Event

The 13th China Inbound-Outbound Forum

Date

October 17–18, 2026

Location

Beijing

Participants

Company founders and CEOs; government investment-promotion officials; representatives of international organizations; and partners from leading professional-service institutions

Program

October 17 — Opening Ceremony, Thematic Forums and Matchmaking

09:00–09:30 Opening Ceremony: Globalization Policy Signals and Major Trends

Purpose: A high-level reading of the policy environment shaping Chinese companies’ international expansion.

· Policy dividends and strategic opportunities for Chinese companies amid a new phase of high-standard opening-up.

· How Chinese companies should respond and adjust their positioning as global trade and economic rules are reconfigured.

· How think tanks and industry organizations can work together to build policy and resource bridges for companies going global.

09:30–11:00 Keynote Addresses by Benchmark Business Leaders: Practical Strategies for Globalizing Chinese Enterprises

Purpose: Leading entrepreneurs share first-hand experience and unpack the underlying logic of successful globalization.

· A long-term strategy for Chinese companies navigating geopolitical and business-cycle volatility.

· The path from contract manufacturing to global brands — and the resulting leap in competitiveness.

· Balancing technology innovation and deep localization with profitability and risk management.

11:00–12:00 Entrepreneurs’ Session: Sustaining Overseas Growth and Building Resilience Across Cycles

Purpose: Entrepreneurs from different sectors discuss hard-won lessons, common pitfalls, and practical growth methods.

· Localization playbooks for different industries: a practical guide to avoiding mistakes from zero to one.

· Coordinated international expansion across industrial chains: how leading companies can bring ecosystem partners overseas and create shared growth.

· Business resilience and cash-flow management amid geopolitical risk and market volatility.

12:00–13:30 Business buffet lunch and networking

Afternoon — Hall A: Three Thematic Forums

13:30–14:45 Thematic Forum 1: AI and the Digital Economy Going Global — Compliance Pathways and Growth Models

Purpose: Clarifying compliance red lines and profit models in the AI era while capturing the upside of technology globalization.

· Compliance boundaries and implementation pathways for Chinese technology companies amid the global wave of AI regulation.

· Cross-border data flows and localized storage: regulatory differences among countries and practical responses.

· Taking digital products and services overseas: upgrading from tool exports to ecosystem operations.

14:45–15:00 Networking break and room transition

15:00–16:15 Thematic Forum 2: Globalizing New Energy — A Practical Guide to Overseas Manufacturing and Industrial-Chain Coordination

Purpose: Addressing the key pain points of new-energy expansion, including plant compliance, supply-chain development, and risk controls.

· Market-access barriers in major global new-energy markets and compliance essentials for localized manufacturing.

· Cross-border coordination across the new-energy value chain: building overseas supply systems and controlling costs.

· International cooperation opportunities in the energy transition and a systematic response to geopolitical risks.

16:15–16:30 Networking break and room transition

16:30–17:45 Thematic Forum 3: Global Expansion Services Ecosystem — Selecting and Coordinating Full-Cycle Service Providers

Purpose: One-stop access to leading professional-service providers to address the difficulty and risk of sourcing overseas-expansion support.

· A full-lifecycle service map, from pre-entry planning to post-launch operations.

· Coordinating legal, tax, finance, human-resources, and business-travel support to avoid hidden cross-border operating risks.

· Balancing standardized services with tailored needs for companies of different sizes.

Afternoon — Hall B: Three Regional and Country-Focused Forums

13:30–14:45 Regional Forum 1: Southeast Asia and the South Pacific — Capacity Deployment and Market Access under RCEP

Purpose: Connecting participants with official ASEAN and South Pacific resources and translating RCEP benefits into action.

· Putting RCEP into practice: tariff preferences, rules of origin, and a guide to business use.

· Manufacturing relocation in Southeast Asia and resource development in the South Pacific: entry paths for different sectors.

· Localized operations: cultural adaptation, employment compliance, and operating-risk mitigation.

14:45–15:00 Networking break and room transition

15:00–16:15 Regional Forum 2: Middle East and North Africa — Energy Transition and Major Infrastructure Opportunities

Purpose: Connecting with Gulf sovereign wealth funds and infrastructure projects while capturing large-scale energy-transition orders.

· Opportunities for Chinese companies in the region’s energy transition and new-infrastructure wave.

· Investment preferences of Gulf sovereign wealth funds and pathways for project cooperation.

· Trade barriers, foreign-exchange controls, and cross-border operating-risk management.

16:15–16:30 Networking break and room transition

16:30–17:45 Regional Forum 3: Latin America — Resource Cooperation and Consumer-Market Implementation

Purpose: A deep look at key Latin American market rules and the challenge of balancing high risk with high returns.

· Investment environments and market-access policies in major Latin American economies.

· International expansion by resource companies and consumer brands: essentials for localized operations.

· Systematic approaches to cross-border tax, legal, and foreign-exchange risk.

Evening Program

18:00–19:00 Networking reception

19:00–21:00 Dinner for Outbound Entrepreneurs and Ambassadors to China

Purpose: A high-level closed-door gathering with diplomats from 60+ countries and leading entrepreneurs, alongside the release of authoritative industry lists.

· Closed-door dialogue among senior Chinese and international government and business leaders, linking bilateral resources and cooperation opportunities.

· Release of the “100 Recommended Chinese Outbound Enterprises,” “100 Recommended Professional-Service Institutions for Chinese Companies Going Global,” and “100 Rising Young Chinese Entrepreneurs Going Global.”

· Private, in-depth networking to advance major cooperation opportunities toward implementation.

October 18 — Dedicated Targeted Matchmaking Day

Morning — Hall A: Thematic Forums

09:00–10:15 Thematic Forum 4: Global Compliance and Risk Control — Trade Barriers, ESG and Overseas Investment Security

Purpose: A comprehensive breakdown of compliance risks and practical frameworks for enterprise risk control.

· Building end-to-end compliance systems as global trade barriers intensify.

· Localizing ESG practices and addressing overseas investment security reviews through strategy and case studies.

· Protecting cross-border intellectual property and trade secrets, from registration through enforcement.

10:15–10:30 Networking break and room transition

10:30–11:45 Thematic Forum 5: Cross-Border Tax, Finance and Treasury — Structural Optimization under the Global Minimum Tax

Purpose: Solving core cross-border tax and finance challenges, optimizing tax costs, and protecting funds.

· Practical tax planning and structural optimization as the global minimum tax is implemented.

· Building global cash pools and managing foreign-exchange volatility for multinational companies.

· Cross-border asset allocation and outbound funds: compliance boundaries and common pitfalls.

11:45–12:00 Intermission

12:00–13:15 Thematic Forum 6: Healthcare and Pharmaceuticals Going Global — Registration, Market Access and Local R&D

Purpose: End-to-end solutions for R&D, registration, market access, and commercialization in global healthcare markets.

· Regulatory differences between Europe, North America, and emerging markets: filing pathways and timelines.

· Localized overseas R&D and clinical cooperation: partnership models and cost controls.

· Taking medical devices and health services overseas: market-entry and channel-development strategies.

13:15–13:30 Business buffet lunch

Morning — Hall B: Regional and Country-Focused Forums

09:00–10:15 Regional Forum 4: Europe — Responding to CBAM and Accessing Premium Markets

Purpose: Addressing carbon-border measures while developing routes to European brand access and technology cooperation.

· The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM): corporate accounting, reporting, and compliance.

· Brand entry and technology cooperation in premium European markets: pathways and case studies.

· Investment opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe: industrial-chain positioning and policy incentives.

10:15–10:30 Networking break and room transition

10:30–11:45 Regional Forum 5: North America, Australia and New Zealand — Investment Screening, Data Compliance and Technology Cooperation

Purpose: Understanding regulatory red lines in developed markets while identifying two-way opportunities in technology and resources.

· Latest trends in North American investment screening and data compliance, and corporate response strategies.

· Two-way cooperation opportunities in the resource and technology sectors of Australia and New Zealand.

· Brand localization in developed markets: channel building, marketing, and compliant operations.

11:45–12:00 Intermission

12:00–13:15 Regional Forum 6: Africa — Capacity Cooperation and Infrastructure Project Delivery

Purpose: Decoding African market opportunities and project implementation under China–Africa cooperation frameworks.

· Capacity cooperation and infrastructure investment opportunities amid Africa’s industrialization.

· China–Africa policy support: project applications, financing, and implementation pathways.

· Localized operations in Africa: talent, supply chains, and risk-control systems.

13:15–13:30 Business buffet lunch

Afternoon — Hall A: Thematic Forums

13:30–14:45 Thematic Forum 7: Cross-Border E-Commerce and Trade in Services — Global Brands and Supply-Chain Efficiency

Purpose: Moving from product sales to brand building and unpacking growth methods for e-commerce and service exports.

· Cross-border e-commerce beyond product listing: localized operations and traffic growth for brand development.

· Overseas warehousing and cross-border logistics optimization: balancing cost and delivery speed.

· Digital upgrading of trade in services: new models for education, consulting, and other services going global.

14:45–15:00 Networking break and room transition

15:00–16:15 Thematic Forum 8: Global Family Planning for Entrepreneurs — Wealth Succession, Children’s Education and Residency

Purpose: A one-stop response to the cross-border planning needs of founders and their families.

· Cross-border wealth succession: family-trust design and tax compliance.

· Preparing the next generation: overseas education planning and building a global outlook.

· Cross-border residency planning and comprehensive arrangements for family life and security overseas.

16:15–16:30 Intermission

16:30–17:45 Thematic Forum 9: Comprehensive Overseas Security — People, Assets and Emergency Response, followed by Closing

Purpose: Establishing a security baseline for global operations through practical protection plans for personnel and assets.

· Personnel security systems and emergency-response mechanisms in high-risk regions.

· Security for cross-border assets and overseas projects: integrating physical protection with digital risk controls.

· Evacuation and asset-preservation plans during geopolitical conflict and public emergencies.

Afternoon — Hall B: Regional and Country-Focused Forums

13:30–14:45 Regional Forum 7: South and Central Asia — Connectivity and Market-Development Opportunities

Purpose: Capturing demographic dividends and corridor-economy opportunities in emerging markets.

· Consumer-brand and industrial-cooperation opportunities arising from South Asia’s demographic dividend.

· Central Asian connectivity and energy-corridor development: areas for Chinese enterprise cooperation.

· Regional investment policies and key operating-risk controls.

14:45–15:00 Networking break and room transition

15:00–16:15 Regional Forum 8: Advanced Technology in Japan and South Korea and Northeast Asian Supply-Chain Cooperation

Purpose: Connecting with advanced technology resources and opening channels for supply-chain coordination and premium-market access.

· Technology introduction and joint R&D with Japan and South Korea: compliant pathways and cooperation models.

· Northeast Asian supply-chain coordination: component sourcing, capacity cooperation, and local support.

· Accessing premium consumer markets in Japan and South Korea: certification, channel building, and operations.

16:15–16:30 Intermission

16:30–17:45 Regional Forum 9: Emerging Belt and Road Markets — Niche Blue-Ocean Opportunities and Lean Market Entry

Purpose: Identifying underexplored markets and low-cost, lightweight implementation options.

· Evaluating investment opportunities and risks in smaller emerging Belt and Road markets.

· Lean international expansion into smaller markets: low-cost experimentation and rapid implementation.

· Finding policy incentives and localized partnership models in non-core economies.

18:30–21:00 Closing appreciation dinner

Registration and Contact

Reserve your place now for the 2026 Beijing gathering.

Dates: October 17–18, 2026

Eligible participants: Company founders and CEOs; government investment-promotion officials; representatives of international organizations; and partners at leading professional-service institutions

Registration: https://www.ccgupdate.org/p/register-now-the-13th-china-inbound

Mobile: +86 176 1171 8659

Email: event@ccg.org.cn

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China’s exports feed the Global South’s industrial engines

Far from stifling development, China’s export portfolio indicates a positive-sum diffusion of industrial growth

A scaremongering narrative has taken root in Western corridors and financial press columns: China, having saturated developed markets, is now aiming to crush fragile industries in developing nations, effectively slamming the door on their industrial dreams. It is a convenient little tale. However, it does not hold up against empirical evidence.

The premise assumes that China and the Global South are fighting over the same slice of the global consumption pie – cheap T-shirts, plastic sandals, toys. However, China’s export basket has changed. The share of intermediate goods, such as components and semi-finished products for downstream manufacturing, rose from roughly 42 per cent in 2017 to about 46 per cent by 2023.

Over the same period, the share of consumer goods fell from about 36 per cent to roughly 33 per cent while the share of capital goods held steady at around 20 per cent. This is not the cargo manifest of a predator hunting for sneaker shelf-space. It is the supply list of a systemic partner that is feeding other nations’ industrial engines.

Now look at the sector where you would expect the fiercest head-to-head competition – labour-intensive consumer goods. If China were truly monopolising the export space of others, its share would be stable or climbing. In reality, it is falling. China’s share of global garment exports fell to just under 30 per cent in 2024, a significant drop from its peak of over 40 per cent about a decade ago.

Footwear tells a similar story. China’s share has dropped while Indonesia and India have gained ground. Instead of elbowing others aside, China is moving up the value chain and creating space for lower-income nations in other sectors.

China is not shipping goods to outcompete Global South producers; it is shipping the building blocks that make factories viable. According to an Oxford Economics report, nearly half of China’s total exports are intermediate goods – components and raw materials that feed into other countries’ production lines rather than finished products for consumers.

Take Southeast Asia. Customs data from the first half of 2026 shows China’s intermediate goods exports to Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states rocketed 24.5 per cent year on year to 2.86 trillion yuan. These kinds of inputs help Vietnamese electronics assemblers, Thai auto-part makers and Malaysian chip packagers produce and export their own finished goods. This is deep integration – China supplying the “organs”, Asean flexing the “muscles.”

Beyond components, there are capital goods. China’s enabling role also comes into play here. For decades, a major barrier to industrialisation was the staggering cost of capital equipment. Today, Chinese-made industrial machinery is dramatically more affordable.

Capital goods account for a sizeable share of China’s exports to other developing countries. As Chinese capital and equipment are building industrial capacity across the Global South, China is turning itself into the “mother machine” of the industrialising world, transforming technology and production know-how that Western development aid never delivered.

