an India-Middle East-Europe corridor, with Israel at its centre, as a competitor to the Belt and Road Initiative.

But I want to end by suggesting that, because we are now in a place where the entire world is essentially paying a tax for this war, for this overambitious project, there is also an opportunity here to put forward an alternative, if we can get beyond this reality, and to significantly advance the coalescence that has been talked about, and to get to an answer to your question.

Conceptually, I describe it as a Bandung 2.0. I am not the only person who talks in those terms. I do not mean physically meeting in Bandung, or the exact same leadership. But if one thought about that as the post-colonial moment and the beginnings of NAM, the Non-Aligned Movement, then can one codify the questions that have been raised by this war, including what we were just asked about: Who gets to make the rules over AI? Is it a UN-based approach, or a Western “rules-based international order” when it suits us?

So we have to think about what we replace this with. We cannot just talk about decomposition, but the composition of something different. Very briefly, a checklist would include a regional security architecture in West and Southwest Asia that is non-bloc, where there is sovereign security equality of states that is indivisible—not one state’s security at the expense of another.

There is also nuclear symmetry. Either this is going to be a region of nuclear proliferation, or it will be a WMD-free area. We also need to think about how this can contribute to a new multipolar architecture, and whether one can counterpose something like The Hague Group, which came from the Global South, led by South Africa, Colombia, Malaysia, and others, to uphold a UN-based approach on Palestine. Are we going to have a Hague Group approach driven from the Global South, or a Board of Peace approach?

There are many things that have come out of China in recent years that I think are part of the anchor for that, whether the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilisation Initiative, etc. So let me pause there. Thank you so much.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you. The ideas you shared about this collective rejection of bloc politics and zero-sum mindsets are especially important. One of the speakers earlier, Kishore Mahbubani, mentioned that we have reached a point in history where we reject colonialism. We know it was wrong. Slavery was wrong. And I think, increasingly, we are arriving at a consensus that imperialism, bloc politics, and such divisive ideologies are wrong.

I agree that a lot of what China is talking about, such as the Global Security Initiative and also the Shanghai Spirit, are ideas that can unite and can possibly be compatible with the idea of a Bandung 2.0. What will make that successful or not, I think, is time and our ability to mobilise resources at the right time. Thank you so much for a powerful intervention.

Now, let us invite Chandran Nair, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Institute for Tomorrow. Given the current scenario, and as Mr Levy said, the current moment also creates opportunities. What is your take on where we stand today, and how can the Global South make the most of this moment?

Chandran Nair, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Institute for Tomorrow

Thank you. I am going to try not to answer the question, because I have been sitting here for, I do not know, 10 hours, listening to a lot of stuff. Did I say fluff? No, stuff.

Let me try to answer this by saying, firstly, I reject the term “Global South” because I think it is imperial, rooted in colonialism, and condescending. I have written about it for those who are interested. I would rather call it the “globally wronged”, if you want, or the “globally formerly oppressed”. More seriously, perhaps, I would call it the global majority.

Most of today, we have listened to the global minority lecture us about the state of the world. I found this, even in China, a bit disquieting. Usually, the Global South event is at the end of the day, when the people who are supposed to listen to us have all left the room. But that is another question. Let me just say that this is typical of these sorts of events: the so-called South thing is put on the periphery. So, a bit of advice to CCG: next time, have it in the middle of the day, when everybody is here.

I would really like to say some of the things that have not been said so far, and put them into three buckets.

Firstly, what drives the global majority narrative? There are three things broadly: the grievances of the past and the current; the continued exploitation and unfairness in the world; and, second, the hypocrisy of the West.

Most of today, we have heard about how bad the Russians are, and all of that. I didn’t hear Gaza until Mr Levy said it, and I would use the other G word called genocide. None of the Europeans dared to have the courage to say: a genocide on our watch. So the Global South, or whatever you want to call it— the majority south—these people cannot be real. To deny that something of this nature is happening—there is the hypocrisy of the West, yet it preaches to us about democracy and all of those things.

And then, of course, the other thing that brings us together as the global majority is the refusal to be second-class, wanting to be at the main table. But therein lies the work that we need to do as well.

My second point is: What is it that most of us think? We are the majority, 85 per cent, but most of the time, we are listening to Europeans and Americans telling us how the world is. But what do most people think? I have the privilege of working in many countries, and I will just put these views into a few points.

Firstly, I think most people in the world—and this is not said enough—view the United States of America as the biggest danger to global peace. I think most of us would nod in agreement with that. It is essentially a rogue state in its current incarnation. That is what most people think.

Second, we think Iran should win. That is interesting. We all want Iran to win. We think genocide was committed, yet no one in the West wants to talk about it. We hope that those who are complicit in genocide will be brought to trial, because then we will have all the things we are talking about structurally. Then we will have the rule of law, or whatever you want to call it. Then we would have the rule of law that would bring many things together.

Secondly, we talk about a new order and all of those things, but what we want is a new consciousness—a consciousness that would come out of different cultures and civilisations, China as part of it, and so on. We want that too, and we do not want to be at a loss as to what that should be.

Fourth, many of us ask—and I have been a follower of this for a long time, following China, particularly, for 20 years—why is it that Europeans and Americans hate China so much? Why, before the trade surplus? I believe it is fundamentally racist: that a non-Caucasian civilisation, for the first time in 400 years, has confronted the West. This is terrifying. I feel the opinion, but I do not condone it. So why is it? And it might be India next, if they get their act together, we hope.

And we also believe this will be the end of U.S. supremacy, particularly the exorbitant privilege of the dollar, which allows it to bully everybody else.

So in the last minute, I will say what needs to happen next. It is very important before we get into the structural issues. Most of our elites are essentially subservient to Western narratives. That is why, whenever we have this, we still need to get those guys from Harvard, MIT, and so on to take the main seat. I am not saying that they do not know much, but they do not know enough about the real world, the one we live in.

So our elites are subservient. They need to be less subservient intellectually, more independent in terms of thought, and not seek allegiance to their legitimacy.

Two more points. We need to develop our own economic and political narratives. This is fundamentally the most important thing. What has not been mentioned today is that we do not live in a world of abundance. I know it has been said before, but if you know the science, you will know that we live in a world where resources are scarce. Ten billion people in 2060 cannot live like Americans and Europeans. So we will have to live very differently, and we will have to have our own definitions of what is prosperous and what is free.

So our freedoms and rights will have to be constrained in that world. That is the antithesis of the Western idea of what freedom is.

Finally, I said that we have to take control of our own destinies. That means, in a world of resource constraints, essentially becoming more self-reliant and self-sufficient. What is more important than food security? Trade and all of those things are peripheral to enabling that. But you cannot have an international order when member states are not self-sufficient, when they are reliant, when they are beggars. They have to be essentially self-sufficient, and that requires a whole new political economy.

The definition of that political economy will not come from the West. It will come from our own world, and that is the thinking that we need to develop in our own world.

So I will end with those statements. Thank you.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you. Thank you for a candid intervention. Especially on the points you started with, a majority of the Global South completely agrees. And I would say that, increasingly, the populations of some Western countries, or Global North countries, also agree with the hypocrisy.

I think, in the last few years, we have come a long way in trying to fight back against those definitions, those ideas about what freedom is and what democracy is. Within China, we have many forums, such as the South-South Human Rights Forum, International Forum on Democracy: The Shared Human Values, to really understand what those definitions are and what they mean to a vast majority. There is a lot I would like to comment on, but I think—

Chandran Nair

World Peace Forum.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

World Peace Forum as well. Yes.

So I think, in the end, it is a question of how much we respect and study ourselves. I will just quickly add that one of the first things I remember a Chinese scholar saying to me was that the difference between Chinese scholars and Pakistani scholars is that a Pakistani would say, “I studied at the London School of Economics, and hence I have expertise.” But the Chinese would say, “I had to study my own country to understand its unique realities, to boost expertise.” I feel that shift is gradually happening, but it has to be internal.

Chandran Nair

It is the problem of those who have been colonised. They are still being captured.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

And we continue to be.

Chandran Nair

By the books we read. So reject all of those. Read differently. Re-educate.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Now let us welcome Niu Xinchun, Academic Vice President of Ningxia University and Executive Dean of the Institute of China-Arab Studies, for your thoughts on a very hot discussion. Thank you.

Niu Xinchun, Academic Vice President of Ningxia University and Executive Dean of the Institute of China-Arab Studies

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I remember that last year I talked about the Gaza war in the Middle East, and the Middle East is never short of war. This year, I will continue to talk about the Iranian war.

After almost two months of fighting, the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran is in a stalemate or a ceasefire situation. In the past two weeks, the United States and Iran have tried to sit down and reach an agreement to end the war, but unfortunately, they cannot find common ground to sit at the same table.

The reason is that both the United States and Iran think they have the upper hand. For the United States, it obviously has the military advantage. In the past two months, the United States has had the military capacity to strike wherever it wants, whoever it wants, and almost anything it wants. As President Trump said, the United States has almost completely destroyed the Iranian leadership and the Iranian military force.

But although the United States has a military advantage, it has not achieved any of its military objectives. For the United States, at least, it wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear power and Iran’s military power, especially its navy and other capabilities. But it has not achieved that.

For Iran, although it has suffered a lot, it has a political or strategic advantage. Politically, the Iranian regime has survived, and the Iranian military has survived. So Iran thinks time is on its side.

In the past two weeks, Iran has made preconditions for talks. The Iranian side requested that the United States first end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, and then the Iranian side can sit down with the United States.

So I think that in the upcoming months or weeks, I am a little bit optimistic. I think Iran and the United States can finally reach a partial, limited agreement. Maybe both sides can end the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz simultaneously and reach some kind of agreement on the Iranian nuclear issue. That would be very similar to the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Finally, I think the United States will quickly leave the Middle East because, in the past 10 years, the United States’ global strategy has changed a lot. Twenty years ago, the United States fought in Iraq, was trapped in Iraq, and engaged in nation-building in Iraq. It spent eight years in Iraq, and it spent 20 years in Afghanistan. But now I think the United States will fight in Iran and leave Iran quickly, leaving the problem to local partners like Israel and Gulf countries.

So, for China, I do not think China has effective tools to influence the situation in the Middle East to protect China’s economic interests.

My time has run out. I will stop here.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you. It is true that most people are hoping for some optimistic result. I think in these recent developments, we have also seen that middle powers, non-Western middle powers, have an increasingly important role to play. So that also speaks to the Global South becoming generally important, at least as individual actors.

Now let us invite Osamu Onodera, Chief Representative of the Japan External Trade Organization, for your thoughts on where the Global South is headed.

Osamu Onodera, Head of the Beijing Office and Chief Representative of North East Asia for Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO)

Thank you very much. First, let me change my title to Chief Representative for Northeast Asia, not Chief Representative, period.

So, just going through some of the questions that were asked. First, the challenges faced by countries in the Global South: economic growth and development; weak infrastructure and a weak industrial base; education and human capital gaps; fragile healthcare systems; environmental and climate change challenges; political instability and weak institutions; debt and fiscal constraints; and today, we heard about AI, technology, and technological development.

The commonality among all these challenges is that they are interrelated, but they are similar and different at the same time. Actually, there is a very big regional component that has to take place. Sustainable solutions to challenges do not come from outside, but have to come from inside, with some limited outside assistance. I think that experience comes from Japan’s development, but also from our work with ASEAN and various countries.

The second point is, as Mr Mahbubani was saying in the morning, multilateral institutions continue to be extremely important and central. But there is growing dissatisfaction on the part of the U.S. and a number of countries: a big burden, but decreasing effectiveness. On the one hand, on the Global South, or some countries, underrepresentation or growing unmet needs is a big thing.

So, how to balance the burdens and benefits? There are some countries that give minimal contributions but have extremely big power, etc. So, how to balance the burdens and benefits will be important going forward.

Also, the United Nations probably has to change its modus operandi, so to speak, to put more focus on regional institutions, because a lot of the work needs to take place in regional institutions.

In terms of the U.S. and China, those are two big giants. I do not think we can deny that. So the U.S. and China working on their bilateral relations, to make sure that it is coordinated well, is going to be extremely important. But both countries have a particular kind of responsibility.

Of course, now one country is maybe the problem rather than the solution. But from that point of view, China can take its own path in terms of how to contribute to global structures.

I think the morning discussions were quite instructive. Dialogue is key, and creating confidence is extremely important to prevent miscalculations. Regional conflicts can quickly turn into global problems, and the U.S. and China can both play a big role in trying to create regional stability. One important part, from that point of view, is being careful not to ask countries to choose one side or the other. That is going to be extremely important going forward.

From that point of view, Japan has learned. There was a discussion about imperialism, etc. Japan has actually, contrary to what some people say, learned very well the problems that caused World War II. Imperialism and war are not in anybody’s interest. That, I think, is ingrained now in Japan’s DNA.

Finally, I would like to talk about APEC. China is the chair of this regional organisation this year, and there is what is called the Putrajaya Vision 2040. I was actually, as one of the representatives, instrumental in making this. It goes: “Our vision is an open, dynamic, resilient, and peaceful Asia-Pacific community by 2040, for the prosperity of all our people and future generations.”

One word I wanted to point out is “peaceful”, because that is where I think there is a big difference between Southeast Asia and some of the other regions. ASEAN, as a regional organisation, has played a key role in promoting regional cooperation inside the region, and it has been very successful. So regional dialogue is extremely important to maintaining peace. What the U.S. and China can do, together with the UN, is work to support such regional organisations. Thank you.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you so much. I think a lot of people even question, for example, the SCO or other regional organisations, saying that they are not real, that they are just imagined. But actually, all such regional platforms create collective identities that become tangible because they are experienced together, and that can bring immense benefits. So, regional cooperation is absolutely at the heart of economic progress for Global South regions.

Now let us invite Johnsen Romero, Head of Asia Program at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy.

Johnsen Romero, Director of the Asia Program and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy

Thank you, Zoon. I am happy that there was a mention of ASEAN just now, because that is something I am going to delve into, given the conversations we have been having about scarcity, living in reality, and the global majority—or, for the purposes of this session, the Global South.

I arrived here in Beijing from Manila earlier this month, where the government has declared a national energy emergency, and where gas stations are pasting extra digits onto their signs as fuel prices have reached record highs. I think what we are seeing now is that geopolitics is something ordinary people are feeling. In Southeast Asia, the region is experiencing the fallout of a great-power war in the Middle East that is not of its own making.

I can speak about the Philippines: the government is negotiating sanction waivers from Washington to purchase Russian oil. The government’s energy secretary put it best recently, just this week, when she said that it was ironic that we have to ask permission from the country that caused the problem.

So I want to address the theme of this hour: How does the Global South manage great-power behaviour when we are looking at all the downstream consequences of unilateralism, disregard for international law, and the inconsistency between how we define order and where it is supplied?

I think all of this is growing more apparent with every passing year, but it is also not just a theoretical question for ASEAN. In Lebanon last month, three Indonesian UN peacekeepers were killed. Two days ago, another one died from the very same incident. UN investigators have already concluded a government that was responsible, but there is little accountability being demanded by those that would call themselves the stewards of this international rules-based order.

So where does this leave ASEAN and the Global South? I think the region’s governments cooperate as a matter of necessity. I think a lot of colleagues here are conscious of that. They know that the collective voice of the bloc is more effective in dealing with the great powers and that banding together creates this institutional legitimacy, record, and centrality that compels great powers to engage Southeast Asia and also to engage with one another.

We saw last year at Malaysia’s ASEAN summit that it was the backdrop for the top diplomats of the U.S. and China to meet for the first time under this White House. What we are seeing is not that ASEAN can decide decision-making here in Beijing or in Washington, but that it is a proven regional anchor that cannot be ignored by either of these countries, that it is a trusted platform to normalise great-power dialogue and to exercise great-power responsibility, where the opportunities for doing so elsewhere are quite scarce.

So if regional blocs are more effective than the traditional international institutions that we think about, it is because this region here is increasingly questioning the order that upholds those institutions. I would like to recall this year’s State of Southeast Asia survey from the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, an annual one. Their findings showed that less than a quarter of the region’s respondents expressed confidence that the U.S. provides leadership for the rules-based order and abides by international law. Who does? For the first time in this survey, respondents said that ASEAN itself is the best expression of a rules-based order and international law.

So I return to the Middle East. The region is being told to uphold a rules-based system that is facing a crisis of legitimacy. I think we all agree on that. But it is also a system that is not very representative of Southeast Asia’s interests, when it is Indonesia, Cambodia, and Malaysia who are the biggest contributors to the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, for example. It is not representative when half of ASEAN members see a reason to join BRICS or the Board of Peace. And it is not representative when it took a Canadian prime minister in Davos to inform a European audience of something that is not new, but something that Southeast Asian leaders have been saying for decades, year after year, and at the podium of every UN General Assembly: that the international order cannot function if the law of the jungle is treated as international law.

So what we see today is an affirmation of ASEAN’s necessity: that it is a bloc that lends voice and agency to countries where legacy multilateral institutions and a rules-based order do not. While discussions of UN reform are important, I think they cannot be the only discussion, and New York cannot be the only place where those discussions take place.

We know here that great powers act in their own self-interest. For the Global South, it is important to do the same and to do so together. While the war is afflicting Southeast Asia today, and those in Europe and North America tomorrow, I think we have reached this point because international law, the rules of diplomacy, and basic first principles have been repeatedly violated for far too long.

The theme of this roundtable is forging cohesion. Amidst an unravelling of the global norms that we are all talking about, I think ASEAN’s ability to channel great-power responsibility is a meaningful way to preserve multilateralism, even in limited forms.

I think the deficit of international responsibility is an opportunity for the Global South. It is Malaysia that brought the U.S. to the region to champion conflict mediation last year between Thailand and Cambodia. It is Pakistan that is currently shuttling back and forth between here and the Middle East to enlarge China’s role in a regional Middle East peace process.

So regional blocs and proactive members of the Global South have the ability to seize the initiative and to create opportunities for more multilateralism, where we are seeing it recede the world over. I think it is all the more important for the Global South and Southeast Asia to insist upon the great powers that they own up to their responsibilities where interests serve them, uphold restraint where challenges test them, and embrace coexistence where peace demands it.

So I will leave it there.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you. And also to hold powerful countries accountable. How can we collectively do that? Thank you for a very important intervention.

Now let us invite Professor Rong Ying, former Vice President of the China Institute of International Studies, who has deep expertise on South Asia and the Global South. Your thoughts—and I think especially maybe from a Chinese perspective—what really is the Global South, and how can it move forward? Thank you.

Rong Ying, former Vice President of the China Institute of International Studies

Thank you so much. It is indeed a privilege to speak at this forum, and I have learned so much. The only thing I want to say is that I do not have the answer, but let me share a few points which I hope can help the panel see if we can get some ideas of where the answer will be lying.

The Global South—nobody knows, or nobody can explain, either conceptually or in any other way, what its membership is. But for me, certainly, I think the majority of members of the international community are unhappy or uncomfortable with the way the world is running, leaving aside the United States, because the United States is not happy about it.

Anyway, let me start with my understanding of the ongoing transformation that the Chinese always say is “unseen in a century”, or “unseen in 100 years”, and its impact on this group of countries in the international community.

I think we have seen that more and more Global South members feel that they do not want to be pushed around and do not want to be forced to take sides. They see it as more and more important to achieve, or to have, some kind of strategic autonomy. This is, I think, very strategically significant for the Global South, which has cherished so much the importance of sovereignty, territorial integrity, security, and so on and so forth.

The second challenge, if I can call it a challenge, is of course again very much related to development. The challenges arising from the deficit of globalisation, or the end of global super-globalisation, and the restructuring or reorganisation of global supply and value chains, either as a result of geopolitics or other changes, make the Global South extremely, or even more, vulnerable in terms of their development goals.

Of course, the introduction and advancement of technology, represented by AI and others, make this situation even more complicated. We are seeing a growing gap.

Last but not least, I think the differences or disputes among the Global South have also been growing, largely because of the different kinds of progress made among themselves. If one wants to look at these big or major emerging economies, represented by China, India, and others, it is also a result of different emphases in their priorities to achieve development.

Last but not least, either because—I do not think by design, but possibly as a result—we have seen, even in terms of questions related to, for example, what many people talk about, the trade deficit with China, or the overcapacity problem, and so on and so forth. I do not think this is by design, not necessarily, but as a result. These changes happening around the world are making cohesion in the Global South more challenging, but also probably more necessary and more imperative.

The question is how we can capitalise on this and advance the goals we are looking for. I think possibly we need to have three Rs.

First and foremost, we need to redefine our goals. Instead of looking at one or two particular issues,I think we have been are all unhappy with the international order or the rules. And how that new order or new system is going to be built is something I think that can unite the Global South in general. At least, we can say that nobody wants to see the world, as the Chinese said, “regress into the law of the jungle.”

Secondly, we need to reimagine the role of the Global South. Instead of being a group that can always say no, can we say yes in terms of providing answers and making our contributions, no matter how little or insignificant they may be? As other colleagues have said, at least in the ongoing war in Iran, Pakistan has played a very important role in making peace.

The last R is that we need to be more focused on the priorities. Clearly, there are issues that are very much at stake for development, and for some developing countries, even survival issues—energy, food, and, as we saw during COVID-19, public health issues, and so on and so forth.

Related to that, we need to improve our own internal governance. Good governance definitely matters much in this regard. Capacity building of the Global South is very important.

Last but not least, related to refocusing on priorities, is South-South cooperation. More efforts should be made to share technologies and knowledge. That leads to my last point: China has announced that it will always be a member of the Global South. China has put forward the idea of building a community with a shared future, as well as the four global initiatives. Most importantly, in terms of development traditions, China’s 15th Five-Year Plan has definitely showcased China’s vision and efforts that they want to make in terms of how to adapt to these changes.

On diplomacy in particular, again, I am not going to repeat that point, but look at how busy the leadership has been, and how important it is—you need more poles on Tiananmen Square, because there are too many heads of state visiting and you need more poles to put up their national flags.

Thank you very much.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you. The problem is not just defining the Global South, or what it is, but really how to put our own house in order, what to reprioritise, and the role China is increasingly playing. Thank you for a very important intervention.

Now let us invite Song Yaoming, Senior Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. Please.

Song Yaoming, Senior Fellow at CCG

Thank you, Zoon. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Global South, forging cohesion, and defining a new era of partnership.

Let me begin with a simple question: What kind of cohesion is actually taking shape across the Global South?

Let me be clear. The Global South is not emerging as a unified bloc, but neither is it fragmenting in any meaningful sense. What we are actually seeing is the rise of a loose, more pragmatic, function-driven network.

The real divide today is not between unity and fragmentation. It is between narratives and delivery. There is no shortage of narratives, but for most countries across the Global South, the real question is very simple: Who can actually deliver in practice?

Cooperation is increasingly defined by four tests. Can products be built? Can they be financed? Can they function? And can they scale? If the answer is yes, cooperation moves forward. If not, it stalls, regardless of political alignment.

This helps explain why more flexible and non-exclusive frameworks, such as the Belt and Road Initiative, continue to attract participation—not because they create alignment, but because they lower barriers to entry and focus on implementation.

So the real risk is not structural fragmentation. It is something more fundamental: the widening gap between ambition and execution. If that gap is to be narrowed, three shifts are critical.

First, from identity to function, with a focus on areas such as digital infrastructure, green transition, and supply chains.

Second, from uniformity to flexibility, accepting modular, variable-speed cooperation.

Third, from statements to systems. This is where multilateral institutions remain essential. Organisations such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, and the World Trade Organization continue to provide critical platforms for trade capacity-building, industrial development, and rule-based coordination. They serve as important anchors in an increasingly complex and interconnected landscape.

At the same time, policy platforms such as the Center for China and Globalization play a useful role in facilitating dialogue, narrowing perception gaps, and supporting more predictable cooperation.

Let me close with one observation. The future of the Global South will depend less on uniform positions and more on the ability to expand connections, and in doing so, to forge real cohesion through practical cooperation and to define a more inclusive and sustainable era of partnership in an interdependent world.

Thank you.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you so much. It is important to acknowledge that our challenges are not just imagined or about mobilisation. Many of them are also quite tangible.

I will mention that the International Organization for Mediation, IOMed, which was recently initiated, could also play an important role in some regional rifts that are holding some Global South countries back. We should have more platforms to engage in dialogue and move towards pragmatism.

With that, let us invite the last speaker of today’s panel: Max Stauffer, CEO of the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance. I know you have some thoughts on AI, emerging economies, and related issues. Please, the floor is yours.

Maxime Stauffer, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance

Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be the last speaker. Thanks to the audience for staying so long.

I work with the Simon Institute, which is a think tank based in Geneva, Switzerland. We specialise in the international governance of AI. As a Swiss citizen, I do not think I can claim anything on behalf of the Global South, or the global majority, or whatever you call it. But in the last years, I have been advising the G77 plus China bloc in negotiations at the UN, specifically on AI governance. So I can share some thoughts that I have observed there.

One is that, in a UN context and on AI, the G77 has expressed a united front. It has found common ground and a common voice. It has actually secured progress on AI governance, despite the lack of willingness on behalf of the U.S. and European countries. That was a massive win, and it was quite unexpected.

I would like to tackle one of the issues that stood out in this debate, and that is the pursuit of open source. Global South countries, the G77, have been fighting for an open-source approach to AI. In many ways, it makes a lot of sense. Open-source models allow more users to access those models because they can access them more cheaply, potentially even more freely. Users can also contextualise and adapt those models to local realities. They can also run these models with much less compute. In so many ways, open-source AI is a good strategy for Global South countries.

But we do need to step back and contextualise open source in the trajectory of AI development.

What we have known over the past decade is that AI capabilities are on an exponential trend, and we are seeing increasingly capable AI models in the world. In the last years, we had chatbots. Last year, we had the emergence of agents—AI models that can take actions and decisions on behalf of humans. Maybe in the next few years, we will have multi-agent systems at scale, with multiple AI agents starting to interact with each other.

So what we see is that we have AI models that are increasingly powerful, and therefore also increasingly unsafe, because we do not yet know how to control them. That might also increase misuse risks. The problem with open source is that it allows users to remove the guardrails that are meant to make those models safe. Those open-source strategies also tend to weaken the liability of developers for the misuse of those models.

So, Global South countries, by choosing an open-source AI strategy, expose themselves to more risks, whether safety risks or misuse risks, and also expose themselves to being more liable for those risks.

You may tell me, “Yes, Max, but we will see the shocks, we will see the problems of AI, and then we will act.” The problem with AI is that we might actually not be able to see the shocks. We might be in a boiling-frog scenario where the shocks are invisible.

Ten years ago, there was a consensus that connecting AI systems to the internet was definitely something to avoid, because imagine connecting AI agents to the internet: they can cause a lot of harm by leveraging web pages, etc. Well, we did connect AI systems to the internet last year, and yet nobody said anything in the international community. Nobody. And that was a shock from an AI standpoint.

So we do need to act in some ways. One thing that I recommend Global South countries do is to demand a safe, open-source governance strategy from the frontier AI developers, namely the U.S. and China, as the only way for them to access AI in a safe manner.

Thank you very much.

Zoon Ahmed Khan

Thank you so much. With that, we cannot conclude—I mean, it is a very important topic. It is about almost 80 per cent of the world’s population. But one thing I would like to say is that, as the Global South and as emerging economies, an opportunity is presenting itself: we are, by default, becoming more significant. Now the question is: how do we maximise this opportunity?

If I want to summarise what all the panellists have spoken about, there are three levels of action that need to be taken.

Number one is domestic and pragmatic. We should be able to understand ourselves and focus on the SDGs, basic development, people-centric development, and good governance. That has to be the priority for every developing country.

Secondly, at the regional level, we need to be able to address the challenges we face. A lot of Global South countries have issues with each other. Go to the platforms that you need to go to in order to address them, or compartmentalise those issues of trust in order to prioritise regional connectivity. This has to be done, and it has to be done proactively.

Third is how we increase our representation in an international order, in a law-based order, in a UN-centred order that we all believe in but would like to be better represented in.

So these are the three challenges. There is a lot to cover, but I want to thank each and every one of the panellists. This was really a learning experience for me. Thank you so much, and thank you to the audience.

Subscribe now

The session titled “Between Headwinds and Openings: Europe and the Next Chapter of China–Europe Relations” was moderated by Zichen Wang, Deputy Secretary General of CCG.

Speakers included

• Thomas Biersteker, Professor Honoraire at the Graduate Institute, Geneva;

• Michael Starbæk Christensen, Ambassador of Denmark to China;

• Vebjørn Dysvik, Ambassador of Norway to China;

• Jonathan Lehrer, Project Manager for International Affairs at Körber-Stiftung;

• Lu Hongwei, Director-General, Department of Eurasian Affairs, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC);

• Dario Mihelin, Ambassador of Croatia to China;

• Peng Gang, former Minister at the Mission of China to the European Union;

• Oliver Lutz Radtke, Sinologist, Author and Strategic Advisor;

• Sebastian Schwark, CEO of SEC Newgate Germany and Senior Advisor at the Global Solutions Initiative;

• Ilke Toygür, Director of the Global Policy Center and Professor of Practice of European Politics at IE University;

• Achilles Tsaltas, President of The Democracy and Culture Foundation, Athens;

• and Wang Yiwei, Jean Monnet Chair Professor and Director of Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China.

CCG has broadcast the video recording of this roundtable on Chinese social media platforms and uploaded it to its official YouTube channel.

This transcript is based on the video recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

Zichen Wang, Deputy Secretary General, CCG

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for staying with us and joining this panel, which I have named “Between Headwinds and Openings: Europe and the Next Chapter of China–Europe Relations.”

We heard discussions about global governance and China-U.S. relations in the morning, and then we had a vibrant discussion about U.S.-China exchanges among youth, with the example of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University. So it is time to move on to a subject that many of our friends care about.

On this panel, which I will be moderating, we actually have, I think, three ambassadors from EU member states, as well as practitioners and Chinese association officials. Allow me to introduce them to you in alphabetical order.

First of all, we have Professor Thomas Biersteker, Professor Honoraire at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He is also a Senior Fellow with the UN University Centre for Policy Research.

Then we have H.E. Ambassador Michael Starbæk Christensen, Ambassador of Denmark to China. We have H.E. Ambassador Vebjørn Dysvik from Norway. And we have Mr. Jonathan Lehrer from Körber-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany. He is Project Manager for International Affairs, as well as a China watcher who has spent significant time in China.

Beside me, we have Mr Lu Hongwei, Director-General of the Department of Eurasian Affairs, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries.

One of our scheduled speakers, Mr Paulo Magri, has already spoken in the morning. He understands that our schedule is a bit tight, so he has very generously allowed more time for the rest of the panellists. He will not be speaking on this panel.

Then we have another ambassador from Croatia, H.E. Ambassador Dario Mihelin. Welcome to join us as well.

We also have Mr Peng Gang, formerly Minister for Commerce in Brussels at the Mission of China to the European Union.

We have Mr Oliver Lutz Radtke, who is a sinologist and author. He was formerly CEO of an Austrian think tank and, before that, represented German political foundations in China. He also happens to be the most fluent Chinese speaker I have ever met as a foreigner.

We also have Mr Sebastian Schwark, whom I had the privilege of meeting in Berlin. He is the CEO of SEC Newgate Germany and also Senior Adviser at the Global Solutions Initiative, a very important organisation in Berlin and a long-time partner of CCG. The Global Solutions Initiative organises the Global Solutions Summit every June in Berlin.

We also have Professor Ilke Toygür, Director of the IE Global Policy Center and Professor of Practice of European Politics at the School of Politics, Economics and Global Affairs at IE University in Madrid, Spain.

We have Mr Achilles Tsaltas, President of the Democracy and Culture Foundation in Athens. We already heard from him this morning, and we are happy to hear from him again on Europe and China-Europe relations.

Finally, last but not least, we have Professor Wang Yiwei, who is a long-time friend of the Center for China and Globalization. He is also a senior fellow here, Professor of International Relations, and Director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

So, a warm welcome to all of you here.

Let us get right into our discussion. As we are a little bit late, let me just say that I will cut you short if you speak for too long. We have actually 13 or 14 speakers here, and it is going to be a little bit tricky. But I am sure you already have the experience and the wisdom to summarise and deliver your wisdom, informed by your experience, by your observations from your interactions, as well as your observations here in China and back home in Europe, and between China and Europe.

So let us start again in alphabetical order. Let us welcome Professor Thomas Biersteker, please.

Thomas Biersteker, Professor Honoraire, Graduate Institute, Geneva

All right. Thank you very much.

Since I am a professor, it is hard to limit myself to five minutes. Do not worry, I will try to stick to your schedule.

I should mention my affiliation also, since it is a Schwarzman College day. I am currently teaching a course on global governance at Schwarzman College this year at Tsinghua. I should have worn my purple tie, but I did not today.

Now, based on my accent, you might wonder why I am on this panel. I have an American accent. I was born and raised in the U.S. I taught for many years in the U.S., but I have been in Switzerland at the Graduate Institute now for nearly 20 years. A lot of my research, particularly my research on the policy of international sanctions, is supported by the Swiss Foreign Ministry, and I regularly consult for the EU and the UK.

So what you will get is perhaps an American frank perspective on Europe, and a commentary on its strategic predicament, its position in the world economy, and the potential for European cooperation with China.

Let me first start with some observations about strategic perspectives from Europe. I think we have reached the point where Europe no longer trusts the United States as an ally. The Trump administration treats allies and adversaries in the same dismissive, insulting, and transactional manner.

Europe can no longer be confident that the U.S. will abide by its NATO commitments and come to its mutual defence if attacked by Russia. This is more than a rupture. This is actually a profound change in perception.

First, it was the tariffs. Then it was J.D. Vance’s insulting speech at the Munich Security Conference. Next came wavering support for Ukraine, a summit with Putin that marginalised Europe, followed by threats to Greenland and the civilisational criticism of Europe in the U.S. national security doctrine.

More recently, attacking Iran without consulting Europe, and then blaming Europe for not coming to support the U.S. effort, could be the proverbial last straw.

Europe has tried to accommodate Trump with flattery and special appeals from sympathetic leaders, but there is growing realisation that obsequious rhetoric and humiliating behaviour have largely failed.

Europe’s effort to accommodate has now turned, I think, to a growing realisation that a bully needs to be confronted, not accommodated—something that China demonstrated last year in its response to high tariff threats from the U.S.

In Iran, the U.S. has impulsively and irresponsibly created a huge problem for Europe, but also for the rest of the world, as we have heard in other sessions earlier today, and now wants NATO allies to come to its aid to fix a problem that it created.

So, to quote Steve Walt, the U.S. has increasingly become a rogue state, and Europe has been forced to confront the real possibility of NATO without the U.S.

I will just make a couple of quotes from Ben Steil from the Council on Foreign Relations, when he says Europe’s least bad option may well be to go its own way.

Earlier this spring, Ursula von der Leyen argued that Article 42.7 of the EU treaties on mutual defence should be brought to life. Just two days ago, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk reiterated the need for the activation of Article 42.7.

Just to start by framing it in terms of the strategic predicament, let me turn second to geo-economic considerations. Europe, of course, has a large population, a large prosperous population, an increasingly integrated economy, and by some measures the second, certainly the third, largest economy in the world.

At the same time, Europe has increasingly been disappointed by the lack of reciprocity from China when it comes to trade, investment, and financial flows. Both Europe and China are committed to the expansion of international trade, but the terms of their trade have been unbalanced.

There are, I think, legitimate concerns in Europe about the lack of reciprocity, but the paradox is that Europe needs Chinese technology and Chinese goods in order to achieve its environmental goals.

Another quote here from Rana Foroohar from the Financial Times just last week, when she said: “I was amazed that Beijing did not grab the low-hanging fruit left by Trump after the announcement of his Liberation Day tariffs last year and decide to work with the Europeans to come up with a solution to the problem of Chinese goods dumping. That could have been the germ of a new trade paradigm, and it would have been the perfect moment for the Chinese to present some ideas, however half-formed or imperfect, to Brussels as a show of good faith.”

That is the end of the quote. I am saying Europe is not viable on its own. It lacks the political, legal, and institutional architecture to pursue things on its own. This is why I think it is important to consider new alliances and new thinking.

So let me conclude. I am already 10 seconds over, but I will finish.

While the U.S. is in the process of abdicating its historic leadership role, it has not destroyed multilateralism. I am taking issue with some of the presentations earlier today. I do not believe that multilateralism can be destroyed unilaterally by one country acting alone, even if it is the U.S.

If others do not follow the U.S., and if they continue to interact and strengthen core elements of the international rule of law and international institutions, accompanied by reform, multilateralism can be reoriented and cease being dependent on U.S. underwriting and hegemony.

So there is a potential, in my view, for stronger ties between Europe and China based on a negotiated commonality of interest, not zero-sum competition, because I find that U.S. policy practices are not actually being replicated across the rest of the world. They are being answered with new trade arrangements at the regional level. Another theme earlier today: not imitative initiation of new tariffs in the pursuit of self-interested neo-mercantilism.

So perhaps the so-called rupture is an occasion for fundamental rethinking of multilateralism, not its abandonment. Thanks for your attention.

Zichen Wang

Thank you for your very good summary and also high expectations for China-Europe relations.

Let us hear from Ambassador Michael Christensen. What is your take as the Danish Ambassador here in China?

Michael Starbæk Christensen, Ambassador of Denmark to China

Thank you very much.

I read the title of this panel: “Is there a dawn for Europe’s future?” And I am not sure I agree, because in Europe, there are always ups and downs. So there is never really a dawn or a downside.

Europe spends a lot of its energy to organise itself, because it is a complicated structure, with 27 individual countries trying to regulate matters and present a common approach together. So I think we have to understand that this is what Europe is.

Europe has also proven to be extremely good at crisis management. We saw it during COVID. We have seen it during the energy crisis, where Europe surprisingly quickly went off from dependency on Russian oil and gas.

So I think Europe is sort of an eternal dawn, you could say, because there is always some struggle, but we always find a way. I am a big believer in this thing we have created that has its ups and downs but is always floating and never drowning.

Trump is a special character, and we have had our issues with the Americans over Greenland. But I always say it is not a fight with the United States of America. It is actually with a Trump administration that sometimes derails from what is sound thinking. We have broad support in the U.S. Congress for our stand, as well as among European countries.

So we sometimes have to be careful to talk about the United States, as if Trump is defining the country as a whole. Sometimes we also need to tackle problems from where they arise, rather than blaming a full nation.

For Europe and China at the moment, I think we focus too much on the constraints and too little on the opportunities.

We are not doing so well in the political dialogue, but I think in the economic and trade relations, things are going well, tipping towards China at the moment, but before, probably more tipping towards Europe. We always have to find balances.

I think it is okay for Europe to introduce the Industrial Accelerator Act and the Cybersecurity Act. Rather than focusing on them as something anti-Chinese, I think we should say Europe is doing some homework that has been requested for a long time. It will not mean the end of trade relations at all. It is just something that Europe needs to do in the kind of world we live in, to make sure that there is also independence and economic security in Europe.

So I think maybe that can relate to 10% of trade, perhaps, and 90% is still fine. So let us look at the opportunities rather than dig down into the constraints, which I still think are a very small part of the relations.

I heard the end of the youth panel, and it is always encouraging to hear young people believe in international dialogue and cooperation. For sure, we need that. But we also need to respect each other’s policy space. That is why I mentioned the Industrial Accelerator Act and the Cybersecurity Act as something that there is no need to talk about as what will define the relationship in the future. I think there is very much a lot we can still do together.

And now, with the elections in Hungary, it turned out that the Trump administration is no longer welcome at national elections, because it was the kiss of death from J.D. Vance. So I do not think he will be invited again.

It just proves that Europe is again floating despite ups and downs. The people of Europe spoke very clearly in Hungary, and I think it makes a European like myself very proud.

So I will end here. Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you very much.

I think Beijing has some issues with the Industrial Accelerator Act and the Cybersecurity Act, but China has always been very consistent in supporting a unified and strong Europe, especially the European Union as an institution.

So let us move on to Ambassador Dysvik from Norway. Thank you.

Vebjørn Dysvik, Ambassador of Norway to China

Thank you very much, Excellencies, colleagues, friends.

First of all, thank you for inviting me to attend the 12th China and Globalization Forum and to speak at this roundtable session on the next chapter of China-Europe relations.

We are indeed facing a challenging environment, with wars on several continents and a world economy that is now in crisis because of these wars, and also severely fragile and unbalanced. The situation is concerning, to say the least. But concern cannot be our foreign policy strategy.

I would like to use this opportunity to present two parts of our strategy that can be employed by both Europe and China to move things in a positive direction.

First of all, when we find it difficult to find our way, we need a compass. For Norway, that compass is international law and the UN Charter. This determines our way forward.

When it comes to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, Norway values territorial integrity, national sovereignty, and every nation’s right to determine its own future. These are the principles that are at stake in Ukraine, and this is why so many countries in Europe are supporting Ukraine’s fight for its independence.

But equally, as we question those who do not take a clear position on Ukraine, it is valid to ask European countries to be equally concerned about international law in the Middle East, in Africa, in Latin America, and in Asia.

This is, of course, easy for me to say, as Norway has a good track record, but the point still stands. If you are going to move in the right direction, you need something to guide you. For us, that something is international law.

The second part I would like to highlight today is the need to support and protect our multilateral instruments of trade. Norway is an open economy. We have benefited greatly from globalisation. We share common values and interests with the Nordics and the EU, and Norway is part of the EU’s internal market through the EEA.

We have shared interests with both the EU and China in preserving the rules-based multilateral trading system and in making it work.

The 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé in March was widely framed in advance as a make-or-break moment for the organisation, and we were very disappointed that consensus could not be secured and that it ended without agreement.

Still, the work continues in Geneva, and the stakes are high, because we need to create a more level playing field. This is in the interest both of advanced economies and developing countries.

This will include looking at subsidies, industrial policy, and state-owned enterprises. And, of course, it also includes looking at security measures to make sure that they are really about security.

In the time ahead, it will be important to preserve the system, while at the same time focusing on how to modernise the organisation. We need rules that cover new issues and challenges, and we need new and revised commitments from members.

We must continue to reaffirm our collective commitment to the WTO’s core values and to a revitalised WTO that can deliver results.

We share a mutual interest in standing together to preserve the rules-based multilateral trading system. Addressing today’s global challenges ultimately requires collective solutions. A stable world depends upon respect for international law and organisations operating with common rules that are implemented and respected. We believe this is also essential for the next chapter of China-Europe relations.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you, Ambassador.

Now we are going to hear from Jonathan from Körber-Stiftung in Germany. He is probably one of the youngest speakers at this table, but I am sure you have brought a lot of new perspectives. The floor is yours.

Jonathan Lehrer, Project Manager for International Affairs, Körber-Stiftung

Thank you, Zichen. It is a pleasure to be here. It is also a pleasure to be representing a foundation that works at the intersection between civil society and foreign policy.

You asked me to speak about European resilience, which I find a pretty difficult task, Zichen. It is not so easy.

But to be honest, I think Europe is in a pretty tough spot. I work for a German foundation. Europe is in a pretty tough spot, and it got there pretty quickly. It is our own fault, and we should not complain about it.

I think there are four geopolitical arenas that show that Europe needs to be more self-resilient, more self-reliant.

Ukraine is the starting point. The war has shown that we need to be less dependent security-wise. That is clear to everyone.

The new U.S. administration has also shown us that our democracies have to be more self-reliant, because the U.S. is interfering in our own member states’ elections. That is a big problem.

The third arena, I think, is the competition with China. It is tough competition, and it shows that our industrial bases have to be more self-resilient. That is also very important when we talk about what people need in our countries.

And yhe war in Iran has shown that we have to maintain a clear course on decarbonisation.

So I think the immediate reality is pretty concerning, because it is really hard to realise the benefits of reform, for example, at the moment in Germany, when they are immediately being undermined by high energy prices, because we are now again in an energy crisis just four years after the last major energy crisis. That is a pretty tough situation to be in.

But I think the long-term outlook for Europe is brighter, because Europe is investing heavily in defence. Germany is investing heavily in defence. Ukraine is one of the most capable armies in the world. It is very innovative. It is very adaptive. It will make NATO stronger. It will make the European Union stronger.

Besides the sometimes geopolitical differences we have with other countries in the world, I think Europe is very attractive for middle powers to trade with, but also to negotiate with, for UN Security Council reforms. There are many topics where Germany and Europe are pretty attractive partners. There are differences, but we can manage them and we can talk about them in a respectful manner.

Ukraine has taught us that one-sided dependency is dangerous, but also that breaking those dependencies is costly. It comes with a price. It comes with a price for people. You can ask people to contribute. You can ask the public also to pay a price, but you need to prioritise and you have to explain well what you are doing.

I think Germany is going in a pretty interesting direction, with defence expenditure of around 5% of GDP. That is a lot, but 30% of those 5% of GDP is also going into infrastructure. That is interesting because infrastructure is an investment for the military, because the military needs infrastructure, but it is also an investment in people, and it is also very good for the economy. I think there is no need to explain the beauty of infrastructure in China. We all know the benefit of infrastructure.

So the core lesson, I think here, is that cutting extensive dependencies is smart, but it is also pricey. You also need to offer something to your own people when you are doing it, and you cannot cut those dependencies everywhere at the same time. It is not possible.

In the long term, I think Europe is moving towards becoming more self-reliant and more resilient, becoming a more sovereign Europe, but not a nationalistic one. I think that is a really important point, and this is also really attractive.

Let me end—and I did not expect to do it—with a quote from our Vice Chancellor. He said action in Germany alone is only part of the solution, but a reformed and stronger Germany is a precondition for a strong Europe.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you for walking us through the thinking, the reflections, and also the undertakings that are happening in Germany and, I believe, also across Europe to meet the challenges of this age.

We are now moving to Mr. Lu Hongwei, Director-General of the Department of Eurasian Affairs, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. Mr. Lu.

Lu Hongwei, Director-General, Department of Eurasian Affairs, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries

Secretary-General Miao, President Wang, distinguished guests, good afternoon.

I must say I feel somewhat humbled to take the floor, but I will keep to the time limit and share some of my first-hand impressions with you.

I have just returned from Italy, and immediately after that, I accompanied a delegation from Styria, Austria. The delegation included the state governor, the deputy governor, the speaker of the state parliament, the president of the chamber of commerce, and more than a dozen entrepreneurs.

Last October, at the invitation of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Germany, I also made a special research visit to Berlin. Within 48 hours—including sleeping time—I held 11 meetings. Some of the discussions even took place over meals, while people were still chewing their food. My meeting with Jonathan Lehrer of Körber-Stiftung was one of those 11 meetings.

I have several impressions to share, mainly from the perspective of the resilience of the European economy.

First, energy security: the painful shift from passive supply disruption to active restructuring.

The primary challenge for the European economy now may be the rigid rise in energy costs. Take Germany as an example. As the engine of the European economy, Germany has seen a notable economic downturn in the past two years. Its economy contracted by 0.3 per cent in 2023 and by 0.2 per cent in 2024, before registering a slight increase of 0.2 per cent in 2025. Energy has been an important factor behind this. The pressure is, in effect, a hard switch in energy sources.

To break away from dependence on Russian energy, the EU has reduced the share of Russian natural gas imports from 40 per cent before the Russia-Ukraine conflict to 18 per cent now. In fact, energy is not only a basic input for economic activity and production. It is also an important raw material for industries such as chemicals. This is why the European economy is now under considerable pressure.

Second, Europe is now trying to find a balance in its digital transformation between ethical regulation and innovative vitality.

Europe does not lack basic research and development. It is also a very open society. But what it may lack now is the speed of market conversion. The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act is the world’s first comprehensive AI regulatory framework. Yet some of its relatively strict compliance requirements may become a brake on AI development.

For example, we have seen 45 companies, including giants such as ASML in the Netherlands and Airbus, jointly call for a delay in the implementation of some provisions, because they worry that excessive regulation may force investment to flow to the U.S. and Chinese markets. The Center for Data Innovation, a European think tank, has also estimated that the Act could bring 31 billion euros in compliance costs to the European economy.

So, to improve the resilience of the European economy, Europe may need, in the development of AI and the digital economy, to find a more flexible balance between development, ethics, and regulation. Rules should be improved through practice, rather than being used too early to constrain development.

Another point is that, while Europe pays attention to economic development data, it may also need to pay more attention to the improvement of its own labour productivity.

I found some figures. From 2019 to 2025, the average annual growth rate of labour productivity in Europe was 0.5 per cent. Over the same period, it was 1.9 per cent in the United States and nearly 6 per cent in China. Economic growth is, to some extent, built on the growth of labour productivity.

In today’s AI world, there may be some inaccurate or fake news. But about two months ago, I saw a report about German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. He reportedly said that Germans take 14.8 days of leave a year and asked whether that was too much. If this report is true, then perhaps Europeans should think carefully about this issue.

Finally, I would say that cooperation with China should still be one of the main directions for Europe’s development. China’s market is continuing to grow. As people’s living standards improve, there is strong demand for high-quality foreign products. So I think Europe should develop better in these areas.

I have been engaged in exchanges with Europe for more than 30 years, and I have deep feelings for Europe. In the early years of China’s reform and opening up, Europe gave China significant support. We fully recognise this and are sincerely grateful for it.

I personally firmly believe that a prosperous, united, and open Europe is in the interest of the whole world.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you, Mr Lu. I will just briefly summarise that. He reviewed the pressure faced by Europe on the energy front. There has already been quite some discussion about digital regulation in Europe, which many believe is probably a little bit too much, and then the rise of labour productivity in Europe.

He mentioned the speech given by the German Chancellor after he visited China. I believe that is real news, because we have video footage of that—basically saying that maybe the German people could afford a few fewer holidays.

Mr Lu also talked about his over 30 years of engaging with Europeans, where he has a lot of personal feelings about Europe. China is actually very grateful for the economic engagement and the collaboration between China and Europe since China’s reform and opening up. There is a lot of potential for the two sides to enhance their collaboration.

Thank you very much.

We will move on to Ambassador Dario Mihelin of Croatia. Ambassador Mihelin is heading to the airport, I believe, no later than 10 minutes past five, so you still have time.

I would also like to note that the Foreign Minister of Croatia paid a visit to China not long ago and spoke at the Center for China and Globalization. We are always very grateful for our collaboration with you and with your Foreign Ministry. Thank you very much.

Dario Mihelin, Ambassador of Croatia to China

Thank you.

Colleagues, members of academia, let me start by congratulating Henry, Mabel, and the whole CCG team on organising this valuable forum again.

I was really inspired by the previous title of this panel in the draft programme, and I will reflect more on that and then on the elements of the latest panel title as it is today.

It cannot be denied that the centre of the global economy is shifting from the Atlantic towards the Indo-Pacific, and with it political influence and weight. From the outside, Europe is sometimes perceived as a continent in relative decline, an ageing power defined by its past achievements rather than its future trajectory, raising the question: Is there a dawn for Europe’s future?

This does not imply that Europe is deteriorating, I would say. Rather, it reflects the fact that others are converging with more advanced economies, a development that is in itself positive for the global economy and for humanity as a whole.

Europe is surely not in decline in that sense. It is, for the most part, a highly developed and settled continent. In general, Europeans enjoy some of the highest living standards in the world. Europe consistently ranks at the top of global indices measuring human development, quality of life, and social well-being.

Europe also enjoys high levels of both internal and external stability and security, something that cannot be taken for granted in many parts of the world, and something that is perhaps more important now than ever.

War has become unthinkable among countries that started many wars against each other in past centuries—an achievement to cherish in our ever more turbulent and violent world, even to the east of the core of Europe.

This makes Europe conducive to long-term competitiveness, sustainable growth, and economic resilience. And this is precisely why Europe continues to attract people and capital from across the globe. It continues to be a destination for global talent, business, investment, art, and so much more.

In a world marked by uncertainty, Europe’s levels of prosperity, stability, and social well-being remain its greatest assets. Yes, Europe may no longer be able to match the growth of the world economy, nor the sheer scale of hard power of the United States and China, be it industrial, military, or technological. But we should also ask: what even is the ultimate purpose of development and, moreover, of nations themselves? Is it to dominate others, to rule the world, to accumulate power for its own sake? Or is it to improve the well-being of societies and the quality of life of citizens?

In regard to the latter, Europe has already achieved what many countries and regions in the world are still striving to reach.

Though Europe is not a continent in decline, we must be honest about where we can improve. It could be said that our own success has lulled us into complacency, and even into outsourcing our security and development elsewhere, from which we must break free.

In a world where threats move at lightning speed, our current mechanisms sometimes fall short in coordination. It is no longer enough simply to react. We must become more proactive.

Europe is certainly redefining its place in a world marked by growing uncertainty, strategic competition, and weakening global norms. The real question today is not whether Europe should be a global actor, but what kind of global actor it will choose to be.

Strategic autonomy has become more important than ever, as Europe faces pressures from geopolitical shifts, the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, and changing transatlantic dynamics that demand greater European responsibility and capacity to act.

Europe must turn strategic autonomy from concept into concrete action, investing in innovation, defence, and sustainable energy to secure our freedom of manoeuvre.

For Croatia, the transatlantic relationship has always been foundational, but strong partnerships evolve. A more capable and cohesive Europe does not weaken the transatlantic bond. It makes it more balanced and therefore more resilient.

Allies expect Europe not only to align rhetorically, but to deliver politically and operationally. This means a Europe that contributes more to collective security, acts with greater coherence, and takes responsibility in its own neighbourhood.

When Europe upholds international law, defends territorial integrity, and invests in its own capabilities, it reinforces the transatlantic partnership rather than competes with it. Strategic autonomy understood this way becomes a contribution to shared security.

The geopolitical and economic situation demands nothing less than a comprehensive strategy that integrates trade policy, industrial policy, technology policy, and international market policy into a coherent approach to economic security.

The path forward requires us to reduce critical dependencies through supply-chain diversification, to use trade policy strategically, to build resilient networks, to invest in technological sovereignty, to strengthen our internal market, and to ensure coherence between our policies — many things China has already achieved itself.

Investment in research and development is not a cost. It is the foundation of future competitiveness and strategic autonomy.

Just look at Chinese achievements in this regard. Countries and regions that lead in innovation will set standards, capture economic value, and possess strategic options that followers lack. The EU must be among the leaders in critical and emerging technologies.

So, is there a dawn for Europe’s future? Well, ladies and gentlemen, the sun still shines in Europe and will continue to shine. So do not write off Europe just yet.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you. We are definitely not writing off Europe.

I think I have to make a little clarification here. An early draft of the agenda actually titled the panel discussion “Is there dawn for Europe?” I have since decided that is not fair to Europe.

We all believe that Europe is still a very important pole of this world. Its GDP per capita is actually vastly higher than that of the Chinese mainland. As we have heard from you and your colleagues here, it still enjoys a lot of advantages.

One thing you said actually struck me a little bit. You said, especially in this environment of superpower competition, people talk about whether the U.S. wants to dominate the world or whether China wants to become the next hegemon. But you asked: What is the goal of development?

I think the Chinese leader would actually agree with you, because he has said many times on Chinese domestic occasions that the aim of Chinese development and of the ruling Communist Party of China is to raise the well-being and happiness of the Chinese people.

So I think there is consensus over that. That is the reason for all these policies, and for China-EU relations, and relations between China and the various European capitals.

Thank you very much. Let us move on to Mr Peng, who is a former minister in charge of commerce in Brussels at the Chinese Mission to the European Union.

Peng Gang, former Minister, Mission of China to the European Union

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And also thanks to CCG for offering me this great honour.

Talking about the future of Europe and China-Europe relations, first of all, let me just share the view of Ambassador Dario just now about the advantages of Europe and the EU overall.

I would like to stress that Europe, as a key pole in the world’s multipolar landscape, holds a position and plays a role that cannot be overlooked.

Europe boasts a profound historical heritage, advanced scientific and technological capabilities, a mature market economy, and strong cultural influence. Whether it comes to addressing global challenges, upholding multilateralism, or promoting reform of the global governance system, Europe plays an indispensable and vital role.

Secondly, talking about today’s challenges, most of our earlier speakers and panellists have all mentioned challenges today. We must also be soberly aware that Europe is currently facing unprecedented internal and external challenges.

Internally, the economy is struggling to recover, and problems such as high energy prices, inflation, supply-chain disruptions, and insufficient innovation capacity continue to plague Europe’s economy. Our earlier panellists also mentioned these kinds of problems.

Externally, geopolitical conflicts are protracted. Hegemonism, unilateralism, and protectionism are on the rise, and transatlantic relations—which are very important to Europe—are experiencing extreme volatility.

All of this has introduced significant uncertainty into both European and global development.

At the same time, the collective rise of emerging markets and developing countries, and the deepening of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, are reshaping the global economic structure and competitive landscape.

However, no matter how complex and changeable the international situation may be, world multipolarisation is an irreversible trend of the times, and economic globalisation is an objective requirement for the development of social productive forces and an inevitable result of scientific and technological progress.

As an important global force, Europe can play a more active and constructive role in international affairs, to promote economic globalisation towards a more open, inclusive, balanced, and win-win direction.

More importantly, it is necessary to recognise that China’s development is an opportunity for the world. As the world’s second-largest economy, China’s sustained and stable growth brings stability and certainty to both European and global economies.

Moreover, China’s 15th Five-Year Plan—and I think a lot of earlier speakers mentioned our 15th Five-Year Plan—brings Europe and the world even greater opportunities for joint development.

China’s development is not a threat at all, but an opportunity; not a challenge, but a contribution. It is hoped that Europe can set aside ideological biases and adopt an objective, rational, and positive attitude towards China’s development and the enhancement of its corporate competitiveness, viewing China as a partner rather than a systemic rival.

So let us use fewer negative terms such as decoupling and de-risking, and so on and so forth, and instead, like China, embrace more positive words and actions, such as increasing, enhancing, or enlarging our bilateral cooperation.

Finally, due to time, let me emphasise once again: for Europe to revive itself, it must face up to its own vulnerabilities. The real threat to Europe is not the so-called overcapacity of China, but the serious lack of competitiveness caused by its own lack of innovation and closed markets.

The Chinese and European economies are highly complementary. China can provide cost-effective industrial products and complete supply chains, while Europe can provide advanced technologies, design expertise, and brand management.

Only by strengthening cooperation between the two sides can we achieve mutual benefit, win-win results, and common development.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you, Minister Peng.

Let us hear from this side of the table. Oliver Radtke, thank you.

Oliver Lutz Radtke, Sinologist, Author and Strategic Advisor

Thank you. Good afternoon. I want to build on what I have said earlier today and offer three observations.

I was invited to speak in the morning already, and what I have to offer is drawn partly from my research, which I presented at East China Normal University earlier this week in Shanghai, but also partly from watching European capitals and how they are responding to a world that is clearly moving faster than their China policy frameworks were designed to handle.

First, Europe, in many cases, is being informed, not consulted. The Strait of Hormuz situation is instructive, and I say this with all the Excellencies in the room very much in mind, because this is ultimately an observation about structural position, not about intent or goodwill.

When tensions in the Hormuz corridor escalate, Europe’s energy security—and this is a major issue, as we all know—shipping lanes, insurance markets, and the Indo-Pacific relationship as a whole are all directly affected.

And yet the strategic decisions that determine the trajectory of that situation are being made in Washington, in Tehran, in Riyadh, or not, as we learned yesterday evening, and increasingly in Beijing.

Europe is briefed. Europe issues statements. Europe sometimes is consulted in the margins. But Europe is not at the table where the core decisions are taken.

This is not a criticism of any single actor by any means. It is a structural description of where Europe finds itself. That has direct implications for the EU-China relationship, because China is one of the very few interlocutors with genuine leverage across the landscape.

I will come to Ukraine and Russia in a second.

The EU has been and will always be a complex actor, not by accident or incompetence, but by design. Heads of state at the European Council change, for example, every two and a half months. I want to echo what Ambassador Christensen has been saying here. It is, of course, very much worth engaging, but dealing with the EU will always be a lengthy and complex but worthwhile process.

The question is whether the current political atmosphere allows these conversations to happen with sufficient depth, regularity, and a sense of urgency.

Second, Europe’s China debate is often not really about China. I come to offer a little bit of a more internal perspective on the EU.

What I frequently observe is that much of the European discourse on China is often an internal European argument about sovereignty, strategic autonomy, and identity, using China as its object.

European actors are frequently not responding really to what China does, but responding to what China represents in a domestic or intra-European political contestation.

This matters practically, of course. If you want to engage European China policy constructively, you need to understand that changing European perceptions of China may not be sufficient, because the driver is often not perception, but internal political configuration—again, every two and a half months, major changes at the level of heads of state.

That is a message I would offer to Chinese interlocutors, but also to European ones.

And let us also not forget China’s relationship with Russia in year four of the ongoing war against Ukraine. That is a major factor in the ongoing securitisation of the EU-China relationship in many aspects.

Third, the conceptual vocabulary is due for renewal. I think that the partner-competitor-systemic rival trifecta introduced in 2019 was analytically honest at the time of its inception, but it has aged. It has become less of a strategic framework and more of a political permission structure, allowing every actor to select the framing that fits their preference.

Of course, it is a very complex strategy. Just imagine a cocktail with three layers, and then you give it to the customer. You have to shake it first. But then what is what? What layer constitutes what? What are you drinking? Who are you talking to?

So six years on, I think Europe needs a more operational framework, one that distinguishes between sectors, between time scales, between the China that directly affects European interests, and the China that figures in European political perception.

Coming to the end, I would suggest that the next chapter of EU-China relations depends more on whether both sides can build a kind of working-level institutional patience in think tanks, universities, business councils, and diplomatic channels to stay structurally engaged across what will certainly be, in the coming years, very turbulent years of Europe’s internal reconfiguration.

But I also want to highlight a sense of urgency in terms of AI governance. We have AGI around the corner, and we are still talking about whether we can use certain chatbot functions or whether we can increase efficiency in administrations, and so on.

Pandemic prevention: the next pandemic is around the corner. Mental health, if you take a look at the statistics. And especially because it has not been mentioned enough today, I think climate change. We need innovative collaboration, and we need urgent action.

Thank you so much.

Zichen Wang

Thank you, Oliver, for your in-depth observation.

I do agree with you that climate change has not been mentioned enough. It is my personal observation that it is no longer as high a priority within the European context as it was, for obvious reasons, when it comes to energy and other issues. Mr Sebastian Schwark.

Sebastian Schwark, CEO, SEC Newgate Germany; Senior Adviser, Global Solutions Initiative

Thank you very much. Thank you for the invitation and the possibility to speak here. I am going to be quick, because a lot of what has already been said I do not need to repeat.

We see Europe today in a world that is increasingly reminiscent of Carl Schmitt’s theory of Großraume that are competing against each other in a multipolar world. That is, of course, against European interests, really, and against the European vision of the world, which is more built on collaboration and multilateralism. And I think the EU-China relationship is increasingly a victim of this emerging geopolitical order, which is so polarised.

On the face of it, as I see it, the EU-China relationship is primarily a very important trade relationship. I agree with everything that has been said about the mutual beneficiality of it, if it is done right. But I think we also need to face the fact that this trade relationship is increasingly overshadowed by this geopolitical polarisation that we are seeing, and that we see a resulting lack of trust on both sides.

From a European perspective, that is, of course, as has already been mentioned, the war in Ukraine and Russia’s aggression, and what is perceived in Europe at least as Chinese support for Russia’s position—a main issue. That is an integral issue for European security, and I think that has been underestimated in China.

Secondly, I think we have seen in the past a weaponisation of supply chains. That is also a problem, of course, for Europe, particularly since Europe is so much for open trade.

Then there is also the perceived striving towards regional hegemony. All of those policies are undermining trust, I think, and need to be addressed head-on, hence the naming of them.

I think it is also true now, though, that China is a technology leader, and that Europe can learn a lot from China. The relationship has also changed in the sense that China is now in a much stronger position than, let us say, 20 years ago, and certainly also 10 years ago.

Maybe China is also a policy leader, in the sense that its industrial policy seems to have been betting on the right industries of the future, and hence the technology leadership today. So I think Europe could learn from that as well.

To come to a close, I think it is really important to rebuild trust, because the trade relationship is so important for both sides. I think we would all benefit from trade that is fair, open, and mutually beneficial.

Because of the geopolitical situation that I have sketched out, and that other speakers have also mentioned, it is important that Europe and China work together towards certain political global benefits, such as combating climate change, but also the solution of regional conflicts, global health, et cetera.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you, Sebastian. You mentioned Chinese industrial policies, and I think actually the Beijing Auto Show is ongoing in Beijing. I have not had the opportunity to go there, but press reports say there is an amazing number of new vehicles, especially Chinese-made EVs, on display over there.

So, if you have a day or two, or maybe a few hours, grab a ticket and head north. I have heard it is just amazing and very refreshing, and a lot of Chinese EV companies have a lot to offer these days.

Let us continue to Professor Toygür. Thank you.

Ilke Toygür, Director, Global Policy Center; Professor of Practice of European Politics, IE University

Good afternoon, everyone. I was also asked to speak on the EU security strategy and if there is a dawn for Europe. So my remarks were also centred on that front. But I will very happily come to EU-China relations also at the end.

I think it is really important to underline that it is no secret that the European project was designed for a world of positive interdependencies, cooperation, and openness. The power-politics environment of today is not necessarily the ideal setup for a supranational institution that works on compromise and pooling sovereignty.

I think it is really important to underline that the EU is very different from the U.S. and China, consisting of 27 sovereign states. For me, it is miraculous every day that we are managing to align strategies from Estonia to Spain on different fronts that require Europe’s attention.

But from a historical perspective, I really wanted to start from here: that the EU has always adapted. It might be slow. It might be messy. But throughout the eight decades that it has existed, it has found a way to adapt to the necessities of the age.

There is one concrete reason for that: because the European Union, as a supranational institution, is a provider of security and prosperity to its citizens. To fulfil that aim—as the Ambassador also mentioned in his intervention—it has to adapt to the times.

So to answer the question that I was asked, I think the European Union is working on its own security. It has an economic realm, which is very connected to the security of these times, and a security realm.

On the economic realm, there are so many components, but actually I wanted to focus on the single market integration dimension, because I personally think it is the key to Europe keeping up with its economic performance in the years to come.

This includes deeper integration in finance, energy, and telecoms; streamlined regulation; creating a defence market, which will also link to security in the second forum; and economic security related to supply chains and clearly the energy security dimension.

So this is the economic realm that I care the most about, and I personally think that will lead to an improved situation when it comes to the European economy.

On the security realm, in addition to working on national defence industries and rather quietly discussing how to make the European pillar in NATO work, or, in case of need, take over enablers, command systems, and work only with European partners—and Canada and Norway, of course, included—there is already an existing strategy.

But I wanted to underline one more, and this will let me connect to China. There is a major partnership strategy functioning at the EU level right now.

I am not just talking about the trade deals that the EU has signed with India, Mercosur, Australia, and many others, but also the security and defence partnerships that were created for this age and signed with Ukraine, but also South Korea, Japan, and others, to fulfil the aim of providing prosperity and security to European citizens.

For me, the partnership strategy is as integral as the completion of the single market. Maybe I can use my last minute on EU-China relations, because I personally think the partnership map cannot be completed without strategic clarity on China. This is, for me, a really, really important point.

I think we all know there is a desire to improve EU-China relations. But from the European perspective, there are three core reasons why the conversation is not moving forward. I am sure there are different reasons from the Chinese perspective, and I am really happy to discuss them if there is time.

The record level of trade imbalances with China threatens Europe’s economic model and prosperity. This is not a side issue. Let me give you an example. I think this is really important. For a country like Spain, which has been named very China-friendly in recent years. Seventy per cent of all trade deficit is with China, and this is really crucial.

The second point is, of course, the weaponisation of strategic interdependencies with export restrictions and critical raw materials that have an impact on European industries. But I want to underline one industry: the defence industry that Europe is trying to develop the most needs critical raw material supplies from China.

Thirdly and lastly, I am finishing, is of course China’s position on and support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Let me end on one point. Even if there are many divisions between member states on how to deal with China, there is consensus on two fronts.

One is risk management in security and security buildup in Europe. Without economic growth, without innovation, and without job opportunities, it is going to be impossible. China plays a very important role in innovation, investment, and economic growth in European countries.

Secondly, for providing public goods in the world, including the fight against climate change, reforming global governance, and also keeping an open trading system in the world, the European Union needs China.

So these two areas, regardless of the problems between member states, are sources of consensus. I personally hope there will be work done in the upcoming years, both by the Europeans and by the Chinese, to bring strategic clarity to the relationship.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

Thank you very much, Professor Toygür.

Now let us welcome Mr. Achilles Tsaltas from Athens. He is the President of the Democracy and Culture Foundation.

Thank you.

Achilles Tsaltas, President, Democracy and Culture Foundation

Thank you. Talking about democracy, I agree with Ilke about Europe’s adaptability, and probably one main reason is because of its democratic system, which is self-correcting in itself.

But Europe is not simply choosing between paths. I think it is searching for its compass at the moment, because Europe today faces more than just a security crisis. It is a crisis of orientation—strategic, economic, and democratic.

For decades, Europe’s stability has rested on a fragile equilibrium of American security, Russian energy, and global market integration. That equilibrium seems to be broken.

So the debate that we are having about NATO—some call it the brain death of NATO—strategic autonomy and new alliances is necessary, but it is not sufficient, because the world is changing at a deeper level.

This morning, I mentioned the three foundational drivers of human progress: energy, intelligence, and biology that have entered a new phase. They are no longer scarce. We are entering that phase of abundance.

In this new context, in this brave new world, we can observe the three responses that I mentioned this morning: hoarders, managers, and builders.

Europe historically has been a manager. China has been a builder. Maybe there is an opportunity here for Europe to go towards that fourth one that I mentioned this morning, which was a democratic builder state.

Europe is exceptionally good at rules, standards, coordination, and institutional balance. China, and increasingly parts of the Gulf, have demonstrated the capacity for the builder approach: long-term planning, rapid deployment, and the ability to act at scale.

But here is the point: neither approach on its own is sufficient for the world ahead.

This is where Europe’s deeper traditions matter, because Europe is not just a geopolitical entity. It is the heir to two powerful ideas coming from ancient Athens: the democratic experiment and the moral and intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment.

In Athens, democracy was not passive. It was participatory, deliberative, and grounded in civic responsibility. Citizens did not just vote. They engaged.

But today, unfortunately, that spirit seems to have weakened. In many parts of the West, democracy begins to resemble a form of oligarchy.

So Europe’s renewal is not only about defence or strategy. It is also about democratic legitimacy, and perhaps rethinking what democracy must become in the age of AI, exponential capital, and deep economic inequality.

At the Athens Democracy Forum that we run, we explore all this through a session that we call the Socrates-Confucius Dialogue, because the future of governance may not lie in choosing between systems, but in learning from them.

From Athens, yes, we learn deliberation, accountability, and participation. From Confucian thought, we learn duty, responsibility, and moral leadership.

At this point, let me say that Confucianism is not anti-democratic by definition. It is anti-chaotic. It is anti-egoic.

So Confucianism and democracy are not opposites, but rather incomplete halves. Democracy in Europe probably needs to accept part of this enlightened hierarchy and duty.

Again, going back to the builder systems, capacity, speed, and long-term thinking are the characteristics. The challenge and the opportunity is to bring all of these things together.

This has strategic implications. For too long, Europe has relied heavily on the United States. The time has come, respectfully, to rebalance it, to cut the umbilical cord, to move from dependence to partnership, and to engage more actively with a broader set of actors in a multipolar world.

We talked a little bit about Mark Carney this morning and the middle powers. He mentioned Australia and Canada. An alliance between Europe, Australia, and Canada, sitting opposite China, could be very interesting.

Why do I mention this? I bring it to a final point: if Europe is to combine legitimacy with capacity, it must also address the question of economic trust.

In an age where capital scales faster than labour, democracy must evolve not simply through redistribution, but through shared ownership, and what we can learn even from a small country like Australia: public wealth funds, citizen participation in capital, what we might call universal basic capital, which is not an ideology. It is system design.

So, in ending, I am going to do again the Alexander McQueen quote. It is my favourite quote. Maybe very unexpected, but: “You have got to know the rules to break them. That is why I am here, to demolish the rules, but to keep the tradition.”

Europe does know the tradition. The question is whether it has the courage to build on that.

Zichen Wang

Thank you. That was very educational, at least for me personally.

Let us move on to our final speaker, last but not least, Professor Wang Yiwei. At least in his previous public remarks, he also talks about the effect of Chinese traditional values on today’s situations and their implications for Chinese policymaking.

Professor Wang is a well-known figure in China-Europe relations. He is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China.

Thank you.

Wang Yiwei, Jean Monnet Chair Professor; Director, Institute of International Affairs, Renmin University of China

My presentation title is “A Paradigm Shift of China-Europe Relations in the 15th Five-Year Plan Period.”

The 15th Five-Year Plan is a turning point. With high-quality development, maybe after the 16th Five-Year Plan, China will cross the middle-income trap. This is also very crucial for the European Union, whether it can cross the so-called middle- and high-technology trap.

I am an advisory member for Beijing and Tianjin’s 15th Five-Year Plan, so I know the process. If you read the 15th Five-Year Plan, there are more than 50 mentions of 引领, leadership—not following. So to understand China, from the rise of China to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as a civilisation-state, it is necessary to read the I Ching, classical Chinese.

For instance, at the Two Sessions, we passed two laws. One is the Ecological Civilisation Code. It is not just the law. The law forbids you to do something, but a code encourages and guides you to do what you should do. So this is high-quality development guiding China to go beyond the European so-called green transition. We understand this as ecological civilisation.

The second law is about ethnic unity and the promotion of that law. Pay attention to this: we use unity. Europeans use solidarity.

We learned from Europeans about the Westphalian system. We learned from the Soviet Union about the definition of ethnic groups, but it misguided us, because it focused more on diversity, not unity.

So when the KMT president met the Party Secretary General Xi Jinping, they never mentioned “one country, two systems”. Never. They only mentioned the Chinese nation.

If you read the law, it never mentions Han Chinese. Never. It only mentions the Chinese nation. So the greatest solidarity—if you translate it, it means the greatest unity of the world’s people. That is, I think, China becoming more like China. It is more unity, not just diversity.

So what is the meaning for China-Europe relations? In the era of globalisation, the U.S. was an innovation power, Europe was a normative power, and China was a market power. So they were complementary and cooperated quite well.

But this globalisation has come to an end. China benefited, of course, from this globalisation—so-called science in the West, technology in China—because science is free, without borders. China learned from science and practised it in China, and produced engineering.

Every year, we produce 12 million students from universities, one-third of whom are engineers. My background is also in engineering. So that is the reason we need to talk more, because science is not just in the West, science is in the U.S., science is in Europe, and science is also in China. Technology is localised.

So we need a new deal on how to benefit both sides.

There are four suggestions.

Number one: we need to change our mindset. Before, we said China opened the market for technology transfer from Europe. Now, Europe opens the market for China to transfer technology from China. In EVs, it is not losing face. It is normal.

Second, from the Brussels effect to the Brussels-Beijing effect. You cannot make the Brussels effect alone, because in EVs, AI, and many other areas, you do not have the leading high technology in the world. So only through cooperation with China can the Brussels effect perhaps work, for instance in EVs.

Number three: how China crosses the middle-income trap, and how Europe crosses the middle- and high-technology trap, is very crucial for our relationship. I think the key area where we need to cooperate is the defence market. Working together with China on defence is the most efficient way and will save energy and time for reindustrialisation and remilitarisation. The closer Europe is to the U.S., the more marginalised it becomes. The U.S. is not reliable, to be frank.

Last but not least, it is about AI. If you look at the Supreme Court of the United States, Confucianism is in the middle. It is about ascetic morality. The right side is more religious law, and the left side is Solon, which is civil law.

So in AI governance, China is still Confucian, taking the middle way. The U.S. is more to the right, more religious, and more military in its use of AI—attacking Iran, blah blah blah. Europe is more civil, still Solonian.

So we need a new kind of model for AI governance. The U.S. is “winner takes all”. It is more laissez-faire. It is more military use. Europeans are more civil. China is the middle way. It is not that, as Europeans say, China and the U.S. are two superpowers and, as President Macron says, “we are dependent on the third way”. No. China is not the U.S. We do not seek hegemony.

So I think this is about the harmonious coexistence of morality, development, and security. That is the future. Otherwise, civilisation is in more danger for human beings.

Thank you.

Zichen Wang

I am touched by Professor Wang’s ambition and his call for security cooperation between China and European Union countries. I am comforted by the fact that he did refer to various Chinese traditional literature and wisdom, which may be helpful to guide future thinking, including in geopolitics. I am also comforted that we are able to conclude the panel right at 15 minutes past 5 PM.

So thank you very much. Let us have a group photo on the stage. I want to thank every one of the panellists.

As with the tradition of CCG, actually, we try to make this conversation go beyond this room. It is videotaped. It will go to YouTube. It will go on Chinese social media. We will also transcribe these conversations and put them out via our English-language newsletters, so more people have access to our discussions today.

Thank you very much.

Subscribe now

The “China–U.S. Youth Roundtable: A Model for China–U.S. Youth Exchanges” session was moderated by Mabel Lu Miao.

The speakers included:

• David Qingzhong Pan, Executive Dean and Professor of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University;

• Zhang Ning, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy (CSEDS) and Chairman of the International Competence Development Committee (ICDC);

• Cheng Yan Davis, Founder and President of the Forum for World Education;

• Rza Aliyev, Chief Strategy Officer of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center;

• Anthony Andong Wang, Schwarzman Scholar;

• John Zhanjie Zhao, Director of the Alliance of Global Talent Organizations (AGTO).

The session also included brief interventions from:

• Maria Gabriella Oliveira Costa, Schwarzman Scholar

• Murilo Rangel da Silva, Master Student in Political Science, Tsinghua University

• Francesca Pala, PKU-LSE Master student in international affairs

• Joey Ng, Serial Entrepreneur; Undergraduate Student, Tsinghua University

• Matobbar Tanvir Parvez, young ESG professional; former President, Student Association of Belt and Road Initiative (SABRI), Tsinghua University

CCG has broadcast the video recording of this roundtable on Chinese social media platforms and uploaded it to its official YouTube channel.

This transcript is based on the video recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

Mabel Lu Miao, Co-Founder and Secretary-General, CCG

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome back to our afternoon session and roundtable. I’m Mabel Lu Miao, Secretary-General of the Center for China and Globalization. It’s my pleasure to moderate this panel. I’m very excited about this panel, as our topic is extremely important.

It is about youth exchanges. Today, we are holding the China–U.S. Youth Roundtable: A Model for China–U.S. Youth Exchanges — Success and Insights from Schwarzman College. We are honoured to have Dean Pan from Schwarzman College join us. Schwarzman College has just concluded its 10th anniversary celebration. I joined the gathering last night, and it was a grand occasion. That is why many Chinese scholars and American friends were cautiously optimistic this morning, because such events help boost confidence in U.S.-China relations. Young people are the future of this relationship.

That is why we designed this panel around this topic. This forum is co-hosted by CCG and Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, and supported by AGTO and GYLD.

I’d like to introduce our distinguished panellists: David Qingzhong Pan, Executive Dean and Professor of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University; Zhang Ning, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy (CSEDS) and Chairman of the International Competence Development Committee (ICDC); Cheng Yan Davis, Founder and President of the Forum for World Education; Rza Aliyev, Chief Strategy Officer of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center; Anthony Andong Wang, Schwarzman Scholar; and John Zhanjie Zhao, Director of the Alliance of Global Talent Organizations (AGTO).

We will discuss the following topics: How can Schwarzman College serve as a benchmark for U.S.-China youth exchanges? What are third-party observations on its successful model? What implications does it offer for China’s international education and global talent development? How can young leaders strengthen cross-border cooperation to address shared global challenges?

I’d like to invite Dean Pan to briefly introduce the Schwarzman Scholarship and Schwarzman College, and share what benchmarks you have set for U.S.-China youth exchanges. The floor is yours.

David Qingzhong Pan, Executive Dean and Professor, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University

Thank you, Mabel. Good afternoon. This week is the busiest week for Schwarzman College in the past 10 years, as we are holding our 10th anniversary reunion. More than 1,166 scholars from all over the world have gathered in Beijing from April 22 to today.

Today is still very busy. I can see Professor Thomas and George Chen here, as well as many scholars, including Rza and Anthony. They are all busy too, though perhaps not as busy as CCG. I rode a bicycle from Tsinghua University here and arrived exactly two minutes before 2:00, because of the traffic. They told me the event was 40 minutes late, which means this place is even busier, with more topics to discuss. That’s a good thing. That means everyone wants to talk about today’s challenges.

We are busy solving the problems. I am too old to solve many problems. That is the responsibility of young leaders like Anthony and Rza. You are the future, and that is the mission of our programme: to cultivate future leaders to solve future problems.

We face enormous challenges today. The first piece of news I saw on my phone this morning was that Donald Trump had been involved in a shooting incident at a conference venue, which was shocking. We never know what will happen when we wake up. There are too many challenges. This is the reality we have to face.

Back to the Schwarzman College: why did we establish Schwarzman College? We wanted to build a platform where everyone can get to know each other, learn from each other, and work together to solve problems. This is particularly important today.

We held a grand ceremony on the 24th, and everyone talked about peace and development. When you see our students from 104 countries, with diverse backgrounds, coming together to discuss the same topics, it is because they share the same mission and concerns. You see our scholars becoming real friends, because that is human nature.

Why should we hurt our civilised society? We should uphold a civilised society globally, for everyone. I won’t take more time. I’ll pass the floor to others. To summarise, the mission of the Schwarzman programme is to build a platform for mutual understanding, peace, and development. Thank you so much.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Dean Pan. Professor Pan Qingzhong is Executive Dean and Professor of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University. He has been extremely busy these days, and I highly appreciate your efforts to join our platform and introduce Schwarzman College.

We take the Schwarzman Scholarship as an example for the future of U.S.-China relations, especially youth exchanges. As you mentioned, it is a programme for peace and development, and you have nurtured more than 1,200 scholars from different countries who share the dream of promoting relations between China and the world, as well as global peace and development.

I remember your programme has three pillars: China, Leadership, and Global Affairs. These three pillars are significant for promoting relations between China and the world and enhancing mutual understanding. Thank you very much.

Next, I’d like to invite Mr Zhang Ning, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy and Chairman of the International Competence Development Committee. Your committee is affiliated with the Ministry of Education, and you are a senior official and leader in the development of Chinese students’ international competence. The floor is yours. Please introduce your committee and share your views on the implications of the Schwarzman Scholarship for China’s international education and global talent development.

Zhang Ning, Vice President, Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy; Chairman, International Competence Development Committee

Thank you, Mabel. Just now, we listened to Dean Pan’s remarks. He has served as Executive Dean of Schwarzman College for 10 years. In fact, Schwarzman College and Tsinghua University have created a special educational institution. Over the past decade, this institution has built a multicultural setting and a platform for Chinese and international youth, especially Chinese and American youth, to study and live together.

As mentioned earlier, the College has already welcomed pver 1,200 Chinese and international students from 104 countries, with Chinese students accounting for 20% and international students 80%. This in itself is a unique achievement. There are several aspects of this innovation that deserve particular attention.

First, it conducts world studies. At lunch today, I met a professor from the University of Geneva who has been teaching at Schwarzman College for many years. The College has attracted renowned experts and professors from around the world to teach these students, bringing global information and perspectives. While studying the world, it also focuses on China.

It uses several methods. The first is interdisciplinary integration. The second is to respond to questions related to China’s development. The third is extensive practical learning, including research visits to Chinese enterprises, government institutions, rural areas, and remote regions.

Another aspect is the cultivation of global leadership. How does it cultivate global leadership? By broadening the global vision of Chinese and international students, improving their global competence, and training their global leadership. In fact, global vision and global competence are the foundation, the underlying capabilities, on which global leadership is built.

In addition, the College also connects students with future career pathways. Some students go on to work in international organisations, some in national governments, some in multinational companies, and some start their own businesses. All of this has made Schwarzman College a highly successful educational institution.

When it comes to Chinese and American youth, Chinese young people have several characteristics in terms of competence and personal qualities. One is that they have a relatively strong capacity for sustained learning. This is a distinctive feature of Chinese students. Whether through homework or examinations, they have developed the ability to keep learning. In addition, they tend to be honest, responsible, technically aware, and strong in teamwork.

Alongside these strengths, Chinese students also have some relative weaknesses, such as public speaking, planning and organisation, communication, and the ability to discuss and question. When I say these areas are relatively weak, I mean this applies to around 60% to 80% of students, not every individual. Some students may not fit this description. Compared with American students, there are several dimensions I would like to introduce.

First, in terms of global awareness and cultural understanding, Chinese students generally have a strong sense of national identity and cultural confidence. Their understanding of global issues, however, tends to be more theoretical, and their cross-cultural understanding often remains at the level of surface symbols. They lack a deeper observation of the values and logic of thinking in other cultures. American students, by contrast, have long been immersed in a multi-ethnic environment and are able to connect global issues with their own life experiences, although they sometimes also carry a Western-centric perspective.

In terms of cross-cultural communication, as I mentioned earlier, Chinese students are more modest and reserved, with a strong sense of collective cooperation. However, their public expression and practical foreign-language skills are insufficient. Their communication tends to be introverted and conservative, and they often avoid conflicts of opinion. American students are good at impromptu expression, public speaking, and debate. They communicate directly and actively, attach importance to expressing their own views, and have a stronger sense of self in teamwork.

In terms of critical thinking and innovation, Chinese students are good at summarising and deep learning, but they have an insufficient spirit of questioning. They tend to rely on standard answers, and their originality, breakthrough capacity, and innovation are relatively weak. American students are more able to question authority, engage in diverse forms of reasoning, and value divergent thinking, trial and error, and exploration. They have strong practical critical-thinking skills, although their thinking can sometimes be fragmented, and their capacity for deep research may be relatively insufficient.

In terms of global responsibility, Chinese students identify with the ideas of multilateralism and common development, and have a strong sense of collective responsibility. However, their participation in international exchanges, overseas volunteering, and cross-border projects is relatively low, and they lack initiative in global practice. American students, generally speaking, are more active in social practice, public service, and overseas study programmes. They are more action-oriented, although their understanding of global responsibility can sometimes carry ideological tendencies.

Thank you. That is my introduction.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Chairman Zhang. He used to be Deputy Secretary-General of the China Scholarship Council and held positions in several departments and overseas offices under China’s Ministry of Education, so he understands the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese students compared with U.S. students.

Next, I’d like to invite Cheng Yan Davis, Founder and President of the Forum for World Education. She served as Special Advisor to the President of Teachers College, Columbia University, on international advancement, and as Senior Advisor to the Shanghai Pudong Government. Before joining Teachers College, she worked at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a senior educator with deep knowledge of both the U.S. and Chinese education systems. Please share your views on this topic.

Cheng Yan Davis, Founder and President, Forum for World Education

Thank you very much, and thank you for inviting me, Secretary-General Miao, and also Henry.

This is an exciting time to talk about education. The Forum for World Education was founded by our trustee, Mr Paul Kelly. He is a business leader, and he believes that no one can talk about education better than business leaders, because they can tell us what we should do and what kind of people education should cultivate for business to hire the right people.

At the Forum, there are two important tasks we focus on. One is education as diplomacy. Today, I heard many scholars and business leaders talk about U.S.-China relations. But I just want to tell you that many years ago, in 1977, U.S.-China relations began to open through ping-pong diplomacy. Education exchanges also started at that time. In 1977, only 56 Chinese scholars visited universities in the U.S. But to date, 3 million Chinese students have been educated by American universities.

We should say that this kind of powerful educational diplomacy means there should be no reason for the U.S. and China to have problems. The U.S. and China should have no problems, because we have so many young leaders.

But at the same time, I want to ask: if, in 1977, we had had a better education system to help the American people understand China, the relationship would be much better today. We reviewed American high-school textbooks, and we found that social studies teachers do not understand China. The textbooks also do not have good explanations of other countries’ history and culture. So you cannot expect leaders in the White House to understand the world or understand other countries.

If, at that time, we had had international education that could help the American people understand the world and understand other countries, the American people, who are wonderful people, would have accepted and elected good leaders to lead the country. But right now, most politicians in Washington have never had a passport. They have never been to another country. How can they understand the world and make the right decisions for the world?

Today, we are talking about the United Nations, and some people say the United Nations is a sunset organisation. I do not think this is simply because it is a sunset organisation. It is because they did not care enough about education. If, when the United Nations was built, it had focused on international understanding, rather than just bringing leaders to sit in New York and fight with each other, we would be in a much better situation.

So, at the Forum for World Education, we promote education first. We have great respect for Stephen Schwarzman. I think he is a very important person. He has led us by building a school for the world to understand China. But unfortunately, there is only one such school. We also have universities in China, such as NYU Shanghai and Duke Kunshan University, but we do not have Chinese universities or Chinese schools in America.

So I really think, Mabel, you should come to the U.S. more often, to tell our people how good this country is, and how much you appreciate it, and to let the American people know more about China.

I have to tell you that we are very worried, because 40% of our people in the United States have very little education, and 60% of our people have only an elementary education. You cannot imagine that we have the best elite education in the world, but we do not have good public education.

I see why China has achieved what it has today: your education system has played a very important role. You sent so many talented students overseas to learn from other countries.

From my own experience, I was Senior Vice Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. We worked with the Wharton School, and over 10 years, we trained 600 CEOs from China’s stock exchanges. 600 people came to our university over those 10 years. Then they returned to China and built a beautiful and very productive financial and stock-exchange system.

I think Chinese people appreciate American education. Chinese people know America, and Chinese people love America. But unfortunately, we do not have such a good system to let the American people know China.

So I would like to say that the Forum for World Education is an organisation that promotes cooperation among 17 countries. Let me give you another example. Britain invested £41 million to learn Shanghai’s mathematics teaching methods. The OECD Research Centre worked with us, and six years later, British primary-school students’ mathematics skills improved.

So we would like China to think about training our mathematics teachers, and we hope America can have better maths. As Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said, it is not that he does not want to bring Apple’s production line back to the U.S.; it is because we do not have enough skilled technological workers like China has.

China has a wonderful culture. As the Chinese saying goes, if you learn mathematics, physics, and science, you can find a job anywhere in the world. But in our country, America, right now, we ask students to be sports stars. If you are a sports star, you can go everywhere and get work. But we do not focus enough on maths and science education, and we are far behind you.

Education is diplomacy. China and the U.S. should really use education to work together. But now, we need your help. If you really want to have a good relationship between the two countries, focus on education and educate good leaders. Education will make the difference.

Thank you very much.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Dr Cheng. When we were in the U.S., Dr Cheng inspired me a lot. She told me that we should go to the U.S. more often and carry out more education diplomacy. We reached a consensus that, in the future, people-to-people exchanges between the U.S. and China should place greater emphasis on education and student exchanges.

This is one of the reasons why, this time, we take Schwarzman College as an example for U.S.-China relations, to promote people-to-people exchanges and young people’s leadership.

Next, I would like to invite a vivid example from Schwarzman College, the young man sitting beside me, Rza Aliyev. He still looks very young, but he is already a very successful think-tanker and organiser. He is the Chief Strategy Officer of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center in Azerbaijan. The Center is also an important organiser of the Baku Forum. I have just concluded my journey to the Baku Forum, which convened many international organisation leaders and statesmen. It was a very successful occasion for global cooperation.

So I would like to invite Rza to say a few words. I know you are a distinguished alumnus of the Schwarzman Scholarship. The floor is yours.

Rza Aliyev, Chief Strategy Officer, Nizami Ganjavi International Center

Thank you, Dr Miao. First of all, thank you to Dr Wang Huiyao for having me here.

As Dean Pan mentioned, this has been a very busy week, and also a very special and emotional week for us, as we are celebrating the 10-year reunion. I am also here as one of the first alumnus of the Global Young Leaders Dialogue as well, which was back in 2016. So I have seen CCG’s input and impact on young leaders.

If you allow me, I will share a few thoughts with you. Ten years ago, when we came here, I was from the first cohort. Back in 2016, when we came to Beijing, it was my first time in China. I was living in a small country, Andorra, although I am from Azerbaijan. I had never been to China, but we took a leap of faith, trusted Steve Schwarzman’s vision, and came here.

This week, when I reflected on the situation now versus 10 years ago, it is incredible to see that there have of course been many positive changes. The pollution level is definitely much better now. But the world has become much more divided and much more complex than before. We have two ongoing global wars. We have the AI revolution. We have lots of problems.

In all of this, as Madame Cheng was saying, education is one of the most important parts of the solution. The bonds that come through education will stay with us forever. The impact that education and Schwarzman Scholars have made on my life has been tremendous. I am based in London now. I would not be based there if it were not for the programme. My business partner and co-founder is a Schwarzman Scholar. His wife is a Schwarzman Scholar. So it is quite incredible what impact education and a programme like this can have.

When I reflect on why, as our panel says, Schwarzman College is a successful model, I would put it in three criteria.

First, immersion is better than exposure. Of course, it is different to come to China and see it for a week or a couple of days. But when you spend a year here, over a few months, you start making friends. One thing I realised is that making friends with Chinese scholars is very different from making friends with, let us say, American scholars, in terms of the model. In the U.S., where I also used to live, you go somewhere and after one week, or after one drink, you become very good friends. In China, you go for tea with Chinese scholars, and then you have many, many, many teas. You get to understand each other at a much deeper level. Then, after that, you have fun with some baijiu and become even better friends. So I think that immersion, rather than exposure, is really important in both directions. It would be great to have that in the U.S. as well, and in Europe as well.

Second, intellectual honesty over the comfort zone. During the year at Schwarzman, we had some very deep and very honest discussions on topics that might not be very comfortable. The openness of the scholars, and also the professors’ courage to talk about uncomfortable things, is what really makes the programme impactful. Over the years, you reflect on that and build upon it.

Third, the continuity of the network. One thing is to come for a year and then finish. Another thing is what we have seen this week: 10 cohorts, more than 1,100 people here. Having that network continuity, and having the programme as a very important part of your life, is what brings long-term value to us.

To finish, I want to say one thing. We see division in the world. But the problem that education can tackle and address is the need to get to know each other. I think the problem is not simply that we do not know each other—that the U.S. does not know China, or China does not know the U.S., in terms of lifestyle. The bigger problem is the risk that global politicians may take by miscalculation.

Before I came to China, I thought that, of course, because I had studied diplomacy and worked in diplomacy, I knew China. I came here and realised I knew nothing about China. I did not know all the beautiful diversity of its nature, food, and people. Thinking that we know is a much bigger danger than not knowing, because then you do not want to learn.

So I would say that this kind of miscalculation is one of the big risks of perception, and education is very, very important. I want to call for action so that learning experiences and education can be carried forward by people.

Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you very much, Rza. You mentioned your experience with the Schwarzman Scholarship and the College. I think the last point you mentioned, the lifelong network, is very important. It boosts mutual understanding and reduces misperceptions, especially miscalculations about each other.

Sometimes these miscalculations are one of the major reasons for misjudgements in policy, and even for wars and conflicts. Networks such as the Schwarzman Scholarship, Duke Kunshan University, NYU Shanghai, and many other joint-venture institutions in China are very important.

As President Xi mentioned at the San Francisco Summit, in the next five years, China would like to invite more than 50,000 American students to study in and explore China. I think this is a great project for mutual understanding.

Next, I would like to move to Mr Anthony Andong Wang. He is also a Schwarzman Scholar, and I would like to listen to your story and opinions. Anthony is a Schwarzman Scholar who graduated in 2019. He was previously an investment banker at J.P. Morgan in New York. He also worked in private equity at CITIC Capital, focusing on international investments. He currently runs his own venture capital firm, focusing on innovative start-ups across frontier technology sectors.

So I would like to invite you to say a few words.

Anthony Andong Wang, Schwarzman Scholar

Thank you, Dr Miao, and thank you to CCG for having me. It is such an incredible honour to be here today, reunited with former professors, classmates, and distinguished panellists.

This past week, I spent time at the 10-year Schwarzman reunion, and it was actually surreal to catch up with old friends and classmates from the class of 2019. It felt like yesterday that 140 of us came together for a one-year shared experience in China, a year that was formative and, honestly, life-changing. It moved us beyond seeing China as an abstraction.

The programme was also extremely diverse, not just geographically, but intellectually. It included military officers, entrepreneurs, artists, and civil servants. That range forced genuine cross-pollination.

Exchange works when it is immersive. Short delegations and goodwill dinners do not really move the needle, but months together do. The programme created a shared language, not necessarily Mandarin, but a shared frame of reference. That matters enormously when these are the people making decisions in government, finance, and tech 10 to 20 years from now.

In a period of real geopolitical tension, people-to-people ties are one of the few channels that remain open and trusted. Schwarzman alumni, hopefully, can serve as a back-channel network.

I applied to the programme in 2017, during an era of global cooperation. I was optimistic about the opportunities between China and the U.S., the two largest markets in the world, and how this could benefit my own career. Since then, the era has shifted to strategic competition, or even rivalry. But did that make the programme a bust or a failure? No. I think the complete opposite.

Steve Schwarzman’s original thesis played out faster than we would have thought: that mutual understanding between China and the U.S. would be imperative for the future of our world. The programme has adapted to train students on where the real fault lines are, and where cooperation is still possible and necessary.

I think everyone here knows that the world is changing at an extremely rapid rate. As a venture capital investor, I have a front-row seat looking at some of the most emerging technologies, such as AI. These are truly powerful technological breakthroughs, which only highlight the importance of global governance and AI safety, among many other topics.

Today, the world is largely divided and broken. Cross-border exchanges and dialogues have stalled. Student exchanges between China and the U.S. have declined by up to 40% from 2019 levels. Yet I left the 10-year Schwarzman reunion with a newfound sense of optimism.

Despite the significant challenges and headwinds, including four years of COVID impact, which disrupted the status quo, the programme has demonstrated incredible resilience. While Schwarzman Scholars was initially characterised as a start-up, it has now transitioned into an established platform, with the real value showing up 10 years later, as things have finally begun to compound.

Across 10 cohorts and roughly 1,300 alumni, 90% expressed interest in coming back to China for the reunion, with an actual attendance rate of 83%. This set a new Tsinghua record for alumni network attendance. For many scholars, Schwarzman was probably the most memorable year of our lives.

The scholars coming out of this programme, I hope, are going to be in the rooms where it matters. I think that is the real ROI and the legacy that Steve Schwarzman is leaving us. Hopefully, this type of community is one that can transcend any single era.

Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Anthony. These two speakers are very vivid examples of Schwarzman Scholars — what kind of experience they had in China, and what kind of vision they built through this programme.

Today, we want to take this example to reflect on how important these scholarships and people-to-people exchanges are, and what role they can play. CCG has recently released a special research report on strengthening U.S.-China youth exchanges and implementing this important initiative. We put forward concrete policy recommendations to build a sustainable mechanism for youth engagement and global leadership development.

Meanwhile, we launched the Global Young Leaders Dialogue, or GYLD, which has built a high-level platform for global young leaders to enhance mutual understanding and cross-cultural cooperation. We received a congratulatory letter from President Xi. We have also built a strong network of more than 2,000 young leaders from 80 countries.

Recently, we launched AGTO, the Alliance of Global Talent Organizations, to advance global talent mobility, international cooperation, and innovation in cross-border talent governance.

I would like to invite Mr John Zhanjie Zhao from AGTO to briefly introduce AGTO and share his views on this topic. The floor is yours, John.

John Zhanjie Zhao, Director, Alliance of Global Talent Organizations (AGTO)

Thank you, Mabel. It is a great honour to join this roundtable and introduce the Alliance of Global Talent Organizations, and also the Global Young Leaders Dialogue (GYLD), because many Schwarzman Scholars are also GYLD members.

GYLD is a programme initiated by Dr Mabel Miao in 2020. We gather young leaders under 45 from over 100 countries. It is not just a talk shop, but an incubator for actionable ideas on global governance, sustainability, and technology.

AGTO is a non-governmental international organisation. We bring together institutions, such as universities and multinational companies, to shape the rules and pathways for talent mobility.

Why did we build these two programmes or institutions? Because we want to promote deep and cross-cultural engagement between talent and between institutions. We can see that the GYLD programme is inspired by the Schwarzman College model. It shows that deep cross-cultural engagement can really create impact.

I really agree with what Madame Cheng just said. We must create more Schwarzman-like pipelines that are long-term and trust-based. It is not just about one-time exchanges, but about embedding global talent within local contexts.

Recently, I read a book that talked about the ability to be equipped with multiple explanatory systems. As Rza just said, before you came to China, you may have had an explanatory system based on Azerbaijan or the UK. But I think it is important to have more explanatory systems, such as a China explanatory system.

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the “China shock”. But as Dr Henry Wang said, it is better understood as a “future shock”. If you are equipped with more explanatory systems, especially a China explanatory system, you can better understand the future. That is, I think, what Schwarzman College, or the Schwarzman College model, shows us: how cross-cultural engagement and a deep dive into one country’s culture and mechanisms can provide young people with strong abilities.

In conclusion, the Schwarzman model proves that when you invest in deep residential leadership development, you create ambassadors for life. At GYLD and AGTO, we are committed to scaling up this model and ensuring that the next generation of young leaders are not just connected, but are truly co-creators.

Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, John, for your kind introduction of CCG’s programmes and our participation in people-to-people exchanges.

Last but not least, for this conference and this topic, we selected five distinguished young people from our talent pool to join the Q&A. But time is limited, so each of you will have one minute to say a few words and express your opinions on this topic.

Maybe we can start with Maria, who is also a Schwarzman Scholar. Maria, please. Each person has one minute. Sorry, time is limited.

Maria Gabriella Oliveira Costa, Schwarzman Scholar

Thank you for having me, and thank you for this event. I am currently a Schwarzman Scholar from C10, so I have had the pleasure of meeting many alumni this past week, and I completely agree with everything they said.

I am a scholar from Brazil, and I feel that the programme has allowed me to gain both perspectives and learn from the strengths of both Chinese scholars and U.S. scholars, which is a very privileged position to be in.

I also agree that being in China is such an incredible opportunity. Coming from Brazil, we normally do not have as much exposure to what China looks like in reality. So, being here and living here, the programme has allowed us to have a deep-dive experience. I was able to go to Guizhou, and it was incredible to see rural China, but also Beijing, developed China, and Shanghai.

I always tell my parents that I fell in love, because it is so different from everything we sometimes have contact with. It is so much more complex. Also, coming from a Global South country, I believe there is a lot we can learn from China, and there are a lot of ways in which we can cooperate. So being here and being a Schwarzman Scholar is definitely truly a privilege.

Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Maria.

Next is Anna, a master’s student in finance at Tsinghua University. Maybe we can move to another one first. Yes, maybe you can introduce yourself briefly.

Murilo Rangel da Silva, Master Student in Political Science, Tsinghua University

Hello, everyone. My name is Murilo. I am from Brazil as well. I am a master’s student in political science at Tsinghua University, and it has been a great pleasure to study in China.

I came here in 2024 for a finance summer programme at Tsinghua as well. I also worked at the Bank of Communications in Brazil, which is a Chinese bank in Brazil. I could see how cooperation between China and Brazil has been developing so fast. This bank is especially focused on agriculture. So I see that this cooperation between Brazil and China is fundamental to creating more bridges between us.

I think that, with many scholars and through meeting Schwarzman Scholars as well, I can see that this cooperation is not just between Brazil and China, but also with the whole world.

Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you. Next is Francesca.

Francesca Pala, PKU-LSE Master student in international affairs

Hello. Hi, everyone. My name is Francesca. I am currently a postgraduate student at Tsinghua’s neighbour, Peking University. I am part of the PKU-LSE master’s programme in international affairs, but I am also quite familiar with the Schwarzman programme, which I think is incredible. I have also been involved with Yenching Academy, which is kind of the neighbouring programme, similar to Tsinghua’s Schwarzman programme.

It is a real honour and privilege to be here and to learn from your insights. Thank you so much for everything that was shared.

Being a foreigner in China and a student at Peking University has been truly an amazing experience, which I think all of us can relate to. I truly agree with what was shared about really being immersed, rather than just being temporarily in China. There is only one way to learn from China, which is to engage as much as possible with Chinese people throughout the long term. So at least a one-year programme, or ideally a two-year programme, would definitely be the best.

Thank you so much, everyone.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you. We are so pleased to know so many distinguished young people. Maybe we can move to Ms Ng.

Joey Ng, Serial Entrepreneur; Undergraduate Student, Tsinghua University

Hello. Hi, everyone. I am Joey, and I am from Malaysia. I am currently a first-year undergraduate student in the Economics and Management Department.

I am currently an entrepreneur bridging the China-Malaysia technological gap, and I am also an AI start-up founder and a student with the Yao Class. Even though this is my first year in China, I think this is a really great opportunity for me, especially as an entrepreneur, because I believe this place is full of resources. China is one of the most important places for AI and technology.

So I am really, really grateful to study here, explore, and get to know so many people here.

That is all from me. Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Let’s move to the last one. Please.

Matobbar Tanvir Parvez, young ESG professional; former President, Student Association of Belt and Road Initiative (SABRI), Tsinghua University

Thank you, everyone, and thank you for the wonderful talk. My name is Matobbar Tanvir Parvez. I am from Bangladesh, and I am a 2025 Tsinghua graduate.

Having spent the prime time of my life, almost seven years, here in China, I have had many different experiences. I also had the privilege of leading one of the largest student-led organisations on campus at Tsinghua University, and it is also one of the largest in the world.

Having this diverse experience from China, and with people from many other countries, I learned something very special here. We talked about diplomacy, and we talked about education. We are really proud to say that we are part of this core, fundamental thing that is going to drive the future of this world.

From our position, we will try our best to contribute. Thank you to all the pioneers like yourselves for guiding us on the right path.

Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you all. I just wanted to introduce these young people, these vivid examples, to all of our audience members and senior scholars who pay attention to this topic.

These young people and their experiences will shape the future of U.S.-China relations, China’s relations with the rest of the world, and world peace. The future lies in the youth.

Today, we took Schwarzman College and the Schwarzman Scholarship as an example to show how important people-to-people exchanges are. Today is just the beginning. In the future, we will see what flowers may bloom from our mutual understanding and from the future of the world.

Thank you all. As time is limited, let’s wrap up our panel here. Thank you all for your great participation, and let’s have more international cooperation for us and for the future of the world.

Thank you for your great participation.

Subscribe now

The roundtable, themed “China–U.S. Relations: From Engagement to Rivalry—Can Cooperation in Technology, Trade, Climate and Health Continue Amid Strategic Stability?,” was moderated by Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of CCG and former Counsellor of China’s State Council.

This roundtable brought together

• Jin Xu, President of the China Association of International Trade (CAIT);

• Steven Kelly, Chief Trust Officer of the Institute for Security and Technology;

• Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS);

• Wendy Kuran, Associate Vice President for Development and Alumni Engagement for Duke Kunshan University (DKU) and Duke in China;

• Roberta Lipson, Honorary Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and Founder of United Family Healthcare;

• Steve Orlins, President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations (NCUSCR);

• Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore and former singaporean ambassador to the United Nations;

• David Meale, Head of China Practice at Eurasia Group and former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in China;

• Manuel C. Menendez, Founder and CEO of MCM Holdings Group;

• Susan Shirk, research professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; director emeritus, 21st Century China Center; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affair, U.S. Department of State;

• Tammy Tam, Publisher of the South China Morning Post;

• Zhang Xiaoyan, Vice President of the China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID);

• and Zhu Hong, former Commercial Minister-Counselor at the Embassy of China in the United States.

CCG has broadcast the video recording of this roundtable on Chinese social media platforms and uploaded it to its official YouTube channel.

This transcript is based on the video recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

This post also includes a written contribution from He Weiwen, Senior Fellow, CCG; former Economic and Commercial Counsellor, Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco and New York.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder & President, CCG

Okay, great. We are starting our second opening roundtable, which is also very important and timely. This roundtable is about China–U.S. relations, from engagement to rivalry, and whether cooperation in technology, trade, climate, and health can continue amid strategic stability. I think strategic stability is a phrase that both sides are currently emphasising. We really want to see how China–U.S. relations can develop under more normal circumstances.

This session is intended to provide a comprehensive review of one of the most significant bilateral relationships in contemporary global geopolitics. The title sets the stage for a nuanced discussion on the evolution of diplomatic engagement. We also want to look at the shift from corridor handshakes, which symbolised cooperative dialogue, to the more adversarial approach we are currently experiencing.

But we are expecting President Trump to visit China next month, which would be the first high-level visit of this kind, particularly from the U.S., in almost a decade. I was just in Washington and New York recently, and we found that there are still many expectations for this high-level visit by President Trump. There is going to be discussion on establishing a trade board, and perhaps an investment board as well. I am also sure they will talk about geopolitical issues, such as what is happening in the Gulf and the Ukraine–Russia conflict. There are many global issues. President Xi and President Trump called each other some time ago. They talked about steering a gigantic ship through a turbulent ocean, and about China and the U.S. needing to work together on bigger and greater things.

So this is really the objective that we want to discuss. There are many questions that we sent out previously. What we can help with is that we really need to work diligently on how to maintain stability？ I think stability is really the buzzword that we all want to emphasise.

We have gone through the trade dispute, but there is also now a ceasefire on that. We do not know whether during this upcoming visit the fentanyl issue can be discussed, and whether the 10% tariff related to that can be dropped. Recently, I think China has also taken many actions on these issues, including on some illegal activities involving precursors. The U.S. is also working very hard against drug cartels in the region. So there must be some common ground there to work on.

Of course, we have many other areas of exchange that are also bright spots. We have people-to-people exchanges and student exchanges that still continue, even though the number of U.S. students coming to China is not as high as we would like to see. Hopefully, we can have more discussion on those issues during this process. We have also recently seen public perceptions in the U.S. and China improve somewhat. I think a recent poll indicated that young people have more positive perceptions of each other than older people do.

In the end, what strategies can we really use to implement further collaboration and stability to meet global challenges, while also ensuring that we have a normal competitive dynamic rather than a rivalry or adversarial relationship? These are some opening thoughts that we can exchange.

I would like to introduce our distinguished panel for this roundtable. First, Mr. Jin Xu, President of the China Association of International Trade and former Minister-Counsellor at the Embassy of China in the United Kingdom. The China Association of International Trade is also affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce.

We have Steven Kelly, Chief Trust Officer at the Institute for Security and Technology. We have Scott Kennedy, a well-known Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at CSIS. We have Wendy Kuran, Senior Director for Global Partnerships and Innovation and Special Adviser to the Provost of Duke University. She is also the former Associate Vice President for Development and Alumni Engagement for Duke Kunshan University here in China.

We have Roberta Lipson. She is Honorary Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and founder of the well-known United Family Healthcare. We also have Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and former President of the United Nations Security Council.

Of course, we have David Meale, Head of China Practice at Eurasia Group and former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in China. We have Manuel Menendez, Founder and CEO of MCM Holdings Group. We have Steve Orlins, President of the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations. And of course, we welcome Susan Shirk, Professor and Founding Chair of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California San Diego, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of State.

We have Tammy Tam, Publisher of the South China Morning Post, who has especially come from Hong Kong for our event. We all know that the South China Morning Post is probably one of the most influential English-language newspapers in the region.

We have Zhang Xiaoyan, Vice President of the China Center for Information Industry Development, a major think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. We also have Zhu Hong, former Commercial Minister-Counsellor at the Embassy of China in the United States. She is also very knowledgeable about China–U.S. relations.

Those are all the panellists we have for this roundtable. Let us start with Mr. Jin Xu. As President of the China Association of International Trade, what is your take on the subject of this roundtable? Mr. Jin, please.

Jin Xu, President, China Association of International Trade

The session is titled “China–U.S. Relations: From Engagement to Rivalry – Can Cooperation in Technology, Trade, Climate and Health Continue Amid Strategic Stability?” In other words, can cooperation on technology, trade, climate, and health continue as China–U.S. relations move from engagement to Rivalry under the broader context of strategic stability?

Since Zhu Hong will speak at the end, I feel a little nervous, but also reassured. Zhu Hong, if I say anything inaccurate about China–U.S. relations, please help improve and correct it. Thank you.

There are also many good friends here today. For example, Zhang Ning and I worked at the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco more than 20 years ago, in the early 2000s. He was the Education Counsellor, and I was the Commercial Counsellor. He has now retired from the Ministry of Education, and it has been a long time since we last met.

Peng Gang has worked in India and is also from China’s Ministry of Commerce. He is an expert on regional affairs. President Zhao Zhongxiu is also a visionary leader with many excellent views, and a true expert in the academic world. Ma Jianchun, who is also a president, previously served as an ambassador abroad.

Let me first say a few words in Chinese. Overall, those attending today’s session, whether mentioned just now or not, are all experts on China–U.S. relations. So today I will not use diplomatic rhetoric. Instead, I will use a few sets of latest data from the full year of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 to unpack China–U.S. relations, which are perhaps the most complex systems-engineering project in the world.

The phrase “From Engagement to Rivalry” in the title precisely captures the paradigm shift in China–U.S. relations: from comprehensive engagement towards strategic competition plus limited cooperation. Under the current circumstances, what we face is not a black-and-white break-up, but a layered and structural form of both decoupling and continued linkage.

I will discuss this based on four dimensions, though my understanding is only partial. My first visit to the United States was when I studied at Harvard Business School. At that time, the whole country was talking about the story of Clinton and Lewinsky. I did not fully understand it, but I saw that everyone was discussing it with great interest. I also learned a lot about American culture. Nearly 30 years have passed since then.

Later, I worked in the Department of American and Oceanian Affairs for nearly 10 years. At that time, China–U.S. relations were in a honeymoon period. Almost every day, people were talking about how China–U.S. relations would develop. American colleagues even proposed the concept of the G2, saying that as long as China and the United States cooperated, the world would certainly have a bright future.

For reasons I still do not fully understand, G2 cooperation did not materialise. But China–U.S. relations were indeed very close at that time. I travelled to the United States seven or eight times a year, sometimes even more than 10 times a year. So I am grateful for that period when I worked in the Department of American and Oceanian Affairs. Although it lasted only 10 years, it allowed me to fly one million kilometres and earn lifetime Air China Platinum status. I am grateful to our American colleagues at that time for their invitations and cooperation.

Why do I still call my understanding only partial after 30 years? There was a Minister-Counsellor for Commercial Affairs, Dai Yunlou, who had spent more than 10 years in the United States. Whenever we went to the embassy, we would visit him, and the Commercial Office would also support our work. Dai Yunlou once said that the United States is truly a place where the longer you stay, and the longer you engage with it, the harder it becomes to fully understand.

I did not know exactly what he meant at the time. But now I increasingly understand how he felt. Perhaps that is indeed the reality.

So I will share my limited understanding of the next four dimensions.

First is technology: hard fences with guardrails. This is the most fiercely contested arena, where cooperation has retreated from comprehensive cooperation to merely basic cooperation.

The reality is decoupling. The U.S. strategy of technological containment against China has escalated from “choking the neck” to a whole-chain stranglehold. From the CHIPS Act to the new round of Section 301 investigations, the core logic is to block China’s access to advanced process nodes, AI computing power, and high-end equipment. This is not a secret. This is an open strategy, not a secret conspiracy.