Critics will point to trade deficits. Yes, China runs surpluses with multiple developing nations. But look closer. Take Vietnam for instance. Its 2025 trade deficit with China stood at around US$115 billion. Yet imports of capital and intermediate goods tell the real story. In 2025, capital goods such as computers, electronics, and machinery accounted for over half of its total imports. Vietnam’s deficit is a receipt for industrialisation.

In the 2025-26 financial year, India’s imports from China reached US$131.6 billion. That represents 16 per cent of India’s total imports. According to the Global Trade Research Initiative, around two-thirds of these imports – some US$82.6 billion – are concentrated in four categories: electronics, machinery, computers and organic chemicals.

In 2025, Thailand imported over US$100 billion worth of goods from China. Electrical machinery and equipment and machinery including computers accounted for a sizeable share. Thailand’s Office of Industrial Economics reported that in the third quarter of 2025, capital goods imports overall surged by 25.5 per cent year on year; raw materials and intermediate goods rose 14.3 per cent.

Clearly, intermediate and capital goods are partly responsible for these countries’ trade deficits with China, but they are the goods that underpin industrialisation. We are witnessing a historic reorganisation of global production – one that offers developing nations their first genuine shot at industrialisation without waiting for Western handouts.

To be clear, China’s exports pose a challenge to sectors such as automobile and home appliances in South Africa and Brazil. However, China’s exports are primarily the scaffolding on which other Global South countries are erecting their own industrial futures. Tear that scaffolding down, as some want, and you deprive scores of developing economies of a route out of underdevelopment.

Let’s also not forget imports. China is the top export destination for 79 countries and regions. In May, it expanded its zero-tariff import policy to 53 African countries. Painting China as a threat to development ignores how Beijing is widening its doors to products from the Global South.

China’s export boom is not zero-sum encroachment but positive-sum diffusion of industrial capacity. Its shrinking share in labour-intensive goods, its rising share of intermediates, its technology transfers, its growing import demand and its role in slashing industrial entry costs all point to the same conclusion: China is accelerating the Global South’s development, not arresting it.

Lastly, Western critiques are rather paternalistic, assuming developing nations are passive victims, incapable of making rational choices about their own trade relationships. That condescension, echoing the “white man’s burden”, is the real obstacle to the Global South’s prosperity.

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The event featured a dialogue between Professor John Quelch, CBE, American President and Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, and Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of CCG and former Counsellor to China’s State Council. Mabel Lu Miao, Co-Founder and Secretary-General of CCG, delivered the opening remarks.

Their discussion explored the prospects for stability in China-U.S. relations, the role of business in managing strategic competition, possible cooperation on AI governance, the changing balance of hard and soft power, and the future of business and higher education.

Among those attending were the ambassadors of Fiji, Japan, and Peru, as well as representatives from the embassies of Hungary, Indonesia, and Vietnam; international organisations including the International Monetary Fund; and companies including BMW, Cargill China, and Habib Bank.

CCG will shortly upload a video recording of the luncheon to its official YouTube channel. The following transcript has not been reviewed by the speakers.

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

Thank you. Your Excellencies, 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.

Today’s luncheon is also a special edition of CCG Global Dialogue, our flagship platform that brings together policymakers, scholars, and business leaders from around the world to discuss the most pressing global challenges.

As a forum for open exchange, the dialogue fosters cross-cultural understanding and practical solutions on issues ranging from governance and sustainable development to economic cooperation and international security. Today’s theme is “Coopetition — how can China and the U.S. coexist?” It’s a new word, coopetition. I think it’s very important; we can discuss this further later.

As we look at the current global landscape, the relationship between China and rivalry, and shifting global supply chains against this complex and dynamic backdrop, finding ways to manage competition while preserving vital channels of cooperation has become one of the defining questions of our time, one that concerns policymakers, business leaders, and scholars on both sides of the Pacific. That is precisely why we are here today. Today we are honored to convene this VIP luncheon dialogue.

It is my great honor to invite our distinguished guest, Professor John Quelch, CBE, American President and Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, to join us for the executive dialog. Professor Quelch will exchange in-depth views with Dr. Henry Huiyao Wang, founder and president of CCG, on how China and the United States can coexist and manage strategic competition. The dialogue will conclude with an open Q&A session with all of you.

Before we start, let us take a moment to acknowledge some of our special guests and VIPs who are here today. We have invited representatives from distinguished diplomats, government authorities, academic institutions, international organizations, corporate leaders, and media representatives.

They are His Excellency Robert Lee, Ambassador of Fiji to China; His Excellency Kenji Kanasugi, Ambassador of Japan to China; and His Excellency Carlos Vasquez, Ambassador of Peru to China. Welcome to all the ambassadors.

We also welcome the diplomats and embassy representatives from the embassy of Hungary, the embassy of Indonesia, and the embassy of Vietnam, as well as representatives of international organizations, including IMF and JETRO Beijing.

We also invited government and association representatives, including Gao Qi, Vice Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the China Chamber of Commerce and Trade Associations Conference; Huang Rengang, Vice President of Security and Secretary General of the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies; Song Yaoming, former Minister Economic and Commercial Counselor’s Office at the Chinese Embassy in Japan, and former Commercial Counselor in the Department of Asian Affairs, MOFCOM; and university representatives from the Long U.S.-China Institute at the University of California, Irvine, and Beijing Zhidian Education. We also welcome corporate representatives from BMW, Habib Bank, and Cargill China, and other important corporation and media representatives.

Distinguished guests, China and the United States are already deeply interconnected. Our economies, companies, universities, supply chains, financial markets, and scientific communities have developed together over several decades. We are part of each other’s economic and social realities. President Donald Trump’s state visit to China in May was historic and significant. President Xi Jinping is also expected to make a state visit to the United States this autumn.

So the real question is not whether China and the United States can avoid one another. The real question is whether they can manage their differences while continuing to benefit from cooperation.

Now, please allow me to introduce Dr. Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization and former counselor of the State Council of China, to deliver opening remarks. Welcome, Henry.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, CCG

Thank you, Dr. Miao, Excellencies, Ambassadors, distinguished guests, and of course our friends representing a lot of famous organizations, chambers, international organizations, and multinational corporations. It’s really a great occasion.

Again, this is our CCG VIP luncheon that we do every month to really discuss a good subject and bring open dialogue to the key issues and challenging issues that are really facing all of us.

Last month we had a very special dialogue with Hank Paulson, former Treasury Secretary of the United States, in this room. This time we are very honored to have Professor Quelch. He’s a distinguished professor at Duke Kunshan University who has tons of experience. He has been the dean of three business schools across three continents. He was a dean at China European Business School and a dean of the business school at a university in Miami. And now he heads Duke Kunshan University as American President and Executive Vice Chancellor.

So it’s really a great occasion that we’re going to talk about coopetition, how China and the United States can coexist. So I think everybody knows that Duke Kunshan is more than an educational partnership. It brings together different education traditions, different institutional cultures, and young people from many countries. I’m also very honored to be sitting on the Duke Kunshan Advisory Council, so I know that this university is really a great JV product between China and the United States.

At a time when some people question whether China and the United States can continue to work together, the very existence of Duke Kunshan University reminds us that cooperation is not an abstract idea. It can be a possibility in real action. It can be built into institutions, sustained over time, and passed on to the next generation. So I think the presence of Professor Quelch is really significant today in our bilateral relations.

I’d like to also formally introduce our guest of the dialogue today, Professor Quelch. He is the American President and Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, Distinguished Professor of Social Science at DKU, and also the John deButts Professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. Between 2017 and 2022, he was the Leonard Miller University Chair, Vice Provost of the University of Miami, and Dean of the Miami Herbert Business School. Before 2017, he was both the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. So you can see he has a very broad, profound business, teaching, and management experience.

In addition to that, Professor Quelch has substantial experience as a non-executive director. In the United States, he has served on the boards of Amerant Bangcorp, Gentiva Health Services, Pepsi Bottling Group, and Reebok International He has also served as a board member of three pre-IPO data and analytics companies: Datalogix, Vitrue and Affinnova. So, a wide range of experience in addition to his academic practice. In the United Kingdom, Professor Quelch has also served on the board of WPP, the world’s largest leading marketing services company, and for 25 years has served as a member and chair of the audit committee. Very, very impressive. In the UK, he has also been a director of Blue Circle Industries, EasyJet, and Pentland Group. So the list is very long. I think I’ll just introduce some of those things here.

Again, I also see that Professor Quelch is often interviewed by international media at different outlets, and he’s very thoughtful and has a lot of good ideas. That’s why we’ve invited Professor Quelch to come here today to join the CCG Global Dialogue and CCG VIP luncheon, to share his views and have a dialogue on how we can really work on China-U.S. relations.

So, without further ado, let’s welcome Professor Quelch to our dialogue chair.

So, Professor Quelch, really great to welcome you to the CCG VIP luncheon. As we know, you’ve been leading an American university in China — one of the very famous, Duke Kunshan University — and you’ve been there for a few years already. You’re a firsthand witness of China’s transformation over the last several decades. You’ve also been dean of China Europe International Business School, so you know the business community in China very well, including the multinationals.

So, I’d first like to have your thoughts on how you think China-U.S. relations are going. We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs. The good thing now is we had President Trump come here in May. And in Trump’s first term it was a strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China, considering all those policies in his first term. But — I’m very glad to see this in his second term — we’re now having strategic stability. Both governments agree that we’re going to maintain strategic stability.

So, how do you see China-U.S. relations evolving and continuing? And what do you expect? As you know, we’re going to have several more high-level visits: President Xi is going to be in the United States in September, President Trump may come again to Shenzhen for the APEC summit in November, and President Xi may go to Miami again for the G20 summit in December. You also lived in Miami too. So overall, what’s your general assessment of China-U.S. relations?

Professor John Quelch, CBE, American President and Executive Vice Chancellor, Duke Kunshan University

Your Excellencies, thank you, Henry, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It seems like there are a lot of cameras and lights, but not many microphones. So we will have to share the microphone in the spirit of co-opetition, Henry and I will be fighting over who holds the microphone.

So, to the question — just very briefly — I first came to China in 1981 as a tourist, and I’ve been back and forth over 45 years now, witnessing the great transformation that we’re all aware of. Those of us who are privileged enough to actually be on the ground and see it, as opposed to the many millions of my compatriots who have never been to China and actually don’t want to come to China because they might be contaminated if they came to China. There’s that degree of reluctance among a large portion — not just of the American population, but I think other populations as well, among certain allied countries.

But to your question, Henry — I think in the first Trump administration, China acutely became aware of what might happen and what could happen in terms of the tariff regime and other export control-related approaches that the United States might use vis-à-vis China and Chinese goods and services. And so China, from 2016 to 2020, was already planning a quiet decoupling of dependency in terms of trade and investment, and moving toward more engagement with Global South countries, etc.

So those patterns of trade and investment development were already being cooked up — they were already evident early in the first Trump administration. Everybody expected the Biden administration to be more relaxed towards China, and that did not happen. The Biden administration actually not only continued Trump 1.0 policies but also added further constraints.

Now we have a period of time in Trump’s second administration where the volatility of the administration’s policies is obviously driving many countries to think about how to be less attached to the United States in terms of trade and investment. And that, of course, is giving China an opportunity to present itself publicly as the stabilizing force — the adult in the room, if I can use that expression — for the benefit of the global economy.

Now, President Trump is a businessperson. He’s a transactional businessperson, as we know, as he would readily admit. And I think he’s actually not as ideological about China as some others in Washington, and therefore brings — curiously, perhaps surprisingly — a more pragmatic approach to the relationship. Not necessarily as predictable as any of us in this room would wish, but nevertheless a more pragmatic, business-oriented approach to the relationship, which essentially means the United States cannot walk away from China. It’s simply impossible. It would have devastating commercial consequences — and it’s not necessarily top of the agenda, but it would not be good for the world economy either.

So, where we are at the moment, I think, is the following: we have, in a sense, an umbrella relationship between President Xi and President Trump that may manifest itself three more times this year. But even if it’s only one or two, I don’t think it has to be all three. But one or two constructive and diplomatically useful meetings would, of course, set the tone in an umbrella of assurance to the world, under which the new so-called Board of Trade and Investment, and other dialogues occurring on a bilateral basis will continue to be productive.

And I think that, as someone who was not necessarily a student of diplomacy but a very commonsense person once said, “It all begins by talking. If you are not talking, you cannot achieve any kind of rapprochement or mutual camaraderie that can stabilize a relationship.” So, whether or not it’s your marriage, whether or not it’s two competitors in industry, whether or not it’s nation states, it all begins by talking.

So I think that where we are is we have a baseline rapprochement between the two leaders, which is extremely helpful because that signals to the underlings that they have to get on with serious conversations and not get into spats, walking out on meetings, or anything like that. They have to be seriously progressing a discussion of the issues at hand, of which there are many, many, as you know.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, John. Absolutely. You know, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Secretary Rubio just met in Manila, I think yesterday, and of course we’re expecting this presidential visit in September. And as you just said, there seems to be a pragmatism occurring now in these bilateral relations. But on the other hand, we should also think about this: since almost eight or nine years ago, when Trump won, the U.S. started many ways of containing China — sanctions and trade wars — and maybe at some point, people just suddenly realized, “Gee, we’re living in the same world.”

We were talking to Secretary Hank Paulson last month here. He was saying that the U.S. and China have achieved mutually assured economic disruption. So basically, that means we’ve reached a new equilibrium now. Because if we really do anything bad to the other side, we hurt ourselves too. So that’s one side, economically. On the other hand, you can also see the world is such a disrupted place now, with what’s happening in Ukraine, what’s happening in Iran, and the U.S. is not able to handle that properly. And then China actually emerged as one of the very strong stabilizers of the world economy and also confidence, and not causing panic in the world. For example, China’s energy was relatively stable. We have the former chairman of Sinopec here. You can see how that effort has really been maintained. So there’s a huge interest for the U.S. and China to work together.

So in that sense, do you see how we can really encourage this new equilibrium? For example, you mentioned the Board of Trade, which is great. Each side is going to exempt $300 billion in goods trade — almost like free trade for $300 billion — and that could be an oasis in bilateral trade, and we can expand that. You know, we can find more products. There’s no national security issues, it’s really neat for both sides, and it really helps the economy on both sides. So, that experiment, if successful, can be expanded. And also for the investment board, how can we find suitable companies to invest on both sides? So we hope that this kind of pragmatism can be sustained.