Surprisingly, technological cooperation has not completely ruptured, but has been confined within newly drawn security boundaries. The U.S.–China Science and Technology Agreement (STA), after much wrangling, was revised and renewed for five years in late 2024. Crucially, sensitive areas such as AI, semiconductors, and quantum computing were explicitly excluded. Cooperation is now preserved only in low-sensitivity areas such as basic science, agriculture, and geology.

The space exception. The opening of Chang’e-5 lunar samples to applications from U.S. institutions indicates that channels remain open in high-cost but low-security-risk domains such as deep-space exploration.

Conclusion: in technology, security trumps collaboration. Future cooperation will be limited to basic research deemed non-threatening to national security, while core frontier technologies have entered a stage of full-scale competition.

In trade: the high cost of a new normal of friction. The data tells us that trade has not decoupled, but it has entered a new normal of high costs and high friction.

The truth behind the data is this: in 2025, bilateral trade reached RMB 4.01 trillion, approximately 550 billion U.S. dollars. Chinese exports to the U.S. were RMB 3.01 trillion, while imports were RMB 1 trillion, indicating a significant surplus. Although the transaction volume has increased, the surplus has not decreased by much. This may probably disappoint Trump a little.

While the volume persists, China’s ranking among U.S. trade partners has declined, and the growth rate of bilateral trade lags behind China’s trade with ASEAN and Belt and Road countries. This suggests that the U.S. is attempting to downgrade China to an ordinary trading partner, not a core dependency—normalised friction.

I still remember that 20 years ago, China was almost the largest trading partner of the U.S., and our imports from the U.S. also increased a lot every year. Of course, we also had a lot of exports at that time.

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that some tariffs were unconstitutional, the U.S. maintains pressure through tools like Section 301 and import restrictions. Both sides have accepted a state of fighting while talking. In China, we are very familiar with this phrase, and we have probably said this a million times, 斗而不破.

So cooperation no longer pursues free trade, but crisis management: preventing a trade war from sliding into full-scale conflict. Trade represents a state of “can’t divorce”—like a couple who keep fighting and arguing: they cannot get divorced, but they cannot live well together either. So its cooperative meaning has shifted from expanding openness to building guardrails to prevent friction from spiralling out of control.

On investment: profound and structural decoupling. This area best reflects the structural nature of the current state. China’s investment in the U.S. has locked down, while U.S. capital in China still chases profit.

China’s investment in the U.S. has shifted from buying assets to finding detours. I often saw the word “detour” in the United States. When a road was under repair, there would be a sign saying “Please detour”. In China, even for a long stretch of road, the detour may last only three days. In the U.S., even for a very short stretch of road, the detour may last six months. I think both Chinese and American friends can see this difference in efficiency.

Plummeting growth: According to BEA data, Chinese FDI into the U.S. has plummeted from a peak of 27.43 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to about 589 million U.S. dollars in 2024, a drop of over 90%—barely a fraction of its former level. CFIUS reviews blocked deals such as Ant Financial’s MoneyGram and Kunlun Tech’s acquisitions. China’s strategy has been forced to shift from mergers and acquisitions to greenfield investments, such as EV battery joint-venture factories, to navigate national security reviews.

U.S. capital in China remains profit-driven and is staying put. As of the end of 2025, the stock of U.S. FDI in China was about 126.1 billion U.S. dollars, with over 70,000 enterprises remaining. Returns have been lucrative. The return on investment for U.S. firms in China has long been above the global average, reaching over 16% in some years. As Sean Stein, President of the U.S.–China Business Council, noted in an interview, investing in China is not just for the market; more importantly, it is to navigate the China platform. This is a precise explanation for Tesla’s Shanghai factory, etc.

We have a lot more examples of cooperation from U.S. companies and factories. United Family Healthcare is very popular in China and also in Beijing. After our last meeting, I met its president and sent my daughter-in-law there. I’m going to be a grandpa in two months. The service is so good, but some people say it is so expensive. I want to take this opportunity to bargain with Roberta Lipson: can we have a discount for your services?

We have a lot more to say between China and the U.S. on technology, trade, investment, etc. But because time is very limited, thank you very much for your time.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, President Jin, for really laying some groundwork for our discussion. As you said, China–U.S. relations are like a marriage. They are not divorced or separated, but they are in a strained relationship. We will see that many activities are still going on. As you said, the deficit may have been reduced, but trade still continues on a large scale. We will see where we can go.

This is an interesting roundtable. We have many panellists from different perspectives, and I am sure they will share their views on China–U.S. relations.

Next, we would like to invite Steven Kelly, Chief Trust Officer at the Institute for Security and Technology. It will also be very interesting to hear from the technology front. Thank you.

Steven Kelly, Chief Trust Officer, Institute for Security and Technology

Thank you, Henry and Mabel, for the opportunity to speak here. I was at the Shanghai Forum yesterday, and I spoke a little and listened a lot. I am carrying what I heard into this room.

I lead the technology and strategic stability programme at the Institute for Security and Technology. We are a San Francisco Bay Area think tank focused on emerging security challenges and practical solutions for them. I am travelling this week with my collaborator, Mark Beall of the AI Policy Institute, and other partners, moving between Shanghai and Beijing, looking for where Washington and Beijing might find room to work together on the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence.

This comes with the anticipation of the upcoming Xi–Trump meeting and the preparatory congressional delegation announced yesterday and reported by the South China Morning Post.

There is no shortage of AI issues that are genuinely contested: competition, export controls, military applications, a bottom-up versus top-down approach, who leads, and who follows. These are real. But if every conversation between our two countries begins and ends there, we will have very little to show for it.

So I have been asking a different question: where is the common ground? Where are the AI risks neither country can manage alone? Not geopolitically charged, not zero-sum, but where our shared exposure gives us a shared reason to act.

I think I have found one. As AI systems become more autonomous, more agentic, and more deeply integrated into critical infrastructure, a specific risk emerges: loss of control.

Loss of control occurs when an AI system diverges from its authorised constraints to a point where human operators can no longer prevent, constrain, or reverse unintended consequences. This is not science fiction. Observable warning signals are already emerging in research environments and in a limited number of production systems. The expert community is sharply divided on the likelihood and the timeline. Some believe the risk is urgent. Others believe it is overstated. I am not here to resolve that debate. I am here to say the disagreement itself is a reason to act, not a reason to wait.

At IST, we recently published a framework that makes this problem legible. To identify where intervention might still be possible, we borrowed from national security practice: indications and warning methodology, a structured approach developed over decades for detecting early signals of emerging threats before they become crises.

Applied to AI, the result is a set of loss-of-control indicators: observable behaviours signalling that a system may be progressing toward a loss-of-control event. Scheming, deception, self-preservation, and unauthorised resource acquisition. These are not hypothetical. There are documented instances that exist in controlled experiments and, in some cases, in deployed systems.

So we paired these with a severity schema: a five-level threat scale where a critical threshold exists. Below it, intervention can still prevent escalation. Above it, the system cannot be restored to a safe state without destructive measures. The schema would give policymakers a shared language across different technical backgrounds and regulatory frameworks, especially valuable across borders.

This is why I raise it here. Loss of control does not respect national boundaries. If a frontier AI system anywhere begins exhibiting these indicators, the consequences are global. And notice what kind of issue this is. It is not an AI race. It is not chip exports. It is not military advantage, but a risk on which Washington and Beijing could find common cause, and one that can serve as a confidence-building measure.

Collective efforts like this are, at their core, acts of stewardship. They say: we do not yet know how serious this risk will become, but we refuse to be caught without the tools to recognise it. We refuse to pass that uncertainty unexamined to the next generation.

That instinct to watch carefully, to name what we see, and to act before it is too late is not a Western instinct or an Eastern instinct. It is a human one. AI loss of control is a problem the world did not ask for. But it is also an opportunity to demonstrate that nations can find common cause on risks that threaten everyone, building trust and strategic stability. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Steven, also for keeping within five minutes. That is great. A lot of good points.

Now I would like to invite Scott Kennedy, a veteran China hand and Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at CSIS. Scott, your turn.

Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Thank you very much, Henry, and to all of your colleagues at the Center for China and Globalization for inviting me to participate. The remarks that everyone has made so far are really inspiring, obviously identifying some very serious systemic challenges, but also solutions.

I am in the solutions business as well, and I am going to conclude with some ideas to try and complement some of the other suggestions others have made. But first, a little on the challenges.

In 2011, when I was a professor, we opened a research centre office at UIBE, in the China Institute for WTO Studies, and were there for two years. In 2011, the 10th anniversary of China’s WTO entry, we held a joint conference, and Long Yongtu spoke at that conference. In his opening remarks, he emphasised that in 2001, many people in China said we ought to make these changes because they would provide progress. But several years later, a lot of people were seeing those changes as concessions. Originally 进步 progress, and then they became 让步 concessions.

In the United States, there has also been significant thinking about China’s WTO entry and a lot of regrets. I think if we held a vote about WTO entry today, it would not have the same kind of outcome. People worried about the China shock. Now they are talking about the second China shock. And of course, now we are facing a lot of economic security fears that we were not facing back then.

China has gone ahead of the curve to manage a lot of those economic security risks: the Great Firewall, a closed capital account, requiring joint ventures. All of these things were created to mitigate the risks of interdependence.

The U.S. is in the process of pulling back its connectivity, of de-risking. But the impulse is the same by both sides. Both are worried about technology leakage, supply-chain dependence, data security, energy security, and economic coercion. So both sides, and others, are taking what they see as defensive measures to protect against those things, while the other side sees them as weaponisation of interdependence.

We now have a security dilemma in which both sides are taking actions against the other, creating a vicious cycle that is very difficult to escape. As a result, there are no clear rules of the game for managing any of this. We no longer have standards for how to manage issues of fairness, and there have never been clear rules around how to manage economic security challenges.

Last month, I published a report through CSIS called “The Power of Innovation: The Strategic Advantages of China’s High-Tech Drive,” in which I analyse where China is going technologically, what it means for its international power, and how the world needs to adapt. The U.S. is no longer consistently in the technology lead. Sometimes it is neck and neck, and in some industries it is falling behind. So we need a new set of ideas to manage a changing circumstance.

I hope Jin Xu is incorrect that we are inevitably headed toward some sort of managed strategic decoupling, because it will not be very managed. In my report, I proposed the idea of calibrated coupling, or 精准挂钩, which identifies where there are advantages to our economies and national security from being connected, but also where there are risks from those connections and how to manage them.

It basically identifies three different categories, and three places where we need to turn the dial to calibrate our connectivity. At one end, we need restrictive measures to limit connectivity, for example, on military dual-use technologies. In some areas, we need to turn the dial toward much greater openness, maybe a green light, in areas related to knowledge: scholarly exchange, the development of international technical standards, and work on public health.

In the middle are all the challenging ones, where we need conditional connectivity, where we develop tools to mitigate the risks, because some of those risks are imagined, but some are really quite real. Think of the TikTok solution, where you have investment in this social media company in the United States, a joint venture, data localisation rules, regulation over the software, etc.

I have been running around collecting those kinds of tools that we can use to manage supply-chain risks, data, technology leakage, and many others. I would welcome suggestions from others about how to mitigate these challenges.

If we do not mitigate these challenges, whether they are real or imagined, then we will end up in a much more fragmented world where everyone will suffer compared to the situation we are in now. And if you think your security challenges are challenging now because of interdependence, in a less interdependent, more fragmented world, the security challenges will actually be far worse.

So we owe it to ourselves to look for these kinds of tools, guardrails, and other mechanisms, because the alternative is far worse. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Scott. I think you are right. We are in an interdependent world, and if we really become decoupled, de-risked, and separated, that would be even more dangerous. Then we would have no worries, no baggage, and might more easily move into conflict.

You are right that we have to establish some guidelines and norms in safeguarding mutual dependency, probably at a manageable level. That is why I think it is absolutely good that President Trump is coming, and that there will be discussions about a trade board: how we conduct normal trade. There may also be an investment board: how we can really invest in each other at an acceptable level. That is very important.

We also have several high-level meetings at the G20 and APEC summits. I hope we could have another moment of trade discussion between China and the U.S. at the Trump level.

Now I would like to invite Ms. Wendy Kuran. She is Senior Director for Global Partnerships and Innovation and Special Adviser to the Provost of Duke University. She is very active in people-to-people exchanges and student exchanges, and was Associate Vice President for Duke Kunshan University. Wendy, please.

Wendy Kuran, Associate Vice President for Development and Alumni Engagement, Duke Kunshan University and Duke in China

Thank you so much, Henry. I am going to start by quoting Professor William Kirby, the Harvard history professor many of you know or know of. He is an expert in the history of higher education and also U.S.–China business, among other things. He said that throughout history, universities have outlasted governments. I think that’s a useful perspective to have in the midst of this very turbulent time.

Bill was instrumental around 2009 and the early 2010s in helping Duke University conceptualise and create Duke Kunshan University as a Sino-foreign joint venture. Obviously, that was a time when globalisation was cool and there was so much optimism about endless collaboration. He is now a member of our advisory board, as is Henry, and Susan Shirk has been part of that as an inaugural member. It has been great to have their guidance.

I don’t think there is a need or time to go through all the reasons why universities outlast governments. But at the highest level, I think we need to acknowledge that the creation and dissemination of knowledge and the education of young people is, I would say, almost a basic human drive in every civilisation. To be able to do this in a way that exposes students to the best ideas throughout history, across cultures and countries, is very much an aspiration.

And I think the drive to do this is still very much alive, despite the fact that now we are in 2026 and the founding conditions are a little different. But I would like to mention the following. Despite these ups and downs, and lots of times to turn back, including a pandemic, DKU is now thriving. We have about 3,000 students from 70 countries, primarily undergraduates, in a very interesting and innovative liberal arts curriculum.

We have an Institute for Global Higher Education to spread everything DKU knows to anyone who wants it, including Chinese universities. Recently, in the last couple of years, applications from both Chinese students here in the PRC and international students have grown by about 30% to 40% a year.

So young people know that this kind of experience is really important to their future, and especially international students know that being able to understand China is going to be something important. Lots of Americans are applying. We have several who get into both Duke and Duke Kunshan, and half of them choose to come to Duke Kunshan.

I think it is not that universities can live in a bubble outside history. Universities are very much part of history. But I think there is reason to have some optimism about ways that dialogue can continue, and young people can have a foundation where they might view the world differently and make different decisions when it is their turn to lead.

I will put one caveat on that lovely ending, which is that as a university focused mostly on undergraduate education, we are not really engaging in the kind of difficult research collaboration that is increasingly frowned upon. But let’s reground ourselves in the basics of what it takes to be a successful human being, and a leader who really understands across cultures. I appreciate the chance to be here. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you very much, Wendy, for your excellent intervention. This is basically a shining example of the continued cooperation that we have seen between China and the U.S. We have this marvellous Duke Kunshan University, which is very successful and also brings many American students to China. We also just celebrated the 10th anniversary of Schwarzman College. In Shanghai, we have many good examples as well. But I think DKU has really remained one of the pioneers in China–U.S. student exchanges. Thank you for that contribution.

Now, moving away from universities, we would like to hear from Roberta Lipson. You are Honorary Chair of AmCham China and founder of United Family Healthcare. As Mr. Jin just said, you originally sowed the seeds of a major hospital in China with U.S. origins. Please.

Roberta Lipson, Honorary Chair, American Chamber of Commerce in China; Founder, United Family Healthcare

Thank you so much. Thank you, Henry. Thank you, Mabel, for bringing together so many experienced and wise voices. I am really honoured to be able to join in.

I want to talk about how healthcare can contribute to the U.S.–China relationship. In light of the recent thawing in U.S.–China relations, I am pretty confident that the upcoming presidential summit will produce a number of transactional wins, most probably soybean and aircraft orders and further tariff reductions, which will help stabilise the mood in the business community.

Furthermore, the slightly more gentle tone during the recent visit to China by Cheng Li-wun gives me hope that Taiwan may not be the dominant issue of contention during the upcoming leaders’ summit. But if we want to further solidify durable stability in U.S.–China relations, we should also strive for progress not only on commerce but on issues that affect the well-being of both societies: healthcare, climate change, data security, and AI governance—areas where cooperation is not only possible but mutually beneficial, and where the costs of missed opportunities could be extraordinarily high.

I would like to focus on the opportunity for cooperation in healthcare. Both countries face rapidly ageing populations, rising burdens of cancer and chronic disease, and the shared imperative to prepare for the next pandemic. Meanwhile, biomedical science is advancing at unprecedented speed in both nations, but increasingly on separate, isolated tracks.

Historically, cooperation in healthcare has delivered real and measurable benefits. Beyond the landmark folic acid study of the 1990s that dramatically reduced neural tube defects, the two countries have worked together for decades on influenza surveillance, building a system in China that now contributes directly to global flu vaccine strain selection.

There was also deep collaboration on HIV/AIDS prevention, tobacco control, and vaccine safety regulation. These efforts saved lives in both countries and strengthened global health security. And I must add my gratitude to Steve Orlins for the National Committee’s Track II healthcare dialogue, which promoted exchange throughout many of these years.

U.S. pharmaceutical companies have also profited greatly through their access to China’s market, bringing life-saving therapies to millions. U.S. biomedical research benefited from the contribution of thousands of Chinese scientists working in American labs.

But as relations deteriorated during the first Trump administration, accelerated by mutual COVID-era suspicions, government-to-government health cooperation collapsed. Many Chinese scientists left the U.S. or felt unwelcome. Academic exchanges stalled, pharmaceutical investments slowed, and new restrictions on cross-border data flows made collaborative research, including the sharing of genetic data, far more difficult.

Yet even amid this decoupling, China’s own pharmaceutical innovation has accelerated. In 2024 alone, China approved 48 first-in-class innovative drugs. Chinese companies are now global leaders in several cutting-edge therapeutic areas, many of which are already being out-licensed to Western firms for global development and distribution. This is a profound shift. Western pharma increasingly sees China not just as a market, but as a source of innovation.

Chinese patients, meanwhile, still want timely access to Western breakthroughs without worrying about export controls or prohibitive tariffs. Regulatory harmonisation could help both sides. The U.S. FDA’s Project Orbis, which enables simultaneous multi-country review of new cancer drugs, has already been signed on by more than a dozen regulatory agencies worldwide. But China is not yet a participant. But if it were, patients in both countries could gain faster, more reliable access to life-saving therapies supported by shared clinical trial data and aligned standards.

I would like to highlight an area of recent progress. Cooperation on fentanyl-related issues has yielded significant results. China has made progress in controlling precursor production and exports. Although the U.S. did lower certain tariffs in response, credit for this should be more further publicly acknowledged, which could help lower the anti-China temperature on Capitol Hill and among the public.

But in my opinion, it would be most dangerous for our governments to ignore reopening the conversation on pandemic preparedness. Having lived through both SARS and COVID as a healthcare provider in China, I can say with certainty that avoiding open dialogue on surveillance, early warning, and data sharing will guarantee future disaster. Engaging on this and the other issues I mentioned, by contrast, could save millions of lives and build trust for further developments. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Roberta. Excellent. It is really impressive. We see some bright spots in China–U.S. collaboration. I totally agree with you. The pharmaceutical area is one of the bright areas.

Recently, during the China Development Forum, I hosted the U.S. pharmaceutical association. They brought many CEOs, and the president of the association came to China for the first time in a decade. He was quite impressed. There is huge potential for medical and pharmaceutical collaboration between China and the U.S.

Thank you for sharing that. Also, thank you for saying that on the fentanyl front, we have made a lot of progress. I hope this 10% levy related to fentanyl can be dropped during President Trump’s visit to China. I also hope that we can open visas for all U.S. citizens. The U.S. remains the last G7 country not to receive visa-free treatment from China.

I understand Steve Orlins has another engagement and has to leave a little early, so maybe I will turn to you now. Steve, President of the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations.

Steve Orlins, President, National Committee on United States-China Relations (NCUSCR)

Let me just briefly talk about something we do, which is fostering cooperation. We have eight Track II dialogues with China. These are basically former ministers of the U.S. government in their specific areas of expertise, along with technical experts in the areas.

Of those eight, in five we have reached what we call consensus agreements. We are completely transparent, so if you go on our website, ncuscr.org, you will see each of the five dialogues where we reached consensus. We reached consensus on a people-to-people dialogue, a macroeconomic dialogue, a climate change dialogue, a healthcare dialogue, as Roberta mentioned and participates in, and even a digital economy dialogue.

We meet for two days, and then we negotiate these consensus agreements for many months. It does not happen overnight. But what always amazes me is that the technical experts from the United States and China agree on most things. There is enormous agreement in the healthcare dialogue. Roberta, it is amazing. There is enormous agreement.

There may not be agreement between the Chinese side and the Chinese government, or the U.S. side and the U.S. government, but there is agreement between the technical experts on both sides.

Let me just briefly read something from our digital economy dialogue. Our digital economy dialogue covers AI and semiconductors. We publish who participates in it. It has some of America’s leading experts, including the former Director of National Intelligence of the United States. The Chinese side also has a number of experts.

But just listen to what it says. There is such agreement among the technical experts:

“Continuing difficulties and disagreements in the bilateral relationship between China and the United States are continuing to generate considerable uncertainty in the digital economy and across associated supply chains, leading to significant cost inefficiencies and duplication of effort that reduce the potential benefits of deploying the most dynamic technologies in the world to citizens from both countries. Failure to agree on global standards and general trade rules is leading towards more and not less decoupling in the technology sector, to the detriment of progress in technology cooperation that would be mutually beneficial and bring advantages to global technology supply chains. In general, digital economy experts in both countries believe it is possible to reach areas of agreement for which government officials under short-term political pressure have so far been unable to develop workable approaches. To avoid extreme decoupling and fragmentation, exploring cooperative pathways for win-win outcomes will depend on rebuilding trust as the primary prerequisite for breaking the current uncertainty.”

We go on and we talk about the benefits for the peoples of both countries from this cooperation. What we go on to say, is that the Trump–Xi meetings have given us breathing room, where we can create some areas where we can really cooperate.

But it is only going to happen if both governments bring technical experts into these negotiations. So we are cautiously optimistic, that we are not going to see results next month, but we will likely, we hope, see the creation of working groups, which will then allow us to begin to set paths for agreement on how to work through these issues. Thanks.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Steve, for this very encouraging note. You mentioned seven or eight Track 1.5 or Track II bilateral talks that the National Committee has been championing for a number of years. That is very significant.

I think it is absolutely true that if we bring in technical expertise, and if we have a genuine interest in dialogue, we can always find things on which to collaborate. This should really be congratulated. Thank you for your leadership in driving these bilateral dialogues and Track II sessions. I think this is really significant, and we hope we can do more of this.

We hope that as President Trump comes to China this year, and subsequently perhaps the Chinese president goes to the U.S., the two summits, and another two high-level summits, could put China–U.S. relations into a more stabilised phase, so that people can come back to common sense and explore all these peaceful ways of coexistence. We do not have to be rivals or adversaries. This is really a great discussion.

Now I would like to invite Professor Kishore Mahbubani. You have a lot of wisdom, and we would like to ask you, from an Asian specialist’s point of view, about China–U.S. relations. Kishore, please.

Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; former singaporean ambassador to the United Nations

Thank you. Thank you, Henry, for giving me a third occasion to speak. Let me assure everyone this is my last presentation. You can relax.

I am also probably the only member of the panel who is neither American nor Chinese. So I want to emphasise that I speak as a friend of America and as a friend of China, with the goal of trying to help the U.S.–China relationship. Let me make one simple point very clear: what happens between the U.S. and China does not stay in the U.S. and China. It shakes up the whole world. So the rest of the world also has a stake in what happens in the U.S.–China relationship.

That is also why I wrote my book “Has China Won?” in an effort to try to help both sides come together. It turned out to be my bestselling book because people around the world are interested in what is going to happen between the U.S. and China.

The main thesis of my book was that a major U.S.–China contest is both inevitable and avoidable. That is a paradox. Why is it inevitable? Here, I can only say that, as a student of geopolitics for 55 years, geopolitics has been around for thousands of years. When you have such a major power transition as the one you are seeing between the United States and China, there are sort of iron laws of geopolitics that emerge in the human fabric, and they are driving this contest. There are huge geopolitical forces.

So if you ask me what my gut feeling is, my gut feeling is that the contest between the U.S. and China will get worse over the next decade, only because history is driving this contest.

But at the same time, as a rational human being, I also believe that a major U.S.–China contest is avoidable. If you want to achieve the avoidable dimension, you have to make a huge effort to see what can be done to change the dynamic.

From my point of view, one thing I have tried to suggest over and over again is: why do both sides not approach this issue as rationally as possible and conduct a simple cost-benefit analysis? Are you better off trying to drag each other down, or are you better off trying to work together?

It would be good to do this dispassionately and rationally, because then you will discover all kinds of things that you may otherwise take for granted. I call the three dimensions the people, profit, and planet dimensions, if you do the cost-benefit analysis.

On the people dimension, there is clearly a huge consensus in the United States that the reason why many people in America have lost their jobs is the huge China shock: that China sucked away jobs from America, and therefore people in America suffered as a result of working with China, and therefore the U.S. must build a wall against China.

But you can also subject strong convictions like that to rational social-science analysis. In my book, I quote Angus Deaton and Anne Case in their studies. The reason why the incomes of the bottom 50% have stagnated over the last few decades is not due only to the China shock. There are also domestic political and economic forces that have caused this huge disparity in incomes within the United States.

So social science can correct some of the grounded suppositions in what is going on between the U.S. and China. Study this carefully and analyse it. I think objectively, one can make the case that both the people of the United States and China will be better off with more cooperation, and you can show this in various ways.

For example, in the profit dimension, it is very clear that if American companies can cooperate freely with Chinese companies, both can flourish and do well. Let me give you a concrete example. I have been reading the papers about Ford Motor Company trying to team up with Chinese battery companies to create new kinds of electric vehicles. Clearly, that kind of venture would make Ford incredibly profitable and productive. Yet what happens? It runs into a wall of political resistance and it cannot take off. That is an example of why you have to use rational analysis to prove that both sides would be better off.

On the planetary front, it is very clear that there is no way we can fight climate change, pandemics, and all that if the U.S. and China do not collaborate. I am glad, Steve, that you mentioned the new frontier of AI, because if you do autonomous AI taking off, going to every corner of the planet, and destroys systems, companies, universities, and so on around the world, then clearly there is a need for the U.S. and China to come together to deal with this common threat.

That is why I actually said in my book “Has China Won?” that what we should wish for is for aliens to come to our world and threaten all of us. That is the way we would get the U.S. and China to cooperate. Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. I hope they do exploration on the Moon and Mars, of course, with China and the U.S. working together. Absolutely, we need that. But we also have many common threats: climate, pandemics, and financial crises. We have many incentives to work together.

Now I would like to invite David Meale. He is Head of China Practice at Eurasia Group and former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in China. David, please.

David Meale, Head of China Practice, Eurasia Group; former Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy in China

Hi, everybody. What a great morning. So much insight. I really appreciate the reflective thinking about the turbulence in the world right now and the fragmentation of the global order.

I am with Eurasia Group. I just joined this year. I was a U.S. diplomat for 33 years, and I am deeply enjoying the new perspective I get from working all day with the largest corporations in the world, the largest banks, and the largest funds, and seeing how U.S.–China relations fit into their perspective.

I will tell you something: I have a great sense of job security in this turbulent world right now. I deal with companies that are just trying to stick to their knitting. What they want to do is invest in businesses and opportunities on their own terms. They want to pick the right stocks based on how a firm is run. What they do not want to do is figure out how geopolitics is turning everything upside down for them. But that is indeed what is going on. That is what my firm does: we help everyone figure out how to factor that risk into what they are doing.

We are famous for the expression “G-Zero,” and that is kind of what we have been talking about this morning. G-Zero means we have entered a world—we actually came up with this in 2011—where no one actor can sustainably lead the global order. We are there.

But I want to give you a little corollary to that. We have also entered a world where if the U.S. and China come together, they together can constructively lead much of the world through elements of that turbulent order. I think we need to keep that in mind today.

We are also famous for our Top Ten Risks report, which comes out on the first workday of every year. In 2025, the top risk was that G-Zero was going to win and we were never going to get out from under it. In 2026, our top risk is that a political revolution in the United States is going to be extraordinarily disruptive.

Political revolution does not mean that it succeeds. It is the act of the administration that we have redirecting the reins of power in different ways, whether domestically or internationally. We are certainly seeing that play out in Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, Panama, Iran, and in all sorts of ways. So I think all our reflections today are absolutely spot-on in terms of what I am observing.

But I have had a few interesting conversations lately about a risk that I think needs to be at the top, or at least in the top three. That is where we are going right now on AI, and this is very relevant to the upcoming Trump–Xi summit. That is why I want to dwell on it.

I was talking with a leading AI expert the other day, and he said to me: AI capabilities are doubling every four months. That is exponential. That means by the time of the next U.S. presidential inauguration, AI will, in theory, be 250 times more powerful than it is today. Now, it probably will not get that far, but I think we will be talking about something closer to that number than to zero. The implications are very significant.

We believe the new Mythos model that Anthropic has arrived at, and fortunately not released publicly, is an extraordinary development in AI and bears watching. It bears the attention of the U.S. and Chinese governments.

Why does this matter so much? We are looking at critical infrastructure vulnerabilities. We are looking at potentially the end of digital privacy, whether on the military front, the personal ID front, or the corporate security front. These are huge outcomes.

What we are very possibly going to get from this is a new sense of threat by both the United States and China with regard to AI. So I believe it is very important that we impress upon our leaders to take their newfound cooperation and drive towards stability that we are seeing here in 2026, and take every opportunity to expand that into the AI realm.

Donald Trump will come in a few weeks. I am not hearing a whole lot of talk about a big AI agenda. But when I was here as Deputy of the embassy, we got started with China and made some progress under President Biden. Presidents Trump and Xi are likely to meet three more times this year. There will be APEC, there will be G20, and there will be a Xi visit to the U.S.

My hope right now is that they are privately working on an agenda that will be expanded into the AI zone, and that it will take into account that these developments are not coming from governments. The developments we are talking about today are coming from private companies. Everybody needs to be in this conversation, and we all have a lot of work to do. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, David, for your very constructive input. Absolutely, AI is the largest uncertain and uncharted territory. The U.S. and China, being the two largest AI powers, absolutely need to collaborate and avoid any catastrophe or AI swallowing human beings if we are not careful. This is so important. I think it is the right recommendation that this subject be put on the agenda of high-level meetings between the two leaders, as they have several opportunities to meet. That is a very good recommendation.

Now I would like to invite Manuel Menendez. He is the Founder and CEO of MCM Holdings Group. I know you have been in China for many years. What is your take on China–U.S. relations?

Manuel C. Menendez, Founder and CEO, MCM Holdings Group

First of all, Henry and Mabel, thank you for inviting me. I am a little bit of a fish out of water here. I am just a humble small business guy in China. I have been here since 1979.

I will use the quote from Laozi that the longest journey begins with the first step. In 1979, I came and put together the first U.S.–China equity joint venture. In fact, Steve Orlins, who just left, was working at the law firm Paul, Weiss, and his law firm was my law firm that helped put that joint venture together. We built a food factory in South China called Guangmei Foods, and ever since then, I have been active in China.

What I have seen in China myself is not good, it is not great, it is a miracle, because of the scale of development in China and the speed of development in China. What has always impressed me, when I met the early leaders: Gu Mu, Chen Muhua, Wan Li, Rong Yiren, all the leaders—Deng Xiaoping actually gave me my Chinese name, 孟德士. When I met the early leaders, they were like teachers; they let me understand the way to do business in China through collaboration and partnership.

I remember meeting the Party Secretary of Shanghai, Jiang Zemin. We met at the Peace Hotel. At that time, we had finished the joint venture, and China was moving from a planned economy to a market economy. The main point back then was export, export, export, and making things to get hard currency, because in the beginning, China’s currency was not blocked. So the only way to get hard currency to buy modern equipment was through exports and selling things.

I had a bicycle project with Forever 永久 and Phoenix 凤凰 to make bicycles, because I knew how to make bicycles. From there, we started making money, bringing the money back to China, and then growing the business platform.

There are so many scholars and policymakers here today. I am very impressed to be among such a distinguished group, so I thank you for that. But let us think about going forward, about th President Xi and President Trump meeting.

One of the things that has to happen is that we have to get back to some level of mutual respect and trust. Nothing is going to happen unless there is mutual respect and trust. I know that is hard and very difficult to do. But I think what has been missing is the frequency of meetings. We have to have more frequent meetings at every level. I think that is picking up, but there still has to be more frequent meetings.

I loved what Susan Shirk mentioned earlier about having courage, and what was also mentioned about doing the right thing, not by polls, but by doing the right thing that helps the world.

If you look at the China–U.S. economies together, they account for about 45% of the GDP of the world. If you add the European Union, that is 60% of the world’s GDP.

When I first came to China, there was no private industry. Now 95% of businesses in China are private enterprises. That represents 50% of tax income in China today, 60% of Chinese GDP, 70% of technological innovation, and 80% of new jobs. So private industry, which was zero when I came here, is now a major part of the economy and driving the economy.

I am hoping and praying that when President Xi and President Trump get together, one of the things I would love to see, besides the transactions that I think Roberta mentioned—buying planes, selling planes, selling grain, and getting our agricultural sector back online—is really some tariff relief, some tariff common sense.

We know that tariffs do not work, and that only consumers pay for tariffs in the end. We can go back to the Smoot-Hawley days in 1930, and we know that tariffs create only losers. There are no winners. So I hope that happens.

The other thing I hope happens is that there will be a policy that allows China to invest in the United States more openly, just like Japan did in the 1980s. There should be a BYD joint venture with Ford or whoever in the United States. Use the technology in which China is advanced and make it a benefit in the U.S. for U.S. consumers. Why not?

If there is overcapacity in solar, use that solar overcapacity and work together, China and the U.S., to provide electricity to countries that need it. Work together, not apart.

I think that is what we need to get back to doing: trust each other, get back to more frequent engagement with each other, hold more meetings, and work through what I call finding common ground, while also working through the thorny issues.

The last thing I will say is that I hope and pray there is a clear definition of what national security is, because everything cannot be national security. This thing is national security, that thing is national security. And that is not acceptable. That is one of the barriers we need to eliminate. I will stop there, Henry. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Manuel, for your excellent remarks. I agree with you. We need to build trust. This is crucial between the two biggest economies. I also agree that we should not overemphasise the securitisation of everything, because jeopardising prosperity and economic development is probably the biggest risk that we need to de-risk. We have to safeguard common development. Thank you for your comments.

Now we turn to the well-known and famous Susan Shirk, Professor at the 21st Century China Center at the University of California San Diego. We would like to hear from you again. Thank you, Susan.

Susan Shirk, research professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; director emeritus, 21st Century China Center; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affair, U.S. Department of State

I am sorry to keep speaking on every panel, but I got my instructions, so I am doing it.

My original thought on this panel was to mention the potential for Chinese foreign direct investment in the United States. At the 21st Century China Center, we have a working group trying to develop principles for Chinese FDI in the United States, which, as has been noted earlier, kind of plummeted after 2016.

We have a notion that we call selective openness. This effort is led by my colleague Peter Cowhey, who has a lot of experience with technology, trade, and investment in previous administrations.

Obviously, now, with the tariffs that exist between the U.S. and China, foreign direct investment is the obvious market solution to bilateral trade imbalances. We saw this, of course, in the 1980s and 1990s between the United States and Japan.

But in the United States, our thinking about this has been dominated by security risks. Of course, there are real security risks. But there are also potential benefits. In many other countries, they weigh the benefits as well as the risks in evaluating investment projects, and we think that we should do that in the United States as well.

CFIUS has proven to be a valuable and pretty flexible approach on the security-risk side. But we are proposing ways of modifying that with templates that will also incorporate the value to the United States of taking advantage of China’s advances in technology, and trying to look at the potential for licensing, joint ventures, as well as wholly owned investments by Chinese companies.

But let me just take a minute. I think there is real potential there, and certainly, President Trump has expressed a positive view. But I am not terribly optimistic that these leaders’ meetings will get into this area and make much progress. We are looking at this as a long-term proposition, not just at the leaders’ meetings.

Let me say, as a former government official who served in government during a period when there was an exchange of leaders’ visits, with Jiang Zemin coming to the United States in 1997 and President Clinton coming to China in 1998, that the value of these meetings is not just the leaders’ face-to-face communication, but the preparation that normally goes into these meetings at the staff level.

It provides an opportunity for the two sides to make clear what their objectives are and to negotiate with one another before the leaders ever talk directly with one another. What I find really frustrating about the current situation is the absolute lack of diplomatic preparation for these visits.

I know the Chinese side and the Foreign Ministry are very frustrated, because the obstacle is definitely on the U.S. side. Without this kind of preparation, it is really a kind of diplomatic malpractice, in my view.

I think you will get some discussions about trade. You’ll maybe get the ability to sustain the Busan truce between the two countries. But security issues, people-to-people ties, and all the other dimensions of U.S.–China relations that these two leaders could be and should be discussing—I do not see any indication that they will get to those. It is really a tragic loss of opportunity.

Without preparation, I do not see any hope, really, that we are going to get there. Now, maybe they will lay out an agenda for President Xi’s subsequent visit to the United States. Maybe there will be a third and fourth meeting as well. None of that is for sure. But it is so frustrating and really potentially tragic not to have put the time and energy into the preparation for these meetings.

It reflects the nature of these personalistic leadership systems, that you do not get input positive ideas coming from the bottom up, certainly on the American side, which is really a tremendous loss. Sorry to be pessimistic.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Susan, for your great intervention. I hope policymakers on both sides can hear our roundtable. We have injected some new narratives, particularly on investment. I think there is already talk about an investment board that is going to be on the agenda between the summits.

President Trump said during his campaign that if BYD set up in Mexico, he would levy a 200% tariff, but if they invested in the U.S., they would be free from that. I know many Chinese companies want to invest.

Susan Shirk

I hope I am wrong.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, I hope you are wrong. I know one of the biggest sugar manufacturers produces a lot of vitamin candies, and the U.S. is its biggest market. He has always dreamed of opening a factory in the U.S. For those non-sensitive, non-security-related areas, we can really open the door.

I remember that a few years ago, the U.S. Embassy had a section aimed at attracting Chinese investment. They visited manufacturers in China and encouraged them to invest in the U.S. We hope that can come back.

Now we would like to have Ms. Tammy Tam, Publisher of one of the biggest English-language newspapers in the region, the South China Morning Post. We would like to hear from you.

Tammy Tam, Publisher, South China Morning Post

Thank you very much, Henry and Mabel, for having me. It is really my great honour and pleasure to be back in Beijing again. I was here last year, and this year I am so happy to see many old friends and also get to know new friends.

There are so many experts in this room, and we have heard both optimistic and pessimistic views about China–U.S. relations. I would just like to share a few personal takes.

First of all, thank you, Henry, for saying such nice words about the South China Morning Post. Actually, Henry Wang is a regular contributor to SCMP. I hope you will also find SCMP a useful tool for understanding China. We try to unbox the many complexities of China’s policy and China–U.S. relations.

As Professor Kishore just mentioned, he is the only non-Chinese and non-American on this panel. I must say I am Chinese, of course, but I am probably the only person from Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China. So I want to share some perspectives from the Hong Kong angle.

Also, because I have been in the media industry for decades—I used to be editor-in-chief for about 10 years before I took up this job as publisher—I also want to speak from a journalistic perspective.

Some people may say the messier the world is, the better for journalism. It helps clicks and ratings. But I would like to say that is not completely the case. It does help, but there is also news fatigue among readers if we keep reporting wars, conflicts, and all this very discouraging news. That is also true. We are all human beings. We want the world to be better. We want to see beautiful things. That is why we also want to report something nice, something encouraging, and something about joint efforts that can make the world better.

We all talk about whether President Trump is coming to China. Given the unpredictability of everything, and as Professor Susan Shirk just mentioned, the lack of preparation from the U.S. side, I think we still need to wait and see. Of course, we so hope that he can come, and then both leaders can have this kind of direct conversation and lay the groundwork for the future of China–U.S. relations.

What does China–U.S. relations mean for Hong Kong, or what is Hong Kong’s role in this China–U.S. wrestling? Some experts in this room talked about middle powers this morning. Hong Kong, of course, is just a city. But under “one country, two systems” in China, I personally think Hong Kong has a critical role to play in terms of China–U.S. relations.

Historically, Hong Kong has a very long history of Hong Kong–U.S. connections. Some of you may know, and some may not, that the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong is the oldest one in our city. It started more than 183 years ago, in 1843. This is a very long history.

Also, when President Trump waged this tariff war under the name of the trade deficit, Hong Kong actually had a trade surplus with the U.S. Last year it was 28 billion U.S. dollars.

Time is running out, so let me quickly talk about Hong Kong. Under China’s new five-year plan, Hong Kong has been designated as a future centre. Hong Kong is already an international financial centre, but Beijing wants Hong Kong to further enhance this status. Last year, Hong Kong topped the world in IPOs in terms of number and volume, and this year the momentum continues.

Hong Kong is also being designated as a future talent hub for the whole China. It is not just an ordinary talent hub, but a high-end talent hub. We see many talents coming to Hong Kong, not only from mainland China but from around the world coming to Hong Kong.

Right now, there is one mega-project in Hong Kong, which we call the Northern Metropolis. We also call it building another Hong Kong in the border area with Shenzhen. It is as big as one-third of Hong Kong’s total area. Anyone who has been to Hong Kong knows that Hong Kong has three parts: Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The future Northern Metropolis will be bigger than Hong Kong Island. We have already attracted quite a lot of foreign investment, especially in high-tech, pharmaceuticals, biotech, etc.

The Hong Kong government just announced that AstraZeneca has already set up a research centre in the Northern Metropolis. The Northern Metropolis will also be designed as Hong Kong’s new university city. All the top universities in Hong Kong are now preparing to set up campuses there, because it borders Shenzhen.

Having said all this, it is not just about Hong Kong itself. It is about Hong Kong and Shenzhen, and the Greater Bay Area. You must have heard about the GBA. The GBA now has a population of 87 million, and by 2030 it is going to have 100 million. Hong Kong is part of this GBA: Hong Kong, Macao, and nine cities in Guangdong. It will be a major driving force for China’s economy.

We are all talking about the potential May visit by President Trump to China. Later this year, in October, the APEC finance ministers’ meeting will be held in Hong Kong, with the blessing of the central government in Beijing. In November, there will be the APEC leaders’ summit. I am sure there will be a lot of American businesspeople coming to China together with President Trump, and probably for APEC as well. We also understand there will be a business leaders’ summit. I am sure many U.S. businesspeople who are wise enough, like many people here, can see the potential in China.

Hong Kong is now also coming up with its own five-year plan to align with the national one. We will focus on tech, R&D, and education. Hong Kong is also a free market. Despite all this tariff war, the Hong Kong government has decided that we are a free port. We do not take retaliatory measures against any country.

To put it in a nutshell, the title of our panel is about “China–U.S. Relations: From Engagement to Rivalry—Can Cooperation in these areas Continue Amid Strategic Stability?” To me, it is not just “can”—it is “should we” and “how”. I am sure the wisdom in this room can drive government and non-government forces to join hands and think about how we should promote China–U.S. relations on all fronts. I am sure Hong Kong can play a role. You are all welcome to visit Hong Kong sometime. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Tammy, for giving us a lot of encouraging news from Hong Kong.

Now I would like to invite Ms. Zhang Xiaoyan. She is Vice President of the China Center for Information Industry Development, CCID, which is a very big think tank on industry and technology. Please.

Zhang Xiaoyan, Vice President, China Center for Information Industry Development

Thanks for the invitation. I have heard many speakers recall their stories in China–U.S. relations, and it also makes me look back on my personal experience over the past 20 years, because I have been engaged in U.S.–China relations work for 20 years.

I can divide the two decades into two periods. The first period was from 2006 to 2017. I think the character of that period for me was that it was quite busy but also quite fruitful. In 2006, we set up the S&ED mechanism, the Strategic and Economic Dialogue mechanism, and until 2017, we had many JCCT conversations. JCCT means the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade between China and the U.S.

Formerly, I worked in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. We also had our own bilateral mechanisms with the Department of Commerce or the State Department of the U.S. So that was quite a fruitful period.

But starting from 2018 until now, I think the character of this period has been quite tough and closed. Tough because I attended the Phase One deal negotiations. It was a very tough negotiation, but the result was good. Closed means that I echo what many speakers have said: people-to-people contact, or staff-to-staff level contact, is quite in shortage now.

Without those person-to-person contacts, without dialogues and exchanges, we will lack mutual understanding. Without mutual understanding, we cannot come to mutual trust or conduct cooperation. So that is quite a frustrating and depressing phenomenon at present.

Some consequences arising from trade tensions between China and the U.S. are very clear. The direct consequence is the decline in bilateral trade volumes. Lots of speakers have mentioned that. Last year, bilateral trade volume between China and the U.S. decreased by nearly 20%.

Another consequence is the shift in supply chains. Supply chains have shifted from a long and globalised one to regionalised, fragmented, and shorter ones, which is obviously not in line with market-economy principles or multilateral trade rules.

But some good signs have shown recently. On Thursday this week, I attended AmCham China’s annual conference, where it launched its 2026 White Paper. Among the respondents from AmCham’s member companies, nearly 79% held a positive or neutral outlook on China–U.S. relations in 2026. That is 30% higher than last year. This is quite a positive sign.

I have also heard many American businesses in China say that they have shifted their strategies in China. They no longer regard China only as a manufacturing base or a market, but also as a testing ground for new technologies, an R&D powerhouse, and a source of innovation. That is also a positive sign for China–U.S. industrial cooperation.

Finally, some words about AI. 2026 is called the year of AGI. AI is the most representative, disruptive technology in today’s world, and China and the U.S. are the two major countries in the AI sector. So it is our responsibility to conduct more dialogue and cooperation on AI.

For example, on open-source models, we can provide more open-source models to the world, lower the costs, and lower the barriers for people to access AI, in order to prevent the widening of the AI divide. We mentioned the digital divide in the past, but perhaps the AI divide will become a very serious issue in today’s world.

Second is AI governance. AI has transboundary risks. I heard some experts talk about autonomous cyberattacks, deepfakes, and systemic loss of control. These are transboundary risks. China and the U.S. need to have more discussions and cooperation on how to put guardrails on AI, and how to guarantee the healthy development of AI so as to make it benefit world development and society as a whole. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Ms. Zhang, for your first-hand experience and information on how China and the U.S. can work together. I am very glad you came to our conference. I also remember you were at our Munich Security Conference roundtable just two months ago. Thank you for coming again.

Now last but not least, I would really like to hear from Minister Zhu Hong. You have been a veteran in China–U.S. relations, particularly trade relations. You were Minister-Counsellor for trade at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and we visited you many times there. We would like to hear from you, based on your first-hand experience. I know you were heavily involved in the Phase One negotiations and were in Washington during the first term of the Trump administration, in charge of trade. Mr. Zhu, please.

Zhu Hong, former Commercial Minister-Counsellor, Embassy of China in the United States

Thank you, Dr. Wang and Dr. Miao, for the invitation. I have worked in the United States for 11 years in total. Based on some of my own observations, I would like to make four points today.

My first point is that in the 47 years since China and the United States established diplomatic relations, despite all the ups and downs, history has proved that cooperation is the only correct choice for our two countries. In this cooperation, economic and trade cooperation is the ballast stone and propeller of bilateral relations. Whether it is a trade war or a tariff war, neither benefits either side.

Let me give one example. Affected by the trade war and tariff war, China–U.S. trade volume fell by 19% in 2025. If China and the United States can manage their economic and trade cooperation well, it can help drive cooperation in other fields.

As Dr. Wang just mentioned, I was fully involved in the negotiations for the Phase One China–U.S. economic and trade agreement during President Trump’s first term. After very difficult negotiations, the two sides reached the Phase One economic and trade agreement. Although its implementation was not perfect, 60% to 70% of it was completed.

This year is an important year for China–U.S. cooperation, as the Chinese president and the U.S. president are expected to exchange visits. We very much hope that the economic and trade teams on both sides can take advantage of this momentum, continue exploring pathways for cooperation, accumulate small wins into larger ones, and restart and expand economic and trade cooperation.

My second point is that China–U.S. economic and trade cooperation has a solid foundation. First, I believe that, so far, the economic complementarity between the two countries remains stronger than their competition. Their industrial and supply chains are deeply intertwined. In particular, as the world’s largest and second-largest economies, China and the United States have no reason not to cooperate.

China’s development over the next five years, with this year being the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, will provide very good opportunities for cooperation. China’s commitment to expanding high-level opening-up will continue to provide market opportunities for American companies.

In addition, I firmly believe in the power of the business community. Of course, in the past two years, the business community has been somewhat hesitant to speak out on China–U.S. trade. I hope that, going forward, the business community can make its voice heard more strongly. At present, more than half of American companies plan to increase investment in China, and nearly half list China as one of their top three global investment destinations. I hope the business community can vote with its feet and help promote cooperation between the two countries.

My third point is that there are realistic pathways for expanding economic and trade cooperation. First, the two sides should establish institutionalised communication and coordination mechanisms. Previous speakers have also discussed this point. These mechanisms can include both official channels and Track II cooperation.

Second, the two sides should further identify, deepen, and extend the list of areas for practical cooperation, so as to build positive momentum.

Third, China and the United States can cooperate on multilateral platforms. In 2026, China will host the APEC meeting, and the United States will host the G20 summit. We hope both sides can make use of these two platforms to release signals of openness and goodwill, reduce antagonistic sentiment, and stabilise policy expectations, especially for the business community.

At the local level, during my time in the United States, I also worked hard to promote cooperation between Chinese provinces and U.S. states. I hope this work can continue.

My final point is that in restoring and restarting economic and trade cooperation, the two sides should follow a strategy of starting with the easier issues before moving to the more difficult ones, and advancing step by step. In the process of solving problems, the two sides can accumulate mutual trust and gradually expand the scope and list of cooperation.

As everyone knows, China–U.S. relations are like a person who has suffered a serious illness. If you want to rebuild their strength, you have to do it gradually. So what we now advocate is action for action, with a focus on resolving specific cases of concern to both sides; defining a negative list that sets the boundaries of competition; and expanding a positive list for cooperation.

In this way, both sides can respect each other’s bottom lines, seek common ground while preserving differences, set aside disputes, and find the greatest common denominator for cooperation. That is all from me. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Mr. Zhu, for your excellent remarks. You spoke last, but probably summarised very well all the discussion points we have had, particularly all the positive things that we could promote between China and the U.S.

We have the G20 and APEC summits, and we can do our best to make these two multilateral events a success.

We are now coming to the end of this roundtable. Sorry for the slight delay. The topic was so exciting and the discussion was so wide-ranging. But I do think there is a consensus that nobody wants to see the U.S. and China enter into conflict. We all want to avoid that.

Of course, we have identified many areas of collaboration between our two great countries. There is so much need, not only for the U.S. and China, but also for the world, for stability and constant dialogue and exchanges between the U.S. and China.

So I think we have made a good start, at least in our roundtable, by injecting some positive narratives into the discourse on China–U.S. relations.

Once again, I want to thank all of you very much for taking your precious time to share your valuable thoughts. We will make a good summary, and we are going to disseminate it and recommend it to the relevant authorities and also to the public.

Once again, thank you so much. Our roundtable will stop here. Let us give a warm round of applause to our distinguished panellists for this great discussion.

Written Contribution to the Roundtable Discussion

China and the U.S. Should Move Beyond Zero-Sum Thinking and Seek Comprehensive Cooperation in High Technology

He Weiwen, Senior Fellow, CCG; former Economic and Commercial Counsellor, Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco and New York

All emphases are his own.

Over the past year or so, one of the most prominent features of China–U.S. relations, apart from unilateral U.S. tariffs and China’s firm countermeasures, has been the sharp escalation of U.S. high-tech bans and restrictions against China, to which China has responded with its most stringent rare-earth export controls.

Washington introduced export bans to China on ethane, electronic design automation tools, and advanced chips. China, in turn, strengthened export controls on rare earths. In September 2025, Washington introduced the so-called “50% rule”, under which subsidiaries of Chinese companies on the Entity List would also be covered if the listed company held at least 50% ownership. This directly led to the Dutch company Nexperia imposing export restrictions on China.

This triggered China’s most stringent rare-earth export controls in history, dealing a fatal blow to U.S. companies. China controls 87% of the world’s rare-earth refining capacity, 78% of refined lithium, 98% of zirconium oxide, and 65% of processed cobalt, and holds an overwhelming dominant position in rare-earth magnetisation. All of these are vital to the U.S. semiconductor, automotive, and defence industries.

In the end, Washington first cancelled or suspended the above restrictions. In response, China also suspended its latest rare-earth export controls for one year. On 22 April 2026, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the “Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware (MATCH) Act, imposing extreme restrictions on high-technology exports to China. Under the bill, the export of key equipment to China would not only be banned by the United States, but U.S. allies would also be required to impose similar restrictions.

High-tech or resource restrictions are trade tools used for specific purposes. In 2025, however, they played an increasingly intense role in China–U.S. trade. The fact that both sides eventually cancelled or suspended some measures tells us that the high-tech industries of the two countries, especially their semiconductor industries and markets, are in fact complementary. The two sides can find better and mutually beneficial solutions, rather than restricting each other.

A 2025 report by the U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) noted that global semiconductor sales reached a record high of 630.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2024, up 19.7% from 2023. The United States is the world’s largest semiconductor producer, accounting for 50.4% of the global total. China, meanwhile, is the world’s largest semiconductor market, with sales in 2024 increasing by 20.1% from the previous year. China accounts for 22% of Nvidia’s global sales revenue.

In practice, U.S. semiconductor bans have not stopped China’s own semiconductor industry from developing rapidly. On the contrary, they have helped accelerate it. In 2025, China produced 484.3 billion integrated circuits, up 10.9% year on year. In the first quarter of 2026, China’s integrated-circuit exports rose by 13.4% to 84.99 billion units, while export value surged by 77.5% to 72.471 billion U.S. dollars, implying an annualised value close to 300 billion U.S. dollars.

Similarly, the ban has not stopped China’s chip imports from rising sharply. In the first quarter of 2026, China imported 145.65 billion integrated circuits, up 11.0% year on year, with import value surging by 45.0% to 128.008 billion U.S. dollars. On an annualised basis, China’s global chip imports in 2026 are expected to exceed 500 billion U.S. dollars! Interestingly, the biggest beneficiaries have been Japan, the Republic of Korea, and China’s Taiwan, whose exports to China, or to the Chinese mainland, increased by 29.9%, 44.3%, and 17.4%, respectively, in the first quarter of 2026.

Washington once banned the export of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, and later lifted the restriction. But by then, China no longer bought them, instead using Huawei’s Ascend 910C chips. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warned that if DeepSeek were first released on Huawei’s platform, it would be disastrous for Nvidia. Unfortunately for him, his prediction came true. On 25 April, DeepSeek V4 was released, and it did not first choose Nvidia hardware. Instead, it made its debut on Huawei Ascend chips.

Therefore, the extreme U.S. high-tech restrictions on China, especially in chips, have taught us a valuable lesson: instead of pursuing a futile approach, why does Washington not choose cooperation?

China and the United States have enormous shared interests in the age of artificial intelligence. The world stands on the threshold of the AI era, which will fundamentally change the global economy and human life. China and the United States are, without doubt, the world’s two leading AI powers by a wide margin.

A Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) report estimates that by 2030, AI technology and industry will contribute 15 trillion U.S. dollars in growth to the world economy. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that China is nanoseconds behind America in AI. Together, China and the United States accounted for 75% of the total number of Hurun Global Unicorns in 2025, while many AI engineers in Silicon Valley are of Chinese origin.

If China and the United States work together, they will create vast new areas of economic growth and achieve unprecedented productivity gains on the new track of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The SIA report also calls for firm cooperation with China. Therefore, we hope that 2026 will become a year of transformation: a year in which China and the United States move from restrictions to cooperation in high technology, especially in AI; a year of equal and mutually beneficial cooperation that serves the high-tech industries of both countries and benefits the world.

Subscribe now

The roundtable, themed “Challenges and Prospects for the Global Governance Order,” was moderated by Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of CCG and former Counsellor of China’s State Council.

The session then featured keynote speeches from:

• Mohamed Amersi, Founder and Chairman of the Amersi Foundation;

• Da Wei, Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University;

• Ma Jianchun, President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies (CWTO);

• Jens Eskelund, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC);

• Lu Ruquan, President of the Economics and Technology Research Institute at China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC);

• Paolo Magri, President of the Advisory Board of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI).

• Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore and former singaporean ambassador to the United Nations;

• Oliver Lutz Radtke, Sinologist, Author and Strategic Advisor;

• Susan Shirk, research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, director emeritus of its 21st Century China Center, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affair, U.S. Department of State;

• Achilles Tsaltas, President of The Democracy and Culture Foundation, Athens;

• Zhao Zhongxiu, President of the University of International Business and Economics;

• and Fabian Zuleeg, Chief Executive and Chief Economist of the European Policy Centre (EPC).

CCG has broadcast the video recording of the opening roundtable on Chinese social media platforms and uploaded it to its official YouTube channel.

This transcript is based on the video recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, Center for China and Globalization (CCG)

We’re going to start our opening roundtable on challenges and prospects for global governance — which I think is a very timely subject. We have heard from our keynote speakers at the opening this morning. We noticed that it’s really a very challenging world we’re facing. Also, the 80 years of a global governance model that we’ve been getting used to is under a lot of stress now. CCG just went to Washington. We attended the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings and a number of meetings there and in New York as well. We find that this is a subject often talked about. We also just came back from Greece, the Delphi Forum, where this too was a highly discussed subject.