So, what’s your take on this new equilibrium that we’ve achieved, at least so far — will that stability be maintained? And what do you think, as a business professor, about the role of business in pushing this forward, this sustainable relation? Of course, there’s competition, but there’s also cooperation. That’s why we call it coopetition, right? That’s a management term that’s frequently used. So, what do you think about the status now, and how we can get down to the near future for this bilateral relation?

John Quelch

So the word coopetition was actually coined by a professor at Harvard Business School around 25 years ago — a guy by the name of Adam Brandenburger, who periodically shows up at NYU Shanghai as a guest professor. And of course, coopetition, as he examined it, came out of a business context.

Let me give you one obvious example in the pharmaceutical industry. Obviously, Merck, Roche, AstraZeneca, and GSK all go head-to-head, competing aggressively against each other. But at the same time, they have many cross-license agreements, where a GSK product will be sold by AstraZeneca in some countries where AstraZeneca is strong, and maybe an AstraZeneca product will be sold by Pfizer in countries where AstraZeneca has no action, but there’s a market for their drug. So these companies are cooperating at the same time as they’re aggressively competing against each other.

So that’s where the term coopetition comes from, and it is possible for nation states to do the same thing simultaneously. But I think it requires a mindset that’s a little bit more sophisticated than the standard ideological black-or-white point of view that, in the polarization of politics — especially in the West — is becoming much more fashionable.

So, if I look at the current administration, for example, I would say that Secretary Bessent, for example, the Secretary of the Treasury, is a very sophisticated thinker. Jamieson Greer, who is the U.S. Trade Representative, is also a very sophisticated thinker. And let me leave it at that. Okay, I won’t mention any further names.

But it’s important that the business point of view maintains a strong voice in the dialogue. And one of the things I’ve been noticing in the last three or four years is the reluctance of business leaders in the United States to really speak out on behalf of their shareholder interests when it comes to anything related to geopolitics emanating from Washington. There’s been a noticeable level of silence, vis-à-vis what one was used to seeing under the Biden administration. And that’s unfortunate, because if the business voice is not sufficiently part of the geopolitical dialogue, then it will become more and more of a polarized ideological dialogue rather than something more pragmatic.

When it comes to China and the U.S. in particular, I think, you know, the U.S. suddenly woke up one day — maybe in the basement of the Pentagon, or in Langley, Virginia — woke up one day to the reality that, gosh, China has really made so much more progress than we ever forecast it would make by this time. We’ve got to do something about it, because whatever you may think of the U.S., the U.S. is always going to find it difficult to be number two. That is going to be a very big psychological challenge for the U.S.

You know, at the same time, from my business experience, I would say that you often have situations in business where the number-two company chases the number-one company. And it’s rather like — if you’ve ever been to a dog race, a greyhound race — you know, the greyhounds go around and they chase a mechanical rabbit, okay? And sometimes the greyhound catches the rabbit and then doesn’t know what to do with it. So, you know, sometimes it’s nice to think we could become number one. But when you become number one, you have to know what to do when you’re number one, and that’s not as easy as being number two. So I just want to present these very simple thoughts as a little bit of advice to our leaders.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great, John. I think that you’ve vividly described this coopetition and, of course, the business dynamic. Absolutely. You know, when Trump came, he brought 17, 18 top business leaders. There’s a huge interest from business corporations, and we also see that bilateral trade has been stabilized between the U.S. and China somehow now.

But there’s also a new issue now: AI. We see that with this new visit of Trump to China, and President Xi’s visit to the U.S., there’s an AI dynamic. China and the U.S. are the two largest AI countries now, and so we’re getting into uncharted waters and territories. How can we do global governance? You’re just coming from Shanghai, where the World AI Summit Conference was hosted, and China has also established the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization with 29 countries. So that means AI is really on the agenda, not only for China but for many other countries to think about.

I do think that China and the U.S. have a joint interest in maintaining this AI cooperation. Just imagine if AI became a bubble, right? That would devastate not only the United States, but the whole world, and the U.S. has invested so heavily in AI, and China is the same. But China is probably doing better on applications, with a large application scene. The U.S. stock market is already dominated by AI companies. Their market cap is many times over the other industries.

So, what do you think about AI cooperation? And also, we may want to avoid an AI arms race, right? We want to make sure that AI can really be a good force for mankind. So, what do you think about that area? AI — what can we do, and what can we not do?

John Quelch

The United States is leading in basic research in AI, but China is very strong in applications of AI. China’s approach is open source.

Some people who are cynical always say open source is what you do when you’re not the leader, because you can’t get anyone to pay for your product, so you open-source it. If you’re a private company like Anthropic or OpenAI, you and your investors have put a lot of money into developing your products, and you have to get a return on those products by charging for them in the marketplace.

In the Chinese context, it’s an open-source context where a lot of the money going in is from the state, not from individual private investors. So you have these two systems actually colliding, with AI as the catalyst for the collision. In my opinion, it’s not easy to get collaboration among these two groups. You can see that Anthropic and OpenAI are trying to shut down U.S. access to Chinese AI models, using, of course, the usual excuse of national security — which, you know, is used to justify everything these days — as a basis for saying we should not have these folks selling to Chinese organizations.

And the other basis for their complaint is that the Chinese AI platforms deliver 90% of the quality of the U.S. platforms but at 40% of the cost. So, you know, you have to decide if you’re a user: do you want the good-enough Chinese platform, or do you want to pay extra for the U.S. platform? So, this is a very heavy-duty competitive situation.

The one area where I think collaboration is necessary — you alluded to nuclear arms proliferation. You know, there’s a need for an AI arms proliferation treaty because, remember, AI enables you to go to war without costing your citizens any lives. You can go to war with AI and put no human being at risk among your citizenry, through drone technology and remote technology, etc. And think of the amount of devastation that has been incurred in Iran at the moment — and I’m not going to say only 18 lives lost on the U.S. side, but that is a very small number relative to the amount of destruction that has occurred.

So here is the area where I think there has to be cooperation because neither China nor the U.S. can afford for damaging AI technology to get into the hands of rogue operators and terrorists who are going to destabilize the global economy or hold it to ransom.

So this is my answer: not easy on the commercial front to get cooperation around a common set of standards because competition at the moment is very, very tough between these two groups. But on the higher-level issue of AI arms proliferation, there’s definitely a need for dialogue.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely, I think that’s very important. We should not weaponize AI, and maybe we should also not be the first user of AI as a weapon. I think if China and the U.S. start to talk on that, it will really benefit global governance and the global community.

As you know, President Xi not too long ago put forward the Global Governance Initiative, and I think this AI organization established in Shanghai is reflecting that. Because, as you just mentioned, China has this open AI system, so we can really put that to use for the Global South countries, benefiting their applications. I see quite a few Global South countries mention that they’re using Chinese AI to help with forecasting, help them in agriculture, and help them in rural areas — examples of AI applications.

John Quelch

And I think, Henry, you’ll find that pretty soon the Global South, when it comes to AI, will include Italy, Spain, France, and a lot of other countries that are not keeping up. So the open-source model can be very effective as a diplomatic tool for China, for sure.

Henry Huiyao Wang

I think this global AI governance, and China’s Global Governance Initiative as a whole, is really very useful to propose and then to take action on. I mean, China is talking about global governance, but China also established the World Data Organization. China established the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, and China has invited 29 countries — almost 30 countries — to join that. So I think this really sets a very good example that can really be beneficial to these Global South countries.

So on the whole, I think, of course, the Global North, as you said in the past, has been industrialized. But now, with the AI era coming, some Global North countries may become Global South countries too. That’s your point.

So, what do you think about this? You know, in the global governance arena, China and the U.S. are such big countries now, and we’re actually in these two traps. There’s a Thucydides Trap — that number two catching up to number one — but there’s also a Kindleberger Trap, where number one is leaving, and can number two fulfill the global public goods? And so, in that sense, in the governance issue area, how do you think China and the U.S. can collaborate? Because the U.S. is pulling out of some global governance organizations — WHO is a good example. So, do you think that, at least on the AI new frontier, we can all work together? And so this U.S.-China dialogue on AI, is it a good sign for global AI governance in the future?

John Quelch

You correctly allude to the increasing distance that Washington is placing between itself and many of the multilateral organizations that are curiously a part of the rules-based order. Washington itself is actually rejecting some of the elements of the so-called rules-based order that it has previously stated should govern the way in which the world operates.

So I think China has done, as one would expect, a very clever and long-term job of gradually adding value in these various organizations, and gradually having Chinese nationals appointed to — maybe not necessarily the number-one position, but among the leading implementation positions — in many of these global institutions, and that, I think, has been very effective. And I think, again, the U.S. has woken up to the fact that the U.S. interest in these organizations is not nearly as strong as it used to be, say 20 years ago, so the U.S. is therefore backing off from these organizations.

But I think, while it may be backing off on the climate front — from the Paris Agreement, from WHO, from WTO, etc. — when it comes to something that is central to national security — and I mean central, not using national security as an excuse, but central to it — such as AI, there I think there’s going to be a much more focused mindset.

I’ll give you an illustration of this from the last 24 hours: a speech was made by the chief science adviser to President Trump, which is basically saying we’re going to completely change the funding system for basic research. We’re no longer going to just channel all of our money through universities — we’re going to channel some of it through individuals, corporations, and other mechanisms. And by the way, we’re not really going to put nearly as much money into life sciences anymore — we’re going to put the money into AI.

So, you know, this is an important statement. Often you find the most important statements are coming from second-tier officials. You have to read very closely below the Trump and cabinet level. The second-tier officials are often really telling you much more about what the direction of policy really is. So I think that, again, the governance may be active, but in areas that are important to national security and to the economy, which, of course, is now wrapped up with national security more than it used to be.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely, I agree. I think now it’s time to really stress this global governance because the world is fragmented, particularly in the AI era. We really need to have more global governance. It doesn’t matter, Global South or Global North; we all need global governance together because, after all, we’re all living on the planet. And China and the U.S. now, they want to explore Mars. They’re planning to fly to the moon — so even in outer space, there should be universal governance as well, if we need that, I think.

John Quelch

I would also add ocean as well because China has been, I think, very forward in terms of maritime exploration, but also in terms of governance issues around use of the oceans.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely. So, there are many more issues there. Now I want to turn to another question. We know the U.S. used to emphasize soft power a lot, right? We have Joseph Nye, who passed away not too long ago. By the way, we’re going to publish his memoir pretty soon in Chinese, which we’ve translated. And I also co-edited a book of his on soft power and China-U.S. competition.

So, what do you think about this — soft power, hard power? Then maybe there’s a new term, comprehensive power. You need not only hard power and soft power, but also the scale, and also the implementation power. You have all the other things, soft and hard, batched together. But the key is really the implementation, and also synchronizing this kind of comprehensive power.

The U.S. has a lot of soft power, but China is also gradually building up in that area. And the U.S.’s hard power, particularly on infrastructure, is falling behind, and then you see all that security and military. Of course, there’s still competition there. But I think we should really put more effort into the soft-power approach rather than so much on hard power. So, what do you think about that area?

John Quelch

Well, I’ve never held a gun in my life, so I have to be a soft power guy. I think what you say about integration is very important. Twenty years ago, I remember hearing our generals in the United States actually talk about winning hearts and minds as part of their military agenda — let’s say in the first Gulf War, for example, back at the turn of the century. Now you never hear any United States military leader ever talk about hearts and minds. It’s the Department of War, not the Department of Defense, right?

So I think this is a real unfortunate situation, because for soft power to be effective, it has to be integrated with hard power, and the messaging has to be consistent between the two.

You’re alluding to the decline in the appeal of the United States, and certainly there’s a survey — actually a couple of surveys in the last few weeks — that show the precipitous decline in public attitude, positive attitude, towards the U.S. across a whole range of different countries. I think in one survey there were only six countries where a majority of the people interviewed had a positive, as opposed to a negative, view of the United States. Not sure if I should name them, because I might get them into trouble, but Japan is one of them, and the others, I think, are not in the room — India, Philippines, Poland. I can’t remember the other two.

Anyway, my point is that under the Trump administration, there’s been a massive deterioration in public sentiment towards the United States — not towards Americans, but towards the United States.

So you might think that would cause a wake-up in Washington. Doesn’t matter. No one cares about it. You know, it’s all about hard power, strength projected by military and economic prowess — not really interested so much in cultural power.

But if I go back to just one final comment, slightly unrelated, but I think it’s instructive: if you look at how Japan became so respected around the world after the Second World War, I’ll give you two words to explain it: Toyota and Sony. How did Korea become respected around the world? Hyundai and Samsung. How is China going to be respected around the world? BYD and Huawei. The products and services that a country delivers to the world are actually very, very important in terms of determining public attitude.

In the era of social media, I would introduce TikTok as another element in this because prior to the Trump administration going after TikTok, no one knew that it was related to China at all. As soon as Trump — or his people — went after TikTok, suddenly everybody realized, well, this is from China. But instead of saying, in that case, “I don’t want to touch it,” young people in the United States said, “Oh, that means China’s not so bad — I like China if they’re delivering TikTok.” So, you know, that’s another example, in the modern day, of a brand — not an auto brand, not an electronics brand, but a social media brand — that is representing the values, or is perceived to represent the values, of a particular country.

Henry Huiyao Wang

That’s right. I think an industrial brand, a company brand, can also be a softer brand too. China now has so much industry coming up, and that’s really a new issue too — how we can really integrate with the world, how we can invest in other countries, and welcome other countries to invest in China. So, that will actually be a subject at our think tank. The Center for China and Globalization is going to hold our annual China Inbound and Outbound Investment Forum on October 17-18 in Beijing, so we welcome you to attend as well.

My final question, before I open it up to the distinguished audience: you’re a business professor. Our paths actually coincided. You have a DBA from Harvard, and you taught at the Ivey Business School, where I did some doctoral study in business as well. But one of the things that impressed me: you’re the business dean across three continents. You’re the dean of the London Business School, you’re the dean of a Miami Business School, and then China European Business School. So management education is really taking off, also in China. You must be very familiar with that trend — millions of, you know, EMBA, MBA, and a lot of related executive development training, and that’s really pushed China’s entrepreneurial drive, not only in China but around the world.

So business education is so important. Now you’re also in charge of Duke Kunshan with your Chinese partner. What do you think about business education, and now an elite Ivy League kind of school in China — this China-U.S. JV — makes a difference? Maybe you can give a bit of your experience and observations in this area of education.

John Quelch

Okay, thank you. So, I myself, just for your information, did not study business as an undergraduate — I studied medieval history, and then later became a business educator. And someone asked me, “Well, how can you go from medieval history to teaching and being a professor at a business school?” So I’d tell them: there are two things I learned when I studied medieval history. One was how to cut people’s heads off, and the other was how to take no prisoners. Next question. Actually, these two talents are very important in academic administration.

But I think the point I want to make on the undergraduate front is this: in all the years I taught at Harvard — I was very fortunate to be on the faculty at Harvard Business School for 30 years — in all those years, I never had an outstanding student who had done business as an undergraduate degree. All the business undergraduate degree students, they would all pass, they’d all get through, but they were never the top students. The top students had always done, you know, English literature, or physics, or Chinese studies — something completely related to the arts or sciences, not related to business. So I always advocate that, you know, if you want a business degree, take an MBA, but for your undergraduate education, you should study things that you like, that are going to expand your mind, and so on.

And of course, we have so many parents, especially in China, who worry: “Oh, is my kid going to get a job at the end of the four years if they haven’t done something practical as an undergraduate?” And we try to persuade the parents that actually the best thing you can do is let your child explore the universe of education as an undergraduate, and let them find what they truly enjoy and believe in. You know, I’ve come across many, many people — actually mainly women — who are maybe, in China, 40 years old, 45 years old. They graduated in thermal engineering, and now they’re artists, because that’s what they really wanted to do all along, but Dad and Mum forced them to become engineers. So they became an engineer for 20 years, and then finally they’ve got enough money to do what they really want to do.

So, when it comes to executive education, in many ways, there are enough MBAs and executive MBAs in the marketplace, right? And now, with the internet and AI, you can learn so much, so quickly, without actually doing the MBA degree. So in many cases, business schools now are focusing on experiential learning, networking, connecting like-minded and similarly aged students with each other, so that they can collectively engage in projects that may turn into fundable ventures that could lead to incorporated IPOs, etc. So, in other words, the actual content of the curriculum in an executive MBA program is much less of a factor than it used to be 20, 30 years ago because so much of the content is readily accessible, and the laws of economics and accounting don’t change that quickly, right?

So, what we’re finding in our executive education activity at Duke Kunshan — because, although we don’t have a business school for undergraduates, we do have a lot of executive education — one of the things we’ve found to be very potent at the moment is adding well-being and wellness components to the curriculum. And when I say well-being and wellness, what I’m talking about is, you know, team building, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different colleagues, maximizing the performance of the team on behalf of objectives, but not putting at jeopardy the health of the executive, or his or her family, as a result of, you know, overstress and so on.

So let me just give you one example — I gave it to the lady from Cargill earlier. We had a group from a leading U.S. multinational company; I won’t say publicly which one. This group came — 40 people came, 25 men and 15 women — and their program included half a day in our athletics center. Our athletic center is a world-class athletics facility, as you know, and it even includes a rock-climbing wall, about 10 meters high.

So this company wanted everybody to go up the wall. Only five people made it to the top — all women, out of the 40 — not a single man made it to the top. All Chinese men, maybe a little bit too heavy, okay, a little bit too heavy. But the point is, something like that ends up having a huge effect on the company’s internal morale, because all these guys who look at these small Chinese ladies and say, “Oh, they can’t do anything,” you know — suddenly the level of respect that’s generated by such an experience and observation is really very, very important, and very high.

So, that’s just one anecdote. But what we want to highlight is that in leadership development, we’re not just sitting in a classroom listening to someone with some PowerPoint slides. We’re taking people to an athletic center and putting them through a series of team-based activities — competitive, but resulting in the manifestation of many, many revelations, both personal and in terms of the way they view their colleagues as well.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. I also know that Duke Kunshan has made huge strides and enhanced its standing globally. And you have a huge number of applicants, and you only select a very limited number. So how’s that? It’s getting very competitive now, huh?

John Quelch

We have 20 applicants for every place, I would say. To be fair, that sounds like a very impressive statistic, but to be fair, let me just say: the Gaokao has to be taken by every Chinese applicant, but it counts for only 60% of the evaluation. The other 40% of the evaluation at our university is based on two-on-one interviews with a shortlisted set of the applicant pool, as well as other campus day activities, when they have to come from all over China as part of the selection process.

So, to be frank, if one of our applicants receives an offer from Duke Kunshan and they also get into Tsinghua or Peking University, they’re going to go to Tsinghua or Peking University. Okay, we’re not yet at that level. But if they get into Shanghai Jiao Tong, they might flip to us, or they might go to Jiao Tong.

Henry Huiyao Wang

You have a very good international position.

John Quelch

30% of undergraduates are international students.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Also, there’s a lot of American students there, right?

John Quelch

Yeah, I mean, that’s one amazing thing. You might find this hard to believe, but given all of the problems in the U.S.-China relationship, we still have 60 American 18-year-olds every year commit to a four-year university degree in China. So, all hope is not lost.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, great. So, on that positive note, let’s pause the dialogue here for a while. Now we’re open for questions and Q&A — any comments, questions, and discussion.

Yes, I know, Mr. Huang. He’s the Vice President of China’s WTO Studies, and MOFCOM. Okay, thank you, please.

Huang Rengang, Vice President & and Secretary-General, the China Society for World Trade Organization Studies

Thank you, Dr. Wang and Professor Quelch for this very interesting and enlightening interview. I like the objective and rational approach of Professor Quelch in his analysis and comments. My question is this: how do you view the fact that a lot of students in university schools are using AI to finish their papers, research, and homework? And I think some Chinese teachers, or deans, leaders of universities, are aware of this. What is your view?

John Quelch

I’m not sure this is confined to Chinese universities, by any means. But someone recently defined a typical American university as a place where, thanks to AI, you have students who don’t want to learn, being taught by teachers who don’t want to teach, and paying $60,000 a year for the opportunity.

So, what are some of the things that we do? First of all, our class sizes are small — at Duke Kunshan University, a typical class size would be 20 students to a class. What that means is that during the class, there’s a lot of participation and interaction between the students, among the students, and between the faculty member and the students. And what that means is that class participation — which cannot be dictated by AI, until we have a real-time earpiece that can tell the student, or even voice the student’s answer to a question, in real time in a classroom — the grade that a professor gives should, in my view, place more emphasis on classroom participation versus the written work, because the written work obviously can be contaminated.

Now, what we’re also finding is that some professors, in response to — let’s say, if they give an essay question to their students, or a problem set — what they might do is run the problem set through AI, and give the students the AI answer along with the questions. Then the students have to go beyond the AI answer to be able to get a decent grade. So, in that way, you can use AI to set a bar of performance that’s already higher than it would be pre-AI and force the students to go beyond the AI answer to a higher level of intellectual challenge. So these are a couple of approaches that some of our professors have been using to deal with the challenge.

Liu Chang, Vice President, Cargill China

Thank you so much, Dr. Wang and Professor Quelch, for the marvelous dialogue and sharing, which is really informative and enlightening. I’d like to ask a question about coopetition in education between the two countries, especially in high tech or higher education. There used to be a lot of Chinese students going to the U.S. for higher-level study — undergrad and graduate studies — but now it seems that, due to this decoupling or de-risking, fewer and fewer Chinese students are getting involved in key American universities, especially in cutting-edge technology majors. So, would you like to share your opinions on this tendency, or your analysis of this coopetition? Thank you.

John Quelch

Yeah, okay, thank you very much. So, in the undergraduate space, there’s less of a problem. There’s a significant number of Chinese parents who this year decided not to send their children to U.S. undergraduate programs, but there’s still a high number who continue to do that. The Hong Kong universities, and their campuses in southern China, have been extremely active and aggressive in terms of trying to capture a higher share of those undergraduate students, in the face of the U.S.-China problem.

When it comes to graduate programs, doctoral theses, and research collaborations, there’s definitely a very strong inclination to avoid any geopolitically sensitive area, particularly in STEM — and even in AI, even in the most benign applications of AI, say in global health, for example. Even in those areas, there’s some degree of increased vigilance.

Kenji Kanasugi, Ambassador of Japan to China

Professor, thank you very much for your very interesting presentation, and Henry, thank you very much for the invitation. My question is, going back to the basics, I think one of the important tasks of the Trump administration is to rectify the trade imbalance, the global trade imbalance, particularly with China. There are many ways to do so, and, of course, tariffs are one way. But another important element is the exchange rate of currencies. As you may recall, in the case of Japan and China, we had the 1985 Plaza Agreement — that was really a turning point.

But under the current circumstances, I don’t see the current Trump administration pursuing the exchange rate issue with China. As you said, Secretary Bessent — a well-respected business person with very good global views — is not really forthcoming in pursuing the exchange rate issue. Why do you think the U.S. is not really pursuing the exchange rate issue at this juncture? Thank you very much.

John Quelch

Let’s put it this way: it’s a little bit complicated for the man in the street. Remember, President Trump is quite a populist president — something like a tariff is pretty easy for an individual to understand as a way of dealing with a problem. Even though it’s a blunt instrument, it’s understandable. But start talking to the public about exchange rate mechanisms, and people quickly lose attention. Their eyes glaze over. So that’s one point.

The second point: it’s very important to the United States to maintain global settlement currency leadership. So bilateral conversations around stabilizing through controlling, or adjusting exchange rates on a bilateral basis can end up having an impact on harmony that doesn’t help the long-term determination to maintain global currency leadership. And I think the U.S. is worried about that. They don’t talk about it, but inch by inch, other currencies have been settling more and more of international transactions, in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. So, I think these are the two key reasons.

But I think it’s possible that, in the next two or three rounds of dialogue with the U.S., if we’re on an even keel, the U.S.-China currency relationship may come into play as part of the behind-the-scenes conversation. I think this is definitely something to watch.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yeah, we just have another two questions. I would like to add, Ambassador, that since the U.S. holds a large amount of treasury bonds with China, they may lose value if the exchange rate appreciates, and that’s another thing. The other thing is that the U.S. is exporting a lot of dollars. China may export a lot of goods, but the U.S. is exporting dollars. They have a foreign debt higher than their GDP now. So there are many issues there, but this could be a question both countries, as the Professor mentioned, would be dealing with in the future. Ambassador from Peru, yes, please.

Carlos Vasquez, Ambassador of Peru to China

Okay, thank you very much for this event. Thank you very much, Professor Quelch, for your very enlightening presentation — very interesting. Thank you, Henry, for the invitation.

Well, my country is in the middle of this harsh competition between these two juggernauts. We try to adopt the same approach that has been developed, for example, by Singapore, in the sense that, in terms of defense and security, our key partner is the United States; in terms of trade and investment, it’s China. But we have a disadvantage: we are in the natural area of influence of the United States, so the pressures that we are receiving are increasingly very, very hard.

But we’re forced, because of the structure of the Peruvian economy and the fact that China has become our first trade partner, and we’ve received a lot of investment in key economic sectors of our country, particularly the mining sector. We are exporting critical minerals to the rest of the world, and particularly to China. And on the other side, we’re having a lot of very fruitful conversations with the United States to, for example, develop the naval base of my country, which, by the way, is going to be very close to the Port of Chancay, which was developed by a Chinese company.

So, do you think this approach is still feasible, taking into account that the margin of maneuver of the third states that are affected by this competition between these two great powers is increasingly diminishing? On the other hand, we are forced to maintain very good relations with both of them. We don’t have any other option. We’re forced by the current circumstances to pursue this policy. But do you think that is still feasible, that it’s still possible to maintain this in the near and medium term, taking into account the current situation? Thank you, thank you very much.

John Quelch

I think you have no option. You cannot afford to put all your eggs in one basket. Then you lose leverage. And in addition, you’re not going to be patted on the back by Washington, or benefit that much, if you were to throw in 100% with the U.S. Once you’ve done that, you’re probably not going to get rewarded that much for it.

I think another key dimension to this is the way other countries in Latin America are also behaving. If there were to be a wave of countries that, given new largesse from Washington, or new military pressure, were to be forced to throw in with the United States, and Peru remained neutral, if I can use that term, that might be harder to handle. That could be an opportunity to be in that position, but it could also be difficult to be in that position. So, in a way, you’re playing on a chessboard that has all of your neighbors as part of it, not just China and the United States. So it’s not just a choice between China and the U.S., it’s between China and the U.S. vis-à-vis what others, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, are doing in this circumstance as well.

And I think, actually, intra-regional dialogue on this issue is hugely important for Latin America, because it’s very easy for the superpower — whoever it is, I’m just using the term generically — to use a divide-and-rule strategy: come to a continent and just divide and rule. In other words, try to put pressure bilaterally on each country to say, “Are you with us, or are you against us?” Latin American countries need to get together and make sure that they are not played in that way.

Arvea Marieni, Director, Ecological Transition Solutions and International Affairs, BEAM CUBE

Thank you very much. First of all, I’m also here representing a French company, which is at the state-of-the-art on virtual twins — we apply some algorithms. I’m making a point about Europe: it’s not to be discounted at the moment. We are dependent on U.S. technology, for instance on cloud — 73% from the three platforms. We’re taking steps. And I’d like to remind you of something that happened yesterday in terms of security: Hugging Face was hacked by ChatGPT because one of the models left the sandbox, and the savior was a Chinese model.

Robert Lee, Ambassador of Fiji to China

Thank you, Dr. Wang and Professor Quelch. I just want to make a comment, and embedded in that comment is a question, following on from my learned friend from Peru. The discussion is competition between China and the U.S., but as we look at countries like Peru, and like ourselves, Fiji, we are not only watching this game play out, but we are actually — I won’t say by circumstance, but more by an awakening — coming to suddenly see that it is not competition, it is coopetition that we need to learn ourselves. It’s not just between China and the U.S.; its the rest of the world is understanding this model of cooperating and competing, and learning how to pick sides.

Not in a collective picking of sides, but in a deconstructed picking: Peru picks on security and economics, but we’re going beyond that. We’re now going into almost a micro selection — of universities, of courses, of sports, across all sectors — and I think that will create a new form of power beyond soft power or hard power. It’s a calculated power of the other states, learning when to use soft power, when to avoid hard power, in both cooperating and working with the U.S. and China but also between the states themselves.