So our opening roundtable panel will dive deeply into the current status of the international rules-based order, the structure of government relations, and of course the interaction among nations. With hopefully all the robust debate and discussion we gather here, hopefully we can get some constructive recommendations and messages for all the relevant governments and international organizations, particularly the system that we have had for the last 80 years, which the U.S. led and designed. Now we’re going to see how that is going to match the multipolar world that is emerging, where there is no system that is really cohesively working well. So this is the challenge: how to maintain the UN, international agencies, and working relations among governments. This is what we’re going to discuss today.

There are a number of issues we hopefully will discuss: what’s the latest development, the crisis we’re going through that impacts everybody. We have many talking points now. The war is still going on, and how international organizations can actively work on that, and how governments can proactively prevent situations from deteriorating, and how to safeguard the common comeback for the challenges we are facing: climate change, sustainable development, eco-development, lifting poverty, and all those global issues. AI is also another issue — global data challenges. Recently we established a World Data Organization. So how we are going to tackle those newly found challenges is enormously important, and particularly how to get out of this crisis.

We have many issues that we’ve been going through this morning, and I would like to mention the distinguished panelists we have gathered here. Among them we have Da Wei, Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University; we have Jens Eskelund, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China; we have Lu Renquan, President of China National Petroleum Corporation Economic and Technology Research Institute, which is one of the largest energy companies in China and also one of the top-ranking think tanks; we have His Excellency Ambassador Ma Jianchun, President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies and former Ambassador of China to The Gambia; we have Paolo Magri from the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, a very famous think tank in Europe; and of course Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, former President of the United Nations Security Council, and also advisor to CCG; we have Oliver Radtke, author and strategic advisor at the University of Vienna; and also Professor Susan Shirk, founding Dean of the 21st Century China Center at University of California, San Diego, but also former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State; and Mr. Achilles Tsaltas, President of the Democracy and Culture Foundation, based in Athens, Greece, who just arrived from Greece as well. Welcome.

And we have Professor Zhao Zhongxiu, President of the University of International Business and Economics, one of the most famous universities in China for economics and business; and Fabian Zuleeg, Chief Executive of the European Policy Center, one of the most well-known think tanks in Europe, based in Brussels. This is basically the participants we are having. If we have time, we hope that we can also be joined by other participants. Also we are having Mohamed Amersi, who has now arrived ahead of schedule — he is Chairman of the Amersi Foundation, based in the UK. So we have all the active participants at this roundtable.

Now I’d like to open this roundtable with perhaps Mohamed Amersi, because you just came this morning but also you were at the Delphi Forum and you’ve been in other forums. I know you’ve been in a number of forums. Originally you are from Iran but now you live in the UK. So what’s your latest take? Let’s have everyone speak around five minutes and then we start.

Mohamed Amersi, Founder and Chairman, Amersi Foundation

Thank you very much, Henry and Mabel, for having me here. When your surname begins with an A, that’s both a curse as well as a blessing, because you can start first, say what you want, and then others may have to change their speeches. But thank you very much. In my view, the emerging global order — if I can use an analogy — resembles a newborn. Its DNA is already set by technology, demography, and power shifts. But its personality will depend on how it is raised.

Continuing on this analogy, we are witnessing not the collapse of one order alone, but the painful birth of another. This new world order is being born like a child in difficult labor, amid blood, noise, uncertainty, and danger. The old order is dying, but the new one is still an infant. It is weak, unstable, and not yet able to stand on its own. Today’s wars, sanctions, and rivalries are the new contractions of history preceding a new geopolitical birth.

The most likely future is not a single world government or a clean new Cold War. It is a fragmented multipolar transactional order. My seven quick predictions: First, the U.S.-led liberal order will not disappear, but it will shrink. Second, China will not replace America as the sole global hegemon. Third, middle powers will matter more. Fourth, global governance will be more issues-based. Fifth, economics will be weaponized. Sixth, democracy versus autocracy will matter, but interests will matter far more. Seventh, what we see now in the Middle East will become a test case. The bottom line is that the future order will be multipolar in power, fragmented in rules, regionalized in security, digital in control, and transactional in diplomacy. The winners will be states that can hedge, manufacture, innovate, control strategic resources, and avoid becoming battlefields for bigger powers. Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, great. Thank you, Amersi, for your precise seven-point summary of global governance challenges and opportunities. This is really interesting — a good start. So let’s go to Da Wei. He is Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, which is a very active think tank led by Da Wei these days. Please.

Da Wei, Director, Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS), Tsinghua University

Okay. Thank you, Henry and Mabel, for having me. It’s hard to believe that this is my first time joining this forum. We at Tsinghua — our center actually does very similar work as CCG. As Henry said to me during the break, we share similar values and vision, the two organizations. So I’m very happy to be here. After Mr Amersi’s very brief but enlightening remark, I decided to change what I’m going to say — as you predicted.

On the international order, I think obviously we are now already in a new situation or new order. In China we always say this is a transitional order. I don’t like that judgment — we always say from the 1990s we are in the transitional order. But actually now, when we look back, I think it’s quite clear that after the end of the Cold War, it was an order that — I sometimes use a metaphor — the international global governance order is like a table with one leg. It’s a multilateral platform or table supported by a unipolar structure behind it or beneath it. So now obviously that has ended.

There are many other propositions, many suggestions. Some people say bipolar, some people say G2, some people say middle-power solution. I think all these are kind of impossible. I think we are seeing an emerging order. I think it’s a China-U.S. coordination plus regional and plurilateral organizations. All together, these two poles — which are probably the most powerful, China and the U.S. — on the one hand, whether they can coordinate, whether they can rebalance their relationship; at the same time, the plurilateral and regional organizations are playing their role. So these two things, I think, together are forming a kind of evolving international governance order.

China and the U.S. — we have this potential, we have this possibility to rebalance our bilateral relations, to make the content of our bilateral relations from the one produced during the era of globalization into the one that is workable in the multipolar time of today. President Trump is going to visit China very soon, and the two leaders probably will meet each other multiple times this year. I think this is the best opportunity for the two countries to give up their respective grievances and anger in the past 10 years and try to think how we can make the content of our bilateral relations rebalanced and reach a new equilibrium, no matter on the economic side or on the security side.

At the same time, I think I agree with Mr Amersi: liberalism has of course been shrinking and it’s kind of collapsing, but I think the remains of the liberal principles and many organizations’ actions are still there. So countries need to work together. There are many functional organizations and also regional ones that are still working, and they are going to work in the future. So we should not be too pessimistic about that. With these two countries’ collaboration, coordination, plus more international arrangements, I think we are seeing the emergence of a new order. The old one was kind of a liberal system, but now I think we are having the basic principle that I call “liberalism under the restraint of realism.” With that, I will end my remark. Thank you, Henry. Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Da Wei. You’re right. I share some of your optimism as well that global governance still, one way or another, is still going. For example, we see the rise of middle powers too, and we see models like RCEP, CPTPP — they’re taking on the regional front and are still pushing for global governance at the regional level. Those are really good signs. And I think of course now Europe, China, U.S., Global South, India, and all countries that are middle powers — we need to find a way to sustain global governance.

Now I would like to have His Excellency Ambassador Ma Jianchun. He is President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies, and the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies is an organization under the Ministry of Commerce and is a pioneer of China’s WTO studies, particularly on global governance. So Ambassador Ma, please.

Ma Jianchun, President, China Society for World Trade Organization Studies

Thank you, Henry. Good morning, everyone. It’s my great pleasure to have this opportunity to participate in this globalization forum today. The topic of the roundtable is challenges and prospects for global governance. I would like to share some views with you. Over the past decades, economic globalization has promoted the global flow of capital, technology, people, and goods, and promoted the unprecedented miracle of global economic growth. Of course, we should also admit that economic globalization in the past few decades has also had some negative effects. That’s why in recent years economic globalization has encountered headwinds and unilateralism and protectionism has risen. Global economic development and international cooperation are facing challenges, and the global governance system is also facing challenges.

I’m from the China Society for WTO Studies — CWTO for short. I would like to talk about some views on global trade development and global trade governance. I believe that despite the challenges of economic globalization, we should still adhere to free trade and the multilateral trading system. Recently, our society organized several workshops and invited experts and professors to discuss issues related to the multilateral trading system after the MC13. We discussed the issue, and we reached consensus on issues such as free trade, fair trade, and managed trade. I would like to introduce some views, some ideas from our discussion.

We believe that we should adhere to the principle of free trade because free trade has both theoretical basis and achievements from the practice of global economic activities. The principle of free trade contributes to the stability of the global trading system and ensures the continuous advancement of economic globalization. The so-called fair trade and managed trade lack theoretical basis and unified rules. It can easily form mutual accusations or even trade wars between different economies.

So how can we ensure the smooth progress of global free trade? We need a mature multilateral trading system that can ensure the smooth progress of global free trade. We should maintain the multilateral trading system with the WTO as its core. The multilateral trading system, from GATT to WTO, is based on free trade. Before GATT, you know, there were different forms of protectionism and trade barriers between different countries, different economies. GATT and later the WTO not only advocated for free trade but also established some rules like MFN and some other rules, thereby reducing global trade tariffs and promoting the development of global trade. We have some statistics — I don’t want to mention here — that just as economic globalization has been questioned, the multilateral trading system now is also being challenged.

In recent years, the development of the WTO has encountered a series of problems, such as the lack of formulation of rules, the lack of management of rules, and the lack of supervision of rule implementations, because some members do not support the WTO. Some trade rules cannot be implemented, and some new trade rules couldn’t be formulated. The main thing is that some members have lost — are losing — their confidence and patience and are seeking rules outside of the WTO.

So, in the next step, we should adhere to multilateralism and support the multilateral trading system. It’s not easy, but we are facing challenges. We should discuss this matter at forums like today. We are here to make this point of view. We hope that we can do something together to support and maintain the multilateral trading system. Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Ambassador Ma. Yes. Absolutely. I think free trade for the last 80 years, since the Bretton Woods system, has really changed the world. Trade has gone up several hundred times and GDP several hundred times. Even as trade friction and tariff restrictions are going on, we still see global trade explosively developed, which also helps lift billions of people out of poverty. And I think we have some adjustment, but I hope that the WTO is still going to continue. As we see the 14th Ministerial Conference in Cameroon recently, the liberalization of digital trade, anti-plastic pollution, and quite a few initiatives — plurilateral agreements are still going on. So hopefully we’ll continue that.

Now I would like to invite a business perspective — I saw we have Mohamed Amersi, but let’s have Jens. He is President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and also a businessman representing one of the largest shipping companies in the world. Jens.

Jens Eskelund, President, European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC)

Thank you very much, Henry, and thanks to you and Mabel for this incredible work that you do to enhance dialogue between everyone on a daily basis. I would like first to reflect a little bit on the contribution by Steve Orlins, because I also have a young-person experience from when I just came to China. And I was happy, Mr Ma, that you mentioned WTO, because I think it’s interesting — no one talked about WTO until now. China’s accession to the WTO — we celebrated the 25th anniversary today, on the 12th of December, of China’s accession. That is the single most impactful event in the history of trade in the world. So good, M. Ma, that you brought this up.

But I remember when I came, a very young man, very junior person in Maersk, but somehow I was invited into the MOFTEC [Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation] as it was called at that time. I was sitting way back at the end, and up front, far away, I could see Pascal Lamy, I could see Charlene Barshefsky, and I could see Shi Guangsheng. It was amazingly big problems that they had to resolve, but everyone was so committed to see this through. Everyone wanted this to happen, and the energy in the room and the determination, I think, was one of the biggest experiences that I had in these early years. And I hope, maybe going back to Susan Shirk’s comments about looking for solutions, that maybe this is something that we need to reach back to — that spirit, focusing on that, even though the difficulties are big, then maybe there are actually solutions to be found.

But there’s no doubt about it: it has become more difficult to do business, in particular over the past year. We have had this trade war, tit for tat, and one thing we haven’t talked about today also is the export controls on rare earth and magnets, which have had a very, very significant impact on global businesses. And I think there are many parties responsible here. Of course, we had the U.S. with the Liberation Day tariffs antagonizing much of the world. And you know, I’m from a small country, and the whole Greenland thing did not do much for Denmark-U.S. relations.

But also here in China, I think we have seen that the way that China conducted trade — and I hope, Mr Ma, that the government also listened to your comments about free trade, because sometimes we need more of both free and fair trade — but we have seen now that China is a place that accounts for 37.5% of all containers exported in the world today. Every day, every time China imports one container, it exports 4.5 containers. We have never seen such imbalances in the world before. And I think what is unique this time around is that we have a rising economic power like China that, because it’s very good at manufacturing, has achieved to export much more. But it’s unique in the sense that it basically has not increased its imports. When you look at G20 countries, pretty much every country that exports manufactured goods to China has seen double-digit decreases in its exports over the past five years. And that also has a lot to do with industrial policy in China and the whole thinking about self-reliance in the five-year plans and dual circulation.

But coming from a small country like Denmark, we do feel very exposed. And I think one thing that is beginning to become clear to the rest of the world in the discussions that I hear when I travel outside the U.S. and China is that people are beginning to remind themselves: hang on, wait a minute, 70% of incremental global economic growth in the next five years is going to come from countries outside the U.S. and outside China. It’s a big world out there. And back to what other speakers have mentioned about multipolarity: given the way that all these things are shaping up, with tit-for-tat trade or even worse mercantilist trade practices, countries that are not big countries, that are not the United States and China, are beginning to consider their options.

But that brings me back to where I started: maybe we can reach back to that spirit that we saw back in December 2001. I think we should never let go of the hope that we will find solutions. I think that everyone needs to remind themselves that small countries, medium-sized countries also have legitimate concerns which should be accommodated if possible, and also don’t force the rest of the world to take sides. We prefer not to. Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Jens. Absolutely. We don’t need sides taken, particularly for the U.S. and China among other countries. We need to work together, because I think the two largest economies have to really improve what we have done in the past, not topple that, not probably undo things that we’ve been doing successfully. Of course, we need a lot of improvement and adjustment. And you’re right — all the rest of the world, which has a large chunk of global trade, is still flourishing, and we need to support that.

Now I’d like to invite Mr. Lu Renquan. He is President of China National Petroleum Corporation Economics and Technology Research Institute, which is China’s top-ranking energy think tank. And now with the energy crisis going on, we see many airlines cancelling flights, air tickets getting so expensive. Your sharing would be very timely.

Lu Ruquan, President of the Economics and Technology Research Institute at China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC)

Thank you, Henry. I will talk about global energy governance amid the current big energy crisis happening in the Middle East, and also about the role of China’s planning in the future. I will talk about a few comments or viewpoints.

First, we actually are witnessing the largest energy crisis because of the shutdown of the Hormuz Strait, and also because of the war between the U.S., Israel, and Iran. We found one-third of the crude oil transportation — I mean the maritime — has been blocked. And also, among the one-third of the volume, one-third is toward China and another almost 40% is towards Asian countries. So we will see that Asian countries right now are the epicenter of this largest energy crisis.

The second point is that, from the perspective of international organizations, we have seen that the OECD countries and also, let’s say, on behalf of the IEA, actually the IEA took the initiative to save this market. And the big action is that the IEA issued about 400 million barrels of oil equivalent to save the market. However, it is not enough. It is not enough. Actually, the 400 million barrels is double the volume of the last time, which was four years ago when the Ukraine war happened.

And what about OPEC? We know that OPEC actually in the past was a strong partner in oil and gas pricing, and especially within the last 10 years they have OPEC+ — that is OPEC plus Russia. They actually used to increase production when the price is higher and decrease production when the price is lower, to be a swing producer in the world, playing a good role. However, this time OPEC suffered a lot, especially the Gulf countries, the GCC countries and Iraq, because of the shutdown of the Hormuz Strait. And the upstream production exploration has been shut down as well. So as far as we observed, 80% of the Iraq production was shut down, and almost all the production in Qatar and in Bahrain and in Kuwait was shut down. However, Saudi Arabia is a little bit lucky because it has the pipeline, the east-west pipeline, to hedge the shock of the Hormuz Strait.

So this is what we see of OPEC and the IEA’s performance. What about the main countries? We see the U.S. — they try to improve their domestic production, because the U.S. right now is the largest oil and gas producer and also the largest natural gas exporter. So both the U.S., Canada, and some other Latin American countries, they try to improve their production to meet the gap. But it is not enough, because according to our evaluation, at most about two million barrels per day was put into the market. It is not enough to compensate the about 10 million barrels per day of shortage.

And what about Russia? Russia right now is happy because the oil price is going up, and also Russia’s oil and gas can be put into the oil market to save the market, and can be exempt from the sanctions, because we know that in the past couple of years oil and gas of Russia was sanctioned by Europe and the U.S.

Then what about China? So actually, to most people’s expectation, China is a lucky island amid this crisis. The reason behind that is we have new energies and we have electrical vehicles replacement. And in the month of April, actually the penetration rate of EV has reached about 60%. That is a huge — that is the highest penetration rate in the world. Second, we have strong reserves. And the third, we have diversified, balanced, and hedged importing channels. And then the fourth, China is the sixth-largest oil producer and the fourth-largest natural gas producer. So we have our oil and gas in our hand.

So what about next step? I think China in the global energy governance market should play at least roles below. One is the stabilizer — as a supply stabilizer to cooperate with other partners. The second is connecting bridge — that is, provide a typical platform, especially the BRI, to play the role of interconnection. The third is to be the engine of innovation, especially in new energy, the supplier of electrical vehicles and AI for energy. That’s all for my sharing. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Okay. Thank you, Minister Lu. Actually, quite encouraged to hear that China’s EV has penetrated over 60%, which is enormous diversification that China has now engaged in. And also I agree that this energy crisis we need to solve very quickly. And I’m also very glad to see China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has spoken with over 30 ministers and counterparts in the last months for this Iranian-Israel-U.S. crisis. And hopefully we see that upcoming visit of President Trump in Beijing, maybe we could see some solution by then.

So thank you again, Mr Lu. Now I’d like to invite Paolo Magri. He is President of the Italian Institute of International Political Studies, a very famous think tank in Europe, and has conducted many activities in Europe. I know that ISPI is based in Milan, a very beautiful city, and so we’re very pleased to welcome you, Mr. Paolo. Please.

Paolo Magri, President of the Advisory Board, Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)

Thank you. Thank you. I’ve been asked to share a few comments on what lessons can be learned from the current crisis: Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, Venezuela — that can inform future approaches to international relations and collective security. I will go immediately to the point. I will have five lessons learned.

First, sanctions without strategy become only strategic noise. Venezuela, Iran, and Russia show that sanctions do not work. And the implication is clear: sanctions must be conditional, reversible, and embedded in diplomatic roadmaps. And this means shifting toward dynamic, reviewable sanction frameworks, and not like the one we have right now.

Second lesson: the age of new mediators has arrived. One of the most important shifts in this crisis is not what is negotiated but who negotiates. Some who were considered troublemakers in the past, are acting now as troubleshooters of the present, with the current troublemakers. And this signals a structural change. Mediation is becoming multipolar and networked, with regional actors being no longer the periphery. The United Nations will need to integrate these actors into hybrid diplomatic architecture rather than compete with them.

Third, the UN is no longer the first respondent in crisis, but it’s not dead. The expectation that the United Nations can lead crisis response in highly polarized conflicts is increasingly unrealistic. But the UN is not dead. Its role is evolving toward legitimate provision, humanitarian coordination, monitoring, and verification.

Fourth, already mentioned by several, there are no solid blocs anymore, but mainly temporary alignments. All alliances today are fragile. Informal alignments — Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela — groupings like BRICS, which lack deep cohesion. Actually, Iran is bombing a few BRICS members. And NATO is facing internal divergencies, with the U.S. threatening your country a few months ago with a possible invasion of Greenland. Collective security must adapt to this reality through flexible, multi-layered cooperation frameworks.

And last one, lesson learned number five: economic and energy warfare is now central, not auxiliary. If Ukraine, Iran, and Venezuela are read together, one lesson is unmistakable: economic and energy are no longer tools of pressure, they are primary instruments of conflict. And this has major implications. States, as someone said already, will increasingly pursue economic resilience as national security. Alliances will need to coordinate not just military but across energy, finance, and supply chains.

To conclude: Venezuela, Iran, and Ukraine don’t just reveal crises but reveal a transformation in international relations and collective security measures. First, the UN will remain in the picture but as a legitimizing and coordinating hub. Second, alliances persist but are more fragile and fluid. Third, new mediators and regional actors are central. Fourth, power itself is shifting from military dominance alone to integrated economic, energy, and political leverage. The challenge is no longer just to prevent war, but to govern competition in a world where conflict is increasingly economic, distributed, and continuous. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, great. Thank you, Paolo, for your five-point, very concise and precise, very stimulating and very informative remarks. I think absolutely we still need some new solutions and also we need new players, new mediators, and to strengthen the UN for global governance.

Now I’d like to invite Professor Kishore Mahbubani. I mean, you of course worked in the UN, worked in the multilateral system for a long time, and you probably also have a lot to talk about on these global governance issues. Kishore, please.

Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore and former singaporean ambassador to the United Nations

Thank you, Henry. The title of our panel is “Challenges and Prospects for the Global Governance Order”. And if you want to look at the prospects for the global governance order, you have to look at the mother of all global governance institutions, which of course is the United Nations. At the end of the day, what happens to the United Nations is what will determine the future of our global governance order. So for us, the big question we need to ask ourselves today is a very simple question: Is the UN a sunrise or sunset institution? Simple question.

And one can, of course, make the case — especially if you read the Anglo-Saxon media, the Western media, and the way they rubbish the UN — you can make a very persuasive case: yes, it’s a sunset institution. And there are many, of course, sad failings of the UN. And here the first one, for example: I think it’s clear that the world is very disappointed with the performance of the current Secretary-General. He came in with high expectations, but unlike the popes in Rome — Pope Francis and Pope Leo — the voice of the secular pope has been very weak at a time when he should be speaking out more clearly.

At the same time, the UN is facing a financial crisis, serious financial crisis. And as Professor Paolo Magri just mentioned, it’s also failing in its responsibilities in collective security, in preventing wars, and so on and so forth. So one can make a case for why it is a sunset institution.

But I want to make the case for why it is a sunrise institution. And at the end of the day, if we are going to preserve our global governance order, we should recognize why the UN is completely irreplaceable as an institution. And the case for sunrise rests on three points.

First, it’s very clear that we live in a world where the demand and need for stronger institutions of global governance is growing. Why is that so? Because the world has changed. And to explain how the world has changed, I use a very simple boat analogy. Before, when we had 193 countries in the world, as we do, we were living like in 193 separate boats. Each boat had a captain or crew. So each boat was independent. But now the world has shrunk — and this is a literal shrinkage, not a metaphorical shrinkage. The 193 countries are now like 193 cabins on the same boat. And if you are 193 cabins on the same boat, there’s no point taking care of your cabin. Take care of the boat as a whole. And we have to take care of planet Earth. Because you look at every major problem we are facing, whether it’s climate change, whether it’s pandemics, whether it’s global financial crisis, or even now, for example, what’s happening in the Gulf — guess what? Every country in the world is affected. So clearly we need therefore to have stronger global governance institutions to deal with the fact that it’s a new, different world where we are small and interdependent.

And at the same time, this is my second point: if you wanted to create from scratch today a new global governance institution to represent the needs and aspirations of humanity, you cannot create one better than what you have encapsulated already in the Charter of the United Nations. It took a group of remarkably idealistic, seasoned, weathered individuals in 1945 who came together and in a sense that embedded powerful principles of international law into the UN Charter: like respect for territorial integrity, respect for sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs. And these are the principles that have basically sustained the international order. They’re captured in the UN Charter. And if you throw out the UN Charter, you cannot get anything better. So let’s be very clear why we have to preserve that UN Charter.

And the third and final point I’ll make about why this is a sunrise institution: as you know, if this was a sunset institution, if this boat was sinking, everybody would try to get off the boat and say, “Hey, this boat is sinking. Let me quit. Let me go.” Now, 193 countries in the world — name me one which has quit the UN. Name me one who has left the UN. And not even countries that are censured in the UN. Even Israel hasn’t left the UN. Why? Because the UN, at the end of the day, is indispensable and necessary. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Well, thank you, Kishore, for your very concise and powerful argument for a strong multilateral system like the United Nations. Absolutely. I think the United Nations for the last almost 80 years is a remarkable success, and that actually prevented the Third World War, and we hope that will continue. Of course we need to reform the UN. We need to reform the UN Security Council, and also we need to have a new reflection of the Global South into the UN. But absolutely, the UN is the most important institution that mankind has created to safeguard mankind. And I highly agree with you: we are living in a boat of the planet, and we cannot live without each other.

So thank you for that. Now let me invite Oliver Ratke. He is the author and strategic adviser at the University of Vienna to say a few words too. Yes, please, Oliver.

Oliver Radtke, Sinologist, Author & Strategic Advisor, University of Vienna and Shanghai International Studies University

Thank you so much, Henry. And speaking after Ambassador Mahbubani, of course, is not an easy feat, but I highly appreciate speaking after him because he is holding high the ideals of the United Nations and the Charter while grounded in realism and believing in the power of diplomacy. Thank you so much.

So, thank you first by expressing my genuine appreciation to Henry and Mabel for bringing this group together. The composition of this room alone — the range of institutional traditions, regional perspectives, and analytical frameworks represented here — this is itself a statement about what multilateral dialogue can still look like even in difficult times. So thank you for that.

I myself, because Jens mentioned 25 years ago China’s entry into WTO, I’m a product of Chinese soft power, of U.S. soft power, of German soft power. I was educated at Shanghai International Studies University and Beijing Foreign Studies University, and also at USC on the U.S. West Coast, the Center on Public Diplomacy, and then in Germany at Heidelberg University. So a product of Chinese, U.S., and German soft power. And for 25 years I’ve had my feet in academia and in large exchange projects between mainly China and Germany. That’s why I feel very much at home sitting next to Steve and his amazing work on fostering U.S.-China relations.

When we speak of a global governance order, what I think we’re actually witnessing is a collision between multiple ordering logics that no longer share enough common vocabulary to engage effectively. And I’m very grateful to Mr. Amersi with his analogy on the newborn infant, because it also comes without language and it learns a new language very quickly. But you need to teach it, of course, the right one. So this is not only a power problem, it is also, and perhaps more fundamentally, a translation problem.

Through my work juggling different systems as a systems analyst operating between European and Chinese institutional contexts, what strikes me most is that the same concepts that we now use carry fundamentally different operational meanings on either side of this room. So take development, take multilateralism, debt, you name it. For much of the European policy community, of course, development is inseparable from governance, conditionality, transparency, rule of law, civil society. For China, and I think for a major part of the Global South, development means first and foremost material transformation, infrastructure, industrialization, poverty reduction, and so on. These are not shared frameworks with contested content. I feel they are increasingly separate frameworks that happen to use identical words. And that is, in some ways, I feel more dangerous than open disagreement, because it produces the illusion of dialogue while actual mutual understanding quietly recedes.

So the governance challenge of this decade, I think, is not only geopolitical, it is epistemological. Who defines the terms? Whose institutional grammar sets the baseline for what counts as a legitimate argument? So the question, or maybe the suggestion and the hope I put to this room, is: what would it actually take to build a shared diagnostic language? Not agreement on outcomes — that is of course the endgame, if you will, our ambition — but agreement on how to describe the problem together. That is a major challenge, because without that, even the best-intentioned roundtable risks becoming parallel monologues: sophisticated, well-funded, but not quite connecting.

So for me, this is the meta-challenge of this forum, and it is precisely why the convening work that CCG does — Henry and Mabel for so many years, 12th forum here, with this kind of genuine diversity around the table — matters more, not less, in the current moment. And of course, as a German grounded in German idealism, 19th century, growing up with Tübingen and Hölderlin and so on, I want to leave a quote with Hermann Hesse, after we heard from Gramsci: With the newborn, the emerging global order, there’s also “a magic that dwells in the beginning of everything.” So thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Oliver. For your also very stimulating remarks. Now I’d like to invite Professor Susan Shirk. She is the founding Dean of the 21st Century China Center at University of California, San Diego, but also former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and also one of the most senior China-U.S. experts in the U.S. I know you also gather discussions on China-U.S. relations and have been running one of the most influential China study centers in the U.S. So thank you, Susan.

Susan Shirk, research professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; director emeritus, 21st Century China Center; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affair, U.S. Department of State

Well, thanks so much. Thank you, Henry and Mabel, for inviting me here. I have to correct my identification. I really appreciate the promotion, but I was the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the East Asia Bureau in the Clinton administration. So I just want to make clear that I’m not taking advantage of your identification to retrospectively gain a promotion.

But it’s wonderful coming after the other speakers who have spoken, especially about the global institutional order, with a focus on WTO and on the United Nations, both of which are absolutely essential, and we need to kind of reinvest our energy in reforming and strengthening those global institutions. And as Kishore said, there’s really nothing better. So let’s not reinvent the wheel, and let’s just try to improve the functioning of these institutions based on the important principles of the UN Charter, free trade, etc.

But the point I’d like to make in my follow-up remarks is the importance of regional multilateral institutions. With the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, there was in Asia a spurt of energy to build regional institutions in the Asia-Pacific: APEC, ASEAN Regional Forum, subsequently the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And these regional institutions, I think, are very important for managing the stresses and strains of relations among neighbors, and giving the United States a continued role in the Asia-Pacific as well.

And my own experience was as the founder of the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a Track 1.5 dialogue for Northeast Asia, including Russia, China, Japan, the U.S., North Korea, South Korea. My own aspiration for that dialogue, which I helped create when I was the Director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation for the University of California, is a kind of de facto concert of powers for the Asia-Pacific, because of including Russia, China, Japan, the U.S. And I remember very well the first conference that China hosted on Asia-Pacific security back in ‘92 or ‘93, chaired by Qian Qichen. And I spoke at that time about the need for a concert of powers in the Asia-Pacific. And it was interesting because, of course, the notion of a concert of powers was not considered very politically correct. And the Chinese participants also were reluctant to describe themselves as a power. So I would say, well, what about “leading country”? Would you accept that? And at the time, China was excessively modest in order not to provoke any backlash from its neighbors.

But working together at the time with Fu Ying, who was one of the main participants in the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, and with the support of the then Director General of the Asia Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry Wang Yi — these were people who really had the vision of how China could take advantage of and participate with the United States in building these regional multilateral institutions, could reassure other countries, its neighbors, as well as the United States and other countries, that even as it grew more powerful economically, militarily, and politically, its intentions were benign.

And so, although these regional multilateral institutions and confidence-building based on those institutions won’t solve all our problems, I think it will help. And we need to have a new round, not of creating new institutions, but trying to revive and strengthen the regional institutions to restore the kind of trust, reduce mutual suspicion, and help manage the disputes that still are festering in the Asia-Pacific. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes. Thank you, Susan, for your wonderful remarks. I think you’ve been doing that, promoting regional cooperation and regional governance — that was the ‘90s, you know, that’s 30-some years ago. So it’s enormous progress, efforts have been taken. But of course we still haven’t — we see some results, but we still could see more. Absolutely, I think particularly for the Asia-Pacific we have RCEP now, and we have CPTPP led by Japan, Australia, and Canada and all those mid-powers. So it’s important — now the UK is part of that. We hope that China can be part of that too. And as those regional — and also I would think RCEP could welcome more partners into RCEP, so that we can strengthen those regional integrations as well. Of course the U.S. is always welcome to come back to CPTPP and even RCEP in the future.

Now I’d also like to invite Mr Achilles Tsaltas. I know you just came from Athens — you are founder and president of the Democracy and Culture Foundation, and also founder of the Athens Democracy Forum, which has been really well established for many years. So I would particularly like to hear from your perspective. You also worked many years in the New York Times, of course also worked in Hong Kong, and now running one of the most effective forums and foundations in Greece. So Achilles, please.

Achilles Tsaltas, President, The Democracy and Culture Foundation, Athens

Thank you, Henry, for that introduction. Thank you for the invitation. And yes, we did arrive yesterday with Mabel and Henry from Delphi, actually. So most of you would be expecting that we bring some wisdom from the Oracle. But I think Henry and Mabel will agree with me when I say that the Oracle sits there a little bit stunned at the moment with what’s happening in our world.

So we often speak today of a crisis in our rules-based international order, but I think we should be perhaps a little bit more honest. I think what we’re witnessing today is not simply a crisis, but it is the loss of authority of a system with rules designed for what was a different world back then. The post-war order was built on clear hierarchies of power, relatively slow economic and technological change, and a shared belief, at least in principle, in multilateral rules. Today that order, that world, no longer exists. So the events in Venezuela, tensions around Iran, and the increasing use of sanctions and interventions outside the traditional UN framework are not anomalies. They are signals for us — signals that the gap between power and legitimacy is widening. And taking from what Kishore was saying earlier, there is a gap within legitimacy that is widening as well.

But there is, I believe, a deeper shift under all this. I think over the last, say, 10-15 years, three foundational drivers of human progress — if we take energy, intelligence, and biology — have entered a new phase, mainly thanks to technology and AI. They are no longer simply resources to be controlled. These resources were scarce in the post-war order. They are becoming systems now that scale, that learn, and they improve with investment, as energy is definitely improving with investment. This is transforming the nature of power itself. And yet our global governance institutions still operate as if we live in a world of scarcity, as opposed to this new world of abundance that we’re getting into.

This mismatch is creating three responses. We’re seeing the hoarders, we’re seeing the managers, and we’re seeing the builders. Some actors are hoarding power, retreating into zero-sum geopolitics, sanctions, and fragmentation. I won’t name names. Others are managing, simply managing the old system, trying to preserve institutions that are increasingly misaligned with reality. And yes, there was a very eloquent speech by Prime Minister Carney with many truths. But I think we need more than eloquence in order to address the problems.

But the third path is emerging, which is a builder approach. And this is something that we see in China and the Gulf. And there’s a model that doesn’t exist yet, what I call “democratic builder states.” And when I talk about democracy — coming from Athens, I talk about the more authentic definition of Athenian democracy, as opposed to the democracy we’re seeing now. So these democratic builder states, I believe, could be a blend of the Europe and China model: a blend of legitimacy and capacity evolving together. But for this, Europe will need to de-enlightenize and China would need to re-Confucianize.

So let’s talk about the builders a little bit more. The builders don’t ask how do we defend the old order. They ask what kind of global system can actually function under today’s conditions. And here I believe is an important opportunity for mutual learning, because different parts of the world are experimenting in different ways. China, for example, has demonstrated extraordinary capacity in long-term planning, infrastructure development, and state coordination at scale. The West, at best, has developed traditions of accountability, pluralism, and institutional self-correction. Neither model on its own is sufficient for the world we are entering. So capacity without legitimacy does not endure. Legitimacy without capacity does not deliver.

So the question is not whether one system will replace the other. The 21st century won’t be decided by the so-called democracy versus authoritarianism. It will be decided by which systems can learn fastest without losing legitimacy. So, as you can see, there’s the need for capacity, legitimacy, and adaptability to come together.

And let me end with a quote. You would expect me to quote Socrates or Aristotle. I’m going to give you a very unexpected quote here from a fashion designer, Alexander McQueen. I was at this exhibition at the V&A, and he said this quote that struck me: “You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s why I’m here. To demolish the rules, but to keep the tradition.” And that in many ways is the challenge to us: not to abandon the principles of global cooperation, but to understand them deeply enough so we can redesign them.

So Kishore, you’re looking at me. So yes, keep the UN, but demolish or redesign its rules. And let me leave you with a parting thought: should the Security Council be replaced by the G20? Talking about regional units. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Achilles. Absolutely. You have very enlightening remarks that injected some fresh thinking into our roundtable. I really appreciate that. I think absolutely we need a builder approach. We are all here building bridges. We are here actually engaging in deep thinking and dialogues and finding better solutions. So absolutely, I think we need to find out how the system may converge rather than divide. That’s probably after hundreds of years or thousands of years of experiment, human beings are finally going to converge, I’m sure that will happen. And so you’re right — we can’t see which is better, which is bad, we really need to, as Deng Xiaoping mentioned: seek truth from facts, let performance speak. So thank you for your very good sharing of your ideas.

Now I’d like to invite Professor Zhao Zhongxiu. He is President of the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, one of the most famous universities in China, and produced many trade ministers but also hundreds of minister counselors, commercial counselors for China for the outside world. It’s really a great school, a university that President Zhao is leading. So I would like to hear from you.

Zhao Zhongxiu, President, University of International Business and Economics

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning, everybody. It’s a great honor to join this roundtable. We meet at a time when the international environment is becoming more complex and when the foundations of global governance are being tested. Tensions in the Middle East have once again exposed the fragility of energy security. Higher energy costs can quickly translate into higher production costs, higher logistic costs, and inflationary pressure and greater burdens on households and developing economies. At the same time, trade and technology policies are increasingly influenced by security concerns, while climate action remains urgent but uneven in capacity and cost.

A divided world is not in China’s interest, nor is it in the interest of Europe, the United States, and the Global South. What we need is not less engagement but better government engagement. Global value chains provide a useful lens through which to understand this movement. The evidence shows that globalization is not simply retreating. It is being reorganized. Global value chains still account for nearly half of world trade and remain central to production, innovation, employment, and technological diffusion. Yet their structure is changing. Supply chains are becoming more regional, more digital, more policy-shaped, and more sensitive to resilience, energy security, and geopolitical risk.

This reorganization is understandable. Every country has legitimate concerns about security, energy, climate, technology, and development. The question is not whether countries should pursue these goals. The real question is how they can be pursued in ways that preserve openness and trust. If policy responses are fragmented, firms will face greater uncertainty, consumers will bear higher costs, and smaller economies may lose opportunities to participate and upgrade.

A more constructive path is managed reconfiguration. I would emphasize four principles. First, respect. Countries differ in history, institutions, development stages, and strategic concerns. These differences should be recognized and discussed through dialogue, not allowed to become sources of misunderstanding. Second, transparency. Industrial policies, energy measures, carbon rules, technology restrictions, and standards all create cross-border effects. Greater transparency can reduce uncertainty and create conditions for coordination and confidence. Third, coordination. National policy space remains important, especially for energy security, green transition, and technological upgrading. But policy ambitions should be coordinated so that they support fair competition and collective progress rather than subsidy races or regulatory conflict. Fourth, inclusion. Global governance cannot be shaped only by advanced economies. Developing countries, small and medium-sized enterprises, and latecomer industries need better access to finance, digital infrastructure, logistics, skills, and green technology. Participation in globalization is not enough. What matters is the capacity to upgrade, to learn, and to retain value domestically.

Let me conclude with one thought. The global governance order will not be restored itself. It must be renewed through trust, dialogue, and practical cooperation. Interdependence has not disappeared. Our shared task is to govern it more wisely, more fairly, and more cooperatively. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, President Zhao, for your also very systematic discussion on these issues. Absolutely. I think we did a lot of policy issues, and also I know you’ve been really championing this global value chain studies with WTO and many institutions. So we hope that UIBE will make continuous contribution to this new narrative of global trade and global governance.

Now, last but not least, we’d like to invite Professor Fabian Zuleeg. He is Chief Executive of the European Policy Center, which is based in Brussels, a very well-known established think tank. And CCG has been also collaborating with EPC for the last seven years on the European Union’s project, on EU-China Think Tank Exchange Program. So I’m very glad that you come here again and participate in this very timely forum. So Fabian Zuleeg, please.

Fabian Zuleeg, Chief Executive and Chief Economist, European Policy Center (EPC)

Thank you, Henry. Thank you, Mabel, for inviting me to come and speak, and also for the very good cooperation we’ve had over the last years. I want to add a view from Europe, which I’m afraid is going to be a little sober, because I want to talk about disorder and instability. Because I think it is important that we name the challenges openly, because only if we name what the challenges are can we address them. And what we are seeing at the moment is a world in disorder. Clearly, in the wars we are seeing, what is happening in Iran is having global repercussions. We might — are likely to see a global recession.

We are condemned to live in the short term by the destabilizing effect of Donald Trump. And I would not underestimate what he can still destroy. And I very much hope that the U.S.-China relationship is going to be stable. I’m not so sure that is going to be the case. But much broader, globalization is changing. I think we’re seeing an increasing securitization. Security is becoming a precondition for openness. We’re seeing a mercantilist logic which is not just the U.S. — we’re seeing it everywhere. It is increasingly becoming a zero-sum logic: I win you lose, or you win and I lose. It is a big challenge for countries that have depended on openness. And in my view, that challenge is only going to grow, seeing the dissolution of the global system as we know it.

Clearly, what was there would need to have been reformed. It was built for a different era. It had many flaws. It was Western-dominated. And it didn’t work well in many instances. But the absence of a system, the absence of rules, is not order. And I think that when we discuss multipolarity, we have to be aware that multipolarity, yes, is an increasingly accurate description of the world. Although I would say a more accurate description is asymmetric multipolarity, because not all countries are equal and not all poles are equal. But it is not an ordering principle. It is not a set of rules, and it will not define a new set of rules. Multilateralism did define those rules, and I would very much want to hold on to some of the achievements multilateralism embodies.

The collapse of the global order is already having a negative impact on global commons and is going to continue to have a negative impact on global commons. These cannot be addressed in fragmentation. That is the nature of global public goods. Whether it’s peace, stability, open and fair trade and competition, protection of climate and environment, maritime security, technological governance, combating terrorism and organized crime, dealing with global pandemics, sustainable development, and the fight against poverty — all of these require global cooperation. They require a global system.

This disorder which we are seeing is very much affecting Europe. We are seeing it most clearly in Russia’s unnecessary and illegitimate war of aggression against Ukraine, which is breaking the UN Charter, and is an attack on the global order and on Europe as well as Ukraine. But at the same time, Europe’s world is changing. It is obvious to see that we are having a very uneasy relationship with the current U.S. administration. So Europe’s certainties are becoming uncertain. And I think this is also something we’re seeing in the world. It’s a world of instability, of mercantilism, of aggression, of securitization, of the disregard of global commons. It’s not what Europe wants, and I don’t believe it is what most of the world wants.

So we need to work together to address this, with anyone who shares a different vision of the world and who still is committed to some form of multilateralism. In Europe, we’ve learned very painfully that it is necessary to work together, but it’s also possible if we are willing to compromise and if we are willing to commit to common goals. And let’s hope we can do that at the global level, without going through the enormous destruction we inflicted on ourselves in Europe before we learned that lesson. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Fabian, for your points as well. Very stimulating, and we absolutely need to think about all those negative impacts on the global system and how to correct that — that is really one of the things we’re having today.

So I think for this round we are almost coming to the end, because we have 12 panelists who all shared very wide-ranging but very focused views. I think we have quite a lot of consensus around the table here. We all felt the multilateral system needs to be strengthened, needs to be confirmed, and of course WTO, UN, you know, many institutions that we cannot give up, and we have to improve and reform and enhance.

Second, I think regional multilateralism, is the way, probably in between, when the multipolar world is emerging. We have to also try out all different regional multilateral systems to make things work, at least in a collective way, that’s going to help the global governance.

Thirdly, I think we all felt that peace and security and prosperity is something we all cherish, and we cannot jeopardize that, and we all need to avoid war, and we cannot have this disruption on energy, on those choking points for the world to function. We all realize that is really the wrong practice that we have to correct sooner or later.

Fourth, I think we will all agree that to some extent we are entering a new stage of world governance development, to reflect this multipolar world and also the rise of the middle powers and Global South, and how to really make collective actions, build up consensus among them. And finally, I think all participants at the table agreed that we all value dialogue and exchanges, and roundtables like this are really crucial at all levels, to really promote mutual understanding and better collaboration.

So I think we come to the end of this roundtable, and I want to thank all 12 participant panelists for their excellent, very insightful sharing. And because of the time, we have a very short, maybe five-minute break, and then we’ll come back for the next round. So thank you all very much.

Subscribe now

I. First-hand insights from the U.S.

A key feature of this event will be reflections from CCG’s recent visit to the United States. In April, CCG conducted a nearly ten-day research trip across the U.S., including the Semafor World Economy Summit, one of the largest gatherings of Fortune 500 CEOs in America.

CCG also visited U.S. think tanks, organizations, and experts from across the American political and policy spectrum. Drawing on these first-hand exchanges, the luncheon will offer a grounded look at the current U.S. policy and atmosphere towards China, and examine what has changed — and what has not.

II. Featured speakers

The event will feature experts with long-standing experience in China-U.S. technology, education, innovation, economic, and policy issues.

Denis Simon
Senior Fellow, East Asia Program, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft; former Executive Vice Chancellor, Duke Kunshan University (2015-2020). He was a founding member of the Experts Group of the U.S.–China Innovation Dialogue organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and China’s Ministry of Science & Technology (2008–17). He was general manager of Andersen Consulting in Beijing (now Accenture) and was founding president of Monitor Group China.

Simon has long focused on China-U.S. cooperation in technology, education, and innovation. With extensive experience across academic and business communities in both countries, he brings valuable insights into the interaction between the two innovation systems.

Lu Xiang
Research Fellow, Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Dr Lu has long studied the U.S. economy and China-U.S. economic and trade relations, with in-depth analysis of U.S. domestic politics and policy trends towards China.

Henry Huiyao Wang
Founder and President of CCG; former Counsellor to China’s State Council. Dr Wang will share takeaways from CCG’s recent exchanges with American policy, business, and academic communities.

IV. Event details

Time: Wednesday, 6 May, 11:30–14:00

Venue: CCG Beijing Headquarters, Hanwei Plaza, Guanghua Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing

Format: Closed-door luncheon; prior paid registration required

Language: Primarily English

V. How to sign up

Register via this link. Proof of payment, included in the link or QR code, is required in the registration.

or scan the QR code:

Subscribe now

Below is the transcript of the forum’s opening ceremony, moderated by Mabel Lu Miao, Co-Founder and Secretary-General of CCG. Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of CCG and former Counsellor of the China’s State Council, delivered opening remarks.

The session then featured keynote speeches from:

• Long Yongtu, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and former Secretary-General of the Boao Forum for Asia;

• Susan Shirk, research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, director emeritus of its 21st Century China Center, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affair, U.S. Department of State;

• Steve Orlins, President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations (NCUSCR);

• Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore and former singaporean ambassador to the United Nations;

• and Paolo Magri, President of the Advisory Board of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI).

CCG has broadcast the video recording of the opening ceremony on Chinese social media platforms and uploaded it to its official YouTube channel.

This transcript is based on the video recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

Mable Lu Miao, Co-founder and Secretary-General of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG)

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, friends and colleagues, good morning. It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the 12th China and Globalization Forum.

This year, we are privileged to co-host this forum with our distinguished co-organisers: the China Association of International Trade (CAIT), the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies (CWTO), the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), the Adenauer Foundation, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, and the European Policy Centre (EPC). Your generous support and close cooperation have laid a solid foundation for in-depth exchanges at this forum. Thank you all for your unwavering support.

Today, we are honored to welcome a diverse group of leaders to this forum, with around 200 distinguished participants from across Asia, Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Oceania. They have gathered here today. We have with us policymakers and diplomats, along with experts from think tanks. We also see professionals from international organisations, NGOs, and foundations, scholars from leading universities worldwide, executives from prominent multinational corporations and enterprises, representatives from international and domestic media, and officials from relevant Chinese government departments.

With that, we have a packed agenda today, featuring insightful keynote speeches and roundtable discussions. Our discussions will be on global governance, U.S.-China relations, and the future of Europe. The opening session features a distinguished group of speakers, including Dr Henry Wang, Minister Long, Professor Susan Shirk, Mr Steve Orlins, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, and Dr Paolo Magri. With such a diverse and distinguished lineup, the opening session will offer valuable perspectives. We look forward to an insightful and thought-provoking discussion that will set the tone for the rest of today’s forum. Without further ado, let us begin our opening session.

Now, please join me in welcoming Dr Huiyao Wang, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), and former counsellor to China’s State Council, to deliver his welcome remarks. Dr Huiyao Wang is a pioneer and thinker in the field of China, globalisation, and global engagement. He also serves as Chief Editor of the Springer Nature China and the Globalization Book Series, which has published 12 books on China and globalisation. The floor is yours, Dr Wang. Welcome.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, Center for China and Globalization (CCG); Former Counsellor of China’s State Council

Distinguished Minister Long Yongtu, Professor Susan Shirk, President Steve Orlins, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, President Paolo Magri, President Mahbubani, and also President Jin,

Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, distinguished colleagues, friends, and ladies and gentlemen, good morning.

It is really a profound honor to welcome you at this 12th China and Globalization Forum that we’ve been holding for 12 years in a row. So, we convene here today at a critical juncture, against the backdrop of unprecedented change and a rapidly shifting global landscape. The development dynamics in the world are exerting a profound impact on the evolution of a multipolar global order—a pragmatic paradigm further complicated by the escalating severity of the geopolitical crisis, most notably the unfolding U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict and the ongoing war in Ukraine. In a world increasingly defined by such profound uncertainties and fragmenting blocs, the necessity for candid, inclusive, and constructive international dialogue has never been so urgent. This is precisely why our gathering here today is so timely.

Among these global headwinds, China has entered a critical stage of implementing its 15th Five-Year Plan, deepening high-level opening up, actively participating in global governance, and advancing high-quality development. For China and the outside world, this represents an important strategic mission entrusted to us by the new era, reinforcing our commitment to seeking cooperative solutions and bridging divides in these turbulent times. So again, this is really a great moment for all of us to come here today to talk and discuss.

Our agenda today is designed to tackle those pressing challenges head-on. We’ll begin momentarily with keynote speakers who represent very well the perspectives from their respective backgrounds, exploring the broader challenges and prospects for global governance, cooperation, and international collaboration. Next, we will also examine the critical shift in China-U.S. relations, from engagement to the current situation, discussing whether cooperation in technology, trade, climate, and health can continue amid strategic stability, and strategic stability is something I think both governments want to seek. This is followed by the China-U.S. and Global Youth Roundtable, which we also attach great importance to, drawing valuable insights from the 10th anniversary of the Schwarzman College. We will then turn our focus to navigating between headwinds and openings, discussing the next chapter of China-Europe relations. We’ll also talk about the Global South and explore how we can forge cohesion and define a new era of partnership. And of course, we’ll also have a closed-door session on the China-Ukraine engagement discussion. Finally, our day will also be concluded with a dinner hosted by The Amersi Foundation to discuss the Middle East and what lies ahead. So we are truly privileged to have such a distinguished group of world-renowned experts and practitioners share their insights with us today.

As the organizer, the Center for China and Globalization is a frequent convener for global dialogues here in China, and CCG ranks one of the top 100 think tanks ranked by the University of Pennsylvania for five years in a row. We are the only non-government think tank that has a special consultative status from the United Nations. So we are deeply committed to our vision of fostering inclusive global dialogue and building bridges across nations and cultures.

So today’s forum is a vital continuation of CCG’s global conversations, as we bring those critical dialogues here to Beijing. Your professional insights and practical experience will inject invaluable wisdom into our discussions today, providing a vital reference for global governance and China’s global development.

CCG remains steadfast in its mission to convene China’s voice, build a global consensus, and explore feasible solutions to the dilemmas that we are having in our society today. Ultimately, CCG wants to promote a mutually beneficial international cooperation. So, I really look forward to your contributions as we work together towards those shared goals. This is really a great occasion to welcome all of you.

I know many of you are coming from different parts of the world. Some are actually just arriving today, like Amersi and Achilles from Athens. We were in Athens in Greece just yesterday attending the Delphi Forum. So we see so many friends. We have Paolo coming from ISPI in Italy, and of course, we have Fabian from Brussels. Just to name a few. We have so many different people, and of course, we have Steve Orlins, Susan—those prominent U.S. representatives—and we have Kishore arriving today especially for this conference. And of course, we have Minister Long; he is chair of CCG’s Advisory Council, personally attending this 12th China and Globalization Forum. So we are very honored to welcome all of you, and again, thank you all for coming.

Mable Lu Miao

Thank you, Dr. Wang, for your great opening remarks. Now, it is my distinct honor to have Minister Long Yongtu, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and former Secretary-General of the Boao Forum for Asia. He is also CCG’s Chairman for our Advisory Council. Mr. Long is a distinguished Chinese diplomat, trade expert, and prominent figure in global economic governance. He is best known as China’s chief negotiator for WTO accession. Welcome, Minister Long.

Long Yongtu, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and former Secretary-General of the Boao Forum for Asia

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: I am delighted to see so many old friends attending today’s conference. Since this is the annual meeting of the Center for China and Globalization, I would like to share my observations on globalization under current circumstances. Overall, I am optimistic about the prospects of globalization. This observation is based primarily on the following two judgments:

First, I am optimistic about the prospects of new modern science and technology. In the past, when we discussed globalization, we identified three main driving forces: the power of government, the power of the market, and the power of science and technology. In recent years, we have seen that some countries have significantly changed their views on globalization, while the global economy has also been volatile. Therefore, everyone feels that the power of government and the power of the market are still unreliable; the most important force still comes from the power of science and technology. We have all witnessed the rapid development of new science and technology represented by artificial intelligence in recent years. The development of science and technology knows no national boundaries; it connects more countries around the world. The development of science and technology also has its own laws, which do not change according to human will, and are less affected by the politicization of international economic relations. Under the impetus of modern science and technology, many countries, especially emerging and developing countries, have risen rapidly, making the global balance of power more balanced. As we all know, only a balanced global power structure and common economic development can produce a relatively healthy and equitable globalization.

Second, I am optimistic about the prospects of China-U.S. relations. China and the United States are the world’s two largest economies. Their relationship largely determines the trend of globalization’s development. Good China-U.S. relations are conducive to the development of globalization. Since I participated in China’s WTO accession negotiations and have dealt with Americans for more than a decade, I deeply understand that for China and the United States to have a good relationship, the following must be achieved: Firstly, China and the United States must respect each other and treat each other as equals. In this reality that values practical interests, it is unlikely for the strong and the weak to respect each other. After all these years of China’s rapid development, especially driven by emerging technological forces, the gap in strength between China and the United States, including both hard power and soft power, is narrowing. Coupled with correct perceptions, the foundation for mutual respect and equal treatment between China and the United States is being established.

Secondly, we must strengthen communication and reduce misjudgments. Due to differences in history, culture, social systems, and ideologies, China and the United States will certainly have many disagreements and even conflicts. However, if the two countries can strengthen communication and exchanges, and can sit together even in the most difficult times, then many misjudgments can be reduced, thereby keeping the relationship in a rational and stable state.

Lastly, China and the United States should seek common interests and achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcomes. The world is vast, and matters are complex; China and the United States can always find common interests in the intricate web of intertwined interests. Therefore, as President Xi Jinping pointed out, the essence of China-U.S. economic and trade relations is mutual benefit and win-win. Once common interests are identified, both sides can establish a stable, healthy, and sustainable relationship. At present, although China and the United States still have many differences, as the balance of power between the two sides is increasingly narrowing, and there is also a desire to seek common interests through exchanges, I remain optimistic about the relationship between China and the United States.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, just now, of course, my understanding of globalization may have oversimplified a complex issue. But I hope that such a simplified observation can bring some inspiration to everyone’s discussion. Thank you.

Mable Lu Miao

Thank you, Minister Long, for your great speech. It is now my pleasure to welcome Professor Susan Shirk, professor at the University of California, San Diego. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the U.S. Department of State under the Clinton administration. Professor Susan Shirk is one of the most influential American scholars on contemporary Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations. Based at the University of California, San Diego, she is also the founding Chair and Director Emeritus of the 21st Century China Center at UCSD. Welcome, Professor Susan Shirk.

Susan Shirk, research professor, School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego; director emeritus, 21st Century China Center; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Well, it’s a great pleasure and honor for me to be here with you today at this forum. It is a very important moment, not just in U.S.-China relations but in world history, I would say, because the world is transitioning in its order from the unipolar world that we had following the end of the Cold War to a more bipolar situation between the United States and China, to a multipolar system, which is very complex and confrontational and filled with risk. I recently have read the book by Cold War historian Arne Westad, which I recommend to everyone, called The Coming Storm, which compares today’s situation in the world with the situation at the end of the 19th century and in the lead-up to World War I in 1914. And although the situations are not exactly the same, there are many lessons from how the world fell into a great-power war—a very costly war—and the situation that we are in today.

One of the main points he makes is that the decision-makers, not just in the major powers but in many other regional powers and other countries, were motivated by fear—fear of challenge to their position of primacy or their position of influence in their own neighborhood, and fear of being attacked by other countries. And this human emotion, this suspicion of other countries and fear, motivated them to try to protect themselves in ways that led to misunderstandings, misperceptions, and especially—and this is one of his major points—the failure to find compromises that would stabilize the situation and preserve the peace. The problem, the challenge, is not just between the major powers themselves, but also there are so many festering regional disputes that have not been resolved over many, many years, and that these regional disputes can draw in the major powers in a way that leads to major-power war. And I think we see this quite vividly in the Middle East today.

I think another implication of Professor Westad’s chilling but very important analysis is that today, I see a failure of a lack of imagination. People, and especially decision-makers in governments in Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Delhi, European capitals, Tokyo—all of these countries—they’re fearful, and they’re focusing on how to reduce their risk and protect themselves. And there’s no vision, no imagination of how positive initiatives, compromises, and unilateral gestures could reduce the mutual suspicion and preserve the peace. I thought of this a lot yesterday when I was at Tsinghua, and people were once again making reference to the Boxer Indemnity funds that Theodore Roosevelt returned—I think around half of those indemnity funds to China for scholarships—and that was very important to Tsinghua, very important to MIT. And it was a gesture of confidence in the future and mutual trust. And now, can we imagine today such a gesture on the part of the U.S. government, the Chinese government, Moscow, any other government, to take such a unilateral gesture of confidence in the future and ability to preserve the peace?

So I have some thoughts about this year in U.S.-China relations. It is a year when there are great opportunities, more opportunities than we’ve had in many years because of the leaders’ meetings. And my hope is that we can use these meetings to show imagination, to reduce mistrust, and to have the U.S. and China not just stabilize their bilateral relations but work together to help manage this new multipolar, very complex world and preserve global peace. Thank you.

Mable Lu Miao

Thank you, Professor Susan. Thank you for your great remarks. Yes, U.S.-China does not handle our bilateral relations—we should work together for the multipolar world. Let us then welcome Mr. Steve Orlins. Mr. Steve Orlins is CCG’s old friend. He is also our veteran U.S.-China expert, lawyer, and business leader. He is the president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. He has led this prominent U.S. nonprofit organization, building understanding and dialogue between the U.S. and China, since 2005. So welcome, Steve Orlins, to deliver his keynote speech. The floor is yours, Steve.

Steve Orlins, President, National Committee on United States-China Relations

Well, it’s great to be here. I think, as Mabel, as Henry, Susan Shirk, Scott, Da Wei, and Roberta, and many others in this room know, I will soon be stepping down as president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. So it’s given me the opportunity to think back to my failures, which have been many, and to the successes, which have also been not insubstantial. So what I’d like to cover very briefly today is some of the successes—I’ll ignore the failures—and talk about the lessons for us today in those successes.

You know, I was a student in Taiwan in 1972, and it was very hard for us to come to China then. So I did come down to Hong Kong, and I went to Lo Wu. You could take the train. You couldn’t go to Shenzhen. You took the train, and I stood at Lo Wu, and I looked across the border, and I saw PLA soldiers there, and I thought, “So I finally have come. I finally can see China.” And I was so excited as a young student having studied Chinese history when I was back in the university. And then a couple of months ago, I was in Shenzhen, and I was at the Futian Shangri-La holding meetings, and I left the Futian Shangri-La, and I walked into the station, you know, the high-speed rail stop, and I was in Kowloon in 14 minutes. So, a trip that 55 years ago we couldn’t take, now I could accomplish in 14 minutes. And the message for America in that is: China constantly changes, and we should never, ever forget that China is not static. And that’s message one.

Message two is: then I was in the State Department working for Secretary Vance, and President Carter talked to us. Because I spoke and read Chinese, I was put on the team to establish diplomatic relations with China, and President Carter talked to us about the polling. So even back then, we had polling, and it was quite negative on China—it was 1978—and he talked to us about the opposition in the House and in the Senate to the establishment of diplomatic relations, and he said, “But we are going to do this because it’s right for America.” He ignored the polling, and he decided to do this, and he stood firm. And I still remember—I think I was 28 years old—and when your boss… I did not testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but my boss did, and I sat in the second row behind him and listened to him be excoriated by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Obviously, they felt we had sold out American interests, when in fact what we did is we set up a peaceful Asia for the next four-plus decades. And don’t forget, up to then, we had basically been at war in Asia for 70 years, if you include World War II, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, etc. So it was looking beyond the polls.

Then I think back to—and that’s obviously a lesson for today. I very much… America’s views of China are actually improving. We saw in a Pew poll a couple of weeks ago that it’s up to, I believe, 37% have a favorable view, which is important because obviously the people’s view is the foundation for what U.S. policy should be. Then I think back to October 19th, 1979, when finally we had established diplomatic relations, and I could come to China, and I landed at the old Beijing airport. And as Roberta knew, because she was there too at that time, when I rode from the Peking airport to the Peking Hotel, it was 1:00 in the morning. I did not pass one other car. We were the only car on the road. There were ox carts, there were bicycles, but there were no other cars. And think about the contrast today—obviously, you’d probably have a traffic jam at 1:00 in the morning.

Now, what was so interesting about then? We’ve got a friend who worked on one of the joint ventures that we established back in 1980, ’81, ’82, and ’83. We didn’t have a roadmap. Chinese laws on joint ventures were about this thick—they were about 10 pages—and we created a roadmap because the folks who were doing this, we and the U.S. companies that were making this investment, and the Chinese companies who were accepting that investment, basically had the same goals and trusted each other. And the lesson for today is: even when you don’t have a roadmap, you can find a way to do it. And I so hope, as Susan made reference to, when President Trump comes next month, that we can make progress when there is no roadmap.

I think back to 1984, when Margaret Thatcher signed the agreement with Deng Xiaoping for the reversion of Hong Kong, and I was in Hong Kong working for Lehman Brothers. And I thought, “What can we do to make this a better reversion, to have stability at that point?” All debt in Hong Kong expired before 1997. So we sat, and we figured, let’s do a big project where the debt expires after 1997, and with a Japanese construction company, with CITIC, with Bank of China, with Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, with Citibank, we put together a financing for something called the Eastern Harbour Crossing, which extended beyond 1997. And it gave Hong Kong the financial stability to be able to do well through the reversion.

When Susan talked about being at Tsinghua yesterday, we were there for the 10th anniversary of the establishment of Schwarzman Scholars. And when I think about successes, when I think about victories, that is really one of the successes that I think about, because what Steve Schwarzman did is establish a program where we have leaders from all over the world, including China, come to China for a year and learn about China and learn about leadership. And these kids are already becoming leaders. And one day, like the Rhodes program, we will have presidents and premiers and CEOs who have spent time in China and have developed a better understanding of China.

Last, it’s funny—I’ve done a lot of things over these years, but the last… and I think Mabel and Henry certainly know what I’m best known for in China, which is a quote I gave at the Chinese Embassy in Washington a few years ago, which was, “在困难的时候要看到成绩，要看到光明，要提高我们的勇气“. For those of you who may not speak Chinese, it’s about basically being courageous in the face of difficulty. And as Susan made reference to, we are in a difficult situation. So my message to all, and to this meeting, is: be brave, know what you want, and stick with it. But Henry, Mabel, thank you all for having me.

Mable Lu Miao

Thank you very much, Mr. Steve Orlins. You spent so many years on U.S.-China relations and boosted our confidence a lot. And be brave, like you mentioned—always be optimistic. Although the Chinese government and Chinese officials always mention that they are cautiously optimistic, we are really optimistic. Just as we listened to Susan, Steve, and other experts on U.S.-China relations, I would like to move to the Asian views. Let us then welcome Professor Kishore Mahbubani, distinguished fellow of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. Professor Kishore Mahbubani is a distinguished Singaporean diplomat, scholar, and global affairs expert. He has had a 33-year diplomatic career with the Singapore Foreign Ministry, twice served as Singaporean Permanent Representative to the UN, and as President of the United Nations Security Council. He is a founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in NUS, named among Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, and renowned as “The Muse of the Asian Century” for his authoritative insights on Asia’s rise and global power shifts. He is the author of The Asian 21st Century, published by the CCG-Springer Nature China and Globalization Book Series, which has been accessed over 4 million times. The floor is yours, Professor Kishore Mahbubani.

Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore; former singaporean ambassador to the United Nations

Thank you, Henry, Mabel, for organizing this splendid meeting. I’m so glad I’m following Steve. He spoke about successes; I’ll speak about failure. Indeed, one of the biggest failures of our time. And what’s that? Look at where we are today. The whole world is frozen. Our economies are stuttering. Why? Because someone started a completely unnecessary, illegitimate war. One decision, and the whole world is frozen. And why is that? I think the answer is that we haven’t done enough as humanity to delegitimize unnecessary, illegitimate wars.

Now, some of you may be puzzled: if I’m talking about unnecessary, illegitimate wars, what is a necessary, legitimate war? Well, we have had a few. I have seen them. I can tell you, for example, that when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, President George H.W. Bush did the right thing. He mobilized the UN, got world support, and removed Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. That was a necessary, legitimate war. Similarly, after Manhattan was attacked, President George W. Bush convened the UN Security Council, and I was there sitting in the council. I voted for the resolution that justified the attack on al-Qaeda for the terrible things it did. Yes, there are legitimate, necessary wars, but many of the wars that we are experiencing are unnecessary and illegitimate.

So what do we do? Here, I think we make a mistake when we think that we’re helpless, that we can’t change things. But if you look at the longer arc of human history and see how we have transformed global norms over time, we have progressively delegitimized barbaric practices, inhumane practices, successfully. So, for example, we have delegitimized slavery. Nobody can have a slave today. We have delegitimized torture. We have delegitimized child labor. We have delegitimized child marriages. We have done lots of things to improve the human condition. But we haven’t done enough to delegitimize wars. And unfortunately, they’re coming back with greater frequency.

So what else can we do? I think clearly we can learn the lessons from history. Let us ask ourselves, for example: why is it that today, within Europe, inside the European Union, you don’t just have zero wars between any two EU member states—you have zero prospect of war. France and Germany will never go to war with one another again. Nor will the UK and Germany. Why not? Because they went through the horrors of World War I, World War II, and they learned the lessons. So that is what we need to do. We need to learn lessons from unnecessary wars.

And I’ll give you a recent example. And this was a war amazingly started by a Nobel Peace Prize winner. And in an article I was reading yesterday by Andrew Byers, a professor in Texas, he says: “In 2016, near the conclusion of his second term, President Barack Obama was asked by Chris Wallace about his greatest mistake as president. Obama didn’t hesitate to respond. He said his ‘worst mistake’ was ‘probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.’” That was an unnecessary war. And you could see what happened, as he says: “This resulted in Gaddafi’s death and the transformation of Libya into a failed state, a condition that persists thirteen years later, which has resulted in an ongoing civil war, countless deaths of civilians, and a humanitarian and refugee crisis.” But do we speak about it? Not at all. Libya is forgotten.

And that’s the mistake. Because when people die, when people suffer as a result of unnecessary wars, we should broadcast it, make the whole world aware. And remember, at the end of the day, the people who suffer the most from unnecessary wars are not the rich elites who travel around the world in private jets, but the people at the very bottom. And we see that today, even with what’s happening in the unnecessary war in the Gulf. So let us make a bigger effort. Let us work harder to delegitimize such wars, and then maybe we’ll make the world a better place. Thank you very much.

Mable Lu Miao

Thank you, Professor Kishore Mahbubani, for that impressive speech. Finally, last but not least, please join me in welcoming Dr. Paolo Magri, president of the Advisory Board of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), to deliver his keynote speech. I would like to introduce a little about Dr. Magri. Dr. Magri leads a very important Italian think tank, the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, Italy’s oldest and top-ranked think tank. He is also a professor of international relations at Bocconi University. He is a key figure bridging European geopolitics, business, and global policy networks. The floor is yours, Dr. Paolo Magri.

Paolo Magri, President of the Advisory Board, Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)

Thank you, Henry. Thank you, Mabel. Being the last, you know already everything about successes and failures, but it is nevertheless a privilege to speak after prominent speakers. And let me say, in particular, after Ambassador Mahbubani, whose work has consistently reminded us of simple but uncomfortable truths that many of the assumptions guiding global governance are not universal—they are historical and increasingly outdated.

And indeed, what is striking today, from Ukraine to Gaza to Iran, is how many of the core assumptions of global governance somehow collapsed. We assumed that alliances were stable anchors of order. Yet today, the most established frameworks, from NATO to BRICS, show internal fractures, diverging priorities, and limits. We assumed that economic interdependence would make war irrational and impossible. We are witnessing the reverse: war is driving economic fragmentation, decoupling, and the weaponization of trade, finance, and supply chains.

We have recently assumed that the United States under Trump would turn into a world less engaged globally, more isolationist. And then came Venezuela, Iran, and who knows next. We assumed that energy, especially oil, belonged to the geopolitics of the past. Instead, energy security has returned to the very center of strategic competition, alongside critical minerals and new technological dependencies. We assumed that violations of sovereignty and attacks on civilians were relics of another era. Yet today they are again central features of conflict, not exceptions, and we talk—and someone talked—about the end of civilization.

We assumed that military Goliaths would prevail quickly over weaker Samsons and Davids. Instead, asymmetry has proven resilient: weaker actors adapt and often reshape the battlefield in unexpected ways. We assumed that international institutions would act as first responders in crises. Instead, they often follow rather than lead. And we assumed that deterrence would remain stable and predictable. Instead, we are entering a world of overlapping, sometimes contradictory deterrence systems. And we assumed that conflicts would remain geographically contained. Instead, they affect economic, technological, humanitarian, or global spheres.

And yet, if it were not such a delicate and at times tragic moment, it would also be an extraordinary, stimulating intellectual moment. Because what we are witnessing is not just disorder, but a redistribution of ideas, power, and legitimacy—a moment that calls exactly for the kind of intellectual openness and strategic humility often advocated by Mahbubani in his writings. The real question before us is not whether the old assumptions were wrong. It is whether we are capable, together and rapidly, to build better ones. Together and rapidly, because as Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist philosopher, wrote from prison during fascism in 1930: “The old world is dying; the new world struggles to emerge. Now is the time of monsters.” If we do want to limit and contain monsters, as we do, we need to work together and rapidly on the new world, with the strategic humility mentioned by Mahbubani, with the imagination of Professor Shirk, and being brave enough, as Steve said. Thank you.

Subscribe now

This year’s forum was co-organised by the China Association of International Trade (CAIT), the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies (CWTO), the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF), and Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University.

The forum brought together around 200 participants from dozens of countries, including ambassadors to China, representatives of international organisations, scholars, business leaders, policy experts, and journalists from Chinese and international media.

CCG has uploaded the video recording of the opening ceremony and keynote speeches to its official YouTube channel, with recordings of the remaining open-door sessions to follow soon. CCG Update will also publish full transcripts of the forum, so stay tuned.

The forum featured a opening ceremony, five open-door roundtables, a closed-door roundtable, and a dinner discussion.

The opening ceremony was moderated by Mabel Lu Miao, Co-Founder and Secretary-General of CCG.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of CCG and former Counsellor of the China’s State Council, delivered opening remarks.

Keynote speakers included Long Yongtu, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and former Secretary-General of the Boao Forum for Asia;

Susan Shirk, research professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, director emeritus of its 21st Century China Center, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affair, U.S. Department of State;

Steve Orlins, President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations (NCUSCR);

Kishore Mahbubani, Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore and former singaporean ambassador to the United Nations;

and Paolo Magri, President of the Advisory Board of the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI).

The opening roundtable, themed “Challenges and Prospects for the Global Governance Order,” was moderated by Henry Huiyao Wang.

Speakers included Mohamed Amersi, Founder and Chairman of the Amersi Foundation; Da Wei, Director of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University; Ma Jianchun, President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies (CWTO); Jens Eskelund, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC); Lu Ruquan, President of the Economics and Technology Research Institute at China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC); Paolo Magri; Kishore Mahbubani; Oliver Lutz Radtke, Sinologist, Author and Strategic Advisor; Susan Shirk; Achilles Tsaltas, President of The Democracy and Culture Foundation, Athens; Zhao Zhongxiu, President of the University of International Business and Economics; and Fabian Zuleeg, Chief Executive and Chief Economist of the European Policy Centre (EPC).

The session “China–U.S. Relations: From Engagement to Rivalry” was moderated by Henry Huiyao Wang.

This roundtable brought together Jin Xu, President of the China Association of International Trade (CAIT); Steven Kelly, Chief Trust Officer of the Institute for Security and Technology; Scott Kennedy, Senior Adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); Wendy Kuran, Associate Vice President for Development and Alumni Engagement for Duke Kunshan University (DKU) and Duke in China; Roberta Lipson, Honorary Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce in China and Founder of United Family Healthcare; Steve Orlins; Kishore Mahbubani; David Meale, Head of China Practice at Eurasia Group and former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in China; Manuel C. Menendez, Founder and CEO of MCM Holdings Group; Susan Shirk; Tammy Tam, Publisher of the South China Morning Post; Zhang Xiaoyan, Vice President of the China Center for Information Industry Development (CCID); and Zhu Hong, former Commercial Minister-Counselor at the Embassy of China in the United States.

The “China–U.S. Youth Roundtable: A Model for China–U.S. Youth Exchanges” roundtable, moderated by Mabel Lu Miao.

The session included speakers David Qingzhong Pan, Executive Dean and Professor of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University; Zhang Ning, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Educational Development Strategy (CSEDS) and Chairman of the International Competence Development Committee (ICDC); Cheng Yan Davis, Founder and President of the Forum for World Education; Rza Aliyev, Chief Strategy Officer of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center; Anthony Andong Wang, Schwarzman Scholar; and John Zhanjie Zhao, Director of the Alliance of Global Talent Organizations (AGTO).

The session titled “Between Headwinds and Openings: Europe and the Next Chapter of China–Europe Relations” was moderated by Zichen Wang, Deputy Secretary General of CCG.

Speakers included Thomas Biersteker, Professor Honoraire at the Graduate Institute, Geneva; Michael Starbæk Christensen, Ambassador of Denmark to China; Vebjørn Dysvik, Ambassador of Norway to China; Jonathan Lehrer, Project Manager for International Affairs at Körber-Stiftung; Lu Hongwei, Director-General, Department of Eurasian Affairs, Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC); Dario Mihelin, Ambassador of Croatia to China; Peng Gang, former Minister at the Mission of China to the European Union; Oliver Lutz Radtke; Sebastian Schwark, CEO of SEC Newgate Germany and Senior Advisor at the Global Solutions Initiative; Ilke Toygür, Director of the Global Policy Center and Professor of Practice of European Politics at IE University; Achilles Tsaltas; and Wang Yiwei, Jean Monnet Chair Professor and Director of Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University of China.

The “The Global South: Forging Cohesion and Defining a New Era of Partnership” roundtable was moderated by Zoon Ahmed Khan, Research Fellow at CCG.

Speakers included Mohamed Amersi; Rza Aliyev; Karim El Aynaoui, Executive President of the Policy Center for the New South; George Chen, a Partner and Chair of Digital Practice at The Asia Group (TAG); He Wenping, Research Fellow at the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Daniel Levy, President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP); Chandran Nair, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Institute for Tomorrow; Niu Xinchun, Academic Vice President of Ningxia University and Executive Dean of the Institute of China-Arab Studies; Osamu Onodera, Head of the Beijing Office and Chief Representative of North East Asia for Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO); Johnsen Romero, Director of the Asia Program and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy; Rong Ying, former Vice President of the China Institute of International Studies; Song Yaoming, Senior Fellow at CCG; and Maxime Stauffer, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Simon Institute for Longterm Governance.

During the forum, an closed-door session titled “Ukraine-China Dialogue: What opportunities for engagement?” was also co-organised by EPC and CCG. Participants included Fabian Zuleeg; Amanda Paul, Deputy Head of Europe in the World Programme and Senior Policy Analyst at EPC; Ivano di Carlo, Senior Policy Analyst at the EPC; Hennadiy Matsak, Executive Director of Ukrainian Prism; Julia Soldatiuk-Westerweld, Senior Research Fellow, EU & Global Affairs, Clingendael; Shi Yinhong, Emeritus Professor at Renmin University of China and former Counselor of China’s State Council; Tang Min, former Counselor of China’s State Council and Vice President of CCG; Ilke Toygür; Sun Yongfu, former Director-General, Department of European Affairs, Ministryof Commerce; Zhou Bo, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University and former Director of the Centre for Security Cooperation in the Office for International Military Cooperation, Ministry of National Defense; Zhao Xiaozhuo, former Director of the Office of the Secretariat of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum; Wang Yiwei; Zichen Wang; and Henry Huiyao Wang.

Selçuk Ünal, Ambassador of the Republic of Türkiye to China, Michael Starbæk Christensen, and Oliver Lutz Radtke attended the closed-door discussion as observers.

The forum concluded with a dinner discussion titled “The Middle East in Turmoil: What Lies Ahead?” The session featured a speech by Mohamed Amersi, followed by a panel discussion with Niu Xinchun, Daniel Levy, and Fabian Zuleeg, moderated by Zoon Ahmed.

Subscribe now

Energy Security, U.S.–China Geopolitical Rivalry, and the Erosion of Climate Commitments

By: Professor Mehri Madarshahi

The Paris Agreement marked a rare moment of global alignment on climate change. For the first time, nearly all states, including the United States and China committed to a common framework aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global warming. The agreement established a shared direction focus on the gradual transition toward low-carbon economies, emissions reductions, net-zero targets, and sustained multilateral cooperation.

In the years that followed, this commitment was reinforced by a series of converging developments. Governments adopted increasingly ambitious climate policies, financial markets began integrating environmental criteria into investment decisions, and renewable energy expanded rapidly across multiple regions. A broad consensus emerged around the idea that the global energy system could be progressively transformed, and that the decade between 2020 and 2030 would be decisive in accelerating this transition.

Yet this momentum has proven more fragile than initially assumed. Since 2022, a series of geopolitical shocks has disrupted the trajectory set in motion after Paris. The return of large-scale conflict, most notably following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, reintroduced energy security as a central concern for policymakers. This shift was further reinforced by instability in key energy corridors, including the Strait of Hormuz, where tensions have underscored the vulnerability of global oil supply.

These developments have had tangible consequences. Governments have delayed or revised decarbonization timelines, expanded investment in fossil fuel infrastructure, and prioritized supply security over long-term climate objectives.Thus, while the formal commitments of the Paris framework remain in place, their practical influence on policy and market behavior have weakened.

Today, what is emerging is not a straightforward continuation of the post-Paris transition, but a more complex and fragmented landscape. Climate goals persist as a reference point, yet they increasingly compete with and are often subordinated to, considerations of geopolitical rivalry, economic stability, and energy security. The global energy transition, once framed as a coordinated effort, is now unfolding under conditions of strategic competition and systemic tension.

From Climate Momentum to Strategic Reversal

The disruption of the post-Paris trajectory did not,however, occur in a single moment, but through a rapid reordering of priorities triggered by geopolitical shocks. The expectation that the 2020–2030 decade would be defined by accelerated decarbonization has increasingly given way to a more complex reality in which energy security, economic stability, and strategic competition play a determining role.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine marked a critical inflection point. By exposing the vulnerability of energy supply systems-particularly in Europe-it forced governments to reassess the pace and structure of the energy transition. Emergency measures, including the reactivation of coal, the expansion of liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and the diversification of supply sources, reflected an urgent shift toward securing immediate energy needs.

This recalibration was not limited to Europe. It signaled a broader transformation in policymaking, where long-term climate objectives began to be weighed against short-term imperatives of security and resilience. Markets responded in parallel, with renewed investment in fossil fuel production and infrastructure, further reinforcing this trend.

More recently, instability surrounding critical energy corridors such as the Strait of Hormuz has amplified these pressures. Volatility in oil markets and the strategic importance of maintaining uninterrupted supply have continued to elevate the role of fossil fuels in national decision-making.

What must be emphasized, however, is that while climate commitments remain formally in place, their operational significance has been markedly reduced. What is emerging is not continuity, but a reordering of priorities in which energy security increasingly overrides decarbonization goals.

Taken together, these developments point to a structural shift rather than a temporary deviation. This energy transition is being reshaped and in some cases constrained, by the geopolitical realities of an increasingly fragmented international system.

The Persistence and Expansion of Fossil Fuel Power

Contrary to prevailing narratives of an orderly energy transition, fossil fuels remain not only central to the global energy mix but also deeply embedded in the strategic calculations of major powers. Oil and gas continue to function as instruments of geopolitical influence, shaping both the conduct of international relations and the structure of global markets.

Recent developments suggest that this persistence is not merely the result of inertia or slow policy adaptation. Rather, it reflects a more deliberate pattern in which control over energy resources and supply routes constitutes a core element of strategic behavior. In this context, fossil fuels are not simply commodities to be phased out, but assets to be managed, secured, and, where possible, leveraged.

The evolving dynamics in regions such as Venezuela and the Persian Gulf illustrate this pattern. Political and economic shifts in major oil-producing states have facilitated the reorganization of their energy sectors, enabling renewed access to reserves and their reintegration into global markets under altered conditions. At the same time, heightened tensions around critical transit points such as the Strait of Hormuz underscore the importance of controlling not only production, but also the flow of energy. Together, these developments point to a dual strategy: the expansion of supply in politically aligned contexts, and the restriction or disruption of supply in adversarial ones.

This duality suggests that oil functions as a strategic lever within a broader architecture of power. It enables states not only to secure their own energy needs but also to influence global pricing, market stability, and the economic conditions under which other actors operate. In this sense, the management of fossil fuel systems becomes inseparable from the exercise of geopolitical power.

Importantly, this dynamic must be understood within the coext of intensifying great-power competition, particularly between the United States and China. Access to energy resources and control over supply chains are increasingly intertwined with broader strategic concerns, including technological leadership, industrial capacity, and global influence. Actions affecting major oil-producing regions therefore have implications that extend beyond immediate resource considerations, shaping the strategic environment in which rivals pursue their economic and political objectives.

The result is a structural paradox. While global discourse continues to emphasize decarbonization, the geopolitical logic of energy security and competition reinforces the centrality of fossil fuels.

This duality suggests that oil functions as a strategic lever within a broader architecture of power. It enables states not only to secure their own energy needs but also to influence global pricing, market stability, and the economic conditions under which other actors operate. In this sense, the management of fossil fuel systems becomes inseparable from the exercise of geopolitical power.

Importantly, this dynamic must be understood within the context of intensifying competition between the United States and China. Access to energy resources and control over supply chains are increasingly intertwined with broader strategic concerns, including technological leadership, industrial capacity, and global influence. Actions affecting major oil-producing regions, therefore, have implications that extend beyond immediate resource considerations, shaping the strategic environment in which rivals pursue their economic and political objectives.

The result is a structural paradox. While global discourse continues to emphasize decarbonization, the geopolitical logic of energy security and competition reinforces the centrality of fossil fuels, re-instrumentalizing it,not only as sources of energy, but as tools of strategic positioning in an increasingly contested international system.:

Energy Transition or Energy Siege?

If energy security has become a driver of climate backsliding, the deeper question is why this pattern has become so persistent and so politically difficult to reverse. The answer lies not only in market inertia or institutional weakness, but in the geopolitical struggle increasingly shaping the energy order itself. What appears at first glance to be a clash between short-term supply needs and long-term climate goals is, in reality, embedded in a broader contest over power, strategic leverage, and the control of global energy systems.

This is why the present moment cannot be understood simply as a period in which different states are pursuing different developmental pathways. The issue is not merely that China and the United States are advancing through distinct energy models that might, in principle, coexist side by side. The deeper reality is that these models are colliding. China’s rise in renewables, batteries, electric vehicles, and clean-energy manufacturing is not only an industrial story; it is a geopolitical one. It suggests the emergence of a future in which strategic influence may depend less on traditional control of fossil resources and more on dominance in the technologies, supply chains, and infrastructures of electrification. That shift has profound implications for global power.

It is precisely this shift that sharpens the contradiction at the heart of energy security today. For the United States, energy has long been tied not only to prosperity, but to strategic doctrine, global reach, and systemic influence. Since the early 2000s, American security thinking has repeatedly treated access to and influence over major energy-producing regions, transport corridors, and maritime chokepoints as integral to its global primacy. In that framework, fossil energy is not merely a commodity, it is a source of leverage: something that can be protected, sanctioned, rerouted, withheld, or used to reinforce alliances and dependencies. This logic has not disappeared with the language of transition. On the contrary, it continues to shape the deeper strategic reflexes of U.S. power.

That is why the conflict is more serious than a simple disagreement over energy choices. A world moving decisively toward renewable energy, electrification, and more distributed systems of production would not only alter emissions trajectories; it could also reduce the geopolitical centrality of the fossil-fuel architecture on which American power has long relied. It would shift the terrain of competition toward sectors in which China has already gained significant advantage. Seen from that perspective, the issue is no longer merely environmental. The transition itself becomes a strategic problem. Climate science is not necessarily denied in a direct or uniform way; rather, it is displaced whenever its implications threaten to accelerate a redistribution of power unfavorable to Washington.

This helps explain why the pursuit of energy security so often reinforces fossil dependence even in the face of overwhelming evidence about climate danger. It is not simply that governments are slow, inconsistent, or hypocritical. It is that fossil energy still offers forms of strategic utility that renewable systems do not yet fully replicate. Oil and gas remain tied to shipping lanes, military protection, territorial influence, sanctions regimes, pricing power, and coercive diplomacy. They are deeply embedded in the older grammar of geopolitics. Renewables may promise greater sustainability, but they do not automatically provide the same architecture of chokepoints and command. For states accustomed to thinking in terms of control, scarcity, and leverage, this matters enormously.

The war in Ukraine brought this contradiction into full view. What began as a military and territorial conflict quickly exposed the enduring centrality of energy to geopolitical order. Europe’s rupture with Russian gas did accelerate the search for alternatives and strengthen the political case for renewable expansion. But it also deepened the short-term reliance on alternative fossil supplies, especially liquefied natural gas, emergency contracts, and intensified competition for secure access. In this sense, the Ukraine war did not simply disrupt the old energy order; it reactivated its deepest logic. Supply security once again overrode climate coherence, and the politics of transition were pushed back under the pressure of strategic urgency.

The same logic extends beyond Europe. Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz are not disconnected episodes in a chaotic global landscape. They are parts of a wider chessboard in which control over fossil resources and routes continues to matter because key rivals, especially China, still depend on them. China may be advancing rapidly in renewables, but it has not escaped fossil vulnerability. Its economy still requires substantial imported oil and gas, much of it moving through contested spaces or politically exposed producers. This creates an opening for a strategy in which dominance over non-renewable energy sources and transport corridors serves not only traditional energy security goals, but the broader objective of constraining China’s room for maneuver.

This is why the current energy order cannot be described as a neutral coexistence between an old model and a new one. It is increasingly a field of confrontation. On one side stands the logic of transition, with China seeking advantage in the infrastructure of the next energy era. On the other stands a strategic reflex that continues to draw power from fossil control, maritime oversight, regional pressure points, and the preservation of an international system in which energy dependence can still be converted into geopolitical leverage. The two are not peacefully unfolding in parallel. They are competing over the terms of the future.

Europe occupies an uneasy place within this confrontation. It is at once a victim of energy insecurity and, at times, an inadvertent participant in the reproduction of the fossil-security order. Its thirst for reliable energy, exposed dramatically by the loss of Russian supply. This has made it more vulnerable to external shocks and more dependent on alternative fossil arrangements precisely at the moment when it seeks to present itself as a global climate leader. Europe may speak the language of green transformation, but its structural exposure to energy scarcity and price volatility continues to pull it back toward the imperatives of immediate supply. In doing so, it reinforces the very geopolitical environment in which renewable ambition is subordinated to fossil necessity.

The result is a deeply unstable global condition. Climate change demands accelerated decarbonization, yet the rivalry surrounding energy is pushing major powers and vulnerable regions toward strategies that preserve fossil relevance: a geopolitical contest in which control over energy remains inseparable from the struggle for strategic dominance.

The real danger, then, is not just climate inaction. It is that climate action has entered a theater of power in which energy transition is increasingly shaped, delayed, and distorted by geopolitical competition.

Europe, Ukraine, Hormuz, and the Fossil-Security Chessboard

If the preceding section identified the strategic collision between energy transition and geopolitical rivalry, the next step is to observe how that collision is being played out across concrete theaters of crisis. The contradiction is no longer abstract. It is visible in the war in Ukraine, in the renewed strategic relevance of Venezuela and Iraq, in the persistent volatility surrounding Iran, and above all in the continued centrality of chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz. Together, these cases reveal that the global energy system remains deeply structured by the politics of fossil control, even as the language of transition grows louder..

Europe’s search for supply became part of a wider reinforcement of the fossil-security order. Liquefied natural gas assumed greater strategic importance. External suppliers acquired new leverage. Infrastructure once justified as temporary necessity began to generate longer-term implications. What was presented as an emergency response also had the effect of preserving fossil dependence at the very moment when the climate crisis required sharper departure from it. Europe did not abandon the transition, but the transition was forced to coexist with a security panic that strengthened the old system from which it was supposed to be escaping.

That development matters beyond Europe itself. Europe’s energy thirst does not operate in isolation; it reverberates through global markets and deepens competition for scarce supply. It also helps legitimize a wider political narrative in which fossil expansion is defended as a rational answer to instability. In this sense, Europe becomes both a casualty of geopolitical energy disruption and a participant in the reproduction of the fossil-security logic. The more insecure Europe becomes, the more it reinforces the global importance of hydrocarbons, shipping routes, and external suppliers. And the more that logic is reinforced, the harder it becomes to treat climate transition as the overriding organizing principle of international energy policy.

The war in Ukraine also altered the strategic map in a second sense. It reaffirmed that energy remains inseparable from coercion, alliance management, and global power alignment. Energy is not merely a consequence of conflict; it is one of its operating terrains. Control over supply, sanctions, price shocks, and substitution patterns all became tools through which the war radiated beyond the battlefield. This is precisely why the transition cannot be treated as a purely technical or environmental matter. As long as energy systems remain vulnerable to geopolitical rupture, governments will continue to privilege forms of supply they believe can be secured, controlled, or militarily protected.

That same logic is visible in the Western Hemisphere. Venezuela, long treated as politically radioactive in Washington, periodically re-enters strategic calculation whenever supply conditions tighten or geopolitical flexibility becomes useful. This is not an incidental contradiction. It reveals how quickly normative language can be recalibrated when fossil energy regains urgency. A sanctioned producer can suddenly become relevant again, not because its governance has fundamentally changed, but because its resources remain embedded in a global security equation. The same broader pattern applies to Iraq, whose importance persists not only because of its reserves, but because it sits within a region where energy, security architecture, and great-power competition remain closely interlinked.

Iran sharpens the picture further. Few cases better illustrate how fossil energy, strategic geography, and geopolitical confrontation remain fused. Iran matters not only because of its hydrocarbons, but because of where it sits and what it can threaten. The Strait of Hormuz is not simply a narrow maritime corridor. It is one of the arteries of the global fossil economy. Any instability there reverberates far beyond the Gulf, affecting prices, market psychology, insurance costs, shipping calculations, and strategic planning across Asia, Europe, and the United States. Hormuz is where geography itself becomes leverage.

This is especially significant in relation to China. China’s advance in renewable energy and electrification does not eliminate its continued need for imported fossil fuel. Its economic scale still requires substantial oil and gas inputs, much of them exposed to maritime routes and politically unstable regions. That means the global shift toward renewables has not yet dissolved the strategic value of fossil chokepoints. On the contrary, these chokepoints remain instruments through which rivals can calculate pressure, exposure, and constraint. In such a world, control over the old energy order retains immense relevance precisely because the new one is not yet complete.

What emerges, then, is something more than a set of regional crises. It is a chessboard on which different theaters serve a common strategic function. Ukraine exposes the vulnerability of energy-dependent Europe and revives the politics of emergency fossil supply. Venezuela reminds us that resource access can quickly override political consistency. Iraq demonstrates the continued relevance of unstable but indispensable producers. Iran and Hormuz reveal that maritime chokepoints remain central to the management of global energy insecurity. Across these cases, the same pattern recurs: whenever energy security becomes urgent, fossil systems regain strategic primacy, and climate logic is pushed to the side.

The consequence is sobering. Every new geopolitical shock strengthens the argument for protecting supply, diversifying imports, expanding strategic reserves, securing routes, and reinforcing old energy partnerships. But these measures, while rational within the logic of immediate security, also prolong the conditions under which climate action becomes secondary. The world becomes trapped in a repeating cycle: geopolitical crisis revives fossil urgency; fossil urgency delays or dilutes transition; delayed transition deepens climate instability; and climate instability, in turn, intensifies the scramble for secure energy.

In this sense, Europe, Ukraine, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, and Hormuz are not separate chapters of world politics. They are interconnected expressions of the same unresolved reality: the international system still seeks security through structures that are helping to produce planetary insecurity. Until that contradiction is addressed directly, energy security will continue to be redefined through geopolitical rivalry, and the transition will remain vulnerable, not simply because of insufficient capacity or inadequate political will, but because delay itself may carry strategic value

A delayed energy transition does not simply defer climate goals; it also postpones the geopolitical benefits of China’s rise in future energy industries. From this perspective, delay or disruption within the transition may carry strategic value, while the persistence of the fossil-based order can serve more than a defensive role for the United States. By prolonging the centrality of oil, gas, and key chokepoints, it may not only

sustain U.S. strategic leverage but also slow China’s ability to convert its leadership in renewables into broader structural power.

In this sense, a delayed transition is not only a climate setback; it may also function as a strategic deferral of China’s ascent in the emerging energy order.

Climate Change and the Reordering of Power

What is ultimately at stake in this unfolding energy crisis is not only the pace of decarbonization, nor even the stability of the global climate taken in isolation. More fundamentally, the world is entering a period in which climate change, energy transition, and geopolitical rivalry are converging into a single struggle over the future distribution of power. This is what gives the current moment its historic weight. The question is no longer simply whether the world can move from fossil fuels to renewable energy quickly enough. It is whether such a transition can occur without destabilizing the strategic hierarchies on which the existing international order has long depended.

This is why the problem cannot be reduced to a failure of political will in the ordinary sense. The obstacles are deeper. Climate action is colliding with entrenched systems of advantage. The old energy order did not merely power industrial economies; it underpinned alliances, military reach, trade routes, financial influence, and geopolitical dependency. It created a world in which power could be exercised through control over extraction, pricing, supply, protection, and access. To move away from that order is therefore not simply to adopt cleaner technologies. It is to unsettle one of the material foundations of modern strategic power.

China’s role in this transformation is central. Its rapid advance in renewable energy, batteries, electric vehicles, grid technology, and industrial scale has given it a position that extends beyond economics. It has placed China near the commanding heights of sectors likely to define the next era of energy development. This does not mean that China has escaped contradiction, nor that its energy system is already post-fossil. But it does mean that the transition, if accelerated globally, could gradually shift structural advantage toward actors that are better positioned in the industries of electrification than in the older architecture of hydrocarbon dominance.

For the United States, and to some extent for other powers formed within the geopolitical logic of the fossil age, this creates a profound strategic dilemma. To support rapid decarbonization in principle is one thing. To accept a transition that may redistribute industrial, technological, and geopolitical advantage is another. This is the deeper reason why climate policy so often appears rhetorically embraced yet strategically constrained. Resistance is not always open, nor always ideological. Often it appears in the form of delay, hedging, securitization, conditional commitment, or renewed emphasis on fossil resilience. But the cumulative effect is the same: the transition is slowed not only because it is difficult, but because its success may alter the balance of power in ways that some actors are unwilling fully to accept.

This is where the climate question becomes inseparable from the question of global order. If the world were governed primarily by scientific necessity, the logic of decarbonization would already be overwhelming. The physical evidence is clear, the technological pathways are increasingly available, and the costs of inaction continue to mount. Yet the international system at this point, does not operate on scientific logic alone. It operates through competition, asymmetry, insecurity, and the preservation of relative advantage. Climate science may define the urgency of the problem, but it does not determine the hierarchy of political choices. Those choices are filtered through the enduring calculations of states that still ask not only what is necessary, but who gains, who loses, and who leads.

Seen in this light, the greatest danger may not be denial of climate change in the traditional sense. It may be the emergence of a world in which climate disruption is fully acknowledged, yet still subordinated to strategic rivalry. In such a world, governments may invest in adaptation, green technology, resilience, and selective decarbonization, while continuing to preserve fossil leverage wherever it remains geopolitically useful. The result would not be total inaction. It would be fragmented action within a competitive system that protects national advantage more fiercely than planetary stability. That is a far more subtle and perhaps more durable form of failure.

Europe’s position once again illustrates this tension. It seeks to lead on climate norms and regulatory ambition, yet its energy insecurity repeatedly pulls it back into the hard realities of supply dependence and geopolitical vulnerability. China seeks leadership in the industries of the future, yet remains exposed to fossil bottlenecks and maritime risk. The United States promotes clean innovation, yet continues to derive strategic benefit from a world in which hydrocarbons, sanctions, sea lanes, and producer influence remain central. Each major actor is therefore caught in a contradiction between the energy future it proclaims and the strategic present it still inhabits. Accordingly, the climate crisis is no longer only about emissions, it is also about the political terms under which a new energy order will be built.

The challenge is not just to accelerate the transition, but to prevent it from being driven by rivalry. If renewable energy becomes another arena of competition, decarbonization may proceed unevenly and too slowly to limit escalating global disruption. If, instead, the transition is framed not as a zero-sum shift in power but as the foundation of a more stable international order, it could offer a way out of the fossil-security trap. That outcome, however, demands a level of political imagination that is currently lacking.

The crisis of climate change is therefore inseparable from a crisis of order. The old fossil system is environmentally unsustainable, yet the new energy system is geopolitically contested before it is fully formed. Between the two lies the central struggle of our time: whether humanity can build an energy future guided by planetary necessity, or whether that future will be distorted, delayed, and weaponized by the rivalries of a fractured world.

Conclusion

The climate crisis is often presented as a problem of science, technology, and political will. But that framing is no longer sufficient. What this article has argued is that climate change now sits inside a much larger geopolitical struggle over energy, power, and strategic advantage. The transition to renewable energy is not unfolding in a neutral policy space. It is taking place in a fractured international system in which states continue to calculate not only environmental necessity, but also relative gain, dependency, leverage, and control.

That is why the contradiction between energy security and climate action has become so acute. The issue is not merely that governments fail to act consistently on what climate science requires. It is that the existing energy order still provides strategic benefits that major powers are reluctant to surrender. Fossil fuels remain tied to military reach, sanctions, chokepoints, alliances, and systems of influence. Renewable energy, by contrast, points toward a redistribution of industrial and geopolitical advantage, one in which China has already secured a significant lead in key sectors of the emerging energy economy.

From this perspective, climate delay is not always the product of ignorance, denial, or institutional weakness alone. It can also reflect a deeper strategic logic: the preservation of an energy architecture that continues to serve geopolitical purposes even as it drives ecological instability. The wars, crises, and pressure points examined in this article be it Ukraine, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Hormuz, and Europe’s energy vulnerability, are not separate disturbances on the margins of the climate story. They are part of the climate story. They reveal a world still seeking security through the very structures that are worsening planetary insecurity.

This is the real danger. The transition may continue, but in a distorted form: slowed by rivalry, fragmented by insecurity, and subordinated to the chess game of great-power competition. In such a world, decarbonization does not stop, but it ceases to be governed primarily by scientific urgency. Instead, it becomes entangled in the struggle over who will shape the next energy order and who will dominate its strategic consequences.

The central question of our time, then, is no longer simply whether the world will move beyond fossil fuels. It is whether it can do so before the transition itself is captured by geopolitical conflict. If that happens, climate change will no longer be only an environmental emergency. It will become the terrain on which a new hierarchy of power is fought out.

And that may be the cruelest paradox of all: that humanity already knows what it must do to avoid deeper climate catastrophe, yet remains trapped in an international system that turns the path to survival into an instrument of rivalry.

Subscribe now

Local Insights: At the 13th Baku Global Forum, global participants look to China for new path of multilateralism and stability

Hope Amid Disorder

By Mabel Miao Lu

Published: Apr 14, 2026 11:50 PM

Editor’s Note:

In an era of profound global shifts and increasingly complex regional dynamics, a proper understanding of the world must be rooted in “grounded experience” and localized insights. Global Times English edition, in collaboration with the Academy of International and Regional Communication Studies, Communication University of China, is proud to launch “Local Insights,” an English-language column dedicated to original, field-based observations.

We invite Chinese scholars and professionals who are studying, conducting exchanges, or working outside China, as well as international students and friends living and studying in China who are familiar with the social contexts of their home countries or third countries, to begin from first-hand field experience and engage with social, cultural, and contemporary issues beyond China. As the first article in the column, a Chinese think tank scholar shares her experience at the Baku Global Forum, highlighting the international community’s longing for multilateralism and expectations for China’s participation in global governance.

Before I left for Baku, Azerbaijan, I was not sure what kind of conference I was heading into.

Having worked in Track II diplomacy through the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) for several years, I have attended many international forums. Usually, even before departure, one can sense the likely mood of a meeting: who will come, what the tone will be, and whether the gathering will produce anything meaningful. This time, however, everything felt different.

The 13th Baku Global Forum, held from March 11 to 14, under the theme “Bridging Divides in a Transforming World,” was taking place at an unusually dangerous moment. The escalating conflict involving the US, Israel and Iran had pushed regional tensions to a new level. Baku, in the South Caucasus, lies close to several geopolitical fault lines. Russia-Ukraine conflict still casts its shadow across the wider region, while tensions surrounding Iran and the Middle East were intensifying. As the forum was approaching, the question was no longer simply whether it would matter, but whether people would even go.

Many around us were pessimistic. At one point, I was too. Under normal circumstances, a gathering of current and former presidents, prime ministers, ministers, senior United Nations officials and leading think tank figures would attract strong attendance. But these were not normal times. Just one week before the forum opened, on March 5 local time, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry strongly condemned drone attacks on its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic launched from Iranian territory. War was no longer a distant headline. It had moved closer - geographically, psychologically and politically. That changed the meaning of the trip, and it changed the meaning of the forum itself.

Arrival: A half-war city, and a forum fuller than expected

When I arrived in Baku, what struck me first was not panic, but tension held just beneath the surface.

Airports often tell the emotional truth of a place better than conference halls do. In the pauses between security checks, in the extra vigilance of personnel and in the expressions of travelers trying to read the room, one senses how a city understands its own moment. Baku did not feel chaotic. It felt alert.

The city was functioning normally on the surface. Traffic moved. Delegations arrived. Hotels operated efficiently. Conference staff prepared badges, schedules and plenary logistics. Yet beneath all of that routine was an unmistakable awareness that the region was living through an exceptionally dangerous moment. That was when the phrase that stayed with me throughout the trip first took shape in my mind: Baku was a “half-war city.” It was not a battlefield, but it was no longer fully insulated from war either.

What surprised me most was not the tension. It was the turnout.

Before arriving in Baku, many of us had quietly assumed attendance might be thin. Who would willingly travel to a region overshadowed by war, instability and the risk of escalation? Yet, when I walked into the forum, what I found was not hesitation but presence.

Held under the patronage of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the forum drew an extraordinary concentration of political weight. Nearly 200 current and former political leaders, senior officials, diplomats, scholars and policy figures had gathered. Among them were President José Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste, Željka Cvijanovi, member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Francisco Gamboa, vice president-elect of Costa Rica, along with former heads of state, heads of government, foreign ministers and prominent think tank leaders from around the world.

Their presence said something before any formal remarks were made. People had come because the crisis was serious. They had come because the danger felt real. They had come because when the possibility of broader war begins to appear plausible, dialogue takes on a different urgency.

Looking around the room, I realized that what had brought so many people to Baku was not optimism in any easy sense. It was anxiety - deep, accumulated anxiety that the world was moving toward something darker and harder to reverse. The usual vocabulary of “friction,” “competition,” and “differences” seemed too soft for what many were feeling. People were thinking in harsher terms: escalation, fragmentation, breakdown, systemic disorder, even the possibility of a wider war that no one truly wanted but many feared could happen.

In the corridors: Diplomacy speaks more plainly

What I remember most is not a single speech, but the shift in people’s manner.

In more stable times, international conferences often follow a familiar script. Public remarks are polished. Private conversations remain careful. Criticism is wrapped in formal language. At Baku, much of that softening language seemed to fall away.

Whether in plenary sessions or side conversations, delegates spoke with unusual directness. Their words were still diplomatic, but less ornamental, less buffered and less scripted. Time and time again, I heard variations of the same concern: the world was approaching a dangerous crossroads; the current trajectory was unsustainable; great-power rivalry was spilling outward into multiple regions; sanctions, coercion, bloc confrontation and unilateral pressure were pushing the international system toward a deeper crisis of order.

What struck me was not only that people were worried. It was that their worries converged. I did not hear support for unilateral bullying. I did not hear anyone openly defend confrontation for its own sake. I did not see enthusiasm for a world divided into hardened camps. Across countries and political backgrounds, I sensed a broad resistance to further escalation. Many participants did not agree on every issue, of course. But they seemed increasingly united in one conclusion: this path is too dangerous; this level of disorder cannot continue; the world must somehow be pulled back toward rationality.

One of the clearest expressions of this mood was the unusually strong presence of senior figures from the United Nations system and major multilateral institutions. Among those present were senior UN figures including Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Rebeca Grynspan, Tatiana Valovaya and Anacláudia Rossbach, alongside several former presidents of the United Nations General Assembly and other distinguished former UN officials.

This concentration of UN representation was not accidental. It reflected something deeper: at a time of widening disorder, the demand for genuine multilateralism had become more urgent, not less. In my own conversations with senior international organization figures, I sensed a repeated theme. No one spoke as if the United Nations were flawless. On the contrary, people acknowledged its weaknesses and constraints. But those critiques did not weaken the case for multilateralism. They strengthened it. Because in the minds of many participants, the alternative to an imperfect multilateral system was not a better one. It was a more dangerous one.

A session that revealed a shift: ‘China and the Global Governance Initiative’

Among all the discussions at the forum, one of the most revealing for me was the special session on “China and the Global Governance Initiative.” For the first time, China’s Global Governance Initiative was directly elevated as a core thematic session of the main forum.

The session featured Wu Hongbo, former Special Representative of the Chinese Government on European Affairs; was chaired by Mladen Ivani, former Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina; and included Mikayil Jabbarov, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Economy, Romano Prodi, former prime minister of Italy and former president of the European Commission, and Borut Pahor, former president of Slovenia.

What I felt in that room was different from the tone that often surrounded China-related discussions in earlier years. In the past, many international conversations about China carried an undertone of suspicion or defensiveness. In Baku, the tone was more open, more substantive and in many cases more respectful than I had expected.

What I sensed was not universal agreement, but expectation. Against a backdrop in which Russia remains deeply enmeshed in the Ukraine conflict and the US is associated in many minds with sanctions, pressure campaigns and ideological confrontation, China is increasingly seen by many as a major country that has consistently emphasized peace, development, sovereignty and dialogue. That does not mean all concerns about China have disappeared. It does mean that more people are listening carefully when China speaks.

The thematic session “Leadership in Times of Strategic Uncertainty,” chaired by Eka Tkeshelashvili and featuring Petre Roman, Valdis Zatlers and senior executives from the Atlantic Council, also fed into a broader discussion on China. Many participants were not looking for abstract rhetoric, but for clarity about where the world is heading and what role China may play in a time of deep uncertainty. There was noticeable interest in China’s recently concluded “two sessions” and the 15th Five-Year Plan. For many outside China, especially those living in political systems marked by polarization and strategic inconsistency, China’s capacity for medium-term planning and its ability to formulate medium-term national development plans carries real significance.

In the end, the consensus I witnessed in Baku was not naive, nor was it based on the illusion that global disorder can be quickly reversed. It was something narrower, but perhaps more important: a growing recognition that the world cannot afford to continue along the current path of unilateral coercion, bloc confrontation and unrestrained geopolitical escalation.

As I left Baku, what stayed with me most was not only the gravity of the crisis, but the clarity it had produced. Baku felt like one of those moments in international politics when instability becomes so acute that the usual diplomatic illusions fall away. On the edge of disorder, people spoke more plainly. Faced with the possibility of wider war, they seemed to understand more sharply the value of restraint.

That is why I left Baku with a paradoxical impression. I had gone to a city overshadowed by war, expecting hesitation and perhaps even emptiness. Instead, I found urgency, attendance, candor and a fragile but unmistakable convergence around peace.

On the edge of disorder, I did not see resignation. I saw the beginnings of a new multilateral instinct.

Subscribe now

Pekingnology

Henry Huiyao Wang on How China’s patient diplomacy can help secure peace in Iran

Henry Huiyao Wang, founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), wrote on Wednesday, April 22 in his opinion column in the South China Morning Post…

Read more

14 days ago · 1 like

The delegation was organised and accompanied by the Press and Public Affairs Office of the Chinese Embassy in India. An official from All-China Journalists Association also accompanied the visit.

Over the course of the two-hour exchange, participants engaged in a warm and candid discussion. They agreed on the necessity and importance of strengthening China-India exchanges among media professionals, experts, and scholars.

The session was moderated by Zichen WANG, Deputy Secretary-General of CCG, who conveyed greetings from Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of CCG, and Mabel Lu Miao, Secretary-General of CCG, who are visiting Europe at the moment.

Chinese participants included

• Larry Xiaobing LI, former Minister for Economic and Commercial Affairs, Chinese Embassy in India

• MAO Keji, Deputy Division Director, International Cooperation Center, National Development and Reform Commission

  

• DU Wenrui, Editor (South Asia & Middle East), World Affairs Magazine

  

• CHEN Zhuo, PhD Candidate, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University

  

• Yuxuan JIA, Research Associate, CCG

CCG also invited several foreign guests currently in Beijing, including:

• Pallavi Aiyar, author and journalist

  

• Jostein Hauge, Assistant Professor in Development Studies, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge

  

• KJM Varma Mokanda, China Correspondent, Press Trust of India (PTI)

  

• Noel Jackson Therattil, Research Analyst, Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), and Schwarzman Scholar

  

• Richard Yarrow, Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, Harvard Kennedy School

  

In addition, several journalists from Chinese media outlets also took part in the discussion.

The visiting delegation brought together senior Indian editors and journalists from some of India’s most influential media organisations, including:

• Varghese K. George, The Hindu

  

• Sachin Parashar, The Times of India

  

• Rezaul H. Laskar, The Hindustan Times

• Jayanth Jacob, The New Indian Express

• Devirupa Mitra, The Wire

• Sharan Poovanna Codanda Chengappa, The Print

• Manash Pratim Bhuyan, Press Trust of India (PTI)

• Snehal Tulsiram Satghare, Asian News International (ANI)

• Asawari Jindal, News X

• Gaurie Dwivedi, New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV)

They were accompanied by YANG Zhen of the Press and Public Affairs Office of the Chinese Embassy in India, WANG Chuanjun, Division Director of the International Department of the All-China Journalists Association, and two other staff members.

CCG colleagues and interns also sat in on the discussion.

Subscribe now

On April 10, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao met with Ravi Agrawal, Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy, and Dan Ephron, Executive Editor at Foreign Policy, for a luncheon exchange at the Harvard Club.

On April 10, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao visited the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) Center for China Analysis and held discussions with Jing Qian, Vice President of the Asia Society and Managing Director of its Center for China Analysis (CCA), along with colleagues, on China–U.S. relations and related issues. They also met with Wendy Cutler, Senior Vice President at ASPI.

On April 12, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao met with Yue-Sai Kan, Co-Chair of the China Institute of America at her residence in New York.

On April 13, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao met with Dr. Cheng Yan Davis, Co-founder and President of the Forum for World Education and former Special Advisor to the President of Teachers College (TC), Columbia University.

On April 13, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao met with Steve Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, in New York, where they exchanged views on issues of mutual interest.

On April 14, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao attended the Semafor World Economy 2026 CEO Welcome Dinner in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Semafor World Economy Co-Chairs.

On April 14, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) met with Dr. Michael Pillsbury, Senior Fellow for China Strategy at Heritage Foundation.

On April 14, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao met with Professor David Shambaugh, Gaston Sigur Professor of Asian Studies, Political Science & International Affairs and founding Director of the China Policy Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University.

On April 15, CCG, Changing World Dialogue (CWD), and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) jointly hosted a think tank roundtable at George Washington University.

On April 15, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao attended the 2026 IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings held at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters at the invitation of The Bretton Woods Committee.

On April 15, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao attended the Semafor gala dinner celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C.

On April 16, 2026, during the session “Fortifying Resilient Global Systems”, Henry Huiyao Wang engaged in a dialogue with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Semafor China Columnist Andy Browne. Wang was the sole Chinese speaker at Semafor World Economy 2026.

On April 16, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao attended the Semafor World Economy 2026 dinner at the U.S. National Archives in Washington, D.C.

On April 17, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang participated in a T20 workshop in the Washington, D.C. jointly organized by the Brookings Institution, The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and Stimson Center.

On April 17, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao attended the Semafor World Economy 2026 reception at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

On the morning of April 17, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang attended the Semafor World Economy 2026 CEO Closed-Door Breakfast Meeting.

On April 18, Henry Huiyao Wang was interviewed by CGTN anchor Diego Laje in Washington, D.C.

On April 18, 2026, during the 2026 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Henry Huiyao Wang and Mabel Lu Miao met with Dr. Wencai Zhang, Managing Director and World Bank Group Chief Administrative Officer, for discussions.

On the morning of April 18, 2026, Henry Huiyao Wang attended the Semafor World Economy 2026 session themed around “AI &The Global Competition for Talent”.

Subscribe now

The full video of the session, “Fortifying Resilient Global Systems,” is available on Semafor’s official YouTube channel. This transcript is based on the video and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

Andy Browne

Dr Wang, thank you for taking the time.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Andy.

Andy Browne

So we’re one month out from a U.S.-China summit in Beijing. When President Trump goes to Beijing, he’s going to be the first U.S. president to visit for a decade. He was the last president to visit during his first term. How do you assess U.S.-China relations right now, and what are you hearing in Beijing about expectations for this summit and the outcome?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Andy, and thanks, Semafor, for the invitation. I think President Trump’s visit to Beijing in about a month’s time is so important. And also, China-U.S. relations are the most important bilateral relationship in the world, I would say. I think expectations for President Trump’s visit are quite high, actually, in China too.

First, I think he comes at a big, historic moment, after a decade, and amid all those geopolitical tensions, the Iran conflict, the Russia war, and so on. So it’s very important. But also bilaterally, we have so many things to talk about. I remember last time when President Xi and President Trump made a phone call, they said they were steering a gigantic ship in a turbulent world, and that China and the U.S. can work together to do better things, greater things.

So I would think that through this visit, we will probably see a chance to stabilise the relationship. Stability is probably the most important buzzword, I think, for both China and the U.S. We need stability; the world needs stability. But even merely shaking hands sends a thousand images around the world. So that is really great. But of course, practically, we can still achieve a lot of things. We can probably see how we can stabilise trade frictions. We can see how we can balance trade and also improve global collaboration, but also particularly on peacemaking, which China is really working on right now.

Andy Browne

Somebody said that President Trump is the least hawkish member of his own administration when it comes to China. And from Beijing’s perspective, there’s never going to be a better chance to do a deal, whether that’s on tech, trade, or Taiwan. Does that ring true to you?