So we will learn how to work with Peru, whereas before we didn’t have to. Now we will seek out how to work with Peru because maybe our fortunes are tied a little bit to South America. We don’t know yet, but we will start exploring. Singapore is exploring Africa, and I think, even for Fiji — we’re in the middle of the ocean — we’re starting to think, “Hey, we’re not that isolated. We serve a purpose.” So my point is that this awakening transcends the states, it gets into education. The kids are now learning how to play the game, right? I think they’ve learned that before, how to play Mum against Dad, right, they’ve learned that skill. But now I think they’re learning that skill with the professors, with the schools.

My daughter is going through that. She spent one year at Northwestern, right, and she’s awoken, in a sense, saying, “I’m going to take a gap year.” Why? Because “I need to realize what I want, and I don’t know what I want.” So, “Will you allow me to take a gap year to go and discover who I am?” And for her to ask that makes me reflect on this issue — that the world, and the individual, is coming to a state of competition, not so much the states, and that transcends. I think that will change the dynamics across every sector, in the way we relate to our kids in education: picking study part-time in China, part of the program in the U.S.; they will learn to pick both sides.

And I think how that will then change this context has not been factored in. The other players affecting the U.S.-China relationship, like Vietnam, could tilt it either way. If South America goes more towards China, the U.S. reacts; then Africa starts pushing, Asia pushes another way. It’s going to be a balancing act.

John Quelch

Let me just say quickly. Newton’s law comes into play, I think, in this kind of scenario: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right? And what that really requires, in my opinion, is a level of continuity of leadership, a sense of history, and the importance of diplomatic history that can inform current elected leaders’ decisions.

I think we see this sometimes in the United States today, that there’s no sense of history at all, no recollection of scenarios that were similar, that played out poorly in the past. And if the world is more complicated to navigate because it’s multipolar, if there’s a need for a small country to build these relations in an exploratory way with many, many countries, not just with, in your case, Australia and New Zealand, then that requires a lot of knowledge, a lot of history, a lot of experience. And you have to make sure that your government knows to capture that through the caliber of its foreign service personnel over time. And continuity in the foreign service is very important.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, we have the last two questions — one from the chief representative of the IMF in China, and also from a former chairman of Sinopec.

Marshall Mills, Senior Representative in China, IMF

Thank you. So my question is more from my previous life, when I worked on U.S.-China economic relations and China’s accession to the WTO, which fostered a lot of coupling between the U.S. and China business sectors. Now we see decoupling of the business sectors: U.S. companies are not investing, or at least not making new investment, in China. There’s resistance to Chinese investment in the U.S. Where do you think this is going? What will the new coopetition look like in the business sector between the two countries?

Fu Chengyu, Former Chairman, Sinopec Group

Okay, thank you very much for sharing about the U.S.-China relations, but I will ask a question not directly related to the current U.S. questions, but one that will have an impact on the long term of such relations, which is the U.S.-Iran war. What we understand is that President Trump can not stop the war. They have to continue because within the U.S. there are three forces pushing him toward the war. One is what we call the military-industrial complex. Second is zionism. And the third is Israel — Netanyahu, who is pushing Trump toward the war. MAGA people do not want war. And I think that’s why Trump renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Now it seems Trump wants to stop for the midterm elections, but they couldn’t stop because the other forces — Iran will strongly oppose or retaliate — so that’s what’s keeping Trump from stopping.

My question is: what are your expectations for the end results? Will the Iranian administration totally change? Will the Strait of Hormuz be fully open? Or will we see continued fighting and closing of the Strait of Hormuz for another six months or a year? So, what are your expectations?

Song Yaoming, Former Minister, Economic and Commercial Counsellor’s Office, Chinese Embassy in Japan; Former Commercial Counselor, Department of Asian Affairs, MOFCOM

Thank you, Henry, for giving me this opportunity, and Professor Quelch, thank you very much for your insightful presentation — I very much enjoyed your perspective. If I may, I would like to hear your thoughts on one question: how can universities like Duke Kunshan University and think tanks like CCG make use of AI to expand academic collaboration, policy dialogues, and people-to-people exchange, so that they can continue to serve as a trusted Track Two bridge, even during times of strategic competition? Thank you.

John Quelch

Let me try to briefly respond to each of the three questions.

So, to take the last question first. I think this is actually a very interesting idea that you pose. We’re thinking about how we can work with other universities using AI dialogue, but with teams of students at different universities working on the same problem, but also sharing, in an AI-based dialogue, what their answers should be to, let’s say, how do we address climate change in the next 10 years? So, cross-university collaborations, either at the student level or the researcher level, are possible, and can be leveraged effectively through using AI tools.

On the first question, regarding trade and investment. Trade is always easier to deal with, I think, and easier to activate, than investment. And it’s true that there’s been a considerable slowdown in bilateral investment. Those investments that Chinese companies have made in the U.S. that are particularly laudable are investments in industries that are not necessarily super sensitive, you know. For example, there’s a Chinese company, I think I may pronounce the name wrong, Wanxiang, which is in the auto parts, or auto components, sector. Over the last 15 years, they made a number of investments in the Midwest of the U.S., buying companies that were almost bankrupt, or were bankrupt, and saving hundreds and hundreds of jobs in Ohio, Indiana, and so on by bringing their manufacturing expertise, which enabled them to turn around those businesses. And that company then became very well received and lauded by the mayors and governors of those states, and the cities where they saved the jobs.

So, my advice, wherever you’re going to invest, is to always remember the words of President Kennedy: ask not what China can do for you, ask what you can do for China. And you can apply the same thing to the United States, or any country. It’s a very important question to ask before you invest, and your reception as an investor will depend on how much you’re going to be contributing to the place that’s now hosting your investment.

So, on the war. I’m quite pessimistic on this issue. I’m not an expert, but I’m quite pessimistic, and I’ll tell you why. Forty-seven years is a long time between the United States and Iran, and it’s been like this all the way. President Trump obviously activated a military action that took out most of the leadership of the country. President Trump does not have a monopoly on retribution; he likes to think about retribution in terms of his political opponents domestically, but Iran also might have a view on retribution.

November is not that far away, for the Senate and congressional elections. I can imagine some nefarious thinking in Tehran about what surprise they could give President Trump, around about October the first, that would maybe upset the stock markets of the world, and maybe he loses those elections. I don’t know. All I’m saying is, from a geopolitical scenario-planning point of view, I hope someone in Washington is thinking about that.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, good. On that note, I think our time is up. We had a very good, stimulating, but also very in-depth dialogue with Professor Quelch at the CCG VIP luncheon. We also had extremely active participation from our distinguished audience, and your questions and comments were really all valuable.

I particularly think that the theme of the luncheon today is coopetition, and I think in the world of the 21st century, we have so many things coming — uncertainty, AI, climate, all that global debt, and all those issues around trade and investment. We really need cooperation — that’s still the buzzword — but of course we don’t avoid competition. We just finished the World Cup, so let’s have a World Cup style or an Olympic-style competition. I was so amazed that, you know, 48 countries participated where everyone played by the rules and a winner was selected. There are some frictions, but not really a fight, or “wipe you out,” or things like that.

So, I think in the spirit of the World Cup, and in the spirit of the Olympics, why don’t we have this friendly competition, but really maintain cooperation? So that’s probably this new concept, which is really an old concept that we need to give new meaning to, not just for business, but also for geopolitical, country-to-country relations into the future.

So, on that note, I really want to thank Professor Quelch for your excellent dialogue with us today, and we hope to have you again in the future. Okay, let’s take a photo together.

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Titled “Reimagining Globalization: Asia’s Vision for an Open World,” the session was chaired by Jake Yu, Global Managing Partner of Peregrine Ventures, USA.

Other panellists included Roger King, Founder and Chairman of ODS Holdings Inc., Hong Kong; Vinod Sekhar, Chairman of Petra Group, Malaysia; and Michael Yeoh, President of the KSI Strategic Institute for Asia Pacific, Malaysia.

Wang observed that China’s growing economic weight gives it both the opportunity and the responsibility to help sustain a rules-based global trading order — one reshaped for a more multipolar world rather than built around a single centre.

Mabel Lu Miao, co-founder and secretary-general of CCG, was also invited to attend the forum and speak at the session “Asia 2076: Eastern Wisdom, New Productive Forces,” held on the afternoon of 9 July.

The following article has been compiled from Wang’s remarks during the panel discussion and lightly edited and connected for clarity.

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I want to thank Frank for inviting me and congratulate Horasis on the tenth anniversary of the Horasis Asia Meeting. This is great. We have all the Asian leaders and Asian elites sitting in this room, and I have really enjoyed the discussion we have had so far.

The topic is globalisation. I think globalisation itself, as a system for the greater good over the last 81 years, needs to be upgraded, improved and enhanced. I am not saying globalisation is dead. I think we need to reform the system. That is probably what we need to do.

I would like to share a few of my thoughts about the megatrends that we are going to see.

Asia’s emerging role

First of all, Asia is going to become the biggest leading economy in the world. We already have over half of the world’s population. We are already getting close to 50 per cent of global GDP. Most of all, we have no wars right now here in the Far East. I mean, it is incredible.

China is still growing, maintaining around 5 per cent GDP growth and contributing over 30 per cent of global GDP growth.

I think Asia is going to become an anchor of the world economy for the foreseeable future — the next 25 or even 50 years. I think that trend is a megatrend that will continue. That is the number one trend I am seeing.

The second trend I am seeing is that Asia is also going to be a new saviour of globalisation. We see that globalisation has had all the bumps and setbacks, as well as deglobalisation.

The WTO is under enormous threat. The United States has pulled out of the WTO Appellate Body, and we also see the United States pulling out of 66 international organisations.

But in Asia, regional governance and multilateralism remain very strong.

Michael just mentioned RCEP, the largest free trade agreement in the world. We also talk about the CPTPP. Japan and Australia are really making the CPTPP more attractive. China wants to join it, and the UK has just joined it as well.

As a new set of rules and a new trade scheme for the world, Asia is really providing a lot for the people in this partnership. In that sense, Asia is setting a new trend for the future of the trading system.

Trade is still the most booming and active area of Asia. ASEAN is China’s largest trading partner. It used to be the United States, but ASEAN has since taken over. You can see how strong this area is.

That is my second trend: Asia is making new schemes, conducting new experiments and pursuing new reforms to really push for globalisation.

Number three is that Asia is also a major source of support and a main component of the BRICS countries. China and India are the two largest Global South countries and are enormously important.

The GDP of the BRICS countries is already larger than that of the G7. Newly thriving nations such as the BRICS countries are taking new shapes and forms, and China and India are really making a huge contribution there.

I would say that this is also, again, coming out of Asia.

The fourth megatrend I can see concerns the Asia-Pacific. Shenzhen is going to host the APEC summit this year. President Trump is coming. He will show off his new Air Force One. He said he is going to fly it to Shenzhen. We will see what comes out of that.

What I am saying is that the Asia-Pacific will probably become more stable. I see China–US relations moving from strategic rivalry under Trump 1.0 to strategic stability under Trump 2.0. That is going to move the Asia-Pacific towards greater strategic stability. I think that is great.

Number five is that the United States is actually pulling back quite a bit. The United States is pivoting towards Latin America and really concentrating on the Western Hemisphere.

In the Asia-Pacific, and Asia in particular, I see more room for movement. China will play a more active role. The Pacific is big enough to accommodate both United States and China.

You talked about global governance. China is proposing a lot of new schemes, such as the recent establishment of the international mediation centre in Hong Kong. China will host an AI summit next month in Shanghai. I am going to propose setting up an international AI organization. China has also just set up an international World Data Organization, or WDO.

I think there are a lot of new reforms coming up to really push globalisation forward.

The final trend I can predict is that the integration of Asia is going to be central to this new globalisation.

ASEAN, as Michael mentioned, is such a great model. It is a little bit different from the European Union. In the European Union, all 27 members have a veto. You cannot just do things. But ASEAN works by consensus, which is really great.

Can we really start from ASEAN? Can we have an Asian Union? Mahathir Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew mentioned this many years ago. Let us get China into this. Let us get India, Japan and South Korea into this. I see Asia gradually becoming an economic magnet.

Basically, these are two different philosophies that China and the United States are pursuing. The United States really has securitization, with 800 military bases around the world. China does not really have many military bases—basically none. But China is developing economically based organizations, starting from Asia.

We have the China–Africa Summit, the China–Latin America Summit, the China–Central Asia Summit, the China–Arab States Summit and the China–Europe Summit. There is a lot of collaboration that China can pursue to push for economic globalisation.

Asia itself is going to be a big magnet and a big driving force for globalisation over the next quarter-century.

In that sense, China has proposed more economically centred global governance.

As the United States pulls out of the WHO, China has announced that it will donate US$500 million to the WHO. China also supports the United Nations. Twenty per cent of its budget comes from China, while the United States has not paid on time.

China has almost become the largest contributor. China is also the largest peacekeeping-contributing country among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

I can see China and Asia also pivoting towards the wider world. Things are really becoming very significant. We need new global governance to reform the existing system.

I really appreciate President Trump’s visit and the movement in China–US relations from strategic rivalry to strategic stability.

We will probably have two major powers, but all the other countries do not have to pick sides now. They will just choose on the merits. Who is going to provide benefits? Who is going to bring more economic benefits?

We are entering a very interesting world, and Asia will make the difference.

A proposal for an Asia summit

In terms of the most important thing to do over the next 12 months, I would like to make a proposal out of this meeting.

We are having the 2026 Horasis Asia Meeting. In the next 12 months, we should have an Asia summit.

We have an African summit involving 54 countries. We have a Latin American summit. We have an EU summit. We do not have an Asia summit.

Let us get all the Asian leaders together. Let us come to Hong Kong or go somewhere else. Let us have an Asia summit.

That will probably be the most important thing, at least for Asian leaders to build up trust, have face-to-face dialogue and really come to the table—to have a big round table of all the Asian leaders.

Asia is the engine. It is the future growth of the world. It also needs to work with all the other continents.

I think we really need some critical new thinking over the next 12 months. I think it is clear.

A proposal for an “AI20”

I also have a proposal concerning artificial intelligence.

We are going to have a G20 summit in Miami in December this year. But we see that the world is becoming more and more dangerous.