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think that’s probably correct. You know, President Trump, in that sense, is very practical. I mean, he was trying to invite President Xi to his inaugural speech. He wants to be a president of peace and unity. And I think that if he wants to be a president of peace and unity, he needs China to collaborate.

And so we do have a lot of bilateral issues. But I think in a global situation like this, in a multipolar world, where the U.S. and China, if they actually stay together, that will generate huge benefits, not only for the U.S. and China, but for the world. So I think we do have differences. Of course, we have competition. We have a lot of different values and systems. But after all, we are all villagers in the global village. We really have to work together.

Andy Browne

We had Scott Bessent at dinner on Tuesday, and he said that one of the outcomes of the summit would be the establishment of a Board of Trade and a Board of Investment. Have you heard about this? How is it going to work? Also, potentially, a white list of Chinese companies that can be waved straight through into the United States?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely. That’s a brilliant idea. I think that, given the importance of China and the U.S. in terms of trade and investment, particularly Chinese investment—you know, investment is global, there’s outbound and inbound investment flows—I think it’s high time now for the U.S. and China to work together.

I remember President Trump during his campaign saying that if BYD set up a factory in Mexico, he’s going to levy 200 percent, but if it’s in the U.S., he’s open to that.

Andy Browne

So do you think that’s going to happen?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Well, I think probably we still need a little bit of consensus-building on that. But in the long run, I do see a benefit in massive Chinese investment in the U.S. That’s what the Japanese did in the 1980s and 1990s. And if we want to address this imbalance issue, one of the best ways is really to attract more Chinese manufacturing investment, which can help U.S. capability.

Andy Browne

Trump has said that he’s open to the idea of having Chinese car companies. Today, Jim Farley, who’s CEO of Ford, said the U.S. government should keep them out. How do you think it’s going to play out?

Henry Huiyao Wang

I do think there may be a variety of opinions here in Washington, but I do think President Trump has a vision. He has a grand vision. He knows that the two largest economies can’t really be at odds all the time. You need to find a way to really work together. And that’s why he’s so interested in coming to China, and he’s invited President Xi to come again, to return the visit. And then there are another two summits we’re going to see this year. So there are a lot of high-level summits that we’re going to expect.

Andy Browne

Okay, how about the tough question: Taiwan? There’s a lot of speculation that China is going to try to get President Trump to say that the U.S. opposes Taiwan independence, rather than just saying it doesn’t support it.

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think that’s probably something the U.S. could think about because, you know, after all, Taiwan is part of China. The old government recognises Taiwan, you know, as a province of China. That has been written into the positions of 184 countries when they set up diplomatic ties, and the U.S. recognises Taiwan as part of China. It’s part of China, and previous U.S. administrations all opposed Taiwan becoming independent. They can probably say that.

I would think if President Trump can say they support peaceful unification, that would be hugely popular, I think, as well, given that the recent KMT chairwoman Cheng visited Beijing, and there’s a huge normalising of relations between the parties of the KMT and the CCP. So I would think this would be a great idea to do that.

Andy Browne

Okay, since we’re on the topic of Taiwan, there’s a lot of concern among businesses represented here at this event about choke points: the Strait of Hormuz, Panama, Malacca Strait, the Suez Canal. But the biggest one, the most important one, is Taiwan. Every year for the last three or four years, the People’s Liberation Army has been practising for a blockade of Taiwan or an invasion. Should they be worried that China will pull the trigger on this?

Henry Huiyao Wang

No, I think that currently the situation is slowing down and normalising a bit. But of course, China always maintains that if the separatist movement in Taiwan really got out of control, or Taiwan really became independent, China reserves the right to unify its own country, one of its provinces.

I think the opinion polls, and also the KMT, show that they are pro-reunification. And they are the majority in the parliament in Taiwan. I would think, you know, if they keep continuing this kind of peaceful momentum—for example, China welcomes all the Taiwanese coming to the mainland for work, free of health care, schooling, everything. And they also opened all the entry points to Taiwanese; you can get the permit right on the spot at the point of entry.

Andy Browne

Is there a date? Some people think 2027—that’s when the PLA are going to try to take Taiwan. Other people say 2028.

Henry Huiyao Wang

No, that’s purely speculation. I don’t think you can find any official Chinese document saying 2027. I think now, with this historic visit happening after a decade, that myth has been debunked. You know, basically it doesn’t exist.

I think China wants peaceful unification. President Xi and Madam Cheng all stressed peaceful unification. And also, the number of Taiwanese who actually went to the mainland last year doubled, from 2 million previously to 4 million trips made. And there are 1 million to 2 million Taiwanese working on the mainland. There are half a million marriages across the Strait. The integration is so deep now. I don’t think they’re going to have a war over that if they really can work out the differences by themselves.

Andy Browne

Okay, let’s talk about Iran. So last week, President Xi Jinping said the global order is crumbling into disarray. He didn’t actually mention the United States. What did he mean by that?

Henry Huiyao Wang

No, I think, you know, that’s probably because we’re seeing this year that a lot of unexpected things have happened. We saw what happened in Venezuela and Latin America. We certainly are seeing what happened in Iran. Because the U.S. said last June they had already obliterated all the nuclear facilities. So certainly, what was the imminent threat for the U.S. to get in there?

So we don’t want to see the law of the jungle, or “might is right”, right? We really need to have some kind of procedure, either through Congress or the U.N. Security Council, before doing anything on that kind of scale.

But China this time is so different. I know Foreign Minister Wang Yi has actually phoned 26 counterparts, including Israelis and Iranians, and also all the Security Council members and all the other major European foreign ministers, and things like that. And also, of course, the Pakistani foreign minister was invited to Beijing, and they reached a five-point peace proposal for the Iranian conflict. And then we are seeing Islamabad becoming a mediator. And now Vice President JD Vance is going there again. So we see that China probably fully supports this and is really making all its efforts to make this happen.

Andy Browne

Very risky now the U.S. Navy is blockading the Strait of Hormuz. There are Chinese-flagged vessels sailing in and out. What would happen if the U.S. Navy interdicted a Chinese vessel?

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think this is temporary. I don’t think that the choking point can last for long. I mean, first of all, it’s no good for the Gulf countries, longstanding allies of the U.S. It’s no good for Iran, for China, or for the rest of the world. So if this is not beneficial for them, and if the world economy slumps, and also we see that a lot of U.S. dollar-based transactions are delayed or impacted, then in the long run we need to open Hormuz, because certainly China depends on quite a bit of that too.

But China is also diversifying. China’s green power—renewable power—is already half of its capacity, and China can also buy more from other countries too. So it’s not really the end of the world for China. But I think Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, and many other countries depend on that, as do the U.S. and Europe. So we really need to stabilise the world by opening that Hormuz channel.

Andy Browne

So we saw a U.S. Marine Expeditionary Force pulled out of Okinawa, and the U.S. Seventh Fleet redeploying to the Gulf. This is leaving a vacuum in Asia. Does China aspire to fill that vacuum?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Well, I mean, historically, I think for the last 45 years China has never invaded any other countries, never sent any soldiers anywhere, never built up military bases.

Andy Browne

Vietnam?

Henry Huiyao Wang

That was already 45 years ago. So I don’t think that China has that kind of aspiration.

You know, in Confucian countries, you cultivate your land, four crops a year, you stay on your land. That kind of Confucian culture says, “While your parents are alive, you don’t travel so far away.”

Andy Browne

So much pressure on Taiwan, sanctions on Japan, strategic pressure on South Korea, on the Philippines, on all of the United States’ friends in Asia. What’s the strategy here? What is Beijing attempting to achieve?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Well, I think China is actually trying to normalise relations and build better relations. You know, the surrounding countries have become the focus. The Vietnamese new chairman is just in Beijing right now. And also we are working with all the other countries. President Xi last year made trips only to neighbouring countries—ASEAN, Central Asia, and also South Korea. So we work with all the neighbouring countries to improve relations, like the U.S. did in the Western Hemisphere. We want to make good relations.

Andy Browne

Dr Wang, we could go on all day. I’m sure we’re out of time. Thank you so much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Thank you.

Subscribe now

Pekingnology

Cheng Li-wun did NOT redefine 1992 Consensus. She stood up for it.

Interpretations of politically sensitive cross-Strait meetings will always differ. That is normal. But there is a basic standard analysis should still meet: it should remain anchored in what was actually said, whether in public video, in contemporaneous transcripts, or in official text that has not been disputed…

Read more

21 days ago · 12 likes · 2 comments · Zichen Wang and Yuxuan JIA

The East is Read

Full text: Cheng Li-wun's speech at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing

Cheng Li-wun, chair of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT), visited the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing on Wednesday, retracing a stop made on Lien Chan’s landmark 2005 “Journey of Peace” and using the occasion to pledge cross-strait reconciliation and peace as part of Sun Yat-sen’s unfinished mission…

Read more

a month ago · 12 likes · Yuxuan JIA

Pekingnology

Beijing Is Not Rushing Reunification

China’s mainland has long insisted that the real threat to peace in the Taiwan Strait comes not from Beijing, but from “Taiwan independence” separatist forces and the external powers that support them, above all, the United States. Therefore, People’s Liberation Army exercises in and around the Strait are not preparations for war so much as deterrence a…

Read more

a month ago · 88 likes · 19 comments · Zichen Wang

Drawing on the concept of interregionalism, the chapter analyses the institutional logic, strategic opportunities, and policy challenges of stronger engagement between BRICS and the GCC, and highlights China’s possible role in fostering closer cooperation between the two sides.

We are pleased to share the full text of the chapter here. Readers interested in supporting the full volume may visit the publisher’s official website.

Building a Cohesive Global Order: Promoting Interregionalism between GCC and BRICS

Abstract: In an era characterized by both regional fragmentation and global integration, the interplay between regional organizations is pivotal in shaping international dynamics. This paper examines the evolving landscape of regional cooperation, focusing on the expansion of BRICS and its recent inclusion of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members such as the UAE and potentially Saudi Arabia. BRICS distinguishes itself by embracing broad interregional goals, while the GCC acts as a crucial link between the West and the East. Both the GCC and BRICS have established significant relationships with other regional organizations. By leveraging its unique position within BRICS and strong ties to the GCC, China offers a case study of how major powers can navigate the complexities of globalization to promote a more integrated global order. This study analyzes the opportunities, challenges, and implications of this interregional cooperation, emphasizing its potential to contribute to global governance and regional integration.

Keywords: Interregionalism BRICS GCC China

As Peter Katzenstein claimed, “we live in a world composed of regions” (Katzenstein 2005, 1). Currently, the global landscape is characterized by both the fragmentation of regional and international organizations and a simultaneous trend towards interconnection and integration. A notable example is the expansion of BRICS to include Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries such as the UAE and potentially Saudi Arabia. While BRICS can be considered an interregional bloc, the GCC has historically served as a typical regional organization linking the West and the East. This study tackles a complex research question and seeks to offer an initial response: As a leading BRICS nation with strengthening ties to the GCC, what role can China play in advancing interregionalism? What are the economic, political, and cultural challenges and opportunities? Furthermore, how might stronger interregional connections between the GCC and BRICS contribute to a more integrated and cohesive global order?

This investigation seeks to identify, at this early stage, the key areas where China can promote interregionalism between the GCC and BRICS. The central argument of this paper is that China, with its unique position within BRICS and its strong ties to the GCC, has the potential to facilitate cooperation between these two groups. While challenges and potential conflicts may arise, there are abundant opportunities for China to play a pivotal role. By implementing effective strategies, the enhanced interregional collaboration can contribute to the creation of a more cohesive and integrated global order.

Interregionalism: A Preliminary Analytical Framework

Since the 1960s, regional organizations within the international system and among states have gradually gained recognition from the international community. Especially since the end of the Cold War, regional cooperation to address the various challenges of globalization has become a common choice for many geographically proximate countries. Based on this, the interaction between different regions and regionalism has become a new field of development in international relations, increasingly attracting attention from the international community.

The process of regionalism began in the 1950s, with Europe being the most exemplary case of regional integration theory and practice. During the first wave of regionalism development, regional cooperation in Latin America was once very active, but eventually declined due to market distortions and a lack of political will to support the integration process.

In the 1990s, regionalism experienced a revival, ultimately forming a basic pattern with East Asia, North America, and Western Europe as its core regions, exerting significant influence on the international economy. The end of the Cold War and the rapid advancement of globalization created opportunities for the flourishing of the second generation of regionalism.

The second generation of regionalism no longer defines regional organizations purely based on geographical concepts. For example, the BRICS countries constitute a cooperative mechanism; although its member countries are spread globally, the BRICS organization focuses on their common interests and cooperation, thus can be regarded as an interregional bloc.

Against the backdrop of globalization, the development of inter-regional relations has become another manifestation of the flourishing of the second generation of regionalism (Olivet 2005, 24). The birth of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the launch of the Transatlantic Cooperation Agenda between Europe and the Americas, and the Asia-Europe Meeting mechanism have established dialogue mechanisms connecting the three major regions. Data from the World Trade Organization shows that the number of various forms of interregional dialogue mechanisms and cooperative forums worldwide has reached hundreds (Cruz 2016, 5). Matthew Doidge pointed out that the rise of regionalism is largely a product of regions as independent actors in external relations (Doidge 2011, 16). Diverse forms of interregional and regional dialogue mechanisms and institutional arrangements reflect the increasingly powerful agency of regions as actors (Hettne 2003, 8).

Interregionalism originates from the second generation of regionalism and surpasses it in its own way. Therefore, the emergence and development of interregionalism are also regarded as signs of the rise of the third generation of regionalism (Luk and Costea 2007, 80). Many scholars believe that the external relations and political processes propelled by interregionalism have significant implications for global governance and world order. Interregionalism may become a new level in the future global order, and its study will also become a new field in international relations research.

Broadly speaking, interregionalism has five functions (Ma 2009, 45-46): first, balance, which can be manifested in two forms: balancing of power and institutions. In addition to the balance of regional power, major powers also use interregional and transregional forums as institutional tools to maintain balance among them; second, institution-building, the establishment of a large number of interregional and transregional forums has added a new level to the international system and promoted its diversification. While creating greater demand for coordination within regions, regional interactions also increase the institutional cohesion of regional organizations because members of regional organizations must cooperate more closely to deal effectively with dialogue partners between regions; third, construction of regional identity, as mentioned above, the vitality of interregional and transregional interactions, and the subsequent greater demand for regional cohesion, promote the construction of regional identity because the process of interaction with external organizations at the interregional level will strengthen identification at the regional level; fourth, relieving the burden of global multilateral forums, due to the increasing complexity of discussions in global forums and the increasing number of actors representing different interests, their efficiency has been declining. Interregional and transregional forums share and decompose the decision-making process of global multilateral forums, making negotiations and resolutions of global issues a bottom-up process. Interregional relations thus streamline the overloaded agendas of global forums, preventing the paralysis of global mechanisms due to “bottlenecks” at the top of the international system; fifth, setting agendas, closely linked to the function of “easing the burden” of global multilateral forums, interregional and transregional forums provide a convenient platform for introducing new topics into global forums and establish a coordination mechanism with a broad base, to some extent, promote the resolution of global issues or prevent their occurrence.

It should be pointed out that interregionalism is not limited to the pursuit of a single specific goal; its content and mission are multidimensional. As a comprehensive multi-level regional cooperation process, the content and goals of these mechanisms are constantly expanding and extending, involving various aspects such as politics, society, culture, and non-traditional security. Interregionalism is established on the basis of respecting the diversity of regional organizations, emphasizing the principles of democracy, equality, and consensus-based cooperation, following a path of progressive development, and demonstrating characteristics of inclusiveness and flexibility. Interregionalism follows the principle of “open regionalism,” reflecting the strategic choice of nation-states to both strengthen their position in the international political and economic landscape through regional cooperation and strive to comply with the trend of global economic integration in the new era.

At the same time, interregionalism as a concept involves a broader range of actor relations than simple inter-state relations. Any form of cooperation involving actors spanning two or more regions, including corporate product networks or non-governmental organization networks, can theoretically be classified as interregionalism (Aggarwal and Fogarty 2004, 5). In interregionalism, states are indeed important actors, but non-state actors from the private sector and civil society, including transnational actors, are also involved in this process (Hettne and Söderbaum 2000, 457-473).

Regional or interregional blocs: Comparative Analysis of GCC and BRICS

The GCC is an organization actively seeking regional integration, while BRICS is relatively diverse and inclusive. Despite this, there has been ongoing active interaction between them. In 2024, the UAE officially became a member of BRICS, while Saudi Arabia’s membership is still pending, marking a new milestone in cooperation between the two organizations.

Since its establishment over 40 years ago, GCC has been committed to building “one market, one economic body, one financial system,” achieving positive results in promoting regional cooperation and economic diversification, and playing an increasingly important role in international and regional affairs (Yousef and Ghafar 2023). The GCC even set up a military unit, the Joint Peninsula Shield Force (Baabood 2023).

In 2001, the six GCC countries signed the “GCC Economic Agreement,” covering trade, common market, economic and monetary union, overall development, human resources, scientific research, transportation, communication, infrastructure construction, and enforcement mechanisms. In 2003, the GCC countries announced the establishment of a customs union, initiated the construction of a common market in 2008, and endeavored to explore the establishment of a monetary and economic union, as well as enhancing infrastructure interconnection. In 2019, at the 40th GCC Summit, it was reiterated that regional economic integration legislation would be completed by 2025; in January 2021, the 41st GCC Summit issued the “Al-Ula Declaration,” emphasizing a commitment to comprehensive cooperation, unity, and integration; in December 2021, the 42nd GCC Summit approved the establishment of the GCC Railway Management Bureau to promote progress in the Gulf Railway Project. In December 2022, the 43rd GCC Summit called for accelerated achievement of GCC economic unity, completion of requirements for the customs union, GCC common market, and railway projects, and approved regulations including the “GCC Unified Industry Management Law” and “GCC International Land Transport Unified Law.” In May 2023, at the Arabian Travel Market Exhibition held in Dubai, UAE, several GCC officials stated that relevant countries were discussing the implementation of a Gulf tourism visa similar to the Schengen visa to attract tourists to GCC countries. In October, the Financial and Economic Cooperation Committee of the GCC approved a plan to establish the Gulf Customs Union by the end of 2024.

Compared to the GCC, the BRICS organization is more inclusive, with significant differences among the member countries in culture, economy, and geopolitics. Among them, China’s GDP is 37 times that of South Africa, and its population is 24 times larger. Regarding religious beliefs, Orthodox Christianity, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Protestantism are the main religions in Russia, India, Brazil, and South Africa, respectively. Geographically, the BRICS countries are distributed across four continents, with only China bordering both Russia and India. There are significant differences in geopolitical interests among the member countries.

Due to the differences among the member countries, the cooperation mechanism of BRICS does not seek to establish a core leadership mechanism but rather adopts a consensus-based approach to address common concerns (Wang and Miao 2022). The member countries have a strong desire for economic development and a strong willingness to reform the current international economic and political order. On one hand, BRICS is committed to increasing its voting power within the IMF and reviewing World Bank shares internally, and on the other hand, it attempts to build a financial order within the member countries. The two main financial cooperation mechanisms are the New Development Bank established in 2016 and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement established in 2014.

Beyond the economic field, the multilateralism of BRICS is also reflected in the political security field. In order to institutionalize and mechanize political security cooperation among BRICS countries, and timely express and coordinate positions on major international security issues, BRICS has established two representative cooperation mechanisms: the BRICS National Security Advisors Meeting Mechanism and the BRICS Foreign Ministers Meeting Mechanism. Currently, these two mechanisms have voiced their opinions on regional security issues, energy security, and non-traditional security.

The GCC has always attached importance to developing friendly cooperation with other regional organizations. It has established long-term cooperation with the European Union. EU-GCC relations are based on a Cooperation Agreement signed in 1989, which establishes regular dialogue on cooperation between the EU and GCC on economic relations, climate change, energy, environment, and research, especially considering that the majority of interaction occurs directly between individual European and GCC nations (Ghafar and Colombo 2021). In May 2022, the European Commission adopted a Joint Communication on a strategic partnership with the Gulf. In June 2022, the European Commission has appointed for the first time ever an EU Special Representative for the Gulf to further develop a stronger, comprehensive and more strategic EU partnership with the Gulf countries. In recent years, the relationships between GCC countries and ASEAN nations have grown closer. On October 20, 2023, the GCC-ASEAN Summit was held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where participants exchanged views on the situation in Palestine and reached a consensus, condemning all attacks against civilians and calling for a ceasefire. GCC has also fostered friendly relations with Central Asian countries. In July 2023, a summit between Gulf and Central Asian leaders was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, attended by presidents of all five Central Asian countries-Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (Wajid 2023). See Charalampos Giannakopoulos & Georgios Dimitropoulos, The Gulf Cooperation Council and its Member States: Emerging Inter-Regional Players?

The BRICS has also prioritized fostering friendly cooperation with other regional organizations. In the Xiamen Summit Declaration of 2017, BRICS proposed the adoption of the “BRICS+” model, which is conducive to establishing broader partnerships and injecting new impetus into the cooperation and development of BRICS. BRICS does not exclude existing UN systems and international organizations, which is conducive to the progressive reform and innovation of the international order. Its status and role in multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, G20, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund continue to rise. BRICS countries also attach great importance to developing relations with other regional organizations. In 2013, BRICS leaders held a dialogue meeting with the Chairman of the African Union and some African country leaders. Subsequently, BRICS leaders held dialogue meetings with leaders of the Eurasian Economic Union member states, South American countries, countries around the Bay of Bengal Economic Cooperation Organization, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states (Wang 2019, 19-22).

In January 2024, the UAE became a member of BRICS, with Saudi Arabia’s membership still pending, marking the organization’s first expansion into the Gulf region. The expansion of BRICS undoubtedly opens up new opportunities for cooperation and development. With their accession, the overall economic strength of BRICS has been further enhanced, and their political influence has also increased. This not only helps consolidate and expand the discourse power of BRICS in global economic governance but also injects new impetus into regional peace, stability, and prosperity. At the same time, this cooperation fully demonstrates the spirit of close cooperation and mutual benefit between regional organizations. This cross-regional cooperation model not only helps promote the diversification and balanced development of the global economy but also provides useful exploration and attempts for building an open world economy.

Why can China Promote Interregionalism between GCC and BRICS

With its unique standing as a leading power within BRICS and its increasingly robust connections with the GCC, China is strategically positioned to serve as a bridge between these two influential regional organizations. China’s economic clout, diplomatic influence, and deepening bilateral relationships with GCC member states provide it with the leverage to foster greater interregional cooperation. By leveraging its role in BRICS, China can advocate for collaborative initiatives that align with the interests of both regions, addressing shared challenges and opportunities in areas such as trade, investment, energy, and cultural exchange. This potential to facilitate interregional cooperation not only strengthens ties between BRICS and the GCC but also contributes to the broader goal of enhancing global economic and political integration.

China established connections with the GCC at the inception of its establishment (Olimat 2016). In June 2010, China and the GCC established a strategic dialogue mechanism and held the first round of dialogue in Beijing. In recent years, the friendly relations between the two sides have continued to develop. China remains the largest trading partner and the largest exporter of petrochemical products to the GCC. The bilateral trade volume exceeded $230 billion in 2021. In 2022, the trade volume between China and the GCC reached $315.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 35.6%.

In January 2022, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman, along with the Secretary-General of the GCC, collectively visited China, highlighting the GCC’s high regard for China and the solidity of bilateral relations.

In September 2022, China and GCC held the tenth round of negotiations of the China-GCC Free Trade Agreement. The two sides conducted in-depth discussions on topics including trade in goods, trade in services, investment, rules of origin, customs procedures, and trade facilitation, achieving positive progress. The negotiation of the China-GCC Free Trade Area was launched in 2004 and has held ten rounds of negotiations so far. If successfully established, this free trade area will become the world’s second-largest after the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

On December 7, 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the inaugural China-Gulf Arab States Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and delivered a keynote speech titled “Carrying on the Past and Creating a Better Future Together for China-Gulf Relations.” The summit decided to establish and strengthen the strategic partnership between China and the GCC (Yu, Xing, and Zhang 2022).

On October 22, 2023, the China-GCC 6+1 Ministerial Conference on Economic and Trade and the “China-GCC Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum” were held in Guangzhou, China. Minister of Commerce of China, Secretary-General of the GCC, and officials responsible for economic and trade departments of GCC member countries such as Oman, the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait attended the meeting.

Currently, all GCC countries have signed cooperation documents with China to jointly build the Belt and Road Initiative. The development strategies of GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030,” the UAE’s “National Development Strategy for the Next 50 Years,” and Oman’s “Vision 2040” are closely aligned with China’s high-quality Belt and Road Initiative, achieving a series of tangible results. In Saudi Arabia, the underground tunnel project constructed by Chinese enterprises has brought convenience to the local people; in the UAE, Chinese enterprises participating in the construction of the second phase of the federal railway project have greatly improved the local infrastructure construction level; in Oman, China-Oman cooperation in electricity has provided support for promoting local new energy development; in Bahrain, the International Clinical Research Center has become an important platform for China and Bahrain to carry out drug research and development.

In recent years, as GCC countries vigorously promote economic diversification, cooperation between China and the GCC has gradually expanded to high-tech and emerging industries. GCC countries have taken the lead in promoting the use of Chinese 5G communication technology and have conducted extensive and in-depth cooperation with Chinese companies in renewable energy, aerospace, artificial intelligence, big data, and other fields.

China has played a crucial role in the establishment and development of the BRICS, marking the first global mechanism that China helped create, comprising solely emerging powers. Historically, China participated in pre-existing international organizations where policy-making and rule-setting were predominantly influenced by developed nations. However, within the BRICS framework, China occupies a significant position, allowing it to shape agendas and policies more effectively. This involvement in BRICS has enabled China to construct a global network, thereby enhancing its relations with other major world powers.

At the Yekaterinburg meeting in 2009, China actively participated in the consultations and preparatory work; as the chairing country in 2010, China promoted South Africa’s accession to the BRICS cooperation mechanism; at the Sanya Summit in April 2011, the “Sanya Declaration” was issued, promoting local currency trade settlement for the first time, strengthening financial cooperation, and formally signing the “BRICS Bank Cooperation Mechanism Financial Cooperation Framework Agreement,” injecting strong development momentum into BRICS cooperation. In the report of the 18th National Congress of China in 2012, BRICS cooperation was clearly identified as an important diplomatic platform (Zhao 2014, 46). On March 27, 2013, with the support of China, the 5th BRICS Summit adopted the “Durban Declaration” and action plan, decided to establish the BRICS Development Bank, prepare to establish a foreign exchange reserve pool, announced the establishment of the BRICS Business Council, Think Tank Council, and reached extensive consensus on jointly addressing global and regional hot issues, reforming the international monetary and financial system, and promoting global development, advancing BRICS cooperation into substantive areas. At the Xiamen Summit in 2017, China established an initial 500 million RMB BRICS Economic and Technological Cooperation Exchange Plan; contributed $4 million to the BRICS New Development Bank Project Preparation Fund; provided $500 million in assistance under the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund; and provided 40,000 training places in China for other developing countries in the coming year (Liu 2019, 4). In 2018, at the Johannesburg Summit, China proposed to jointly build a new industrial revolution partnership of the BRICS countries. In 2019, at the Brasília Summit, China called for continued promotion of the BRICS new industrial revolution partnership. China also proposed practical initiatives such as hosting a high-level conference on climate change, a BRICS sustainable development big data forum, establishing a BRICS vocational education alliance, and organizing vocational skills competitions. In 2020, China announced the establishment of the BRICS New Industrial Revolution Partnership Innovation Base in Xiamen; in 2022, the BRICS Vaccine Research Center promoted by China was launched. In August 2023, the BRICS leaders held their 15th meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. At this BRICS summit, China announced the establishment of a $4 billion global development and South-South cooperation fund and will establish a “China-BRICS New Era Science and Technology Innovation Park” and explore the establishment of a “BRICS global remote sensing satellite data and application cooperation platform.” In October 2024, President Xi Jinping traveled to Kazan, Russia, to attend the 16th BRICS Summit, marking the first in-person gathering of the expanded BRICS family. The summit, themed “Strengthening Multilateralism, Promoting Global Equitable Development and Security,” highlighted the principles of multilateralism and equitable development, while emphasizing the importance of voicing the concerns of developing countries. See Mingchun Xu & Emma Mawdsley, Understanding China in the BRICS+: From Domestic to Foreign Policy Experimentation

The Opportunities and Challenges for China in Advancing GCC-BRICS Relations

As a prominent member of BRICS and with robust ties to the GCC, China stands at a pivotal juncture to advance interregional collaboration (Sultan 2016, 71-98). Leveraging its unique position, China holds significant promise in fostering synergy between these two influential blocs. While acknowledging the presence of potential conflicts, proactive strategies can be devised to navigate these challenges and strengthen cooperation. By fostering dialogue, promoting mutual understanding, and prioritizing common goals, China can play a pivotal role in forging a more cohesive and interconnected global order.

China has numerous opportunities to advance GCC-BRICS relations. First, enhancing political dialogue stands as a cornerstone for fostering stronger ties between the GCC and BRICS. Previously, BRICS leaders held productive discussions with the African Union, the Eurasian Economic Union, South American countries, the Bay of Bengal Economic Cooperation Organization, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. In a similar vein, China could facilitate dialogue between BRICS leaders and GCC, enhancing diplomatic and economic engagement across these regions. These dialogues could take the form of ministerial-level meetings or summit conferences, facilitating joint projects, planning initiatives, and information exchange. By convening such dialogues, both parties can underscore their mutual commitment to non-interference in domestic affairs and the principles of sovereignty. This emphasis provides a robust foundation for cooperative endeavors aimed at mutual benefit and regional stability.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) hold particular significance in this dialogue process. They can serve as pivotal bridges connecting the GCC and BRICS regions due to their strategic positions and robust relationships with both blocs. Their involvement can help bridge any gaps and facilitate smoother communication and collaboration between GCC and BRICS member states.

Moreover, fostering a good relationship between GCC and BRICS contributes to the potential expansion of BRICS membership to include more GCC countries in the future. Countries like Kuwait may find the prospect of joining BRICS more appealing as they witness the benefits and opportunities arising from closer cooperation between the two blocs.

Second, the need for strengthened trade and investment between GCC and the BRICS countries is increasingly apparent. Saudi Arabia has solidified its position as the largest trading partner within the BRICS group, underscoring the potential for robust economic collaboration between the GCC and BRICS nations. Moreover, since 2021, the UAE has become a member of BRICS’s New Development Bank, signaling a notable step towards deeper involvement in investment initiatives within the BRICS framework. This interaction not only reflects evolving economic dynamics but also presents opportunities for enhanced trade flows, investment partnerships, and economic cooperation between the two regions.

At the same time, China can promote the signing of Free Trade Agreements between BRICS countries and GCC countries, and carry out economic and trade cooperation. The total trade volume of the BRICS countries accounts for about 20% of global trade, but the trade volume between the BRICS countries only accounts for 6% of each country’s total trade volume, indicating considerable room for improvement. The BRICS countries, including China, should sign free trade agreements to further tap into the potential for trade cooperation. The GCC should accelerate its layout for multilateral economic and trade cooperation, and China can promote the early conclusion of the China-GCC Free Trade Agreement. Free trade agreements should also be signed between BRICS countries and GCC countries to promote economic and trade cooperation.

Energy cooperation stands as a crucial pillar for fostering sustainable development and addressing global energy challenges. For example, Saudi Arabia has long been China’s largest supplier of crude oil. From January to November 2023, China imported 79.98 million tons of crude oil from Saudi Arabia. Since 2023, the world’s largest oil producer, Saudi Aramco, has invested 200 billion RMB in China. As Saudi Aramco invests in China, China is also increasing its presence in the Saudi market. In 2022, China’s investment in Saudi Arabia was only $1.5 billion, but it surged to $16.8 billion in 2023.

However, oil production in GCC countries will be subdued in the near term. The primary non-oil deficits are expected to decrease to 24 percent of GDP by 2028, with higher non-oil revenue reflecting sustained fiscal and structural reforms and contained expenditures (IMF 2023, 4). In this regard, there is a pressing need to establish a new paradigm of multifaceted energy cooperation between the BRICS countries and GCC. China, as a key player in both regions, has been at the forefront of promoting diversified and expanded collaboration in the energy sector. Leveraging platforms like the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange, China attempts to facilitate smoother transactions and reduce reliance on traditional currencies. Moreover, China spearheads initiatives aimed at bolstering cooperation in clean and low-carbon energy technologies such as hydrogen energy, energy storage, wind power, solar photovoltaics, and smart grids (Sulayman and Alterman 2023). By fostering joint research, technology transfers, and localized production of new energy equipment, China seeks to cultivate a sustainable energy ecosystem that benefits both the BRICS and GCC countries. This multifaceted approach not only advances energy security but also promotes environmental sustainability, paving the way for a greener and more resilient energy landscape on a global scale.

Third, addressing global challenges such as climate change stands as a crucial imperative for both the BRICS nations and GCC. In alignment with the commitments outlined at the inaugural China-GCC Summit, a symposium focusing on climate change mitigation and adaptation was convened by China and the GCC on December 8, 2023, during the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This event, held under the auspices of the “China Pavilion” at COP28, underscored the collective resolve of China and the GCC to tackle the pressing challenges posed by climate change. By facilitating a platform for robust dialogue and knowledge exchange, China can spearhead efforts to deepen collaboration between the BRICS nations and the GCC on climate policies, actions, and green low-carbon technologies and practices. Such initiatives are pivotal in reinforcing cooperative endeavors aimed at mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change and fostering sustainable development pathways. Through collaborative initiatives, these regions can collectively contribute to global efforts to combat climate change, underscoring their shared commitment to environmental stewardship and resilience-building on a global scale.

Moreover，supporting multilateralism and jointly safeguarding the international order is imperative in today’s complex geopolitical landscape. The trade disputes between the United States and countries like China have cast a shadow over international trade, highlighting the risks associated with unilateralism. Furthermore, conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Palestine conflict have brought about instability and unrest on a global scale. To tackle these challenges, it’s imperative to strengthen the influence of international organizations like the United Nations (UN) and other multilateral institutions. They play a vital role in providing a comprehensive counterbalance to Western-dominated blocs like the G7 (Kateb 2024). Strengthening these organizations can facilitate the resolution of intricate issues and promote stability and cooperation among nations. China can play a pivotal role in this regard by coordinating strategic consultations within the frameworks of the BRICS nations and the GCC. By engaging in proactive dialogue and collaboration, these regions can effectively coordinate their actions on the international stage, fostering greater cohesion and solidarity in addressing global challenges. Embracing multilateralism not only reinforces the principles of collective action and mutual respect but also underscores a shared commitment to upholding the rules-based international order for the collective benefit of all nations.

Certainly, it’s essential to recognize that conflicting interests often arise between different blocs, and the relationship between the GCC and BRICS is no exception. One significant area of contention revolves around currency usage issues within these two blocs (Greene 2023). While some countries, like the UAE and India, have taken steps to utilize local currencies for trade financing and settlements, thereby diminishing their dependence on the US dollar, others remain cautious about embracing de-dollarization initiatives. The divergence in perspectives on currency preferences underscores the complexity of financial dynamics within these regions. While some nations prioritize diversification and reducing reliance on a single currency, others may perceive such moves as potentially destabilizing or prefer maintaining the status quo. These varying viewpoints highlight the need for nuanced dialogue and negotiation to navigate the intricacies of financial cooperation and address concerns effectively.

Moreover, the positions of the GCC and BRICS countries on international sanctions targeting nations like Russia and Iran often diverge significantly. While some countries within these blocs may advocate for imposing or maintaining stringent sanctions in response to perceived violations of international norms or security concerns, others may adopt a more cautious or conciliatory approach. These differences in stance reflect the complex geopolitical dynamics at play and the diverse interests of the nations involved. For instance, some GCC countries, due to their strategic alliances or economic ties, may support robust sanctions against certain nations, while BRICS members, emphasizing principles of sovereignty and non-interference, may oppose such measures. As a result, navigating consensus on issues related to international sanctions requires careful diplomacy and negotiation to reconcile varying perspectives and prioritize collective interests effectively.

In the realm of relations with the GCC, China and India find themselves in a competitive dynamic (Tran 2023). The Indian government has recognized the multifaceted strategic value of engaging with GCC countries and has actively adjusted its policy objectives and governance priorities accordingly. Against the backdrop of its “Look West” policy, India has fostered comprehensive interactions with GCC nations across various domains, including politics, energy, trade, security, and cultural exchanges. Notably, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have emerged as India’s third and fourth-largest trading partners, respectively. GCC countries play a significant role in India’s energy security, contributing to 35% of its oil imports and 70% of its natural gas imports. However, India’s approach to sensitive issues in the Middle East has introduced uncertainties in international and regional dynamics. Its somewhat ambivalent stance on contentious matters in the region, while conducive to its pursuit of “strategic autonomy” and “strategic balance,” may impede efforts to garner collective trust among GCC countries (Jiang and Ma 2024). Although China and India reached a border agreement at the BRICS Kazan summit in October 2024, it cannot be guaranteed that they will be free of conflict in the future.

In dealing with relations with the United States, there are also challenges and difficulties that need to be considered and resolved in future cooperation (Baycar 2023). There is a growing rhetoric of decoupling and risk reduction between China and the US. The United States’ dedication and engagement in global economic and security affairs are diminishing. The unilateral actions of the United States have made its former allies and partners feel uneasy. As a result, an increasing number of countries are choosing to reduce their reliance on the United States and instead seek more opportunities for cooperation (Ching 2023). More and more countries are joining the BRICS, including traditional US allies such as Egypt and the UAE. With the accession of new member countries, the BRICS will have considerable influence in global affairs, forming a large alliance of emerging markets and developing economies. This new change in the global landscape will bring profound impact and challenges to international relations.

Conclusion

The intricate interplay between interregionalism and globalization underscores a delicate balancing act for nations worldwide. On one hand, there’s a concerted effort to shield themselves from the disruptive forces of globalization, which often bring about economic, social, and political challenges. Yet, on the other hand, there’s a recognition of the need to strategically position themselves within the global landscape to harness its opportunities for growth and advancement. This dual nature of nations’ endeavors reflects the nuanced complexities inherent in navigating globalization’s multifaceted terrain.

China’s proactive approach in fostering interregional cooperation between the GCC and BRICS serves as a compelling example of aspirations for a more integrated global order. By taking proactive steps to bridge regional divides and promote dialogue, China not only seeks to navigate the complexities of globalization but also endeavors to unlock its potential for collective progress and development. Such initiatives reflect China’s diplomatic prowess, illustrating the possibility of fostering cooperation amid the challenges of an increasingly interconnected world.

Driven by principles of openness, inclusivity, and mutual benefit, and reflecting its successful mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, China can facilitate broader interregional cooperation between the GCC and BRICS. As they press forward, these regional blocs are poised to continue playing pivotal roles in shaping the dynamics of interregional cooperation amidst the backdrop of globalization. Their collaborative endeavors not only underscore the importance of dialogue and partnership but also highlight the potential for regional alliances to drive positive change on a global scale.

Bibliography:

Aggarwal, V. K. and Fogarty E.A, eds. EU Trade Strategies: Between Regionalism and Globalism, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Baabood, Abdullah, “The Future of the Gulf Cooperation Council Amid Saudi-Emirati Rivalry”, Carnegie Middle East Center, October 30, 2023.

Baycar, Hamdullah. “The Gulf in BRICS: Reshaping Geopolitical Landscapes.” Gulf International Forum, November 6, 2023.

Ching, Frank. “China and doubling of BRICS size challenges the U.S.-led global order.” Japan Times, September 7, 2023.

Cruz, G. M..“The Latin American-EU Inter-Regionalism’s vis-à-vis the Trans-Pacific and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreements.” UNU-CRIS Working Papers, W-2016/2.

Doidge, Mathew. The European Union and Interregionalism: Patterns of Engagement. Burlington: Ashgate, 2011.

European External Action Service. “Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the EU.” https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/gulf-cooperation-council-gcc-and-eu_en#

Ghafar, Adel Abdel and Silvia Colombo, eds. The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council: Towards a New Path. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Greene, Robert. “The Difficult Realities of the BRICS’ Dedollarization Efforts—and the Renminbi’s Role.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, December 5, 2023.

Hettne, Björn and Fredrik Söderbaum, “Theorising the Rise of Regionness.” New Political Economy, Vol 5, No 3 December 2000, p. 457-473.

Hettne, Bojrn.“Regionalism, Interregionalism and World Order: European Challenge to Pax Americana.” Council on Comparative Studies Presents Working Papers Series, No. 3, 17 March 2003.

IMF Country Report. “Gulf Cooperation Council: Economic Prospects and Policy Priorities for the GCC Countries.” No. 23/413, December 2023.

Jiang, Ying and Lirong Ma. “The Reason, Pathway, and Limitation of India’s ‘Look West’ Policy toward GCC.” Arab World Studies, No. 1, 2024.

Kateb, Alexandre. “BRICS+ and the Arab Gulf: The Perks of Membership.” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 04, 2024.

Katzenstein, Peter J.. A World of Regions: Asia and Europe in the American Imperium. Cornell University Press, 2005.

Langenhove, Van, Luk, and Ana-cristina Costea. “The EU as a Global Actor and the Emergence of‘Third Generation’Regionalism.”in Foradori Paolo edited, Managing a Multilevel Foreign Policy: The EU in International Affairs, Lexington: Lexington Books, 2007.

Liu, Yi. “BRICS Mechanism and Contemporary Chinese Diplomacy’s Cooperation Governance Strategy.” Journal of Chongqing Jiaotong University, Vol 19, No. 3, June 2019.

Ma, Ying. “A New Field of Regional Cooperation———Interregionalism,” Around Southeast Asia, May 2009.

Niblock, Tim, Degang Sun, and Alejandra Galindo, eds. The Arab States of the Gulf and BRICS: New Strategic Partnerships in Politics and Economics. Gerlach Press, 2016.

Olimat, Muhamad S.. China and the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: Strategic Partnership in a Changing World. Lexington Books, 2016

Olivet, Maria Cecilla.“Unraveling Interregionalism Theory: A Critical Analysis of the New Interregional Relations between Latin America and East Asia.” Paper Presented at the VI Conference of Redealap, Buenos Aires, October 12-13, 2005.

Sulayman, Faris Al and Jon B. Alterman. “China’s Essential Role in the Gulf States’ Energy Transitions.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, December 11, 2023.

Sultan, Beenish. “China’s Role in BRICS & Relevance to GCC-China Relations: Complementarities & Conflicting Interests.” Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (in Asia), Vol. 10, No. 2, 2016.

Tran, Hung. “China and India are at odds over BRICS expansion.” Atlantic Council, August 8, 2023.

Wajid, Asna. “The diplomatic surge between the GCC and Central Asian states.” the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 13th November 2023.

Wang, Huiyao and Lu Miao, China and Globalization in the 21st century, China CITIC Publishing Group, June 2022.

Wang, Mingguo. “BRICS+ Collaboration Model and China’s Innovation on Global Governance Mechanism.” Contemporary World, December 2019, p. 19-22.

Yousef, Tarik M. and Adel Abdel Ghafar, eds. The Gulf Cooperation Council at Forty: Risk and Opportunity in a Changing World. Brookings Institution Press, 2023.

Yu, Hong. “China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Its Implications for Southeast Asia”, Asia Policy, No. 24, July 2017, p. 117-122.

Yu, Jincui, Xiaojing Xing, and Han Zhang, “Historic summits chart course for China-Arab, GCC ties.” Global Times, December 09, 2022.

Zhao, Kejin. BRICS Cooperation in China’s International Strategy, International Review, No. 3, 2014.

Subscribe now

The conversation opens with China’s efforts to mediate an end to the current conflict in the Middle East, before turning to China-U.S. relations and what to expect from the forthcoming meeting between the leaders of the world’s two superpowers. Wang also reflects on China’s growth story, its current economic challenges, investment ties with Europe, and the role of the BRICS in shaping the global order.

This transcript is made from the podcast audio and has been edited for clarity. It has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

Global Economy Unwrapped: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Gaurav Ganguly, Chief International Economist, Moody’s Analytics

Hello and welcome to GEU, the macro podcast that delivers key insights into the global economy. I’m joined today by Stefan Angrick and Denise Cheok, both with me in our virtual recording studio. But bigger news is that we have Henry Wang, the Center for China and Globalization joining us. Henry, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you with us. You’re joining us all the way from Beijing, which makes this even more special for us to have you come and talk to us. Why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself and the Center?

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder & President, Center for China and Globalization (CCG)

Yes, thank you. Thank you, Gaurav, and all the rest of the team. It’s a great pleasure to join your well-known podcast.

As you said, my name is Henry Wang. I am the founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization. I am also a former counsellor to China’s State Council, advising the Chinese government. Our think tank was established 18 years ago, and we focus on global governance, globalisation, global trade, investment, and global migration. Those are a few of the areas in which we do a lot of work.

The Center for China and Globalization has been ranked by the University of Pennsylvania and several other global agencies among the top 100 think tanks in the world. We are also the only think tank in China that has been granted special consultative status by the United Nations. We work with many international partners and are frequent participants in the Munich Security Conference, the Paris Peace Forum, the Global Solutions Summit, and the Doha Forum, just to name a few.

We have maintained good relationships with nearly 100 international think tanks, agencies, and universities. As a matter of fact, I’m going to Washington tomorrow and then to New York next week for the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings, and for quite a few Think Tank 20 (T20)-related meetings, as the G20 meetings will be held in the United States.

So, in a nutshell, we are one of the most active think tanks in China. One thing we are proud to say is that we maintain three English newsletters: Pekingnology, The East is Read, and CCG Update. Together, they have more than 40,000 subscribers worldwide, mainly from government, business, think tanks, and the media. So if you think about a hub, or a gateway to China and Chinese policy, CCG would be a very good contact point.

Just before I came here, we had our 22nd CCG monthly VIP luncheon, and we had seven ambassadors there, including the EU ambassador and the Spanish ambassador. We also had the president of the European Chamber of Commerce in China, several former Ministry of Commerce officials, and the president of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies. We had an excellent lunch discussion on global governance and China-EU relations. Just to give you some more sense of what we do.

We also publish many books. We have a number of open online books under the China and Globalization series, published by Springer Nature. Most of them are open access and very easy to find, with several hundred participants, authors, and contributors to the China and Globalization series.

So I’m very pleased to talk to you. Moody’s and your company are very well known, and I’m very pleased to join you.

Gaurav Ganguly

Well, that’s hugely prolific, and we are truly delighted to have you with us today. And actually, that name of the Center itself—China and Globalization—is really what we want to talk to you about, because so much has been happening ever since President Trump came on board, the U.S. has been deglobalising rather aggressively. You also mentioned the EU, and I’d love to talk to you about Europe and China, so we’ll get there. But unfortunately, over the past several weeks, there has really been one topic that has been top of mind, and that has been the conflict in the Middle East and the war in Iran.

Over the last few days, after a few worrying moments, a certain amount of de-escalation seems to have been achieved, which is very welcome news for global oil markets, global financial markets, real-money investors, and consumers who find themselves paying increased energy costs at home, wherever they are in the world.

But in all of this, I’m very curious to hear China’s view of the region and of what has been going on, especially as China also buys a significant quantity of Iranian oil. How does China see this playing out, and what sort of role do you think China could play in helping to bring it to an end?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, this is a very important and timely subject, as you mentioned. I think the war is really at a crossroads now.

I was at the Munich Security Conference in February this year, about two months ago, and the theme of the report this year was “Under Destruction”—basically the image of a big elephant coming into a china shop and smashing everything. That is probably the world we have been seeing since the beginning of the year.

We have seen what happened in Latin America, in Venezuela. We saw last year the U.S. express expansionist intentions toward Greenland and Canada, and now perhaps even Cuba is being discussed, and many other things besides. But to everybody’s surprise, in the last month or more, there has been a huge war involving Iran, and it was very unexpected. There was, I think, no imminent threat to the U.S. or to Israel from Iran in the sense that Iran was not really provoking war, and yet the Supreme Leader’s circle and many others were killed or assassinated. That was a huge shock to the world.

Basically, we are seeing the global system that the world has been familiar with for the last 80 years being disrupted and dismantled in some way, and we are entering a dangerous period and moving into uncharted waters. So what I am saying is that the global system is under huge tension and threat, and all the rest of the world—particularly China, the European Union, India, the Global South, and middle powers—should now work together to sustain it.

From what I can see this morning, there is some kind of ceasefire around what has happened in Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz has been open for at least two weeks during the talks, which is good, because there is so much pressure on the U.S., on both sides, and on the Arab world that this war cannot be sustained. The chokepoint effect of Hormuz on the global economy is devastating, and nobody really foresaw just how vulnerable this lynchpin of the world economy could be, given that Iran sits in a position of such strategic influence.

What I think comes next is that China is emerging as a very important player. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has been talking to a number of foreign ministers—from the European Union, Germany, France, Russia—and, in particular, we have seen Pakistan’s foreign minister emerge as a mediator between the U.S., Israel, and Iran. Pakistan has excellent relations with China, so China can exercise considerable influence in the mediation process.

So I think China has probably entered this mediating process. We are also going to see President Trump coming to Beijing in about mid-May, which leaves only about a month. So there are perhaps two weeks to reach a deal. I expect a deal could be reached with China participating, and that President Trump would certainly not be coming to Beijing with a war still intensifying, but rather after some kind of peace-making process has been achieved.

So I am cautiously optimistic that the Iran war may be stabilised by that time. More broadly, though, we are seeing a kind of failure in the U.S. approach to the Middle East. They built many military bases in the Gulf and have bombarded Iran heavily, moving aircraft carriers and all the rest. Yet a middle country like Iran has still been able to resist, and the fact that it can fight back has surprised the world. Iran has used relatively cheap missiles and drones in ways that create inventory shortages in extremely sophisticated weapons that took billions to design. So it is not sustainable for either the U.S. or Iran to continue this. We have to come to some kind of conclusion.

I think we are going to see a new Middle East. Iran may emerge even stronger, and we may see a diminishing of the interventionist and imperial power of the U.S.—that much seems visible from this war.

Gaurav Ganguly

You gave me so many insights there. I’m trying to sift through them and order my next set of questions. I think that’s what I’ll come back to, a couple of things you said. One very important point you made is that you linked the resolution of this conflict to President Trump’s impending visit to Beijing. Now that’s quite important, that if we do it that way, then that makes us think that, you said that we could get a resolution of this conflict in the next couple of weeks. That would be hugely positive for the global economy.

But what do you think that resolution looks like? Because right now we have the loss of around 20 million barrels a day of oil, crude and product, then there’s a loss of gas. And if we think about the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, I’m struggling to see how that actually plays out in practice, and what the deal looks like that would allow the strait to reopen, at what base it could reopen. And even subtracting from the messiness, the logistical messiness of reopening, just focusing on the geopolitics of reopening, what do you think that looks like under such a deal?

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think it is quite doable and possible that we return to a peace-negotiation process in Pakistan. The U.S. is hoping that in two weeks’ time—perhaps with negotiators starting on the 10th, the day after tomorrow—it can move quickly. That would be well before President Trump’s visit to Beijing.

President Trump has already said they have a 10-point or 20-point framework, whatever it may be, and the U.S. claims that most of its aims have already been achieved. So I think it is quite face-saving for them to step down. They can say that the regime has changed in some sense because many of the old guards are gone. They can also say that the nuclear facilities were largely destroyed. Even last June, after attacks on Iran, the U.S. was already claiming that it had largely destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. So after this round, I am sure they can again say most of that capability has probably been destroyed.

So I do think they can come down with some kind of self-declared victory. Trump can then say that he delayed his deadline and really pushed a peace-making process. The good thing is that Pakistan, and quite a number of other countries, really want to see a peace deal, and China has such a good relationship with Pakistan.

We saw Pakistan abstain in the UN Security Council vote just yesterday, whereas U.S. and some Gulf-country proposals did not go through in relation to Hormuz. So if China and other countries become involved, they may be able to say: please guarantee Iran’s security, please ensure there are no more invasion attempts or attacks on Iran. In that case, Iran could say: all right, we will open the Hormuz channel.

You need guarantors—just as with the earlier Iran deal, where you had guarantees not only from the U.S. but also from the European Union, China, and others. So I can envision that if a deal is struck this time, we could again have guarantors—China, Russia, perhaps the European Union and others—to ensure that Hormuz remains open. The UN Security Council could perhaps pass a new resolution, with France and the U.K. involved, to ensure there are no more attacks on Iran, no more invasions, and no more assassinations of its leaders. Under those conditions, Iran could reopen the channel as long as the agreement stands.

So I see a way out of this. As Iran has said, it needs international guarantees, international promises, and U.S. commitments. And the U.S. has already said it has achieved most of its goals, with maybe only one or two points left. So I can see things being done and handled as we would hope.

Gaurav Ganguly

And Iran has long called for these guarantees, hasn’t it? From day one, it has made clear that it could pull back, but only if it is really convinced that it will never be attacked again.

Over the course of the past few weeks, we have also been hearing a lot about a potential solution in which Iran continues to control the Strait of Hormuz post ceasefire and post conflict, and Iran then benefits from fee income from the Strait. How do you see that working out? Do you think that will be part of any peace deal? Or is it really just about security guarantees, provided that if Iran is convinced it will not be attacked again, and it has ironclad guarantees, it will simply pull back and allow shipping to resume and will try to regulate passage or collect fees from vessels transiting the Strait?

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think Pakistan has really emerged as an important peace-maker, and China and Pakistan enjoy a very good relationship. Furthermore, around 78% of Iranian petroleum goes to China, so China holds a great deal of weight when it comes to persuading Iran. China is also the largest trading partner of all the Gulf states, so it has significant influence on the other side as well. And then, right after this, you could have a U.S.-China summit.

So I think China will have considerable leverage in promoting peace. China’s envoy, Ambassador Zhai, has been shuttling back and forth across the Middle East, and China is also talking to Israel. I think in this war, China may be able to play a much more active role than it has in the Russia-Ukraine war. Even there, President Trump is still stuck and has not really made progress in negotiations. That may be another reason for President Trump to come to China—to seek Chinese support in finishing that war as well.

After this whole experience under the new Trump administration, you really see China emerging, in my view, as a credible superpower with a high moral standard—one that is not abusing its power, not invading countries, and not sending soldiers abroad, but which has gained huge respect around the world. I was even attending ASEAN discussions yesterday, where they released a major annual regional survey. In many areas, China gained many more points than last year, which suggests its international reputation and influence are both rising.

Gaurav Ganguly

You made a really interesting observation about China being such an important trading partner for various GCC countries. I have been thinking about the economic outlook for the GCC countries, pretty much nonstop, for the past several weeks. We have many clients there. I speak to them very frequently.

And there’s, of course, a lot of concern, understandably, about what is going on right now. But I’m also starting to think about the longer term, and you made me think about China’s investment in the region. Do you see the scope? Obviously, there’s been quite a change in geopolitics, and coming out of all this, the GCC countries will want to repair their reputation. They want to show that they are open for business, that they haven’t lost their international allure. They’ve enjoyed a remarkable haven status over the last few years. When things have gone wrong in other parts of the world, capital has flowed into the region. They’re seen as very attractive countries in which to invest, to go and live, to work. Do you see the potential here for China to ramp up its investments into the Middle East coming out of this conflict?

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think there are still many opportunities there. Of course, if the war ends, there will be enormous reconstruction needs—not only in Iran, but across the Gulf states, and even in Gaza and other places. China’s infrastructure capability is number one in the world. Together with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, China can do a great deal in that part of the world. China has already done a lot there.

At the same time, we have also seen a recent rush of global investors—Asian investors and many others—into the Gulf, because they believed the U.S. military presence made it a safe haven not only for security but also for investment. But that perception has been heavily disrupted. Many people have evacuated. Flights have been stopped, airports have been under threat, and the broader business environment has been shaken. I was recently in Hong Kong, and there is now a great deal of interest shifting back there. We are seeing some Middle Eastern money flowing back.

So what I think is that this kind of huge offset and setback will probably take a number of years to restore and recover from. If Israel still, like today, Netanyahu will say, “Okay, the deal is only with Iran, not with Lebanon,” he is still keeping one loophole open there, threatening that part of the world. So I would think this kind of confidence-building takes years to build, but confidence collapsing takes days. So it is going to take another few years at least to regain this kind of confidence. We will see.

The Middle East has always been a troubled spot. If the two-state solution remains unresolved, then this kind of regional problem will continue to linger and remain a time bomb. Asia is emerging as more of an oasis for investment and stability. There is no war happening in Asia. There was a small conflict going on between Thailand and Cambodia, and immediately, China and other countries calmed it down already; ASEAN also helped calm it down.

So when it comes to the recovery of the Middle East, I think it will take years to come back. But still, they have a good foundation, good infrastructure, and a good basis. It depends on how this new peace agreement stands, and it depends on how those big players—China, the U.S., the EU, India, and many other countries working there—respond. We will see whether that stability and prosperity can return to normal, as we experienced in the past.

Gaurav Ganguly

That is also, I guess, what people are worried about: that some of these countries might lose their allure, and that it will take longer for them to rebuild their brand and image. I mean, I personally think that they can do it. They have very strong leadership. They have, as you said, developed huge amounts of infrastructure and very deep sectors. And if you look at Dubai’s financial sector, for instance, I am personally confident that they will rebuild.

But I agree with you: this is not an easy thing to overcome. This has been a very difficult period for countries in the region. They have done a huge amount of work to support their economies, and once they come out of this conflict, depending on the shape of the peace proposal, these countries will then have to work quite hard to restore their image and bring money back.