Why can we not have an “AI20”?

Let us get the 20 largest AI companies to sit together and talk about the pros and cons, the dangers, the risks that we may face, and how we can work together.

Rather than remaining divided and having an AI arms race, we need to recognize that we could be creating a disaster. AI could be more dangerous than nuclear bombs. Humanity could be wiped out by AI.

Alongside the G20, let us have the AI20. Let us get the 20 largest AI companies in the world to sit together and talk about how we can really build a better world and how AI can serve humanity.

The balance between the market and government

There is always a swing back and forth. We talk about small government and a big market. The Third Plenum document of the Communist Party of China also said that the market should play a decisive role.

But as the world becomes more complicated and globalisation deepens, I think there needs to be a balance between the market and government.

For example, we saw the financial crisis. It was all left to the market, and then the market crashed.

China combined the market reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping with government planning, including five-year plans. That produced the miracle.

I think the United States is actually learning some of that. The CHIPS Act and other government interventions are examples. Government intervention in Europe has also been speeded up.

The way forward is to strike the right balance, as China is trying to do.

For example, China’s private sector contributes more than 50 per cent of tax revenue, more than 60 per cent of GDP, 70 per cent of innovation, 80 per cent of employment and 90 per cent of enterprises.

Then another part of the economy consists of SOEs, which do all the difficult jobs in key sectors, including disaster relief, earthquake relief and high-speed railways. These can be losing businesses, but they provide public goods.

Then there are multinational companies. They employ 40 million Chinese employees and account for 40 per cent of China’s exports.

We all talk about the overcapacity of China’s electric vehicles, but 20 per cent of those vehicles are made by multinational companies, including Tesla, BMW and many others.

This hybrid system that China has right now has supported the fastest-growing economy over the last four decades. That is probably the right balance.

You have a large private sector. You have some multinational companies. You have some SOEs.

Government and market forces have to really find a compromise. That right balance is something everybody is in search of, and I think China is conducting a big experiment.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by Foreign Policy on September 30, 2025 and included in this collection, argues that the UN Security Council must become more representative and less vulnerable to paralysis. It proposes expanding the body around the G21 and allowing a supermajority of the Council and General Assembly to override a unilateral veto.

How to Fix the Security Council

Adding Members and Removing the Unilateral Veto Would Make the Body Stronger.

At the 80th United Nations General Assembly high-level debates last week, a host of global leaders called for a more effective and representative Security Council. In the words of Finnish President Alexander Stubb: “If countries from the Global South, from Latin America, from Africa, from Asia, do not get agency in the system, they will turn their backs against the United Nations.”

Indeed, the Council’s shortcomings are playing out all too clearly today in Gaza and Ukraine. The United States has used its unilateral veto to block a host of resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, enabling the genocidal conflict to continue. Meanwhile, Russia has consistently blocked any meaningful Security Council response to the war in Ukraine since 2022, despite international condemnation and profound humanitarian suffering.

However, despite the Security Council’s flaws, there is no real substitute for it. If it drifts into irrelevance, this would simply remove the last vestiges of effective global coordination. The challenge, then, is not whether to reform the council, but how to do so.

It is against this backdrop that Chinese President Xi Jinping launched a new Global Governance Initiative. Xi is calling for a fairer and more inclusive multilateral system, one without double standards that places the United Nations at its core.

To realize this global vision, the Security Council should enact structural and procedural reform. First, the council should expand its membership to better reflect the world of today. Second, it should develop a mechanism to limit the use of unilateral vetoes to prevent a single state from standing athwart an international consensus. Together, these reforms can revitalize the Security Council’s credibility and capacity, transforming it from a forum of gridlock into a more responsive and effective guardian of the peace.

The Security Council’s current structure—five permanent members and 10 rotating nonpermanent members—reflects, at best, the geopolitical realities at the time of the last set of Security Council reforms in 1965. This structure should be updated by adding a new class of associate permanent member seats.

To that end, all current G21 (formerly G20) members should be given a seat on an expanded Security Council. This would eliminate the 10 existing rotating seats and create 16 new permanent associate seats. These new states would not have an individual veto, but together with the other four permanent members, they could override the use of the unilateral veto.

This would preserve the institutional legacy of the original five full members, while elevating voices that reflect today’s multipolar economic and political order. In doing so, it would enhance the council’s legitimacy, improve regional representation, and embed the Security Council more firmly within the real architecture of the current global order.

Previous reform efforts have stumbled over the question of how to allot new seats in the Council. Here, the G21 offers an elegant solution. It is comprised of an even mix of developed and developing countries. Using it as the basis for reform addresses some of the underrepresentation of the Global South while still recognizing the enduring power of incumbents. Today, the G21’s members comprise over 85% of global GDP, and has already helped coordinate multilateral responses to some of the world’s most pressing economic challenges. Under this new model the expanded UN Security Council would consist of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Túrkiye, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the African Union and the European Union, which would each have one collective vote.

The second reform necessary to restore function is a procedural one. The unilateral veto has created paralysis in the Security Council, allowing even urgent humanitarian measures to be stalled indefinitely. To this day, the veto has seen use a staggering total of 324 times in less than 80 years at an average rate of four vetoes a year. This includes 159 vetoes by the Soviet Union or Russian Federation, 94 by the United States, 32 by the United Kingdom, 21 by China, and 18 by France.

Even seemingly straightforward matters, such as the admission of new members, can become mired in contention as the Soviet Union adroitly demonstrated early in the Cold War and as the United States demonstrates today in blocking Palestinian membership. Beyond this, the impact of the veto is likely worse than we can see. Its looming presence ensures that many resolutions are killed behind closed doors in private conversation, as those drafting the documents are quietly informed that their resolutions will be vetoed.

Previous reform initiatives have attempted to tackle the veto problem. The French–Mexican proposal, first advanced in 2013, called for permanent members to voluntarily suspend their veto in cases of mass atrocities. The Accountability, Coherence, and Transparency Group later advanced a code of conduct, now supported by more than 120 states, which urges P5 states to retain from using their vetoes in situations of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes.

But a more substantial fix is required. To solve the problems created by the unilateral veto, we must weaken it by instituting a supermajority override. Under this proposal, if over two-thirds of the expanded Security Council, that is to say 15 of its members, and two-thirds of the General Assembly voted to override the veto of a single P5 member, the resolution in question would pass.

After all, if two-thirds of both bodies can agree to override a single P5 member veto, it clearly represents a broad international consensus. A singular P5 member should not be able to block a UNSC resolution passed by all other permanent members, two-thirds of the other 16 permanent associate members, and two-thirds of the 193 members in the General Assembly.

This new proposal would benefit countries in the Global South that previously were unable to meaningfully take part in international rulemaking and security due to inviolable vetoes from above. At the same time, there is no reason for existing P5 members to fear the consequences of this reform. The P5 would still be able to impose a binding veto on any resolution so long as at least two members were in agreement. This would offer some reassurance, even as it prevents a single power from derailing collective action and raised the political cost of casting a veto in the first place.

This simple change would have immediate ramifications. From Yemen to Gaza, it would open the door to resolving conflicts that have gone from ugly to horrific. The removal of the unilateral veto would break down the barrier that has all too often kept UN peacekeepers and relief efforts from addressing some of the worst tragedies in history.

Reforming the UN would signal a renewed commitment to the founding ideals of the United Nations—peace, cooperation, justice, human rights, and shared responsibility. The result would be a Security Council better suited for the present and better prepared for the future.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by CGTN on March 27, 2025 and revised for this collection, examines the impact of rising trade barriers and unilateralism on the global economy. It argues that deeper Asian integration, stronger regional trade frameworks, and renewed support for the World Trade Organization can help defend multilateralism and drive a more equitable global recovery.

The Outlook for Multilateralism Under the Shadow of Protectionism

Advancing economic integration and cooperation among Asian nations can help to spur a broader movement toward multilateralism and drive global recovery and institutional reform in a direction that is more equitable.

As we enter 2025, the rise of unilateralism and protectionism has dealt fresh blows to global stability and economic recovery. The global economy’s challenges and uncertainties are mounting, fueling growing concern and anxiety within the international community. Against this shifting global backdrop, how to advance economic globalization and uphold multilateralism has become a pressing issue for Asian countries.

Around the world, trade barriers, economic sanctions, tariffs, and other protectionist measures have hindered cross-border economic cooperation and restrained global growth. In such a context, how Asian countries can take on a more proactive role in driving global economic recovery and stability, particularly in promoting sustainable development and economic integration, has become a key issue in the current global economic landscape.

As the global economic environment continues to evolve, Asian countries’ strategic importance is increasing. The ongoing Boao Forum for Asia Annual Report on Asia’s Economic Outlook highlights how Asian countries like China are taking the lead globally in growth promotion, green development, energy transition, and innovation, especially in cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence. This shift has not only spurred regional economic expansion in Asia but also injected strong momentum and vast potential into the sustainable development of the global economy.

Yet the global trade landscape is being reshaped by the rise of protectionist policies, most notably those stemming from US unilateralism and protectionism. Prolonged trade wars, escalating tariffs, and tightening economic restrictions have posed severe challenges to both China and the broader global economy.

Despite mounting external pressure, China has responded with a measured and strategic approach by prioritizing market openness and diversification of trade partnerships. China has demonstrated resilience amid a turbulent global trade environment through tax cuts and by granting tariff exemptions to over 40 of the world’s least developed countries (LDCs).

One telling indicator of this shift is the declining role of the United States in China’s overall trade portfolio: the United States now accounts for just 11% of China’s total imports and exports, down about 10% from a peak of 21.5% in 2002. Although the United States has imposed steep tariffs on Chinese goods, the protectionist measures spearheaded by the Trump administration have ultimately failed to suppress the growth of bilateral trade. In fact, despite tariff pressures, the total volume of China–US trade has risen from $500 billion to over $600 billion, marking about a 20% increase.

In addressing global economic challenges, China has responded with restraint and strategic precision rather than resorting to sweeping retaliatory measures. For instance, China opted for targeted countermeasures on roughly 100 specific product categories instead of launching all-out trade retaliation. This calibrated response reflects a fundamental economic truth: in a trade war, there are no winners.

In this context, the pursuit of Asian integration takes on heightened significance. As one of the primary engines of global economic growth, China should work proactively to deepen cooperation with its regional neighbors, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), India, South Korea, and Japan, to lay the groundwork for a broader Asian alliance. Beyond economics, Asia also possesses unique cultural elements that can serve as powerful bonds of unity. Shared traditions, such as Confucian values and the symbolic “chopstick culture,” reflect common philosophical roots and lifestyles that can help foster a stronger sense of regional solidarity. Over time, this envisioned Asian alliance could encompass Central Asia, South Asia, the Gulf region, and even parts of the Pacific Rim, contributing to global economic integration.

In addition to regional integration, establishing cooperative mechanisms like the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is equally vital. Through multilateral cooperation, Asia can forge greater resilience and unleash more innovative potential, accelerating regional economic integration while supporting the broader recovery and development of the global economy. The CPTPP is not just a supplement to the international free trade system; it is a significant force driving Asia’s own integration and advancing globalization more broadly. Over the coming years, Asia’s economic potential is expected to expand substantially, particularly in emerging sectors such as intelligent manufacturing, green development, and the digital economy.

As a major player in global trade, China should deepen cooperation with the European Union, Australia, and Latin American countries to help shape a more open, fair, and inclusive global trade system. The World Trade Organization (WTO) remains the central governing body of international trade, and preserving its authority is essential to ensuring that global commerce continues to operate within a rules-based framework. China has consistently advocated for WTO reform and multilateral trade agreements recently. In September 2024, during the WTO Public Forum, the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) hosted a seminar at WTO Headquarters in Geneva, emphasizing the importance of advancing trade liberalization. The event urged global economies to take initiative in pushing trade reform, rather than passively waiting for the United States to re-engage in the multilateral system.

In conclusion, under the growing shadow of protectionism, Asian countries must remain committed to multilateralism, advance their efforts to enhance regional cooperation, and assume greater global responsibility. By advancing integration within Asia and deepening cooperation with other global economies, the region is poised to become an important engine of global growth. It will play an increasingly central role in shaping the world economy. The current challenges and uncertainties are a test of resilience and a critical opportunity to drive economic recovery and long-term development. Asian countries should take on a more proactive role in this process, working together to help steer the global economy toward a more stable, prosperous, and sustainable future.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by the South China Morning Post on August 22, 2023 and revised for this collection, examines the growing influence and internal diversity of the Global South. It argues that China should support stronger research and dialogue networks, improve relations with India, enhance BRICS cooperation, expand Global South forums, and use its experience with developed and developing economies to promote more effective North–South cooperation.

How China Can Step Up to Its Responsibilities in a Rising Global South

As the rise of the Global South brings opportunities and risks to South–South cooperation, China must boost dialogue, work more with India, and drive North–South cooperation.

The importance of this week’s BRICS summit cannot be understated, especially given the possibility of the expansion of a grouping that already comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. This moment is also indicative of the wider rise of the Global South.

In February 2023, the Munich Security Conference added a panel discussion on how the Global North can better cooperate with the Global South. At the G7 summit in May, host Japan pushed to strengthen the Group of Seven’s ties with the Global South and specifically invited the leaders of several developing countries to the Hiroshima meeting.

“The Global South is becoming more visible—and influential—in every arena,” said Foreign Policy magazine at the start of the year.

While the Voice of Global South Summit, a virtual meeting hosted by India earlier this year, was attended by more than 100 countries, there is no universally accepted definition of which countries exactly comprise the Global South. There are, for instance, Global South countries in the geographic North, and vice versa.

Yet this flexibility reflects the nature of the Global South, a community where states recognize in one another their similar situations. Economically, the community is developing and looking to improve. Politically, it is a multilateral alliance with diversified values and interests.

Despite the escalation of the Ukraine crisis and global political divisions, most countries have chosen to neither take sides nor join the strategic suppression of Russia. Clearly, Global South countries prefer to keep an independent foreign policy and a non-aligned position.

In recent years, major powers in the Global North have introduced initiatives to strengthen their connection with the Global South, often in hope of obtaining greater geopolitical benefits. These include the US-led Build Back Better World and the EU’s Global Gateway.