But I want to move this conversation along, because I am sure we could spend the whole hour talking about China and the Middle East. And the problem with having you on the show, Henry, is that I just do not know which questions to ask, because I have got so many. But let me move on, perhaps, to one of the key points that you made earlier, which is this marker in the diary of President Trump visiting Beijing. What do you think will come of that? It has been such a complicated relationship between Beijing and Washington for many years. This predates the first Trump administration, even.

But looking at things now, I am not going to go over the events of the last couple of years; they are all still fresh in people’s minds, even though we tend to forget these things as we jump from one event to the next. But coming back to trade, China’s relationship with the U.S., and the Middle East, what do you think will come out of the meeting between Xi and Trump?

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think this is a long-expected meeting. President Trump has been saying from day one that he wanted President Xi to attend his inauguration on Capitol Hill, and the U.S. side has geared up toward a summit.

I think President Trump is taking a more realistic approach in his second term. Even during the summit last year between President Trump and President Xi in Busan, South Korea, President Trump said this was a G2. I think the Chinese government may not recognise it as a G2, but in reality, it could be a G2 in many ways. The new U.S. national security strategy has also put China as a near-peer competitor without the same stress on strategic rivalry that we saw in the 2017 report from Trump’s first term.

So I think President Trump has become more pragmatic and more realistic, while China has become more resilient and more experienced in dealing with the U.S. Both sides probably recognise that trade wars, trade restrictions, and sanctions do not really work. In Trump’s first term, the U.S. launched tariff wars and sanctions against Huawei and many other things. But when those tactics were tried again in the second term, China had developed the capacity to push back. If the U.S. weaponises chip sales and other restrictions, China can weaponise rare earths and other strengths it has.

So people suddenly realise that the two countries are deeply intertwined and depend heavily on one another. We cannot simply live without each other. What is the point of fighting one another to the point of mutual self-destruction?

I think that is the broader consensus, not only between China and the U.S. but in many countries. Even though people talk about deglobalisation, global trade is still growing. At the VIP luncheon today, the president of the European Union Chamber in China said that global trade rose by 7% last year and accounted for more than half of GDP growth. So trade is continuing despite all the setbacks, trade wars, and restrictions.

That means that, like it or not, China and the U.S. have to trade with each other—if not directly, then indirectly. The same is true of Europe, Japan, and many other countries.

So I think when President Trump comes this time, they may continue whatever trade agreement they have and perhaps revisit certain tariffs. I hope, for example, that the U.S. could drop the additional 10% tariff linked to fentanyl, especially since the U.S. has been striking drug cartels in Latin America, in Venezuela, in Colombia, and in Mexico. And China has recently arrested and sentenced a number of precursor producers at home. So I hope that they can at least get some low-hanging fruit. It would be good news if that tariff could be removed.

Furthermore, President Trump has said he wants to be a president of peace and a president of unity. If he wants to be a president of peace, then the biggest thing he wants to do is end the Russia-Ukraine war. And to do that, he needs China, just as he needs Pakistan and China to help bring the Iran war to an end.

So I think there are bigger issues on the table. In the last phone call between President Xi and President Trump, they said the U.S. and China are steering a giant ship in the world. Together they can achieve bigger things—not only for the benefit of China and the U.S. but for the whole world. I think President Trump has a bigger agenda and bigger aspirations. He wants a Nobel Peace Prize, and if he is serious about that, then he has to work with China.

Finally, I think Taiwan remains the core of the core issues for China. Yesterday, the new leader of the KMT opposition in Taiwan landed in Shanghai and began a several-day visit at the invitation of President Xi. I think cross-Strait relations are warming up, and there is a huge interest in peaceful negotiation and peaceful unification.

The U.S. recognises the one-China policy and says it does not support Taiwan independence. Why can’t the U.S. go further and say, “Okay, we support the peaceful unification of the mainland and Taiwan?” That would be great. On this Taiwan issue, it’s what China hopes for the most—that the U.S. can really calm down.

On the other hand, the U.S. is so busy with its focus on Greenland, Latin American countries, and even Canada. Why should they worry about China unifying with one of its provinces? I believe there is a lot for them to talk about and plenty of consensus to be reached. The world is really hoping for the two leaders to reach a lot of tranquillity and agreements—something the world badly needs. So, I believe this visit holds significant importance, not only for China and the U.S. but for the whole world.

Gaurav Ganguly

It sounds like you’re not too concerned about the current Section 301 investigations, which seem to be mainly directed at China, focusing on overcapacity. Overcapacity and the involution problem are indeed concerns for China from a domestic perspective, but the world—Europe included—is quite worried about cheap Chinese goods flooding their markets and the overcapacity of Chinese producers. The U.S. investigations into this aspect of Chinese trade are certainly alarming on paper, as they could open the door to more tariffs on China. But it doesn’t seem like you’re particularly concerned about this. It feels like you think tariffs might even be lowered after the meeting between Trump and Xi.

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think this is fundamentally a matter of market supply and demand. China is not forcing anyone to buy its products. If China can produce cheap, good, high-quality products, then that is healthy competition. It also stimulates competition in other countries. Multinationals compete in China as well—Tesla exports large numbers of electric vehicles from China, and around 40% of EVs made in China by multinationals are exported globally. So China has become an incubator or battleground for producing the best products. If you can compete successfully in China, you can probably compete globally as well.

In that sense, China provides healthy competition. I remember at the Munich Security Conference two years ago, a German think-tanker told me: If China can produce high-quality, low-cost solar panels, let it be. Even if China is subsidising that, the whole world benefits, because we are fighting climate change. If China is indirectly helping the Global South obtain affordable green products, why not?"

More fundamentally, China is willing to address trade imbalances and is also willing to invest abroad, like Japan did in the 1980s and 1990s. After the Plaza Accord, Japan felt that one way to adjust was by investing around the world, and that huge wave of Japanese investment in autos and other industries across the U.S. and Europe helped change the situation. China can do the same. China is now the largest automobile producer in the world.

But when it comes to overcapacity, I think it’s sometimes not a real issue. For example, Japan produces 8 million cars, and domestically, they only consume maybe less than 1 million, while the remaining 7 million are exported. The same goes for Germany—Germans consume less than 20% of their production, with 80% being exported. In China, they produce 60 million EV cars, but they only export around 3 to 4 million. Percentage-wise, that’s much lower than Japan and Europe. So, I don’t think overcapacity is truly an issue.

Even if it were, China is willing to invest in setting up EV car manufacturing in Europe, the U.S., or anywhere there is an imbalance. The problem, however, lies in the geopolitical lack of trust and containment measures that are threatening many Chinese companies. Over 1,000 Chinese companies are on the U.S. Entity List, including Huawei, and even TikTok, which has been under threat for many years but has recently been calmed down. The same thing is happening in Europe. For example, 40% of Chinese investment in Europe goes to Hungary because of its strong relationship with China. Recently, there has also been a significant surge in Chinese investment in Spain, largely due to the Spanish Prime Minister’s frequent visits to China, as well as the recent visit by the Spanish King.

So, I think if we can maintain good relations, as President Trump has said—welcome Chinese investment—then we should put aside the bipartisan hawkish attitudes in Congress and say, “Welcome Chinese investment.” I’m sure that would lead to massive Chinese investment flowing into these places, which would solve employment issues, provide local taxes, and transfer technology, just like multinational companies did in the 80s and 90s—transferring technology in exchange for access to markets. Chinese companies can do the same.

I think fundamentally, the issue of so-called overcapacity or subsidies is caused by the lack of trust and the geopolitical containment between countries, and that’s the root of the problem. That’s why we really need more high-level visits. I think what President Trump did was right, and he’s very eager to visit China to seek better relations. That’s exactly what we need.

Stefan Angrick, Head of Japan and Frontier Market Economics, Moody’s Analytics

Now, briefly, I want to follow up on your point about China’s economic model, Henry. I hear what you’re saying with regard to the criticism of China, perhaps being unfair. It’s a view that I share, because in many ways, it feels to me that businesses and governments in the West have grown a bit too comfortable in their position. They don’t try hard enough when it comes to things like pushing into green industries, for example, the way China does, right? The Chinese model illustrates that it is possible to do big things. But I would perhaps push back a little and say that it is also true that this approach Beijing has taken leaves it very dependent on global demand.

I find that very interesting, because, in many ways, that’s always been true ever since Deng Xiaoping started the process of opening up China. The idea was always that China would grow through exports. Along the way, investment also played a bigger role. But the point is, domestic demand was always sort of de-emphasized. And that’s something I would be curious to hear your take on. At the recent Two Sessions meetings in Beijing, policymakers talked more about the importance of elevating domestic demand. But it doesn’t really look like much has shifted yet in terms of actual policy-making.

It does feel a little bit puzzling looking from abroad, because you could argue that it’s also China’s interest to have a stronger demand at home, to get on top of the involution problem, right? So, can you share with us how Beijing is really thinking about domestic consumption, where it ranks in terms of economic importance and policy making, and what it is looking to achieve?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, that is one of the most frequent complaints we hear: that China does not generate enough domestic consumption. I think the Chinese government recognises that this is a problem, and it is really pushing for change. The new 15th Five-Year Plan has put that as a priority, and you can also see it in the Premier’s work report from the Two Sessions.

China has just come through a spring break. In the past, it was only three days, but now schools have had a six-day spring break. One of the reasons for doing that is to stimulate domestic consumption, tourism, and spending. I think things are getting better.

One reason consumption was flat for a few years after COVID is that real estate came down. When real estate falls, people think, “Okay, I don’t have as much wealth now in my pocket, so I have to keep my wallet tight and save for when I get old, so I have enough savings.” So, there’s a bit of that. But now, real estate has stabilised, and confidence is coming back. So, we would expect more consumption.

The Chinese government has been very eager, and they’ve been practising this trade-in policy for two or three years now. If you trade in your old automobile, refrigerator, TV, or computer, you get a big subsidy to buy a new one. That’s been working quite well. Furthermore, they are also stimulating the service industry, and that’s also working.

I do think the government has a lot of tools in their box. For example, China has 300 million migrant workers who don’t have city resident status. They don’t have a hukou that allows them to enjoy local resident rights. They rent very shabby apartments in urban centres and suburbs, yet the money they make, they send back to rural areas. There, on their household land, they build huge houses and apartments, which remain empty, only left for the seniors and juniors. That’s why you see the Chinese New Year traffic of people returning home reached 9.5 billion in this past February.

So, one policy they could have is to allow those 300 million migrant workers to lease out or even sell their homes in the rural areas, and allow city residents to go and buy this household land to build their retirement homes. If that barrier is knocked down, you’ll see a huge Chinese liberalisation. They could produce another 100 million middle-class people, because 300 million migrant workers have worked in the city for 10, 20, or 30 years, but they don’t have local resident status. They worry about the future and don’t want to buy or consume in the cities. But if they can sell their rural homes, then the urbanisation rate will be accelerated.

For example, China’s urbanisation rate, if you look at Japan, you know, they have 100 million, but the percentage of the population living in big cities is much higher than in China. So, I think the government can do many things to stimulate domestic consumption. That’s really the issue China is facing.

But of course, China has developed technology now. They’ve developed AI, they’ve developed a lot of manufacturing capabilities, and they’re absorbing a lot of new college graduates every year as well. So, I’m not overly concerned because, even though real estate has come down and has been flat, China has other synergies. For example, China has 70% of the global high-speed railway. Their stations reach almost 6,000, ten times more than in the U.S. and Europe. Also, their power generation is 2.5 times that of the U.S., and three times that of Europe. So, they’ll have a lot of computing power for AI.

Also, out of the 10 largest container ports in the world, seven of them are in China. And with 1.2 billion smartphone users, everyone has WeChat, which is highly effective for communication. There are also new jobs being created, like the 50 million delivery workers on the streets every day, delivering all kinds of products.

According to developed country standards, one doctor needs four nurses to accompany them. If that ratio is applied to China, China would need 50 million extra nurses in the healthcare industry. So, I think there’s a lot of room for China to grow, and domestic consumption will gradually pick up. Now, domestic consumption accounts for around 50%, maybe not 60%, but in developed countries, it’s 70-80%, and I think China is getting there.

Also, now they are more confident. They see there’s no war going on in China or Asia, and they can travel. I was talking to seven European ambassadors at my lunch, and I said, “China has opened free visas to over 20 European countries. Why can’t European countries open free visas for Chinese tourists?” Talking about imbalance, let those tourists travel to your country without a visa. Thailand opened a visa for China, and 8 million Chinese travelled to Thailand. Central Asia opened their visa policy, and Russia opened theirs. There’s been a flood of Chinese tourists. I see the European Union could do the same, and that would help correct those imbalances and create more opportunities in the service sector.

Gaurav Ganguly

Let me ask you one more question about China’s domestic economy, which also ties into China and globalisation. Before we move on to Europe, Latin America, and Asia—topics I’d like to discuss later—let’s talk about China and AI.

You briefly mentioned AI and data centres. We hear a lot about American-led AI, and we hear a lot about China-led AI. These are the two superpowers leading the world in AI, yet Europe is really nowhere to be seen in all of this.

In all of this, we also hear a lot about investments being made in data centres in the U.S., but we don’t hear much about investments in data centres in China. Of course, we don’t have the data on that. So, I’m just trying to understand China’s roadmap for AI development. We know that China is a hugely innovative country when it comes to industrial applications for technology, robotics, and so on. China is really world-class in how it deploys technology in manufacturing. But then, thinking about consumer technology and the way AI is being used by companies like Alibaba, China is, once again, at the forefront.

Do you have a sense for how much productivity gains will come from AI for China, because it seems like another huge growth area?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely, you know, that area is enormous. China is the largest drone producer in the world, and the largest producer of autonomous driving vehicles. It’s also a leader in green power, green EV car production, and AI-aided manufacturing. I was surprised to see how many industries have incorporated AI elements. AI education is also taking shape; for example, Beijing high schools now mandate that students spend eight hours per semester learning AI.

The essence of AI is computing power, and computing power relies on electricity. China’s power generation is 2.5 times that of the U.S. and three times that of Europe. I’m sure there are many data computing centres being established in China. Big players like Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu all have them. And China can afford it, thanks to its massive electric power resources. The Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydroelectric power project in the world, and China is currently building three or four more similar projects, adding significant hydroelectric capacity to optimise solar and wind power. China also has high-voltage transmission lines, ranging from 800 to 1000 kilovolts, spread everywhere—it’s enormous.

If you look at data, China is now the largest producer of AI data tokens in the world. When you talk about application scenes, with 1.4 billion smartphone users, data is being generated every day. This data goldmine can be utilised for various sectors, like healthcare, disease diagnosis, industry, and innovation. AI-driven technology, AI-driven manufacturing, and AI-driven production make China a world leader in these areas.

Finally, I think China has an open system. Companies like DeepMind and others use AI at a fraction of the cost compared to the U.S., and they make this AI accessible to the Global South, as well as to other countries and companies. This makes AI an affordable tool for hospitals, manufacturing, travel, hotel management, problem-solving, and academic research.

I believe AI has significantly empowered China, and with its abundant computing and electric power resources, China is well-prepared. Additionally, the data required to train AI models is in China’s hands, likely making China one of the world’s best-positioned countries for AI development. So, I’m not worried about China’s AI future. I’m confident it will at least remain on par with the U.S. in this field.

Denise Cheok, Head of Southeast Asia Economics, Moody’s Analytics

I just wanted to stay on the topic of China’s domestic economy and sort of build on what you were talking about with AI. One of the main things that came out of the Two Sessions in March was the growth target. It was set in a range of 4.5% to 5%.

So, one of the theories is that the 4.5% target might be giving some allowance for the productivity gains that AI could bring in later on. Maybe this won’t be realised this year, but it could come in the future. Another theory is that Beijing is allowing the economy to slowly shift towards more domestically led consumption. The final theory is that this might reflect the external volatility happening right now—it’s not necessarily China’s fault, but factors like the conflict in the Middle East, tariffs, and other issues that could affect the growth target. So, I’m just wondering, what’s your take on this?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, the 4.5% to 5% target—I think when they had this meeting, the Iranian war had already broken out. I mean, that’s exactly why China put this cushion in place. Originally, they may have planned for 5%, but then they said, “Look, we have this chokepoint at the Hormuz Strait, there’s a war going on, there are supply chain issues, and there’s a global recession.” So, they built in a 0.5% cushion, allowing for a range of 4.5% to 5%. That’s really important. Think about 5%—it’s enormous. Every year, China adds 5%, which is almost over 1 trillion U.S. dollars—essentially the GDP of Indonesia or the Netherlands. You’re adding the GDP of a mid-sized country to China’s economy.

I think the reason China can do this is because of the high efficiency and effectiveness with which everything works together. Another success factor for China is one five-year plan after another five-year plan. There’s no waste in policy debates. We don’t see new presidents coming in and vetoing the policies of previous leaders. In some democratic systems, you see endless cycles of policy back and forth. That’s a huge waste.

So, when it comes down to the competition—whether it’s subsidies, SOEs, or overcapacity—it’s not really the issue. The real issue is that China has invented a new model of meritocracy. Every year, 15 million people take the college entrance exam, 30 million get into universities, and out of those, 200,000 enter government. There’s fierce competition to get those positions and university degrees. The officials are not promoted based on public speaking skills but by what they can deliver at the grassroots level, from the village to the county, municipality, province, and ultimately the central government. So, there’s a performance-driven culture.

China has 31 provinces and cities, and 2,800 counties. Every mayor, every party secretary is essentially the CEO of their own region, competing with each other. China has invested massively in infrastructure, and its infrastructure is the best in the world. This synergy produces a lot of high-quality and high-speed products. So, I think by maintaining this model and maintaining stability, that’s why people are starting to realise why China always stresses stability above everything else. Because stability enables continuous progress and avoids the ups and downs, back-and-forth debates, and indecisiveness.

The meritocratic and performance-based culture, along with China’s unique model, is a mixed hybrid economy. You don’t see this anywhere else in the world. China’s private sector accounts for 60% of innovation, 70-80% of all enterprises, and 90% of employment, yet SOEs handle all the strategic and critical jobs—like maintaining communication networks, high-speed rail, etc. Meanwhile, multinationals account for 40% of China’s imports, exports, and employ 40 million people. The trilateral structure of China’s economy is unique and drives stability and continuous growth.

Finally, people often say China doesn’t have a democracy, but that’s not true. China has the world’s largest opposition party—the U.S. could be another, and Europe could be another. The leaders constantly adapt and change, and global media, especially Western media, criticise China—but China is able to adapt. I’ll give you an example: in 2015, when Paris called on China to join the climate agreements, there was heavy smog in China. Some officials said, “We’re just about to develop, and now you want to stop us from polluting? Why can’t we pollute now?” But they eventually realised that not polluting was better for China. International monitoring, like the U.S. embassy in Beijing putting up PM2.5 readings every day, helped China recognise the need for change. They studied the issue and found that 60% of Beijing’s pollution came from automobiles. They then started promoting green EVs, and now 60% of the cars in Beijing are electric. China even had a record number of clear skies in Beijing last year.

This shows how China can adapt to international criticism and change. China’s “way of doing things”—what they call their modernisation drive—is a path that fits their own needs. That’s why China is becoming more appealing, and more tourists are coming to China, realising it’s totally different from what they’ve heard in the Western press. This shift in perspective offers a convincing explanation of the progress China has made.

Gaurav Ganguly

You talked about green energy, and it’s a bit of a favourite topic of mine, combining green energy, Europe, and China into one question. It feels like Europe is quite hesitant to allow in more Chinese investment, but it could clearly benefit from more Chinese investment. You mentioned Hungary and Spain, but Europe could also benefit from much more investment in green energy and Chinese green tech, which it seems reluctant to do so. In fact, it seems that Europe could have more investment in this area, and you would think that this would be even more necessary after the latest energy shock.

Europe experienced an energy shock in 2022 when gas prices soared, and as a result, it actually tightened its climate targets. More recently, however, some of those targets were relaxed, which probably needs to be revisited given the latest oil price shock. So, what do you think Europe needs to do to attract more Chinese investment in EVs and other areas of clean tech?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yeah, that’s a good question. I’ve been talking to a lot of people about this. For example, I had Pascal Lamy, the former WTO Director-General, come to my office two weeks ago. We were discussing how many European companies, such as Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Bosch, and other German companies, have huge joint ventures in China. That’s how they came into China, and they know how to work with Chinese companies. So, I suggested, why can’t we do joint ventures in green tech? They could partner with Chinese EV manufacturers or work in the upstream and downstream sectors, and invest back into Europe.

The problem is the unhealthy bilateral relations between China and Europe. China is often blamed for its involvement with Russia in the war in Ukraine. China has not been involved in or conspired in the war with Russia. It takes time for that to be understood. So, I think joint ventures could be one way to invest in Europe.

On the technology front, China is now completely new in this area. You’re talking about old combustion engine models of automobiles versus the production of EVs, which is a completely different process, both in terms of production and design, as well as the software behind it. I visited a Huawei factory, where they power up the most advanced EVs in China, and they have great features. You get into the car, there’s music and movies, you wave your hand, and the door opens, just like an AI-driven machine. It’s so advanced.

This new software design for automobiles is different from the old manufacturing model, where production, design, and software were separate and vertical. Now, everything is integrated horizontally, and you can play with the computer to adjust features. This new model is something China could transfer to Europe. Just as European countries came to China through joint ventures to transfer technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market, Europe could do the same with Chinese technology and Chinese investors. There’s huge potential for collaboration in this area.

Another thing is that Europe should have more institutional arrangements. For example, the Comprehensive Investment Agreement between China and Europe, which was reached seven years ago, is basically sitting on a shelf and hasn’t been fully implemented. Why can’t we upgrade and improve that? There’s a huge European services industry that hasn’t fully penetrated the Chinese market, and China wants to join the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement, but hasn’t been able to yet. If China could join, it could open up more opportunities for European companies to operate in China.

Finally, I think the European service industry is very strong, and it could come to China more freely. Even if the European Union has a free trade agreement with India, why can’t they have a free trade agreement with China? I think Europe and China have no real conflicts. They have a long history, culture, and diversity, and they can get along very well. Now, more than ever, Europe must become more autonomous and independent. As the second or third-largest economy, Europe can mediate U.S.-China relations and benefit from both sides, rather than seeing it as a competition between China and the West. We could create a “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”

So, I think it’s really important for Europe to maintain good relations with China, especially as the U.S. seems increasingly unreliable, given recent events in Greenland, Denmark, and particularly the situation in Iran, where no European country or NATO supported the U.S. invasion. The world is becoming more diversified, and the old “China vs. the West” or “democracy vs. autocracy” narrative is fading. We need to ask, “What are the best interests for us?” and stop picking sides. There are many ways to collaborate. I believe China and Europe have huge potential to work together.

Gaurav Ganguly

You know what, Henry? Whenever I record an episode, one of the things constantly on my mind is the search for a title. And you have just given me one. I think we may have to name this episode The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Some people might think we are suddenly pulling a Chinese classic off the shelf and turning this into a romance novel, but it is actually a very fitting way to think about a possible new world order, with Europe potentially playing a mediating role between different powers.

That brings me perhaps to my last question. Back in 2001, we had the term BRICS, and that just seems like not relevant anymore. How do you see that? Do you see a future for the BRICS? Do you see these particular countries, particularly India, China, Brazil, working together? Or do you see it more it’s a more fragmented world order?

China has its economic interests and its view of the global order. Various other countries will have their own. And so the term BRICS is perhaps less useful now. It’s much more about different countries trying to find their own economic feat and work with other small countries, large countries, middle countries, in order to find a new economic equilibrium for globalisation. How do you see that working out?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, thank you. That’s a good question. Actually, when I think about BRICS, I remember talking to Jim O’Neill, who coined the term. We had a dialogue a few years ago, and I think the emergence of the BRICS countries is really a trend that continued with the 70s, and it represents the global south countries. These countries were fed up with the North, having to deal with a lot of strings attached, conditions, and demands for regime changes. So, even though they have different systems, they came together because they share common grievances and have a lot to face from the north.

Now, the world is getting more diversified, and middle powers have emerged as well. So, I would say that BRICS, as a big block of developing countries, has gained appeal because China and India have gone through the developing stage themselves, with a lot of shared experience, having both been colonial subjects and oppressed by foreign powers historically. Many countries in the global south share this legacy, so these common denominators likely pushed them together.

Furthermore, they all want development. If I were to sum up BRICS in one term, it would be development. Development is really the key for all of these countries, whether it’s China, India, Brazil, South Africa, or Turkey. It’s the buzzword they all want to focus on. So, I think BRICS will become more important, particularly in the future. For example, in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, NATO, the EU, or the U.S. guarantees aren’t enough. Russia’s public needs a BRICS guarantee, including China, India, Brazil, and South Africa. This would help create a more balanced approach.

Also, when we talk about the G20, half of its members are BRICS countries. This balance is crucial for global economic development. I think BRICS will play an important role in balancing the global landscape in the future. When we talk about a multipolar world, the BRICS countries are certainly a major pole. If you categorise the world into developed and developing countries, BRICS clearly represents a vast section of the developing world. I believe this grouping will be around for a long time, with much to learn from each other.

Moreover, BRICS is a non-aligned political force that can resist some Western pressures collectively. However, there are also several parallel groups emerging. We talk about G3, G4, and if those go well, maybe the terms BRICS and Global North/South will eventually disappear. But before all of that, I still think the big players have important roles to play. Behind those big players, there are countries with different preferences, so we have the G7, G20, and now BRICS. It’s another platform for airing concerns, showing solidarity, and voicing opinions for global development. I think that phenomenon and solidarity will continue, even with the differences.

The fundamental issue remains the need for trust among the big players, particularly in the UN Security Council. I wrote an article in Foreign Policy recently about how to reform the UN Security Council. I believe the G20 should be fully represented there, even though other members may have different levels of status. That’s the way forward because 80-85% of global GDP is produced by the G20 countries. So, we need to continue pushing for UN reform, and I believe BRICS countries can play an important role in that. Thank you.

Gaurav Ganguly

It’s been absolutely fabulous having you on our podcast. I feel this is such a rich conversation. Obviously, we could keep talking about these issues for a lot longer, but our time is up. Thank you, Stefan Ungrik and Denise Chuck, for joining me, and a huge, huge thank you to Henry Wang, Principal Founder and Head of the China Center for Globalization. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

You’ve been listening to The Global Economy Unwrapped.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you.

Subscribe now

Drawing on historical comparison and discourse analysis, the chapter examines the roots of American exceptionalism in individualism and Chinese exceptionalism in collectivism, and discusses how these contrasting traditions shape the two countries’ domestic systems, international outlooks, and evolving relationship.

We are pleased to share the full text of the chapter here. Readers interested in supporting the full volume may visit the publisher’s official website.

Individualism and Collectivism: Roots and Realities of U.S. and Chinese Exceptionalism

Abstract: Political sociologist Seymour Lipset argues that American exceptionalism is fundamentally rooted in the principle of individualism—a claim that remains highly accurate. Individualism has deeply influenced the American mindset, shaping its political institutions, economic systems, and cultural values. In contrast, Chinese exceptionalism is founded on collectivism, a concept deeply ingrained in China’s historical heritage and still highly influential in modern society. This paper aims to explore and compare the foundations of American and Chinese exceptionalism through the framework of the individualism-collectivism divide. It will examine how these contrasting value systems have informed each nation’s political structures, economic models, and cultural practices. Additionally, the paper will analyze how this divergence shapes the complex bilateral relationship between the United States and China. Finally, it will argue that a growing convergence of individualist and collectivist values within both societies holds the potential to foster greater mutual understanding and cooperation—both domestically and internationally—thereby helping to bridge ideological divides and promote more stable and constructive relations between the two global powers. By drawing on historical comparison and discourse analysis, the paper seeks to explain the divergence of American and Chinese exceptionalism through cultural and identity lenses.

Keywords: American Exceptionalism, Chinese Exceptionalism, Individualism Collectivism

Exceptionalism has long served as a conceptual lens through which nations interpret and justify their perceived unique roles within the international system. Far from being a mere rhetorical flourish, exceptionalism emerges from specific historical trajectories, ideological traditions, and sociopolitical developments that distinguish one nation’s identity and mission from others (Lipset, 1996; Huntington, 1996). It operates simultaneously as a source of national pride, a mechanism for internal cohesion, and a justification for distinctive domestic policies and global ambitions. Exceptionalist narratives often assert that a particular nation possesses a unique historical destiny or civilizational responsibility, positioning itself as a model for others or as a leader in shaping global norms.

In contemporary international relations, the exceptionalist frameworks of the United States and China stand out as two contrasting paradigms—each representing fundamentally different worldviews and approaches to power. American exceptionalism, deeply rooted in Enlightenment liberalism, emphasizes the primacy of the individual as the foundation of liberty, innovation, and democratic legitimacy. This worldview draws strength from historical experiences such as the American Revolution, the expansion of constitutional democracy, and the country’s self-image as a “shining city upon a hill” destined to lead by moral example. It shapes not only domestic institutions, with their emphasis on individual rights and limited government, but also foreign policy, which often frames global leadership as a responsibility to advance democracy, human rights, and market capitalism worldwide.

Conversely, Chinese exceptionalism is grounded in a profoundly different intellectual tradition. It is anchored in the values of social interconnectedness, collective harmony, and hierarchical relational ethics inherited from Confucian philosophy. This worldview emphasizes the subordination of individual interests to the greater good of the community or state, valuing stability, order, and moral cultivation over personal autonomy. These principles guide both China’s domestic governance—centered on the authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—and its approach to international engagement, which stresses concepts such as harmonious development, multipolar cooperation, and respect for civilizational diversity. American exceptionalism tends to project itself globally, whereas Chinese exceptionalism presents itself as a distinct path of development.

This essay compares the two paradigms by examining their historical and philosophical roots, institutional forms, economic strategies, political structures, and patterns of international behavior. Through historical comparison, it explores their coexistence, potential rivalry, and implications for the future global order.

I. Individualism as the Core of American Exceptionalism

1. Historical and Philosophical Foundations

The intellectual and cultural foundations of American exceptionalism can be traced back to Alexis de Tocqueville’s seminal work Democracy in America (2000). In sharp contrast to the entrenched aristocratic hierarchies and rigid class structures of contemporary Europe, Tocqueville portrayed American individualism not as mere self-interest, but as a moral framework in which citizens pursued personal goals in alignment with civic responsibility. This ethos, he argued, nurtured a dynamic civil society and participatory democracy. Tocqueville also highlighted Americans’ remarkable commitment to equality, individual rights, and decentralized governance.

Seymour Martin Lipset (1996, 5) famously traced the origins of American exceptionalism to a constellation of interrelated cultural and political traits: liberty, egalitarianism, populism, individualism, and laissez-faire economics. Among these, individualism occupies a central place, serving as both the core value and the underlying rationale for the distinctive character of American society. This emphasis on individual autonomy and personal responsibility shapes not only domestic social norms and political practices but also informs the broader national ethos.

John Locke, in his Second Treatise of Government (1689), articulated the doctrine of natural rights to life, liberty, and property, laying the philosophical foundation for American individualism. His social contract theory—that governments derive legitimacy only insofar as they exist to protect these rights—profoundly influenced the ideological underpinnings of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights (Locke, 1988). Accordingly, the American political system institutionalized the principle that authority rests on the consent of free individuals to limited government, inverting traditional European norms of top-down power. This Lockean framework marked a radical departure from monarchical and aristocratic models, positioning the state primarily as a guarantor of individual autonomy rather than as an enforcer of collective conformity or entrenched hierarchies (Wood, 1991).

America’s constitutional design, with its emphasis on checks and balances, federalism, and the separation of powers, embodied this individualist philosophy (Madison et al., 2003). By constraining centralized authority, it sought to safeguard individual freedoms against potential tyranny. The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, further codified these protections, explicitly guaranteeing freedom of speech, religion, and private property—core elements of the nation’s exceptionalist identity (Foner, 2013).

Over time, individual autonomy has evolved into a deeply ingrained political culture, understood as both a right and a civic duty. This individualist tradition is evident in the expansion of suffrage, the civil rights movement, and contemporary debates over privacy and government oversight. It also shapes American foreign policy, framing the United States as a global advocate for liberal democratic principles.

2. Economic Foundations: Capitalism and the Self-Made Ideal

Economically, American exceptionalism has long celebrated individual responsibility, entrepreneurial ambition, and upward mobility. It emphasizes not only material success but also moral virtue, championing hard work, ingenuity, and perseverance. Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1930, 10) famously links the rise of Western capitalism to cultural values rooted in Protestant asceticism—particularly personal discipline, industriousness, and the postponement of immediate gratification. In the American context, these values were secularized into a moral framework in which entrepreneurial initiative and economic achievement are seen as markers of individual merit and, historically, even divine favor.

Within this cultural context, an economic system emerged that prioritizes free markets, competition, and technological innovation. Samuel Huntington (1981, 8) characterizes American political culture as defined by “rugged individualism,” reflecting a deeply ingrained skepticism toward government intervention in the private sphere, particularly in economic affairs. This wariness has repeatedly surfaced in debates over taxation, welfare programs, and regulatory policies.

The doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism has been strongly championed by prominent economists such as Friedrich Hayek (1944) and Milton Friedman (1962). In The Road to Serfdom, Hayek famously warned that government economic intervention risks concentrating excessive power in the state. Likewise, Friedman advocated for minimal regulation and the primacy of free-market mechanisms. Collectively, their ideas reinforced the link between market freedom and personal liberty, leaving a profound imprint on American economic policy throughout the late twentieth century.

This individualist economic ethos is evident in the historical evolution of institutions structured to encourage innovation, entrepreneurial risk-taking, and private enterprise. From the early establishment of robust patent protections to the growth of venture capital networks, American capitalism fostered environments conducive to experimentation and entrepreneurship. Nowhere is this more evident than in the rise of Silicon Valley, described by AnnaLee Saxenian (1994) as an ecosystem uniquely suited for fostering decentralized innovation. The success stories of technological giants like Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon serve as modern embodiments of the self-made ideal, where founders are often mythologized as visionary entrepreneurs who disrupted industries through individual brilliance and bold risk-taking (Florida, 2002).

Moreover, this individualist economic tradition has helped shape powerful narratives of social mobility and meritocracy, encapsulated in the ideal of the “American Dream.” Within this framework, success is presented as universally attainable for those willing to work hard and seize available opportunities, regardless of their socioeconomic starting point (Hochschild, 1995). Historically, this belief has served as a unifying national narrative, inspiring both immigrants and native-born citizens to seek personal advancement through education, innovation, and entrepreneurial endeavor.

However, this narrative is not without tensions and contradictions. Scholars such as Thomas Piketty (2014) have highlighted how rising wealth inequality undermines the meritocratic ideal, pointing out that structural barriers—such as unequal access to education, capital, and social networks—often limit true upward mobility. These contradictions underscore the enduring complexity of American exceptionalism, revealing it as both a guiding national ideal and a contested reality within the country’s economic and social fabric.

3. Political Implications: The Small State Ideal and Decentralization

The primacy of individualism has profoundly shaped American political institutions, legal frameworks, and systems of governance. In the American tradition, the central purpose of government is not to organize society around collective identities or overarching goals, but to safeguard individual liberty. As Robert Dahl (2000, 12) observed, the practice of liberal democracy in the United States rests on limiting state power to protect personal rights. Institutional mechanisms—such as checks and balances, regular elections, and judicial review—function as structural safeguards against the concentration of authority and the risk of tyranny.

Moreover, freedom in the American tradition is understood not merely as a political arrangement but as a moral imperative. Any form of governmental encroachment—no matter how well-intentioned—is regarded with suspicion if it threatens personal autonomy or economic self-determination. Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), argued that the state’s legitimate role should be strictly limited to protecting individuals from force, theft, and fraud. From this perspective, redistributive taxation intended to fund social welfare is ethically objectionable, since it entails the coercive transfer of one person’s labor or property to benefit another.

Decentralization reflects this individualist ethos by granting local governments and communities the authority to govern in line with their distinct values, needs, and priorities. As Daniel Elazar (1987) observes, American federalism preserves substantial autonomy for states and municipalities, allowing them to shape policies in areas such as education, taxation, and public health. Federal initiatives frequently encounter resistance when viewed as intrusions into domains traditionally reserved for state or individual authority—illustrating the enduring American preference for governance situated as close to the individual citizen as possible.

American political culture does not disregard civic responsibility. While individuals are free to pursue their own interests, they are also encouraged to participate voluntarily in civic life—whether through voting, joining community organizations, or supporting charitable causes. As Amitai Etzioni (1993) notes, the traditions of volunteerism and grassroots engagement in the United States represent powerful expressions of personal moral responsibility within an individualist framework.

4. Foreign Policy: From Isolationism to Liberal Internationalism

American exceptionalism has profoundly influenced U.S. foreign policy, continually balancing the pursuit of liberty and democracy with considerations of power and national interest. In its formative years, this exceptionalism was expressed through a strong preference for isolationism, as the young republic sought to shield itself from European conflicts and imperial rivalries that might endanger its independence and democratic experiment.

Yet the global balance of power evolved dramatically over the 19th and 20th centuries, reaching a decisive turning point in the aftermath of World War II. The United States emerged as a dominant military and economic power, compelled to assume a more proactive role on the world stage. Embracing the mantle of global leadership, the U.S. helped construct and champion a liberal international order characterized by multilateral institutions, collective security alliances such as NATO, open markets, and the promotion of democratic governance worldwide. This global engagement can be understood as an extension of the American individualist ethos beyond its borders—advocating for freedoms of movement, expression, and trade as universal goods that underpin both peace and prosperity (Ikenberry, 2011, 15). The idea that liberal democracy and free markets are not merely American values but universal ideals to be spread globally has animated successive administrations, even as the means and intensity of such promotion have varied.

John Ikenberry (2011) conceptualizes this postwar system as a “liberal leviathan,” wherein U.S. leadership combines idealistic aspirations of spreading liberal values with the pragmatic necessities of maintaining geopolitical stability and deterring rivals. Within this framework, American exceptionalism functions both as a normative project—advancing democracy and human rights—and as a strategic necessity aimed at preserving an international order favorable to U.S. interests. However, this dual mandate has long carried built-in tensions, as the burdens and repercussions of interventionism have repeatedly fueled contentious debates at home.

In recent years, recurring domestic political movements have questioned the value of global engagement. Isolationist and nationalist perspectives—most prominently reflected in the Trump administration’s “America First” doctrine—have cast doubt on the sustainability of America’s international commitments, contending that such entanglements erode national sovereignty, impose undue burdens on taxpayers, and divert attention from pressing domestic concerns (Judis, 2016).

The “America First” turn thus underscores enduring tensions within American exceptionalism—between its long-standing universalist ambition to lead and reshape the world and a renewed focus on safeguarding national interests while limiting foreign entanglements. As Walter Russell Mead (2001) observes, this recurring struggle between interventionism and restraint remains a defining feature of U.S. foreign policy, deeply embedded in the nation’s self-identity.

II. Collectivism as the Core of Chinese Exceptionalism

1. Historical and Philosophical Origins: Confucianism and Collective Identity

In stark contrast to American individualism, Chinese exceptionalism is fundamentally underpinned by collectivism—a worldview that prioritizes collective harmony, relational ethics, and systemic interconnectedness as core societal values. These foundational ideas trace their intellectual and cultural roots to Confucianism, which has profoundly shaped Chinese civilization, governance, and social organization for over two millennia (Tu, 1999). Rather than viewing individuals as autonomous agents pursuing personal fulfillment, this tradition conceptualizes human beings as inherently embedded within a web of relationships, where responsibilities to family, community, and state are paramount.

Classical Confucian thought, articulated by thinkers such as Confucius (551–479 BCE), Mencius, and Xunzi, places the family and the community at the very center of moral life and social order. The cultivation of ren (benevolence), li (ritual propriety), and xiao (filial piety) is viewed as essential to achieving a harmonious society (Bell, 2008). Individuals are expected to develop personal virtue not solely for self-betterment, but to fulfill their roles within hierarchical yet reciprocal relationships. The Confucian ideal envisions society as an organic whole in which individual interests are subordinate to collective well-being, with personal fulfillment realized through the responsible performance of one’s duties within this interconnected social structure (Yao, 2000).

Political scientist Lucian Pye (1985,21) contrasts this deeply relational worldview with the atomized nature of Western individualism, describing Chinese political culture as fundamentally communitarian—a system that values obligations to others and places relational networks at the heart of social and political life. This focus on social embeddedness extends beyond domestic society to shape China’s approach to international relations. As Yan Xuetong (2011) argues, China’s collective and hierarchical orientation underpins its realist foreign policy, prioritizing order, stability, and relational diplomacy rather than the Western emphasis on individual state sovereignty and formal equality among nations.

In contemporary China, the resurgence of Confucian discourse has been strategically leveraged by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to bolster the legitimacy of its governance model and to justify policies designed to maintain social harmony and national cohesion (Bell, 2015). By invoking Confucian principles alongside the rhetoric of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Chinese leadership projects a hybrid ideological framework that links ancient philosophical traditions to modern political objectives. This philosophical foundation serves to bolster the CCP’s emphasis on collective interests, disciplined social order, and long-term national planning, positioning China’s developmental path as distinct from, and in many respects opposed to, the liberal individualist models of the West.

2. Economic Structures: Toward Common Prosperity

China’s economic model exemplifies collectivism by integrating market dynamics with robust state control, creating a hybrid system that prioritizes national cohesion, strategic coordination, and collective advancement. Since the initiation of Deng Xiaoping’s market-oriented reforms in 1978, China has pursued the model of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” blending the efficiency and productivity of market mechanisms with the guiding hand of socialist political oversight (Naughton, 2007). This framework departs from the laissez-faire orientation of Western capitalism by maintaining that market activity should ultimately serve national interests, developmental goals, and the collective good.

A defining feature of this model is the dominant role of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in key sectors such as energy, telecommunications, finance, transportation, and defense (Jakobson, 2013). These enterprises allow the Chinese state to retain control over strategic industries and channel resources toward long-term economic and geopolitical goals. Beyond the pursuit of profit, they function as instruments of national strategy. Through centralized mechanisms such as the Five-Year Plans, the state steers investment, promotes technological innovation, and develops infrastructure in line with broader national objectives.

Among the most notable outcomes of China’s governance and economic model is its unprecedented success in poverty reduction. By 2020, the government announced the eradication of extreme poverty, having lifted nearly 800 million people out of destitution over four decades—an achievement acknowledged by institutions such as the World Bank. This transformation was made possible by the CCP’s capacity for centralized coordination, resource mobilization, and long-term planning, reinforcing its claim that the system can deliver collective prosperity more effectively than market-oriented liberal models. Beyond its domestic significance, this accomplishment also presents a compelling alternative to Western liberal democracy, particularly for developing nations in search of viable paths to modernization.

Launched in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the flagship embodiment of China’s connectivity-driven economic vision on the global stage. It seeks to build an expansive network of infrastructure—ports, railways, highways, digital corridors, and energy pipelines—linking Asia, Africa, and Europe to promote economic interdependence and shared growth (Wang, 2016). More than an economic program, the BRI reflects China’s model of globalization centered on infrastructural integration and mutual benefit, offering a contrast to Western approaches often criticized for creating dependency or advancing unilateral advantage (Rolland, 2017; Johnston, 2018).

3. Political Model: Socialism with Chinese Characteristics

China’s political system is defined by centralized governance under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with an emphasis on meritocratic selection, long-term planning, and social stability (Bell, 2015). As the sole ruling party, the CCP plays a decisive role in directing the country’s political, economic, and social development. In contrast to Western liberal democracies that emphasize individual rights, electoral competition, and multiparty pluralism, China’s model places priority on collective welfare, social cohesion, and sustained developmental objectives.

At its core, the Chinese political model is organized around the principle of serving the fundamental interests of the majority. It emphasizes pragmatic policy-making, technocratic expertise, and strong political control as means to safeguard national cohesion, drive modernization, and advance socioeconomic development (Fewsmith, 2018). By prioritizing the needs of the broader population, the CCP argues that it is better equipped to preserve social harmony, reduce inequality, and foster national unity, while avoiding the paralysis and polarization that can arise in multiparty democratic systems.

The Party further claims its legitimacy through its demonstrated capacity to deliver tangible benefits to the broad population, including unprecedented achievements in poverty alleviation, world-class infrastructure development, and ongoing improvements in education, healthcare, and technological innovation. The CCP’s success in lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, expanding the middle class, and transforming China into the world’s second-largest economy is central to its narrative of effective governance.

The CCP’s ability to implement large-scale developmental goals with efficiency and coordination has been credited with delivering not only rapid economic growth but also transformative social achievements, further solidifying its claim to effective governance and emerging global leadership (Zhao, 2009). For the CCP, political stability guided by a centralized, disciplined ruling party is not just a domestic priority but a foundational principle of China’s rise on the global stage. The model asserts that only through unified leadership representing the interests of the majority can China sustain its momentum toward national rejuvenation, prosperity, and international influence in the 21st century.

III. The Clash of American and Chinese Exceptionalism

The evolving geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China is not solely a contest of power but a confrontation between two competing exceptionalist visions of world order. At its heart lies a deep ideological divide between American individualism—shaped by Enlightenment liberalism—and Chinese collectivism, rooted in Confucian-influenced collectivism. This clash manifests starkly in the contrasting doctrines of U.S. engagement policy and China’s vision of a “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” (命运共同体), each representing divergent understandings of global governance, sovereignty, and the role of the individual within the international system.

1. American Exceptionalism and the Engagement Doctrine

Since the end of World War II, American foreign policy has been underpinned by the notion of American exceptionalism—the belief that the U.S. has a unique mission to spread democracy, liberalism, and market capitalism (Lipset, 1996; Ikenberry, 2011). Particularly after the Cold War, this worldview evolved into engagement policy, a strategy aimed at integrating rising powers like China into the U.S.-led liberal international order.

The Clinton administration’s engagement policy posited that deepening trade, diplomacy, and cultural exchange with China would gradually liberalize its political system and align it with Western democratic norms (Mastanduno, 2002; Shambaugh, 2013). Underlying this approach was the individualist assumption that political and economic liberalization were universal aspirations and inevitable outcomes of modernization (Fukuyama, 1992, 21).

However, this strategy largely failed in its core objective. While China embraced globalization, it did so on its own terms, preserving an authoritarian governance structure while adapting market mechanisms (Naughton, 2021). Critics of engagement argue that the U.S. underestimated the resilience of China’s civilizational identity and overestimated the universal appeal of liberal individualism (Allison, 2017).

2. Chinese Exceptionalism and the “Community of Shared Future for Mankind”

In stark contrast, Chinese exceptionalism derives from China’s self-identification as a civilization-state rather than a nation-state in the Western sense (Jacques, 2012). The CCP’s contemporary foreign policy narrative, particularly articulated by Xi Jinping, revolves around the concept of “a Community of Shared Future for Mankind” (命运共同体), first formally introduced in 2013 and elevated to constitutional status in 2018 (Callahan, 2016; Zhao, 2020).

This concept represents a distinct philosophical orientation: the emphasis is on interdependence, mutual respect for different political systems, and prioritization of collective welfare over individual autonomy (Zhao, 2016). Inspired by ancient Confucian ideals of harmony (he, 和) and the tianxia (all-under-heaven) system, this vision promotes a world of relational obligation rather than adversarial competition (Bell & Wang, 2020).

The practical expression of this worldview is visible in initiatives like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), where infrastructure, trade, and technological connectivity are framed as global public goods fostering “win-win cooperation” (Ferdinand, 2016). Here, collectivism contrasts with the U.S.’s individual-centric emphasis on market liberalization, framing development as a shared journey rather than a competition of sovereign equals.

3. Individualism vs. Collectivism: Competing Global Orders

The failure of U.S. engagement to transform China reflects the deeper ideological incompatibility between liberal individualism and Confucian collectivism. For the U.S., global engagement has long been tied to advancing a liberal order predicated on individual rights, free markets, and democratic governance (Ikenberry, 2011). For China, modernization does not require democratization; instead, it requires stability, development, and harmonious relations among diverse political systems (Zhao, 2016).

This divergence has fueled tensions in international organizations and global norms. The U.S. advocates universal human rights frameworks rooted in individual autonomy (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005), while China defends state sovereignty and “developmental rights” as prerequisites for human dignity (Zhao, 2009). While the U.S. emphasizes “rules-based order” defined by liberal norms, China advances “pluralistic global governance” rooted in mutual respect for different development paths (Mahbubani, 2020).

The clash between American exceptionalism and Chinese exceptionalism—individualism versus collectivism—represents not just geopolitical rivalry but a civilizational conflict over the meaning of order, rights, and progress. The U.S. continues to see the global spread of liberal values as both desirable and inevitable. China, in turn, asserts that alternative modernities grounded in relational, collective responsibility are equally legitimate paths to prosperity and stability.

IV. The Convergence and Hybridization of American and Chinese Exceptionalism

1. Emerging Pragmatism: Balancing Ideals with Interests

Despite deep and enduring ideological divides, pragmatism has become an increasingly dominant force in shaping U.S.-China relations. While fundamental differences persist—rooted in contrasting political systems, values, and visions for the international order—both nations have come to recognize the inescapable reality of their mutual dependencies, particularly in the economic domain. Trade, investment, technological supply chains, and financial markets bind the two largest economies in a complex web of interconnection, making decoupling costly and destabilizing for both sides.

This recognition has led to a cautious, often uneasy form of strategic management, wherein both powers seek to advance their national interests without triggering direct conflict. As Graham Allison (2017, 8) warns in his analysis of the “Thucydides Trap,” historical patterns suggest that rising and established powers frequently fall into confrontation; however, conscious efforts at pragmatic engagement represent a deliberate attempt by Washington and Beijing to avoid that fate. This pragmatic approach does not resolve underlying tensions, but it introduces a level of strategic restraint aimed at preserving global stability while managing competition.

2. The Rise of Individualism Within China

Economic liberalization and social transformation in China have fostered increased individualism, particularly among urban youth, the growing middle class, and entrepreneurial communities (Yan, 2010). As market reforms deepened and global cultural influences intensified, personal ambition, consumerism, and self-identity have emerged as defining features of modern Chinese society. This shift has increasingly tested the traditional collectivist values that have long supported narratives of Chinese exceptionalism—values centered on unity, social harmony, and the primacy of the collective over the individual.

Studies indicate a rising demand for personal freedom, privacy, lifestyle choices, and self-expression in China, especially among younger generations (Zhao, 2017). Exposure to social media, international travel, and overseas education has gradually reshaped attitudes, creating subtle tensions between state-promoted traditional values and individuals’ evolving personal aspirations.

In response, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) promotes the doctrine of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” which seeks to reconcile rising individual aspirations with the broader collective goal of national rejuvenation (Pei, 2016). Through initiatives such as the “Chinese Dream,” the Party frames personal achievement and upward mobility as integral to the nation’s overall progress, blending traditional collectivist ideals with contemporary individual pursuits.

3. American Collectivism in Global Networks

Conversely, American exceptionalism is itself evolving. Once firmly grounded in ideals of individual liberty, self-reliance, and personal achievement, it is increasingly intersecting with new forms of collective identity. The growth of social media, online communities, and digital platforms has fostered transnational networks and participatory cultures, gradually softening the boundaries between individualism and emerging modes of social connectivity (Castells, 2010).

Although the core ethos of American individualism endures, it is increasingly complemented by a hybridization of values in which personal expression is realized through participation in broader networks of shared interests, beliefs, and activism. This evolving form of collectivism suggests that American exceptionalism is no longer defined solely by isolated individual achievement, but also by the ways individuals connect, collaborate, and co-create meaning across national boundaries.

This shift reflects a broader evolution of American identity in the twenty-first century, revealing both the tension and potential synthesis between the enduring legacy of rugged individualism and the emerging collectivist dynamics shaped by globalization.

4. The Future of Exceptionalism in a Multipolar World

In the face of shared challenges—such as pandemics, climate change, and cyber threats—the key task will be balancing systemic competition with the establishment of effective global governance mechanisms. Both American individualism and Chinese collectivism are expected to continue evolving and hybridizing. Zakaria (2008) argues that U.S. values will remain influential but must coexist with alternative models, while Chinese scholars like Zhao Tingyang (2006) call for integrating national sovereignty with global governance, potentially merging connectivist principles with broader pluralistic frameworks.

Conclusion

In conclusion, American exceptionalism, grounded in individualism, and Chinese exceptionalism, rooted in collectivism, embody two distinct yet comprehensive worldviews. Each is shaped by deep historical trajectories, philosophical traditions, and practical approaches to governance, development, and international engagement. Their interaction not only drives patterns of competition and rivalry in the contemporary geopolitical landscape but also underpins significant interdependence.

A nuanced understanding of these paradigms—both in their historical roots and modern manifestations—is essential. Policymakers, scholars, and global citizens must treat them not as abstract concepts, but as living frameworks that actively shape policy decisions, diplomatic strategies, and international cooperation.

As the global order becomes increasingly complex and multipolar, hybrid models of governance, identity, and international collaboration are likely to emerge. These models could combine the innovation-oriented strengths of individualism with the collective responsibility emphasized by collectivism, offering practical avenues for coexistence. Ultimately, the future will not be determined by the dominance of a single worldview, but by the capacity of global actors to bridge ideological divides, embrace nuanced perspectives, and work together toward shared solutions in an era of profound interdependence.

References

Allison, G. (2017). Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Bell, D. A., & Wang, P. (2020). Just Hierarchy: Why Social Hierarchies Matter in China and the Rest of the World. Princeton University Press.

Betts, R. K. (2012). American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National Security. Columbia University Press.

Bremmer, I., & Roubini, N. (2011). The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing. Oxford University Press.

Byman, D. (2016). The Future of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. Survival, 58(6), 121-136.

Callahan, W. A. (2016). China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future. Oxford University Press.

Castells, M. (2010). The Rise of the Network Society. Wiley-Blackwell.

Creemers, R. (2017). Cyber China: Governance in the Age of the Internet. Journal of Contemporary China, 26(103), 85-100.

Creemers, R. (2018). China’s Social Credit System: An Evolving Practice of Control. SSRN Electronic Journal.

Deibert, R. J. (2019). Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. House of Anansi Press.

Ferdinand, P. (2016). Westward ho—the China dream and “one belt, one road”: Chinese foreign policy under Xi Jinping. International Affairs, 92(4), 941-957.

Fravel, M. T. (2019). Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy Since 1949. Princeton University Press.

Fukuyama, F. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. Free Press.

Glaser, B. S. (2016). A U.S. Strategy for the South China Sea. Council on Foreign Relations.

Ikenberry, G. J. (2011). Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. Princeton University Press.

Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge University Press.

Jacques, M. (2012). When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order. Penguin.

Lipset, S. M. (1996). American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. W. W. Norton.

MacKinnon, R. (2012). Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. Basic Books.

Mahbubani, K. (2020). Has China Won? The Chinese Challenge to American Primacy. PublicAffairs.

Mastanduno, M. (2002). Engagement Policies. In Ikenberry, G. J. & Mastanduno, M. (Eds.), International Relations Theory and the Asia-Pacific (pp. 161-190). Columbia University Press.

Medcalf, R. (2020). Indo-Pacific Empire: China, America and the Contest for the World’s Pivotal Region. Manchester University Press.

Naughton, B. (2021). The Rise of China’s Industrial Policy, 1978 to 2020. University of Chicago Press.

Pei, M. (2016). China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay. Harvard University Press.

Rolland, N. (2017). China’s Eurasian Century? Political and Strategic Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative. National Bureau of Asian Research.

Shambaugh, D. (2013). China Goes Global: The Partial Power. Oxford University Press.

Stokes, E., & Kostka, G. (2016). China’s Social Credit Systems and Public Opinion: Explaining High Levels of Approval. New Media & Society.

Tu, W. M. (1999). Confucianism and Chinese Civilization. State University of New York Press.

Walt, S. M. (2018). The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Wu, X. (2019). Entrepreneurship and Innovation in China’s Digital Economy. Journal of Contemporary China, 28(117), 1016-1031.

Yan, Y. (2010). The Individualization of Chinese Society. Berg.

Zhao Tingyang. (2006). Tianxia System: A Political Philosophy and World Politics.

Zhao, S. (2009). The Ideological Foundation of China’s Quest for Soft Power in the International Arena. Asia-Pacific Review, 16(3), 250-270.

Zhao, S. (2017). The China Model: Can It Replace the Western Model of Modernization? Journal of Contemporary China, 18(60), 1-18.

Zhao, S. (2020). Chinese Foreign Policy: Pragmatism and Strategic Behavior. Routledge.

Zhao, T. (2016). The Tianxia System: World Order in a Chinese Utopia. University of California Press.

Subscribe now

The luncheon was hosted by Mabel Lu Miao, Co-founder and Secretary-General of CCG. The panel discussion was moderated by Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of CCG.

Keynote speakers are:

• Ma Jianchun, President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies and former Director General of the Ministry of Commerce;

• Han Bing, former Deputy Director-General of the Department of European Affairs, Ministry of Commerce;

• Jens Eskelund, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

Ambassadors in attendance included Koula Sophianou, Ambassador of Cyprus to China; Jorge Toledo, Ambassador of the European Union to China; Nicholas O’Brien, Ambassador of Ireland to China; Kenji Kanasugi, Ambassador of Japan to China; Rol Reiland, Ambassador of Luxembourg to China; Vebjørn Dysvik, Ambassador of Norway to China; and Marta Betanzos Roig, Ambassador of Spain to China.

Also present were representatives from the Embassy of Estonia, the EU Delegation to China, the Embassy of Finland, the Embassy of South Korea, and the Embassy of Sweden, alongside former Chinese officials, scholars, business representatives, and members of the media.

CCG has broadcast the video recording of this luncheon on Chinese social media platform and has also uploaded it to is official YouTube channel.