Compared to the United States, however, the European Union appears to have a more nuanced interest in the Global South. While safeguarding members’ interests in former colonies, the EU also hopes to enhance its security in energy and food by “derisking.” In essence, the EU sees a third path in a new global order, dominated by neither the United States nor China, and needs to build common interests with the Global South.

At the same time, India and Russia play important roles in Global South countries. India positions itself as a North–South power—deeply intertwined with the Global North in strategic goals and values, while remaining an integral part of the Global South, seeking to become a bridge in leading the community to build a new diplomatic equilibrium.

Russia’s diplomatic focus, meanwhile, has been on former Soviet states, the Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. Their reliance on energy, food, chemical fertilizers, and other commodities from Russia makes decoupling difficult. Through engagement, Russia has strengthened its position and cooperation with the Global South.

With the rise of the Global South comes opportunities to deepen South–South cooperation. But any hasty moves can bring risks, intensify North–South tensions, and exacerbate confrontations worldwide. China, seen as a pivotal country in the Global South as far back as in 2004, should take on its due responsibilities.

First, it should encourage and support Global South think tanks and institutions, and jointly conduct research with other Global South countries to examine issues such as exchange mechanisms. Western countries have already established several Global South think tanks and research centers.

Second, a new world order aligned with the demands of the Global South should be proposed and promoted. The rise of the Global South may be an unstoppable trend but the process will not be smooth. The looseness, fragility, and diversity of the community means it is less able to sidestep risks and more prone to infighting. To guard against exclusion, China should embrace developing countries, keep close ties with its partners, and work to enhance the cohesion of the Global South.

Third, China must work to improve relations with India and to bolster the inflence and function of BRICS. As a grouping, BRICS’ economy has surpassed the G7 in purchasing parity terms power.

Sino–Indian relations have been stagnant for years but with India having chaired the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit and set to preside over the G20 summit in December, there is hope that relations will get better. Both China and India are in a position to work with other major developing countries and lead cooperation in the Global South to promote BRICS. Expansion will only enhance the impact of the “BRICS Plus” format in addressing the concerns of the Global South.

Fourth, China should hold more Global South forums to enhance official and non-governmental exchanges. Existing platforms include the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, and China-CELAC Forum with the Latin American and Caribbean states.

China should invite high-level officials and experts from industry and academia to hold more diverse Global South forums. Regularly held, these can facilitate standards for South–South cooperation and establish inclusive and equitable rules for cooperation in areas such as the digital economy, climate change, and sustainable development.

Finally, China should work on stronger, better, coordinated North–South cooperation. For many, China epitomizes the rising Global South. China’s economic and technological cooperation with many countries in the Global South is also greater than that of developed countries.

Given China’s experience in cooperating with developed countries, its role as a go-between might be more appealing to the Global North. In this sense, China should consider enhancing North–South exchanges and cooperation, while avoiding an escalation of tensions.

As a country with both developing and developed elements, China could marry the interests of both communities to promote a more sustainable global development and better global governance.

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Moderated by François Miguet, Deputy Editor of Le Point, and coordinated by economist Jean Pisani-Ferry, the panel also featured Corentine Poilvet-Clédière, Chief Executive Officer of the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG); Rafaèle Tordjman, Chairwoman of Jeito; and Kitty van der Heijden, Deputy Executive Director for Partnerships at UNICEF.

Wang argued that the emerging multipolar world requires a stronger and reformed multilateral system. He called on China and Europe to work together to safeguard multilateral institutions, urged Europe not to take sides in China-U.S. competition, and advocated dialogue and economic cooperation over sanctions, containment, and the weaponization of trade and technology.

This transcript is based on the session’s English simultaneous interpretation. Wang and Poilvet-Clédière spoke in English, while the other panelists spoke in French. It has been lightly edited for clarity and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

The video is available here:

François Miguet, Deputy Editor, Le Point

Good afternoon. Thank you for being with us for this session one at the Les Rencontres Économiques Meetings. Our session is called “Multilateralism: End of Cooperation, Advent of Predation.” My name is François Miguet, and I’ve got five people with me for this panel. We have Kitty van der Heijden, who is Assistant Secretary General and Executive Director General for Partnerships from UNICEF. Corentine Poilvet-Clédière, who is the Chief Executive for France at the London Stock Exchange. Rafaèle Tordjman from Jeito Capital, an independent fund for biopharmaceutical companies. We have Professor Henry Huiyao Wang from Beijing, chair of the Center for China and Globalization. Finally, we have the economist who has coordinated this panel, Jean Pisani-Ferry, who is a professor at Sciences-Po in Paris and is a member of a number of think tanks.

So I’m going to hand over to Jean to give us a brief introduction, and then we will talk about this fascinating theme of globalization today.

Jean Pisani-Ferry, Professor, Sciences-Po Paris; Senior Fellow at Bruegel and the Peterson Institute

Thank you, François. I would like to just give a very brief introduction, and I’d like to start by mentioning three key dates in the era that we are starting to experience.

The first date is 2008, and the financial crisis when Western countries lost their reputation for competencies. Until 2008, emerging countries said they might be a little bit unpleasant, unbearable, even, but at least they’re competent. But from 2008 onwards, the emerging countries realized that that was no longer the case.

The second date is the COVID crisis, 2020. This was when the world realized that all of the interdependencies that we had built up, these value chains, were not resilient enough, and that the quest for total efficiency had come at the expense of robustness, resilience; and this was a very significant turning point because this lesson has not been forgotten.

The third key date, which I’d like to mention, is obviously 2022. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which demonstrated that we live in a much more violent world than before, and a world which has a very chance of remaining as violent as that.

It’s a new world that we’re living in, and I want to give you a brief analysis from my point of view of what this new world looks like. First of all, the USA is tired of playing the role of global policeman in the world that it had played up till now. With Trump, the states have moved on from being the global policeman to being the global predator, and that’s perhaps where the title of this panel session has come from.

The question one might ask is: is this a sustainable position in terms of the predatory attitude? It probably isn’t going to be sustainable. The fact that the USA was tired of the role it was playing in the world, and the fact that the U.S. has decided to change its role, I think that is a lasting change. I think that’s a very important first thing to say.

The second observation I’d like to make is that China has upturned world trade. I know that’s a very obvious thing to say. Currently, China represents 16% of world GDP by value. It represents 22% of GDP in PPP, purchasing power parity, and it accounts for around 30% of manufacturing production. It’s no longer possible to imitate or compete with China, and that’s been the case since around the turn of the millennium.

It’s a new world. We live in a multipolar world because this world is no longer dominated by the West. I say a multipolar world because behind China there are other emerging countries who are asking to be part of decision-making processes, so we have to learn to cope with this multipolar world. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today.

And my final point is to say that, with all of that, the world’s common goods are still around; they’re still with us, and we’re reminded of it in many different ways. The most recent example of this is the heatwave we’ve just lived through in Northern Europe. This is just one example of the range of global struggles that will require multilateral cooperation.

So, I’ve mentioned three key dates. I talked about us living in a very different world, and in many ways, we need to get to know this new world and get to know how to navigate within it.

Francois Miguet

Thank you Jean for that very full and global overview. You’ve got a round of applause for that. I’m going to start with you, Professor Wang. You came from Beijing to join us here in the heat of Aix-en-Provence. Do you share the observations that Professor Pisani-Ferry has shared with us? Do you share this view of America as a global predator? And do you share this view of a different role that China is now playing, a role that concerns some other countries of the world? And in your view, what is the state of multilateralism today?

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder & President, CCG

Thank you, moderator. I tend to agree with Professor Jeans’s comments. I think, as we all know, we are getting into a multipolar world. This has already happened. But what I can also see is that, for the last 81 years since the Bretton Woods system, globalization has still achieved great success. For example, our global GDP in dollar terms has gone up 40 times, compared with 1949, and global trade has gone up almost 400 times in dollar terms. So things are still really moving.

I think just now Jean mentioned the financial crisis of 2008. Talked about the pandemic in 2020. I was here at this conference in 2022 when China was in lockdown. We were the only think tank coming out of China to attend this conference. Of course, now we have war going on — not only in Ukraine, but also Iran and many, many other places now. So the war is really getting more fragmented, and, to people’s surprise, things are really out of control. We are really going into a multipolar world, but there’s no multilateral system to support it. Also, effective minilateralism or polylateralism is still not enough. I remember the Munich Security Conference this year, the report “Under Destruction.” There’s a big elephant getting into the China shop, knocking down all the Chinese vessels and things like that.

I think that unilateralism is very prevalent. We saw what happened in Latin America; we saw what happened in Iran; we saw what happened in Venezuela, so the multilateral system, the UN system, is not really effective. What I envision for the future is that we’re getting into a multipolar world. There are really two major poles, which are the U.S. and China, and of course there are other poles — like the European Union, of course, India, and the Global South, and many more.

Among these two major poles, I think there is some progress now because the U.S. has realized that it cannot really contain China, and it cannot really afford to have a trade war with China. President Trump visited Beijing two months ago, and President Xi is going to visit the U.S. in two months’ time, so there is some kind of understanding going on between the two. In Trump’s first term, there was strategic rivalry between China and the U.S. Now, in Trump’s second term, the U.S. and China have reached a consensus to achieve strategic stability. And I think this is great.

My thinking is that these two major poles need some kind of balance, whether through mutually assured deterrence or mutually assured destruction. Then we may see other poles start playing major roles, like the European Union. I think it’s good for other poles not to take sides, and maybe mediate, promote the relationship between China and the U.S., and also not really follow U.S. practice, because U.S. practice was not working: they have a trade war, sanctions, and unilateralism. That’s the kind of path the European Union should probably avoid. We should really seek dialogue, discussions, and consultations.

I think it is really, really important for China, European Union, WTO, WHO, United Nations, UNICEF, you name it, to safeguard multilateralism. China and the EU have so much in common in terms of safeguarding multilateralism. So I think Europe, as one pole, should not really take sides. It’s no longer China versus the West, or the West versus the rest. It’s completely on a merit basis. We will side with whoever is doing well.

So in that sense, I think we really need to build a good new multipolar world and a new multilateral system. China, the European Union, the United States, the Global South can then all work together. Let’s support the UN and also reform the UN and the UN Security Council. I think all those are the things we need to do to safeguard the multilateral system.

François Miguet.

Thank you very much, Professor Wang, for sharing your vision with us.

Before I give the floor to our other speakers, I would like to perhaps give Professor Pisani-Ferry the chance to respond on the role that Europe should play. You opened this discussion, but Jean, what role do you think Europe should play in this new world?

Jean Pisani-Ferry

Europe, of course, has an important role to play. Europe is a great power if you take Europe as a whole, but nonetheless, Europe needs to learn to speak the language of power. I do want to respond to what Professor Wang said about China.

Today, my view is that China is dominant right across a whole range of products and goods, and this is new. World trade had taught us that each country could specialize in terms of its own comparative advantage, but China seems to refuse this idea of comparative advantage. So I’d quite like to talk about that.

China also exercises control over critical materials and uses it in discussions with other countries for leverage. We have seen that it was a very significant form of leverage when the USA decided to waive some of the tariffs that have been put in place against China because China’s response was to say, “We’re capable of bringing American manufacturing to a halt by stopping our exports of critical raw materials.”

Those are some key points, but perhaps some other points from a macroeconomic point of view. China’s model hasn’t changed. China’s economic model is focused on exports. Still, it hasn’t managed to, or hasn’t wanted to, stimulate internal domestic demand and consumption. I think this is a significant problem that still needs to be solved. Otherwise, it will lead to disaster. It will lead to confrontation between Europe and China.

My final point on this subject is to say that there is potential for significant partnership with China. There is potential for partnerships in terms of fighting climate change; there’s potential for partnerships in terms of world governance. Nonetheless, this will require that China understands and responds to these challenges.

François Miguet

Thank you very much, Jean Pisani-Ferry. I can see that Professor Wang would like to respond, but we’re going to first hear from some of our other speakers before we open up the discussion on this point.

I’m going to turn to Rafaèle Tordjman. When we when we were talking together about this panel discussion ahead of time, you said that in your area, in terms of cutting edge pharmaceuticals, you are facing pressure both from the United States and from China, so I’d like you to tell us how that applies in your industry and what can the European response be.

Rafaèle Tordjman, Chairwoman, Jeito

Thank you. Just before I tell you how that works, I want to tell you a few features of the healthcare sector and the economic sector, and I’m very pleased to represent it. I’m a doctor. My background is in hematology, and I’ve got 20 years of experience in biotechnologies and medical research.

Innovation-driven healthcare is a sector that has seen permanent growth without any cycles, boom and bust, bubbles. It’s a permanently growing sector, and this growth comes from innovation. These innovations have helped us get out of crises such as COVID, or have given us treatments to two thirds of known illnesses. These therapeutic innovations come from small businesses, biotechnical biopharmaceutical startups, which are then bought out by big pharmaceutical companies, American or European, who sell innovative products, innovative drugs, of which 60 or 70 percent of them come from smaller organizations.

These big pharma companies outsource the R&D to small companies in order to fill their portfolio of medical products because their patents will expire, and when they become generic products, there is a massive drop-off in sales revenue. It’s estimated that by 2033, pharma companies will lose up to 400 billion dollars in turnover per year, and this is due to 200 medications.

That’s the world that I work in, Healthcare. It’s a worldwide industry, and we need to cooperate across the world. We need interdependency, and I think that over the next few years we will need to work with the U.S. and with China, both of them.

So, how does Europe fit into this scenario of dependency or predation? Europe, in some ways, is under pressure caught between the U.S. and China. The U.S. represents a very significant share of the market for innovative therapies, more than 50%. But the U.S. only represents 4% of the world population. So they’ve got a hold of this big market because of the higher drug prices, but also because of the capacity for innovation in the U.S. market. The American companies can exercise leverage or even blackmail in order to get major investments in manufacturing plants and so on. In 2025, there was 400 billion dollars in investments from pharmaceutical companies just to get access to the American market.

What about China? China is competitive and is interested in all forms of technology, but in terms of therapeutic innovation, it’s probably the last area that is managed to crack. If you remember, in 2021, China’s COVID vaccine wasn’t any good, but over the last three or four years, China has finally harvested the fruits of everything that has been invested in medical innovation over the last 20 years.

From a very specific strategic point of view, with an investment framework looking at 2040 to 2050, they’ve invested and simplified their regulations, and they’ve promoted medical research. It goes three times faster, and it’s twice as cheap. 35% of approved innovative medication in 2025 came from Chinese innovation, including in the United States. Predictions suggest that by 2030 this, figure will reach 50%. Chinese innovation is with us and is providing our own medications.