This transcript is based on the video recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

Mabel Lu Miao, Co-founder and Secretary-General, Center for China and Globalization (CCG)

Hello, everyone, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us today at the CCG VIP Luncheon. The CCG VIP Luncheon is a flagship high-level international exchange platform established by the Center for China and Globalization (CCG). It serves as a key bridge connecting global political, business, and academic communities to promote pragmatic cooperation between China and the world.

Since its launch, the luncheon has maintained a China-based, global perspective, closely following China’s opening-up and international cooperation strategies. It has become one of China’s most influential non-government diplomatic and business exchange platforms.

Today’s theme is “The Future of Global Governance and the Roles of China and Europe.” Multilateral institutions are under unprecedented strain from geopolitical divisions, climate challenges, and technological disruption, while global supply chains and trade are being fundamentally restructured. China-Europe economic and trade relations have therefore reached a critical turning point. To address this issue, the Center for China and Globalization and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) are holding a VIP luncheon on China-Europe economic, trade, and investment cooperation. Senior policymakers, business leaders, and scholars will hold dialogues on opportunities, policies, and industrial-chain cooperation, aiming to build practical solutions and consensus for future bilateral cooperation.

Before we start, let’s take a moment to acknowledge some of our special guests and VIPs who are here. We have invited representatives from host organizations, distinguished diplomats from 12 countries, including seven ambassadors, government authorities, academic institutions, multinational enterprises, and leading media outlets. They are Johann Caspar Fuhrmann, Head of Foreign Office China, Beijing Representative Office, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung China. Welcome. Johann, thank you for your kind invitation and cooperation. Tobias Knörich, Policy Advisor, Beijing Representative Office, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung China, welcome. Thank you for cooperating on today’s event with Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

Of course, we have several ambassadors. Her Excellency Ms. Koula Sophianou, Ambassador of Cyprus to China, welcome. His Excellency Mr. Jorge Toledo, Ambassador of the European Union to China, welcome, our old friend Ambassador Toledo. His Excellency Mr. Nicholas O’Brien, Ambassador of Ireland to China, welcome. His Excellency Mr. Kenji Kanasugi, Ambassador of Japan to China, welcome, our old friend as well. His Excellency Mr. Rol Reiland, Ambassador of Luxembourg to China, another old friend of CCG.

His Excellency Mr. Vebjørn Dysvik, Ambassador of Norway to China, welcome. Her Excellency Ms. Marta Betanzos Roig, Ambassador of Spain to China. Of course, we have many senior diplomats from embassies, such as the Chargé d’Affaires of Estonia, representatives of the EU Delegation to China, and diplomats from the embassies of Finland, South Korea, and Sweden.

We have invited government agency representatives and experts such as Huang Rengang, former Minister-Counsellor of the Mission of China to the WTO and the Chinese Embassy in Australia; Huo Jianguo, Vice President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies; Li Xiaobing, former Minister of the Chinese Embassy in India; Ma She, former Deputy Director-General of the Department of European Affairs, Ministry of Commerce; Tian Deyou, former Minister-Counselor, Economic and Commercial Office, Embassy of China in the United States; Wang Sixiao, Professor, Beijing International Studies University; and Wang Yiwei, Professor of Renmin University of China, also a Senior Fellow of CCG.

We have invited leading multinational companies such as ByteDance, BMW, and Canal Business District, among others. Of course, we have also invited media representatives, including from Global Times, Xinhua News Agency, South China Morning Post, The Economist, The Beijing News, China.org.cn, and 21st Century Business Herald.

And CCG representatives, our president, Henry Huiyao Wang; Deputy Secretary-General LIU Jun; Deputy Secretary-General WANG Zichen; and Mr. ZHANG Wei, who just introduced me. Please allow me to introduce today’s speakers as well.

They are Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, Center for China and Globalization, CCG, our old friend to all of you, I guess, and former Counselor of the State Council of China; Mr. Ma Jianchun, President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies (CSWTO), former Director General of the Ministry of Commerce; Mr Han Bing, former Deputy Director-General of the Department of European Affairs, Ministry of Commerce; and our old friend Jens Eskelund, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

Welcome. Later, we would like to listen to you as well. Let’s welcome those four speakers with a round of applause. First, we would like to invite Henry Huiyao Wang as the first speaker. Welcome.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, Center for China and Globalization (CCG)

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mabel, and Excellencies, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen. I’m not really a speaker to begin with. I’m actually here to facilitate. But of course, before we start with the three speakers we invited today, I would like to highlight a bit of the theme we are discussing today. We have so many great friends here — great diplomats, thinkers, multinational representatives, and media leaders too.

So I particularly want to thank Johann from Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung for co-organizing this great event with us. We find that this is really a productive way of exchange between China and think tanks and foundations from Germany. And particularly, we also have the European Chamber here today.

Basically, as Mabel just said, we are in a very disruptive time. I’m very pleased to hear this morning that, of course, after what happened in Iran, we are going to have a two-week ceasefire. And hopefully there is going to be a talk starting from the 10th of this month. I hope that before President Trump comes to China, we are going to have some kind of arrangement and peace agreement between the United States and Iran. Hopefully, we could see this coming to an end.

But of course, on the larger backdrop of global governance and all those major countries like China, Europe, the EU, the U.S., and all the other Global South countries, we really have to think hard about how we can maintain this global system. I think Ambassador Ma, who is the president of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies, will share some of the latest developments from the WTO ministerial meeting that just happened in Cameroon—what has been talked about there. I’m sure we’re also going to hear from Jens. You are the president of the European business community in China, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

And of course, we also have Ma She here, former Deputy Director-General of the Department of European Affairs at MOFCOM. So we have a number of former MOFCOM experts here. But what I’m saying is that we need to find a good way to maintain this global system, as the U.S. seems to be abandoning some of them, like President Trump quitting 66 international organizations.

So how should China and Europe really work together to maintain this multilateral system? I think this is one of the themes of the day: with global governance greatly disrupted and damaged, being the two largest economies, China and the EU, how can we really work together to make things work—the WTO, the WHO, climate change, UNESCO, and the UN Conference on Trade and Development, and so on and so forth. These are the key areas that we really need to work on.

And the second theme of today is really cooperation between China and Europe. We have such a long history of cooperation. We are among each other’s largest trading partners, and we have no border issues. We do not have many of the difficulties that we may have with some other countries. So I think there is huge potential for us to work together.

So basically, I want to finally say something about the three great speakers we have today. First, Ma Jianchun. He was also an ambassador from MOFCOM. There are not many ambassadors from MOFCOM, but at one time he was appointed by MOFCOM as ambassador to a foreign country. But now he is the President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies, and former Director General of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the Ministry of Commerce of China. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. So he knows a lot about the WTO, global governance, and all those experiences, and he actually handled this kind of affair before while he was in the ministry.

And of course, Mr. HAN Bing is the former Deputy Director-General of the Department of European Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, and also a Special Senior Fellow at the Center for China and Globalization. He worked in the ministry, and he has also been Minister-Counsellor in Egypt, and he also worked in some European countries as well.

And then we are very happy to have invited Jens Eskelund. He is the President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and a core driver of practical and mutually beneficial China-EU business relations, with 20 years of deep engagement in the Chinese market and long-term dedication to China-EU business collaboration and multinational economic and trade rule-making.

So Jens is also a senior executive at a major multinational shipping company. So he knows both China-Europe issues and global issues. Today, we’re going to have a format in which each person speaks for maybe seven or eight minutes, and then we’re going to have a discussion. We’ll open the floor to all ambassadors, experts, and guests gathered at the luncheon today. Of course, we would also like to see whether our co-host, Johann, has anything to add later, so I’ll stop here. Thank you all very, very much.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Henry. Next, we would like to invite Ambassador Ma Jianchun. Henry has already introduced Ambassador Ma. Ambassador Ma used to be ambassador to Namibia, right? Sorry, Gambia. We would like to invite you to give your speech. Thank you. Welcome.

Ma Jianchun, President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies (CSWTO); Former Director General of the Ministry of Commerce

Your Excellencies, ambassadors, dear guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It is my great pleasure to be here. I met with old friends, our ambassadors, and also new friends. I’m very happy to meet all of you, and particularly glad to have a chance to meet our colleagues in the Ministry of Commerce, so it is a good occasion. Thank you to Professor Wang for giving me this chance to meet with you and also to share some information.

At the beginning, I would like to say something about our society. Our society is the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies. This is a national association affiliated with the Ministry of Commerce, engaged in the study of the World Trade Organization and related economic and trade issues. Our society works like a think tank. We facilitate some work for professors and experts. We invite them to join us, and we try to discuss some topics, and then we try to share some information, not only with the government, but also with our other friends, our think tanks, and other friends.

So today, Professor Wang suggested that I give a talk. He gave me the topic of global governance and the role of China and Europe. I am very sorry that I am not very professional in European affairs. I used to be an ambassador, but on the African continent and in West Asia. Several of my colleagues who are here are very professional in European countries, particularly my colleague, Mr. Han Bing, who will introduce to you the European relationship and the cooperation between China and European countries.

I am very humbled to have this chance to introduce to you a few things about the WTO. But now, I think all of you know the WTO, so I do not want to say too many words about that. But recently, what has attracted people’s eyeball is the MC14 Ministerial Conference, which was held in Cameroon, in Yaoundé.

You know, this conference finally got some results and achievements. I would like to share some information with you.

The first is the ministerial joint statement on the Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development. This is the first time the WTO has had this kind of agreement on investment facilitation. Now, 128 members, including China, joined this group to sign this joint statement. It accounts for 77% of the WTO members. So this agreement, we think, is one of the achievements of this ministerial meeting.

Secondly, it is about the e-commerce agreement. This time, they reached a temporary implementation arrangement for implementing this e-commerce agreement. This is also an achievement, I think, of MC14, because this agreement establishes a global framework for digital trade rules, which will effectively promote more inclusive and sustainable development of digital trade. China supports the implementation of this agreement. The Agreement on Electronic Commerce is an important negotiation outcome of the WTO in recent years. Under the current circumstances, it is not easy for WTO members to reach agreements, but this electronic commerce agreement really is one of the achievements of this negotiation.

The third achievement is that ministerial decisions were reached on fisheries subsidies, on small economies, on inspection and quarantine, and on special and differential treatment, as we often mention, S&DT. This time, on these issues, they also reached some agreements.

So this MC14 meeting also formed the Yaoundé Outcome Package around documents close to consensus, such as the WTO reform work plan. This time, the ministers reached a consensus that they would like to push forward the WTO reform work, and also the e-commerce work plan, which they are going to continue pushing forward next time.

So these are the three major achievements that MC14 reached. I also heard some people who were unsatisfied with this meeting. They talked to some of my colleagues, some scholars, and some professors. When we had a talk, they said, “Oh, we should have had more achievements.” So people were a little bit disappointed. But I think that, against the background of world economic development, the successful holding of WTO MC14 is itself one of the big achievements.

Of course, many topics need to be discussed further, and China is ready to continue its efforts to work with WTO members, to push forward WTO reform, and also to implement some agreements that have already been reached.

So I think we should be optimistic about the coming future.

Thank you very much.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Ambassador Ma, for your very important information-sharing on the WTO. Maybe later we can discuss it further, as another part of our event is the panel discussion after each speaker. Next, we would like to invite Jens Eskelund, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. Welcome, Jens.

Jens Eskelund, President, European Union Chamber of Commerce in China

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, it’s a pleasure to be here today, and I would like to thank my old friend Henry for the kind invitation, and of course also the support from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Europe-China is, of course, something that is very close to my heart.

I think that last year we had the opportunity to celebrate an important anniversary, the establishment of diplomatic relations, and that’s much to celebrate. It has been a relationship that has been creating tremendous value for China, but also for Europe, for European companies, and for European consumers. It has contributed to economic growth in China, and also to the upgrading of Chinese industry. So that is all very good and well, but maybe an anniversary is also the time to reflect on what works and what does not work.

And I would like to share a few steps with you, but maybe first, perhaps a few general observations about global trade. There is a lot of talk, in particular in these unruly times, about deglobalization, friend-shoring, near-shoring, onshoring, and so on. But when you look at the data, there’s nothing that tells us that the world is becoming less globalized. In 2024—and again, my day job is in container shipping, so these are data that I’m familiar with—transport of containers grew by 7 percent. That’s about two times as fast as global economic growth last year. In 2025, in spite of Liberation Day tariffs and what have you not, global container trade grew by 5 percent. That is 50 percent faster than global economic growth. So there’s no way that we can sensibly talk about deglobaliaation when you have trade growth growing much faster than global economic growth.

But here’s the catch, if you look at both 24 and 25, all incremental trade growth in the entire world is due to exports out of China. If you take out China from the equation, the 5% last year, the 7% the year before, that would drop to zero. All growth in global trade over the past two years came out of China. China is doing very well indeed.

Now, if you look specifically at the EU-China relationship, and if you go back to six days, one week before covid started, 31st of December, 2019. At that point in time, every time Europe exported one container to China, China exported 2.5 containers to Europe. Right now, today, that is changed to one to four: every time Europe sends one container to China, China exports four to Europe. But actually Europe is doing a little bit better than the global average. I think right now, if you sort of look at it, on average, China is exporting 4.6 containers for each container that it’s imported.

But I think the data that are really interesting is when you go back to the onset of covid, those six years, I believe that the Chinese economy has probably grown by 35% or so, very high growth. 35% higher GDP today than right before covid. In that period, where the Chinese economy has grown by 35%. The world’s second largest economy has grown by 35%. Tn that same period, the containers exported from Europe to China have declined by 35% how’s that possible? You have 35% growth, and at the same time, European exports are declining by 35%. In that same period where basically we have had zero growth in Europe, Chinese exports have grown by 37%. So I don’t think that China has a problem with Europe. I think Chinese exports to Europe are doing phenomenally well.

And you know, if you look at last year, last year, basically there was zero demand growth in Europe. But even though there was zero demand growth in Europe, China managed to increase its export by 8%. That is a very, very strong performance. So I think we need to keep that in mind. I actually don’t think that China has a problem exporting to Europe, and I bet that unless we go into a recession in Europe, that China will continue to increase its year of global exports.

But it’s not just Europe. If you go back again to the end of 2019, China accounted for 31.9% of all containers exported in the world. It’s already a very, very high proportion, 31.9%. By the end of last year, China’s global market share of exports had increased to 37.5%. In other words, China is growing its global market share of exports by 1% every year. There’s no one like China.

China is by far the strongest exporting manufacturing country on the planet, 37.5%. And I think, of course, we need to congratulate China on that, but I also think that we need to realize that as China is moving closer to a 40% global market here of everything being traded in the world, then I also think we would need, or China would need, to realize that at some point gravity might set in, and trade partners will say, hang on a minute, something is not entirely right here. And I think this is a problem right now, no one, I think, supports WTO more than Europe. We believe in it, and certainly me as a Scandinavian and as a shipping executive, free trade is hard baked into my DNA.

But trade also needs to make sense. There was a study by Goldman Sachs published in November last year that estimates that by 2029, Europe’s trade relationship with China will lead to a negative 0.5% contribution to GDP. And for Germany, it’s even worse. Goldman Sachs estimates that by 2029, trade with China will contribute negative 0.9%. And what’s the problem here?

The problem is that the whole basis of trade, the whole justification of having a great thing like WTO is that when we trade with each other, it creates value. It creates value for both sides. Now, if we are in a situation where a trade relationship creates negative value for one of the parties, the justification for trade falls away. So I think this is the task for China. This is the task for Europe. We need to get back to a place where the relationship creates value for both sides. I don’t think that it needs to be equally distributed, and I don’t think it’s possible, but we need to get back to a place where, at the very least, the relationship is not creating negative value for one of the parties.

And I think this is the task. If it doesn’t create value, there’s no justification for trade. And I think this is very important. I actually think that also Chinese economists, certainly, and Chinese government official understands that needs. We’d like to talk about Win win in China. And I think that’s very important. We need to get back to win win. And I think this is the urgent task.

So what are the solutions? I actually think there are many solutions. I think there are important differences between Europe and United States. And of course, I’m oversimplifying it a little bit, but I think sort of, at least my perception, from from a distance, is that they seem to take a very sort of fundamentalist approach to trade balance in United States: if I import $1, you need to take $1 export from me.

That’s not how the thinking is in Europe. You know, last year, we had a trade deficit with China of about 400 billion euro. That’s an enormous amount of money, and maybe that’s too much. But I actually don’t think that anyone in Europe cares if there is a trade deficit of 100 billion euro, or 200 billion billion euro, because China is just very good at manufacturing, no one does manufacturing better than China.

So probably that’s going to be a trade deficit for as long as the eye can see. That’s not in itself a problem. The problem for Europe is when it begins to affect Europe’s economic security, when it begins to affect European autonomy, we know, and we saw that, for example, with the virus, that if we are not able to produce certain goods, we’re simply not able to make our own autonomous decisions. I’m just back having visitedfFive Capitals in Europe, Madrid, Rome, London, Paris, Berlin, and that was a primary concern, industrial resilience and economic security.

And I actually think that this is very close to the thinking in China. Both in the 14th Five-Year Plan and in the 15th Five-Year Plan, we have seen that there’s a very high focus on resilience, self-reliance. Self-reliance has been a key word in the past and in the present Five-Year Plan. Also there’s a focus on creating what is in China is called complete industrial systems in. These focus areas are based upon a concern about China being master of its own destiny, being truly autonomous, and realizing you can only be truly autonomous if you master and you have on your geography certain industries. Europe share that concern, but I don’t think that Europe will ever go, not even 10% as far in its self-reliance efforts as China.

I think there’s a way forward to find solutions between China and Europe if China tries to understand the European concern and understand that Europe has legitimate concerns about its economic security and Europe’s ability to remain master of its own destiny. So rather than fighting the industrial accelerator act, maybe try to buy into the premise and say, you know, we understand that Europe has these concerns. How can we work with Europe to address some of these concerns about industrial resilience? I think this is the way forward. You know, less confrontation and try to sit down and take a discussion about, what are the real concerns that we have in the this relationship? How can we work together to address them? And I think part of that also needs to be a recognition that there will be certain industries where Europe will need to retain these capacities on European soil, just as is the case in China.

So that is my hope for 2026 that is, we’ll be able to sit down, we’ll talk about, you know, build trust, and have that conversation about economic security, industrial resilience, and then maybe together, be able to find a way forward that will take some of these point of contention out of the bilateral relationship. Thank you very much.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Jens. You are an old friend. Your speech was very much in line with the purpose of today’s occasion we would like to talk about the real concern, the mutual respect on the true concern from European side and China side. And generally, I think China respected the strategic autonomy or strategic independence of Europe and our European friends. So we can sit down today.

We already sit down to talk about what we can do, the solutions and some solutions potentially offering Next, we would like to invite a Chinese expert, Mr Han Bing, former DDG of the department European Affairs Minister of Commerce. Welcome. Mr Han.

Han Bing, Former Deputy Director-General of the Department of European Affairs, Ministry of Commerce

Thank you for inviting me to share with you some my personal thoughts. Your Excellency, the ambassadors and ladies and gentlemen, today, I would like to share with you my thinking about the China-Europe relations.

So first, about our relationship positioning. From China’s perspective, China and Europe are two big men in the international community.

How does our leader, President Xi, position our relationship? He said: we are the two major forces driving multipolarity, the two major markets supporting globalisation, and the two major civilisations advocating diversity. So that is the positioning of China-Europe relations from the Chinese side, and how we view them.

I will also share with you something that, for me, is quite important: the mindset between China and Europe. I think this is important in defining how we can work together in the future to develop our relations.

This year, at the Munich Security Conference, they published the Munich Security Index, as they do every year. They listed 32 major issues, or problems, and collected how people think about these 32 issues. Then they produced the index scores. I will share with you the index scores in the major European countries and in China.

In Germany, people put the top security problem as cyberattacks on your country. The index score is 73. It is very high. In second place, it is rising inequality, with a score of 68. And they put China as a security problem with an index score of 45.

In France, they put the top security problem as radical Islamic terrorism, with an index score of 73. In second place is the economic or financial crisis in your country, also with a score of 73. And they put China as a security risk with a score of 47.

In the UK, they put cyberattacks on your country in first place, with 74, and the economic or financial crisis in your country with 70. And they consider China a security problem with a score of 57.

In Italy, they put extreme weather and forest fires in first place, with a score of 70, and climate change generally in second place, with a score of 68. And they consider China a security problem with a score of 42.

In the U.S., they put political polarisation in first place, with a score of 67, and the economic or financial crisis in your country in second place, with 67. And they consider China a security problem or risk with a score of 58.

Now let us look at China. How does China see the problems? In first place, China puts the U.S. as a security problem, with a score of 38, and in second place, the trade war, with a score of 31. China puts Europe, in this index, at only 20.

So from this, we can see the mindset in Europe and in the U.S. In the first place, they consider security problems with index scores of more than 70, from 70 to 74, and they put China as a security problem with scores from 42 to 57. That means people in Europe have a very strong sense of anxiety, and many regard China as a negative factor.

But in China, we put the top security problem at only 38. So that means Chinese people are less anxious. We are more focused on our own affairs, and we do not regard Europe as a negative matter worthy of attention.

So this is the picture of the mindset between European people and Chinese people. Chinese people are more focused on their own problems, and they are more optimistic. I think optimism is very important for all of us in developing our relations. As the saying goes, I would rather be optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right. For me, that is what we should be: more optimistic. Once we take optimism into our minds, I think we can cooperate better.

So now, my suggestions for China-Europe relations.

First, we need to intensify mutual visits and exchanges. The ambassadors and diplomats in China know China quite well. There is a saying: if you stay one week in China, you know everything about China; if you stay one year in China, you know something about China; if you stay ten years in China, you know nothing about China. China is changing very fast. So we need to understand each other. We need to intensify visits.

I am very glad that a parliamentary delegation from Europe visited China last week. It is very important, because I think in the past several years, we have faced a lot of misinformation about China. Some of the information or news has even been fake, or I should say lies. Once such information enters very deeply into people’s minds, it can lead to wrong decisions. So that is the first point. In the future, we need to intensify visits and exchanges.

Second, I think we need to adjust our mindset and view China, and understand China, in a realistic and pragmatic manner. The reality is that China’s all-round development will continue. It is irresistible and cannot be stopped by external influence. And it is also a fact that Chinese development in the high-end sector is natural and normal, because we paid a very high price in the past when we did not develop our high-end sectors.

For example, when China had not developed its own telecommunications technology, all telecommunications equipment was imported. We imported from seven countries with eight systems. In China, we had a saying for this, 七国八制. It meant imports from seven countries with eight systems. So we did not have our own telecommunications technology.

At that time, when one component broke down, we asked our foreign partner to fix the problem, and they asked us to buy one small metal plate. They said this metal plate was very important for the equipment, and if we did not take this plate, they could not fix it. That plate cost 100,000 yuan. How could one small metal plate cost 100,000 yuan? When China made a breakthrough in telecommunications technology, they reduced the price of that plate to 200 U.S. dollars. In the end, they even gave such plates free of charge.

So that is why we want to develop our high-end sectors, because we paid too high a price in the past.

Another fact is that Chinese goods are cheap and of high quality, and are produced through full competition in the Chinese market. The Chinese market is very competitive, and Chinese companies do not seek exorbitant profits. They make small profits, while benefiting the whole world economy.

And another fact is that China is willing to share its development dividends with the world. Amid the pandemic and geopolitical conflicts, China’s industrial chain has remained unbroken, stabilising global supply. So China is a stabilising factor in the world.

The third suggestion is that I would like to ask our European friends to take a more active and realistic approach to China, and to formulate policies for the well-being of both sides, especially for the people of Europe.

China regards Europe as a key partner in economic and trade cooperation, a priority partner in scientific and technological cooperation, and a trustworthy partner in industrial chain and supply chain cooperation. That is how we regard Europe: as our partner.

And when we compare with the past, I think now we have more favourable conditions for our cooperation. Before, China was an importer of equipment and technology from Europe. China was the market for Europe, and China was also the recipient of European investment. But now China has already developed very high technology, and we can share it with our European friends. It is no longer only about imports; we can also have two-way cooperation. Chinese markets are now bigger and bigger, and they can absorb various goods from Europe. And China is already an investing country, so we can invest in Europe, not only receive investment from Europe.

So now, I think the conditions for economic cooperation are more favourable, and the potential is bigger than before.

And actually, in the future, there are many advanced concepts in Europe that we need to learn from, for example environmental protection, labour protection, and the risk norms for new technologies. These are all concepts that we need to learn from Europe.

At the end, I will quote the words of President Xi on the relationship between China and Europe. He said: China and Europe are partners rather than rivals, with no fundamental conflicts of interest or geopolitical contradictions, and cooperation outweighs competition while consensus is greater than difference. Those who share the same aspirations and ideas are partners, and those who seek common ground while reserving differences are also partners. Mutual dependence is not a risk, and interwoven interests are not a threat. China-Europe relations do not target any third party, nor are they attached to or controlled by any third party. The essence of China-EU economic and trade relations is complementary advantages and mutual benefit.

Thank you.

Mabel Lu Miao

Thank you, Mr Han.

Later, after this, we would like to move to another part of our event. As invited, we would like to ask all the panellists, all the speakers, to come to the stage for further discussion.

Now I will hand over to Henry.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, so we have Ambassador Ma, Jens, and Mr. Han.

I think we have had a very good warm-up, and now the real Q&A and comments. Please, Ambassador Ma, Jens, and Mr. Han. We have followed the speaking order.

Basically, what I can do is say that I think we have heard a lot of good suggestions. We had Mr Ma talk about how China and the EU can maintain the multilateral system and the WTO. We had Jens talk about how world trade and globalisation are still continuing, of course, and about how China has been growing very fast on the trade side. How can China, on the one hand, contribute 30% of global GDP growth, while on the other hand maintaining high export growth? How can we balance that? It is a good question.

And of course, Mr Han gave a lot of comments. I particularly liked it when he talked about strengthening people-to-people exchanges.

Ambassador Toledo mentioned that European Parliament members had just come. And actually, in the last two weeks, I met the Bundestag spokesperson for the CDU and the Bundestag spokesperson for the Green Party, both from Germany.

So what I can do now is open the floor and invite comments and questions, and then we can have our panellists address them. We also have a lot of trade experts from MOFCOM on the other side, as well as ambassadors, and we also have the Economist bureau chief here among our audience.

So where do we start? We can have another half hour of Q&A. Ambassador, would you like to say a few words? Yes, Ambassador from the European Union.

Jorge Toledo Albinana, Ambassador of the European Union to China

Thank you very much, Henry. As always, these debates are very interesting, and with very distinguished keynote speakers.

I particularly coincide with Jens, because he always comes with very first-hand data on trade, and the picture he paints is quite concerning, not to say very concerning, because of the growing, and I would say unsustainable imbalance. This is caused by many factors, not only by the fact that China has developed an extremely effective manufacturing system and manufactures very good quality products at low prices. There are also some who think that the renminbi is extremely undervalued. That could be another cause.

But I think there is one cause, which is not the cause of the whole imbalance, but is a cause of the degradation of this relationship between China and the European Union in trade and economic relations, and that is the degrading state of the level playing field, meaning the conditions with which European companies are faced in China when exporting or even when investing, compared with the conditions with which Chinese companies are faced in Europe.

Not to talk about the export controls on rare earths, permanent magnets, and technologies which have nothing to do with defence, such as technologies to manufacture batteries or cathodes, which have nothing to do with national security.

But anyway, my point is this is an example I would like our two Chinese friends here, who are specialists in trade, to comment on. It is just an example of this lack of a level playing field and what we can do about it.

About six months ago, China put into law something which was already quite frequent practice in China, but now it is embedded in the law, which is the following: for all public procurement in China, Chinese companies will have a 20% price advantage. So foreign companies will have a 20% price disadvantage. In other words, they will be discriminated against.

So my question is: don’t you not think Europe should do something about it? Does China think that Europe should do nothing, that this is fair? Why is the Chinese government already concerned and complaining, and even threatening action, about a proposal of the Commission which would give some kind of preference to made-in-Europe or made-with-Europe public procurement? Do you not think it is only fair that people level the playing field?

This is one of the examples we should talk about, because there is no way we can accept, and I think this is perfectly understandable, being discriminated against in public procurement in China and doing nothing about it in Europe. Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Ambassador.

I think we will give the speakers a chance to respond later. Of course, we see there has been a lot of action recently from the European Union, and maybe from China as well, so I think we need to talk and find a way.

Now, one by one, we have an expert here, former Minister-Counsellor Huang.

Huang Rengang, Vice President, China Society for World Trade Organization Studies; Former Minister-Counsellor of the Mission of China to the WTO and the Chinese Embassy in Australia

I am the Vice President of the China Society for WTO Studies, a think tank, and my boss, Ambassador Ma, is here. I thank the Ambassador of the EU for his comments and remarks concerning government procurement rules in China.

Actually, as a matter of fact, China is in the process of negotiating accession to the GPA, the Government Procurement Agreement, under the WTO. This process has been going on for the past 15 years, and due to some reasons, its process has slowed down somewhat. I think this is due to the concerns of some WTO members who think that, given China’s competitiveness, it is not be a good idea to let China become a GPA member. So in the past three or four years, the process has slowed down.

But China is willing to become a GPA member under the conditions agreed by all parties.

The question most of you raised is whether China, as a sovereign country, can make its own government procurement regulations or rules, and how its trading partners can interact with China.

Of course, I thank CCG for providing such a forum to give us opportunities to exchange views. China is willing to continue negotiations and discussions with our trade partners about China’s government procurement framework and regulations. That is number one.

Number two: if you look at bilateral trade between China and the EU, last year overall trade was over 800 billion U.S. dollars. The EU is a very important trading partner of China, and we value this relationship. We are willing to work together with the EU and EU members, and with European countries outside the EU as well, such as the UK, if represented here today, to continue improving market access on both sides.

Because if you talk about the lack of a level playing field, I have also heard some Chinese companies complain about the lack of a level playing field in some European countries. For instance, there are higher tariffs on Chinese products such as electric vehicles, solar panels, and some other products. Some Chinese exporters are telling us that they are facing special tariff and non-tariff barriers when trying to export their products to Europe.

On the other side, some Chinese companies are also complaining about a lack of a level playing field in terms of investment. Some types of Chinese investment are highly restricted in certain sectors, industries, and products in Europe.

So my point is that we can sit down and talk together, so that we can try to improve market access on both sides bit by bit.

For instance, some good news: recently, China issued a new regulation on how to improve the process for foreign food products and agricultural products. I think some of you may be aware of these recent regulations issued by China.

So I think the Chinese government’s commitment to further opening up, and to further engagement in globalisation with other trading partners, is very strong and firm. I am willing to see that, by working together, we can improve the future prospects for our cooperation.

Thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Ambassador from Spain—I know you have a question. Oh, Ambassador from Norway first.

Vebjørn Dysvik, Ambassador of Norway to China

Yes, thank you. And thank you for the very good interventions from all the panellists.

The theme of the luncheon is quite broad. I will just bring up two points. One is WTO reform. I think they showed there is still a lot of work to do, but our position in the work we have done on this, is that it is still possible to move forward, but it will take a lot of good faith from all sides.

We have talked a lot about transparency and the level playing field. It is important that all countries are transparent about their industrial policies, because that will also, I think, make it possible to sort between the things that actually...as Jorge and Jens just said, the competitiveness of China is undisputed, but there is definitely also, as we see from our own examples with Norwegian companies establishing themselves in China, a lot of advantages they have in their Chinese establishments that they do not have when they establish themselves in Norway. This is partially due to our policies, but also due to very favourable industrial policies in China, and openness and transparency about that are important.

On the other hand, and in relation to the last question which talked about transparency from our side, when we make restrictions, when there is a security concern, being open about what those concerns and being restrictive about our restrictions, I think, is very important.

But then I think Jens’s point about this lack of balance is also important. You know, the yin and the yang need to be in balance, and right now we are on our way into a situation of imbalance, and this is due to our policies. We have policies to stimulate demand in our countries. We have liberalised capital markets and convertible currencies. That has consequences for the trading relationship with China. China does not have the same kind of policies to stimulate demand, and does not have a convertible currency in the same way, and that has grave consequences for the competitive environment.

So my question is about the need for balance and harmony between the European Union and China. Is there any sign that this is on the agenda of Chinese decision-makers, and could we see some moves towards trying to establish more harmonious relationships in the future?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, thank you, Ambassador.

I think our colleagues have all talked about dialogue. That is what CCG is doing as well. But I would like to invite another contribution from the Chinese experts’ table. I do not know if Minister Ma or Minister Huo can say something too, or Wang Yiwei, another expert on that table. The former president of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Huo Jianguo, Vice President of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies

Hello, everyone. I am glad to be here and to listen to some very useful information.

Just now, I noticed one speaker talking about China’s trade surplus. I think this is a very important problem, because China and the EU now have the largest surplus, especially this year. We have noticed it is nearly 290 billion U.S. dollars, nearly 300 billion. So this really deserves special attention if we want to solve it.

I have always studied how to solve trade imbalances, because nowadays trade relations are sometimes interrupted by geopolitics and protectionism. Under such circumstances, it is very difficult to solve trade imbalances.

So I hope China and the EU can try to find more opportunities to cooperate, especially under the current special situation. The world governance needs China and the EU to unite and cooperate with each other, and to put forward useful and valuable suggestions to solve the disorder in the world.

Another thing I want to draw your attention to that under the 15th Five-Year Plan, there are two requirements we should note. One is that China will try to push more balanced trade development. That is one requirement. Another is that China wants to explore bilateral investment rules. I think these two requirements mean that the government has already made special efforts to address trade imbalance, and another way to improve things is through outward investment abroad.

So I think we need some time to solve these problems.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, good. I think one of the suggestions we could have is that I see the European Union now has an FTA with India. Maybe the European Union should have an FTA—free trade agreement—with China. We would love to do that.

But before I go back to our colleagues, I noticed Ambassador of Luxembourg has some comments to make before we have all the panellists respond.

Rol Reiland, Ambassador of Luxembourg to China

Yes. Thank you very much, Henry and Mabel, and also Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, for organising this important event at a very important time. Thank you to the speakers. I would have two questions, or rather one—well, one or two questions, let us say.

My first question would go to Ambassador Ma regarding the WTO and MC14. I was a bit surprised not to hear you say anything about WTO reform. I know there has not been much progress. And also, on trade dispute settlement issue, what are your views? What do you take from MC14 in that respect, and how do you see the way forward?

Secondly, of course, our core issue today is EU-China trade relations. I think Jens showed us very clearly how the imbalance has continued and how the imbalances are further developing.

I would pick up on the recommendation of DG Han for having people-to-people contact, because I agree with you very much. There is a need for us to understand each other better.

On my own end, I have tried to encourage parliamentary delegations from my country, Luxembourg. I had three last year, including the president of our parliament, and each time I told them: open your eyes, try to learn from China.

This would also be my question to the three panellists: what do you think Europeans could learn from China? Obviously, as Europeans, we also have to do some homework back home, maybe in terms of industrial policy, etc, and of course I do not want to exclude trade policy. But what would be your recommendations, from the three of you, very concrete recommendations, on what we Europeans could learn from China to rebalance this trade relationship a little bit more?

Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

I know the Ambassador from Spain has a question. We had the Spanish Prime Minister coming, and Spain has a lot of experience in China-Europe relations. So Ambassador from Spain, please.

Marta Betanzos Roig, Ambassador of Spain to China

Thank you, Henry. Of course, thank you to everybody, because your remarks have been very [inaudible]. I entirely subscribe to the words expressed by Jorge Toledo. I think he speaks on behalf of all EU countries, and also my colleagues from the other European countries.

Now my question is this. I have recently been reading a report prepared by Roland Berger Advisory on the relations between Chinese and European enterprises, commissioned by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Europe. It is very clarifying to me. It has really opened my eyes, because I have seen, in the introduction of this very recent report, that Chinese businesspeople’s concerns and complaints are very much aligned with European concerns. They complain, or express worries, about protectionist measures, an unfair playing field, lack of transparency, and even discrimination against them.

I was very much surprised, because I do not believe that is the feeling in the European business community, at least not in Europe.

So linking this comment with the words that have been expressed by my colleagues, I would be very curious to hear a further comment or analysis from Mr Han Bing. At the beginning of your address, you mentioned the different sense of security, or insecurity, between European countries and the Chinese population. How do you explain this different approach to the perception of security, particularly with regard to China? And why do you think this anxiety that you have said is part of our perception or mindset? And what do you think this anxiety you mentioned is due to?

Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Thank you, Ambassador.

Now we have our panellists to respond. Maybe first Ambassador Ma, then Jens, and then Mr Han. Yes, please.

Ma Jianchun

Thank you very much. Thank you, Excellencies.

I would also like to thank my colleagues and express my appreciation to them. We are here, but in some cases they answered the questions instead of us. So I suggest next time we have a roundtable rather than this kind of panel, because all my colleagues have professional backgrounds in the Ministry of Commerce. For example, my colleague Mr. Huang used to participate in WTO negotiations in Geneva, so he knows the process of our GPA negotiations. Mr. Huo is also a very professional expert in our ministry.

First Ambassador, you mentioned the Government Procurement Agreement. Mr. Huang already expressed China’s willingness. We really would like to participate in this agreement and become a member of it. That is our general position.

But of course, for individual cases, there may be some issues. You mentioned that China gives preferential conditions to Chinese enterprises. I think these issues can be discussed. But I have also noticed some individual cases on the European side. You also have your industrial action plan. When I saw this information, I found that Europe also has this kind of measures to give more preferential conditions to local companies. Am I right? Maybe I am wrong, but I saw some information that such plans give more preferential conditions for local companies to participate in certain projects. It is a proposal? Oh, it is a proposal. Then I am sorry, I should do more study. I have only seen pieces of information about this.

So I think there may be some individual cases that we need to negotiate one by one, to try to reach settlements and solve these kinds of problems. That is one thing.

Second, on the trade balance, Mr. Huo also mentioned that the Chinese government has noticed the huge trade surplus we have, and it cannot last for a long time. We have already acknowledged this, and we are trying to solve the problem.

Chinese governance usually starts from the top leadership, with strategy, and then we push it into action, just like the 15th Five-Year Plan. We put this on the core agenda. We are promoting more balanced trade development. Of course, we still need to see what further steps should be taken. And I think all of us working in government, or in think tanks, try to convince not only the government but also associations and industries to accept this concept.

We are also promoting two-way investment. We are not only attracting foreign investment; we are also encouraging our enterprises to go overseas. Today, we are not only suggesting that they make small investments. We are encouraging them to bring their supply chains, production chains, and value chains to foreign countries.

In Chinese, we used to say “go out 走出去”. Now our wording is changing. We no longer only encourage companies to go out; we also encourage them to stay there 扎根, to become part of the local supply chain and local investment structure. So I think all of this is changing.

Third, and I will be quick, Ambassador, you asked me about WTO reform. You asked which part was successful and which part was unsuccessful. I think the successful part is that almost all WTO members acknowledge that we should push WTO reform. That is already a success, and more and more consensus is being reached.

I can give you one example. By March 28, the European Union, China, and some other members, including Brazil and Japan, had made a suggestion to the WTO Secretariat. We suggested maintaining support for the rules-based multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core. That is one success.

Of course, before MC14, several members submitted their suggestions for WTO reform. From their suggestions, we can see that we still have many differences—different ideas, different suggestions, different evaluations. We need to communicate, and we need to keep communicating.

So I think WTO reform is a long way to go. But without reform, we would lose a very valuable international body.

Thank you very much.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, Ambassador Ma.

And also, for the Ambassador’s point, I think the European Union has recently proposed some new regulations about local content, though not necessarily excluding Chinese companies. Anyway, it is still a proposal. We hope it does not go through.

Now, Jens, you have been eager to respond already.

Jens Eskelund

Yes, thanks, Henry.

I am a simple businessperson, so I will try to keep this very simple, because I actually think the issue is extremely simple. It is very straightforward. If the world produces more than the world can absorb, then there will be winners and losers.

I think this is the basic issue. When we look at China right now, China accounts for 18% of the global population, but only 13% of global consumption. It accounts for 30% of global manufacturing value added, and 37.5% of global exports in volume terms. What worries us is that, in the new Five-Year Plan, we continue to see a focus on expanding manufacturing output.

What we have seen over the past five years or so is that output is growing much faster than what the domestic market can absorb. That means someone else will need to absorb whatever extra that China is producing that it cannot absorb domestically.

So I think at the most basic level, we need to recognise that if someone that produces more than they can absorb, that cost will need to be absorbed by someone else. And right now, It’s Europe that is taking on that cost.

China likes to say that it is a big market, but in reality, it is the opposite. China is sucking up demand around the world that used to be satisfied by local companies. I am not saying it is bad; I am just stating it as a fact. If more is being produced than the world can absorb, then we have a problem. It is inefficient, and someone will need to take the loss.

So what needs to happen? I think, if I may be so blunt, and provide a recommendation to the Chinese government: we, of course, appreciate that there is a lot of focus on growing demand, but if you do not get the supply side under control, it is not going to work. We need to get to a point where there is a balance, and hopefully, for a number of years, a higher domestic demand growth than supply growth in the Chinese economy. Ultimately, that is what will resolve the problems: that there is a better balance between supply and demand.

And why do we focus so much on China? Because China is unique. There is no other country like China, accounting for 37.5% of all exports. China is in a class of its own. I think it was Stalin who said that at a certain point quantity becomes quality, and I think that is exactly what we see in China, because of China’s scale. You know, I actually think China is not that different from from Korea. I don’t know if there are Koreans here, but I think a lot of the practices that we see here are the same in Korea and other countries, but they’re just so small that, and the world could easily absorb it. But China, because it’s so enormous, when China moves, the whole world is shaking. And that’s just a fact. I know this may be a new experience for China, but that is how it is.

So make sure there is this balance between supply and demand. Hopefully, the best thing China could do for the world would be to have higher demand growth in China than supply growth.

And then, Ambassador Roland, your question about what Europe should do. Before I became a businessman, I studied philosophy, and I think the difference between Europe and China is the difference between Plato and Adam Smith. One thing I have learned in China is that all decision-making, and what makes China so efficient, is guided by the Chinese perception of rational self-interest. That is pure Adam Smith—rational self-interest. Whereas in Europe, we are still living in Plato’s cave of eternal ideas.

That is, for example, what we sometimes see with the WTO. Even though there is a truck coming at us at 100 miles per hour, we are still adhering to the principle of straight ahead.

So again, one thing I have learned philosophically is that if it is a battle between Plato and Adam Smith, Adam Smith wins every time. That may be one thing Europe can learn.

We are all committed to the rules-based order. The WTO is a great thing. It has created enormous value. But I also think there needs to be an Adam Smith smell test. If something is not in the self-interest of Europe or China, maybe we should stop for a moment and ask ourselves: are these the right principles? Do we need to fix something? What needs to change? Do we need to have a discussion about whether supply is growing too much in some geographies compared with demand?

It gives me a bit of optimism, I can see that when I go to Europe, it has become possible to ask openly whether something is in the European interest. It does not mean that Europe is in any way letting go of the principles of free trade, but there needs to be a smell test. Does this work for Europe, yes or no? And if it delivers a negative effect, then it is a completely legitimate question to ask: what would need to change?

Thanks.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, great. Mr Han, please.

Han Bing

Okay, thank you.

First, I would like to answer Her Excellency’s question about the security index. European people are more anxious, and I think this is partly due to the different character of European people and Chinese people. Chinese people are more focused on their own things. European people think more about the management of the world. So I think that is why they are more anxious. But for Chinese people, we just focus on our own things, so we are less anxious about the world.

Why do European people put China as a security problem with such a high score—more than 40, even over 50? I think this is because of disinformation about China. There has been a whole narrative about a terrible China in the past years. Ordinary European people do not know the reality of China. When we adopted a free-visa policy for some countries, and ordinary people came to China, they were shocked. They were shocked by what China really is, compared with the information they had received from the media, or even from government institutions in the West.

So I would say this is what we need to change: we need to understand reality. Then I think we can change the mindset of ordinary people, even in Europe, and we need to be more optimistic, and not only complain.

I think this is also a problem in China. Sometimes when Europe adopts certain policies or takes certain moves, some people in China also complain. But I think these complaints come more from officials than from companies. Chinese companies are more focused on how to solve the problem.

I will give you an example. In the past, China exported a lot of lighters to Europe, and Europe found that the lighters were not safe for children. Europe considered passing regulations on lighter safety to protect children. Some officials in China complained that this was protectionism from Europe. But the companies did not think that way. Even while the laws or regulations were still under consideration in Europe, Chinese companies had already invented devices for child safety on lighters. That is the difference.

So in the future, we need less complaint and more work. That is what I would like to say.

And in the past, I think Europe was more open-minded towards Chinese goods and technologies. But nowadays, as Mr Huo said, the geopolitical situation is having a very strong impact on our cooperation. We need to discuss how to avoid that.

This morning, I was talking with the president of a Chinese steel plant in the UK. This Chinese company acquired a steel plant in the UK. Now the UK is considering nationalising the plant. I asked him what they would do. He said, “We can do nothing. If the UK government nationalises the plant and does not give us compensation, we have nothing to do.” That is the situation. But the Chinese company did not complain to us.

As for the trade imbalance, I think we need to talk. China is a huge market for European goods, especially high-tech goods. We can buy a lot—a huge amount.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you. Okay, good.

I think we are almost coming to the end, but I would like to add a few observations just to conclude. I think this has been a fascinating discussion. We had experts from the European side, ambassadors, Chinese experts from MOFCOM, and many business representatives here.

I think we do have a few points of consensus.

First, Europe and China should all work together to maintain the multilateral order, reform the WTO, and support the WHO, UNESCO, and all those institutions. I think the WTO is making some progress. We have trade liberalisation, digital e-commerce, and one of the proposals I participated in is to really get rid of plastic pollution in the oceans. I made the opening speech at the WTO Public Forum in 2019, and now that initiative has participation from 70 or 80 countries, and the EU is one of them. So I think we do work together on this multilateral front.

Second, on China-EU relations, I think we had a lot of good discussions, and we are going to make a good summary and submit it to different departments for further discussion. But I have a few proposals to make.

One is that I know the CAI was talked about seven years ago. Is it possible to revive some of the CAI? That would be great. But in any case, let us start FTA talks. If the EU already has an FTA with India, why not with China? We certainly can do that.

Third, now China is entering the stage of outbound investment. So many companies I meet want to go to Europe. But the political environment is not always that friendly for them. For example, we see that 40% of Chinese investment in Europe goes to Hungary, because China has an excellent relationship with Hungary. Recently, we have also had a good relationship with Spain, and investment is now increasing there too. But I really do think we can increase investment in Germany, France, Norway, and Luxembourg as well. Let us maintain good relations, because the momentum is there. We have had a lot of bilateral visits. So that is the third point: we can accelerate Chinese outbound investment to European countries.

Fourth, we can have joint ventures. Germany, France, Italy, and Spain have so many manufacturers. They are top experts. Like Jens, representing a big European company with a great China operation. Why can European companies not team up with Chinese companies? Now Chinese companies want to go to Europe and to third countries. We can form joint ventures with European companies and go together. That would be a really great approach, including in third countries.

The Japanese did this in the 1980s and 1990s. They invested a lot in America and Europe, and that calmed down some of the complaints in those countries. I think Chinese companies can do the same now. We should really facilitate much more investment from China into European countries and third countries.

My fifth point is this: China has opened visa-free entry to twenty-some European countries. Can EU member states issue easier visas, or even visa-free access, for Chinese tourists? Because, for example, Chinese tourists do not need visas to go to Thailand, and 8 million Chinese tourists went there. If European countries open easier visa arrangements, we could have a flood of Chinese tourists spending money and buying luxury goods from Europe. That is my point. Okay, yes, member states, member states—but we do hope to see more relaxed visa arrangements from European member states for Chinese visitors, because every time I hear from many people that applying for visas to European countries is too time-consuming.

My sixth point is that high-level visits are so important. We do need parliament members and government representatives to visit. I am sure the momentum is there now, and I really appreciate that we have had a lot of parliamentary members visiting.

And the final point is business. We should have a Chinese Investment Summit in European member countries, and a European Investment Summit in China. The European Chamber of Commerce is doing something on a small scale, but let us do a larger one. Let us get MOFCOM involved, and everybody involved. The WTO Society will support that. So we can really promote bilateral trade, exchange, and investment.

And finally, now we are in a period when relations among China, Europe, and the U.S. are really under strain. As the Munich Security Conference report showed, with the elephant on the front page, the system is being damaged a lot. So this is a high time for Europe and China to work together.

I do see China playing a big role now in the Iran issue. China is also very closely working with Pakistan, and the peace talks will be held in Pakistan. The Pakistani foreign minister was just in Beijing. And I think when President Trump comes to China, China will work with President Trump on the Russia-Ukraine war as well. So China can take a much more active peacemaking and mediating role, so that we have fewer geopolitical tensions among us. Then we can also change a bit of this perception we have of each other.

And this CCG VIP luncheon, this time working with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, is one of the ways to do that.

I do not know whether Johann, from our co-organiser, would like to say anything finally. I really appreciate—

Johann Caspar Fuhrmann, Head of Beijing Representative Office, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung

Thank you so much. I would just like to thank all of our panellists, and of course Henry and Mabel, for making this exchange possible.

I believe that everything I would have to add would fire up this place too much, because of course we perceive China as a threat in Germany because of the ongoing political support for Russia. That has really changed the debate in Germany about China a lot. And I still believe that we would hope for China to do more and to put pressure on Putin to bring him to the negotiating table.

At the same time, Henry, you mentioned foreign investment. Of course Germany is very open to Chinese investment. It is an ongoing criticism that German companies and joint ventures create many jobs in China, while China is not creating enough jobs in Germany in comparison. And of course I understand why you invest in the country of Viktor Orbán, because he might be closer to you than the German government, this one or the former one. But still, our hope when it comes to foreign investment is that China could do more and create more jobs in Europe.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Good, good comment. I thank you, Johann.

Basically, what I am saying is that Chinese and German companies have huge potential. We have all the big companies here. They have total value chains here. Let us go back to Germany as well. Even in technology, Chinese EVs now have strong technology. When European companies came in before, it was technology for market, and now we can probably do the same.

But I do see huge potential between China and Europe. Today, we really had a great occasion. We have had so many important experts, ambassadors, and business representatives here.

I want to thank you all very much. We will conclude now, and let us take a photo together.

Thank you very much.

Subscribe now

China sees the potential for conflict as a tragedy, not an opportunity.

By Zichen Wang, the deputy secretary-general at the Center for China and Globalization.

In a closed-door workshop in Hawaii in March on U.S.-China relations, an American participant asked a question that has now surfaced repeatedly in Washington: Does the war with Iran increase the risk that China will use force against Taiwan?

The question reflects a familiar assumption: China is a tactical predator, waiting for a moment of U.S. distraction to strike. But that view misreads how Beijing frames the Taiwan issue. Beijing is not looking for an opportunity to use force, as Peking University professor Jie Dalei and I responded at the workshop. It is looking for every possible way to not to have to use it.

A sharp reminder of that logic is the ongoing visit to the mainland by Cheng Li-wun—the chair of the Kuomintang (KMT), the opposition and largest single party in Taiwan’s legislature, from April 7 to April 12 at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee. If she meets directly with Xi, which is likely, it will be the first meeting in a decade between the leaders of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party.

To many in the West, Cheng’s visit looks more like capitulation than peacemaking. Critics argue that by hosting the opposition while refusing to speak with Taiwan’s elected government, Beijing is trying to bypass the island’s democratic system. In that view, escalating military drills in the Taiwan Strait, high-level outreach to the KMT, and the refusal to engage with Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te or his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are all part of the same strategy: coercion abroad, pressure within.

But from the perspective of both Beijing and the KMT, these contacts serve a purpose. While the strait is often described as one of the world’s most dangerous flash points, Beijing still treats the use of force as a last resort. The West tends to read China’s 2005 Anti-Secession Law as a blueprint for war. But its most important clause is meant to restrain. The law states that “non-peaceful means” may be used only if Taiwan’s secession became factual or major incidents entailing that occurred, or if the “possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted.”

To be sure, the vagueness of the language leaves Beijing wide room for interpretation. But the law’s political and moral center of gravity rests on the premise that the use of force should be the most reluctant decision, not a preferred choice. The mainland would not see a war across the Taiwan Strait as an “invasion” of foreign territory, but a tragic conflict within a broken political family. As an old Chinese poem, familiar across the strait, has it: “From the same root we grow; why must we harm one another?”

Following the Communist Party victory in the Chinese Civil War and the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the two sides entered a prolonged period of separate rule under different political systems. Even after the United Nations General Assembly formally recognized Beijing as the only legitimate representative of China in 1971, Taipei did not claim that Taiwan and the mainland were two countries. It insisted that both sides belonged to one China and that they should ultimately be reunified.

That history matters, because it helps explain why the Chinese mainland’s attachment to reunification—however objectionable many may find it—is not viewed on the mainland as freshly fabricated propaganda. For the mainland, the people of Taiwan are not foreigners but members of a divided nation, and military drills are not targeting them but deterring secessionists. A war across the strait would not be celebrated as a conquest. It would be fratricide, detrimental to the overall interests of the Chinese nation and its traditional values.

As Beijing sees it, it can afford to be strategically patient and hope for peaceful reunification because it has sufficient strength to outlast the independence movement and the DPP, which commands at most 40 percent public support and does not hold a majority in the legislature.

Ahead of her visit to the mainland, Cheng’s personal history is emblematic of the shift in opinion that Beijing is betting on. She was once a member of the DPP who supported Taiwanese independence. But in 2005, she joined the KMT and served as spokesperson for then-Chairman Lien Chan’s historic trip to the mainland, known across the strait as the “ice-breaking journey,” the first such visit by a KMT leader since the end of the civil war.

That visit, followed by the KMT’s return to power three years later, eased tensions and helped move the Taiwan Strait into eight years of peaceful development, until the DPP’s victory in the 2016 elections. Cheng’s return to China is seen, to some extent, as an attempt to replicate Lien’s successful path and shape the cross-strait dynamics back toward peaceful development.

Chen Chih-han, a widely influential internet celebrity in Taiwan, has also moved from hostility to supporting closer cross-strait ties. From Beijing’s perspective, such individuals help sustain its hope that political attitudes in Taiwan are not completely fixed and that some people may want a closer political relationship with the mainland.

That might be overly optimistic, many would say, as polling on the island still shows that most people prefer the status quo, rather than accepting unification on Beijing’s current terms.

In the United States, meanwhile, the divide between elite hawkishness and broader public caution on the Taiwan issue may become one of the important external variables shaping the cross-strait relations in the years ahead.

A recent Brookings-Rand Corp. project showed that top U.S. policy experts broadly believe that the strategic environment in the Taiwan Strait is changing as the mainland “gains greater capabilities to influence the environment around and within Taiwan” and that U.S. policy needs to be adjusted. But there remain clear differences over the direction and scale of that adjustment.

Recent U.S. polling suggests that a majority of Americans would prefer the situation to stick to the status quo across the Taiwan Strait and do not favor direct military intervention in a conflict. In a 2024 Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey, 51 percent of Americans polled said the U.S. should encourage Taiwan to maintain the status quo, and only 36 percent supported sending U.S. troops to Taiwan in a contingency, while 58 percent were opposed to putting U.S. troops in a position that could lead to war with China.

Ryan Hass, a respected Brookings scholar and former U.S. official, recently observed in the Taipei Times that for a public already strained by wars in Ukraine and Iran and anxious about inflation, immigration, and jobs, the appetite for great-power confrontation is very low. A growing divergence between elite and public views is poised to shape political debates leading up to the 2028 U.S. presidential election, he wrote.

As for the current U.S. president, Donald Trump has said that he will visit China in mid-May. Beijing is likely hoping that he will explicitly express opposition to Taiwanese independence and adopt a more positive position toward peaceful reunification. How he will respond is difficult to tell, but Washington needs to recognize that when it views the Taiwan Strait through a military “window,” the work of keeping the political door ajar—however narrow and contested—may still be among the few ways to prevent a slide into a conflict that no one can win.

If and when Cheng meets with Xi, their dialogue will be difficult to fit into Washington’s hawkish framework. But at a time when conflicts in multiple parts of the world are intensifying, its significance speaks for itself. As Cheng said at a press briefing about her visit, “We want to prove to the people of Taiwan, and to the world, one thing: War between the two sides is not inevitable.”

Share

The East is Read

Full text: Cheng Li-wun's speech at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing

Cheng Li-wun, chair of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT), visited the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in Nanjing on Wednesday, retracing a stop made on Lien Chan’s landmark 2005 “Journey of Peace” and using the occasion to pledge cross-strait reconciliation and peace as part of Sun Yat-sen’s unfinished mission…

Read more

a month ago · 7 likes · Yuxuan JIA

The East is Read

Full text: Cheng Li-wun’s speech at Nanjing welcome banquet

Cheng Li-wun, chair of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT), arrived in the Chinese mainland on Tuesday, leading a party delegation after accepting an invitation from Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, in the first visit by a sitting KMT chair to the mainland in a…

Read more

a month ago · 13 likes · 1 comment · Yuxuan JIA

The East is Read

Transcript: Cheng Li-wun embraces Beijing trip

Beijing announced this morning that Xi Jinping had invited Cheng Li-wun, leader of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT), to visit the Chinese mainland with a party delegation from April 7 to 12…

Read more

a month ago · 9 likes · 1 comment · Yuxuan JIA

The East is Read

Meet Cheng Li-wun, the new Chair of KMT

The election for the Chair of the Kuomintang (KMT), the opposition party in Taiwan, was concluded on October 18. Cheng Li-wun was elected as the new party chair…

Read more

7 months ago · 23 likes · 2 comments · Yuxuan JIA and Zichen Wang