So, how does Europe get on in that? Rather than being at the same time a victim and an accomplice of this, we need to draw on our assets, our advantages, and make sure that we don’t get left behind. If I look at the different chains in the links in the chain of healthcare and innovative research, when we think about innovative drugs, 30% of them come from European R&D, so that’s still a significant share. It was 50% 10 years ago, so it has dropped off. But we need to continue investing in European research and development in order to ensure that innovation keeps going on in our continent.

That’s why I’ve raised 1.6 billion euros, including from foreign investors who’ve understood the opportunity of European research.

The second thing that goes along with R&D is AI. Artificial intelligence is used in lots of fields, in particular healthcare. Progress can be made in terms of accelerating development and commercialization to increase the chances of success, and that’s why European stakeholders and French companies such as Dassault Systèmes have chosen to focus on healthcare after airplanes and cars, and to focus on digitalisation in order to accelerate research in the field.

Nonetheless, in Europe, we need to simplify the GDPR education and to defragment European data in order to get access to use data with AI and remain competitive.

The third key aspect of value chains are clinical trials, which are used to develop drugs and commercialize them. We need to continue to carry out clinical trials by assuring access to patients. Clinical trials in Europe are still highly regarded; they are currently going to be ranked third in clinical trials, even though Europe has dropped off. China is also driving ahead in clinical trials, and we need to draw inspiration from some of the better countries in Europe, leading countries like Italy or Germany, where Germany uses the price to incite people and patients to take part in clinical trials. Poland is ranked ninth in clinical trials because they’re very effective and they’re cheaper.

The fourth element is industrialisation. We need plants, manufacturing plants. That is a long-term issue. We need to make sure we’re making not just paracetamol but also innovative products by taking risks and investing in order to remain independent in the production of future drugs. And the key issue, the key hub, is capital and investment. It’s an issue of sovereignty, which will enable us to finance investment funds of at least a value of 1 billion euros in order to ensure we have large, high-quality European research projects and remain in control over our innovation. There are funds and very promising initiatives, such as the Scaleup Europe Fund, for example, which includes almost all member states, and that has enabled us to form bigger funding pots.

In this era of predators, it’s important that Europe realizes that healthcare is not just a cost; it’s also about investment, and that by working together between European countries and investing in R&D, we can achieve the golden triangle: R&D, relative independence, and societal good.

François Miguet

Thank you very much. Corentine Poilvet-Clédière, you obviously bring the perspective of the world of finance on this new, more complicated, and perhaps also more brutal, world. When we discussed this panel last week, you explained to me that there is a desire on the part of each state — which is quite legitimate, by the way — to be more self-sufficient, but that this desire, at least in your sector, could sometimes collide with the realities on the ground and lead to results that are ultimately unfavorable to the economy, or unfavorable to growth. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Corentine Poilvet-Clédière, Chief Executive Officer, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG)

I do recognize a lot of elements in what you said, Rafaèle, about interdependence and the need of scales. So this shows that, across sectors, we’re dealing with similar issues. Now, I was told we should speak in our own language, so I will do this in French. From the financial viewpoint, to put it simply, it’s about the financial markets, indices, financial data, and risk management in hundreds of countries. What we see, and what we mentioned together, is this major topic of sovereignty.

What does it mean? What’s its shape? What’s the scope? And what are the constraints associated with a concept like that? So back to our discussion: what do I see from multilateralism? The position of financial markets is a key position to see the confidence among players.

Multilateralism never went better than it is now in terms of volume of trade, risk-taking, and transactions. There is what I would call very strong complacency in financial markets.

What has changed, however — and I recognize this in what both Jean and Raphaël said — is how we look at interdependence or the interaction. A few years ago, being interdependent was seen as a virtue, a positive thing, the very bedrock of the global economy. We were all supposed to become more efficient in our own ways by leveraging each other as centers of excellence.

That’s no longer the case today. Interdependency is now a weakness. It’s something that can be used against you. It’s a tool of pressure, it’s a tool of coercion, and that’s the great phenomenon that has changed, in my view, over the past year and a half to two years — mostly because of the American posture, but not only, because it had been brewing for years, and it’s going to stay.

Let me give a more concrete example for the audience here. From a finance standpoint, it is translated by the technological choices you make, because the control of technological infrastructure is where power is to be found today in all sectors. What’s your data? What’s your infrastructure? Is there AI without infrastructure? What is your energy policy? Where are your sources for raw materials, and so on? So if there is a real European discussion to have, it’s about technological infrastructure.

Let me draw three observations quickly. First, we have entered what I call the weaponization of dependencies. This changes the economic rationale of companies — Rafaèle touched on this a bit for her own sector, and we’ll see it in finance too. And what does that call for? Having a sovereignty policy that is, at the European scale, a supply-side policy.

So what does weaponization of dependencies mean? I don’t personally believe there’s a “return of power.” You see that phrase a lot these days. I don’t think power ever went anywhere in recent years. What I do think is that power is now using interdependencies as a means of coercion. We see this with AI models and frontier AI models. You’ve all seen the press coverage on the Mythos model for example. It’s made available to you to help protect you on cyber security, and then, poof, it gets withdrawn depending on your nationality. That’s the new world of technological interdependence.

I don’t think power is going to go anywhere. However, the power uses interdependence as a means of cohesion. We see this with the AI model, frontier AI. You all read about the Mytho model. I give it to you to protect you from cyber security, and then I pull it out depending on your country. So that’s the new world of technological interdependence.

When you’re a decision maker, regardless of the sector, you’re no longer just asking which supplier or which partner to choose. You have to ask: where is my data, which court has jurisdiction, is my contract valid cross-border? Will the rights I have today still be valid tomorrow? What’s the actual durability of the relationship I’m building? That mattered a couple of years ago, but less now.

This changes the economic rationale of companies. Why? Without oversimplifying our respective professions, but broadly speaking, across every sector, a decision-maker’s job — as Jean said — used to be to increase and optimize the efficiency of assets. That was the job. That was the KPI, the key performance indicator.

Today there’s another one that’s just as important, if not far more important: our ability to preserve decision-making capacity, room for maneuver, trade-offs, and options. And that’s ultimately what becomes the new job of executives. And that’s how this tension and this predation ultimately materialize in our own lives — protecting spaces of decision-making, freedom, and optionality becomes the job, on top of creating efficiency on assets

So on the question of choice, I’d go so far as to say that in the period ahead, the new gold is choice — and that’s how Europe needs to think. Europe must create choices. I’m very interested in the debates around technological sovereignty, because, as I explained, that’s fundamentally where power is being contested between the blocs today.

There’s an active debate on European technological sovereignty, but it’s a debate that is very defensive, very defensive. It’s more about European preference, regulatory constraints. Those things are essential, because if you want players to reach a critical size — notably to equip themselves with quantum computing, to have frontier models, and to have credibility — you may need to exercise a preference for a certain period of time. And in fact China and the United States do it. So it’s not a dirty word at all.

On the other hand, you must not shield them from competition. So you absolutely have to commit instead to a policy of creation. Sovereignty must be a policy of creation; a sovereignty that doesn’t produce merely protects you from lagging behind and protects you from a void. So it has to be a supply-side policy.

And I’ll conclude on this: if we approach European sovereignty as an active supply-side policy, notably to offer European alternatives and choices, then it becomes something that doesn’t run counter to openness at all, but is in fact the very condition for the long-term survival of Europe’s openness. That’s a bit how it translates into our lives.

Francois Miguet

Thank you. Kitty van der Hudgen, you probably have a complementary vision, which is one of UNICEF. This new world where interdependence remains, but it is a world where there are increasing tensions, sometimes clashes. We’re talking about the clash in the Strait of Hormuz recently, and each time you see at UNICEF that it has non-measured impacts, and decision makers who are at the origin of the measurements did not take into consideration this aspect, especially on children, especially in African countries. Could you tell us more about that?

Kitty van der Heijden, Deputy Executive Director, Partnerships, UNICEF

Thank you. I think we’ve done some sort of a tour of the world, from the political heavyweights to the economic streams and the financial streams, and I’m actually going to take you back to something completely different, but at least as important, and that’s the question: what happens to children when cooperation fails, when ceasefires break down, when conflict intensifies, when humanitarian and development funding goes down, and when international norms and child rights are being weakened?

And I think we know the answer. It’s always the children that suffer first and foremost. But the flip side of that is equally true: children are one of the few things that, if governments can agree on nothing else, they can still agree that you shall not harm children. And so it is one of those conveyor belts, if you will, to maintain, to renew, to rebuild collaboration in what is a very fractured world.

And why does that matter? Because cooperation, to me, to us at UNICEF, as the UN, is not just the absence of agreement. It’s not about disagreement. If there is no cooperation, what happens is that vulnerabilities become a strategic variable. Whether it’s rare earth materials, access to finance, or in my case, access to education, to healthcare, and to everything children need, it becomes dependent not on needs, not on universal norms that we’ve agreed upon. It becomes dependent on power dynamics, and then of course children don’t have the economic leverage that you guys have, or the political influence that we were speaking about. They are literally the sitting duck.

And then, if you look at history, which is what I do when I get depressed and anxious about the state of the world, the biggest successes that we’ve collaboratively ensured were projects of cooperation. Look at the arms treaties. Look at the trade domain. Look at what happened with halving child mortality. Look at the protection that we’re offering to refugees. We can actually do that.

And it never happened in times of stability and security. All of these processes actually began when the world was in turmoil, when there was lots of insecurity. The UN was formed on the ashes of the Second World War. If you look at the weapon treaties, that was done in the midst of the Cold War. If you look at the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and we are the custodian of that, that was done in 1989. It’s the most ratified human rights convention in the world, because even in the Cold War, states choose collaboration over fragmentation and competition.

And I know that in a forum like this, we often see cooperation as naive, idealistic, the do-gooders. But of course, this is the conveyor belt to much of human progress, and we know that. We are dependent. Corentine, you were talking on financial streams. We depend on each other, whether we like it or not. From trade to terrorism, we are connected. From social media to migration, we are connected. From communicable diseases — look at the Ebola case we had here in France. Look at polio. Look at climate change. We are connected. That’s just a political fact, and so we can choose to close our eyes for that, and all of us will suffer.

But children will suffer most, because for them, multilateralism is not what I hear here. It’s not an ideology for children. For children, it is very often the difference between living or not having the chance to survive. For children, it is that invisible hand. It’s not those guys or girls in the pinstriped suits in the august halls in the UN. It is the vaccine that reaches that remote village. It is the ceasefire that we brokered so that we can actually get behind the front line to deliver humanitarian goods. It is those treaties that we signed together to protect girls from trafficking, from abuse. That is what multilateralism really means.

And perhaps my last word I want to say is that I think in times like these, when fragmentation becomes the norm and cooperation is still seen as the weakest part, we have shown, as a world, that we do not have to be pessimistic. We have shown, as a world, in times of turmoil, that we can actually get together. Even in a time like the Ukraine crisis, we got the grain deal to protect Africa.

So our plea is to continue to find bridges, to continue to find not where the world divides us, not between the big powers and the small powers, but to look at the small powers — that is, children — because those pin-sized citizens of this world really need your protection and your collaboration. Thank you.

Francois Miguet

Thank you very much. Professor Wong, early on, you wanted to react to Jean’s very words. Now, let me tell you this, if you don’t mind. In the U.S., things are fairly clear-cut when we go to the U.S. and we talk to U.S. people. China is an opponent, and that’s to be contained at best, which has to be fought against in the worst case. In Europe, possibly just as in the U.S., China is considered as a predator country. Pisani-Ferry mentioned the surpluses and the support of China to Russia in the Ukraine war.

So I’d like to give you the floor. What is the role of China and the vision that other countries may have in the Western world about China? Which could be maybe a more complex vision and which sometimes has a negative note?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, I think those are great questions. First of all, I would like to say, what you say — the U.S. wants to treat China as a rivalry and contain China. That’s totally wrong. China represents about 20% of the global population, and China lifted 800 million people out of poverty. China contributed 30% of global GDP growth, and China is the largest trading nation with 140 countries. So China does bring good benefits to the world. That’s not right to contain that.

But I think, particularly since the second term of Trump, the U.S. realizes China is important for constructive strategic stability. They want to maintain that now, so there’s a shift from Trump’s first term of strategic rivalry to now Trump’s second of strategic stability. So that’s number one.

We understand all the complaints about China. They talk about rare earths and things like that. But let’s not forget who weaponized first. We should not weaponize technology. We should not weaponize ships. We should not weaponize the sale of chip equipment. China has 2,000 companies on the sanction list by the U.S. There’s probably another 100 or 200 companies on the European list. So they weaponized first. China responded with some measures. I mean, China is already resilient enough; they can still. That’s what Hank Paulson recently spoke at my event, saying China has achieved reciprocal, mutually assured disruption. The U.S. and European countries realize if they want to sanction and contain China, they are going to hurt themselves. There is a trend where countries are being realistic.

And also there’s complaints about China’s overcapacity and things like that. Well, 70 percent of Airbus’s sales are outside Europe. Nobody talks about overcapacity. There’s 8 million German cars manufactured, and 6 to 7 million sold outside Germany. Nobody talks about overcapacity. And with Japan, 8 million cars are manufactured and over half of them are sold overseas.

Nobody talks about overcapacity. Chinese produced 30 million EV cars, but only 6 to 7 million are sold outside of China. That’s less than 20 percent. And of the 20 percent are made by multinationals — by Tesla, BMW, and other international companies. So I think we have to see that objectively on those issues. China likes to invest. China likes to invest in Europe, in the U.S., in Latin America, but is not allowed to sometimes. They were restricted from investing. So we would like to invest more in technology, create jobs, and generate tax revenue.

What I think we should do, my recommendation, is that we should get rid of geopolitical globalization. We should really pursue economic functionary globalization. Let’s all work together on climate change, work together for global health, work together for global development, and work together to get rid of the global debt. Let’s forget about the geopolitical rivalry. I think the U.S. has already abandoned the rivalry mentality, at least from the White House. Why hasn’t the European Union abandoned the rivalry mentality too?

Right now the European policy towards China is a competitor, rivalry, and collaborator. Let’s put cooperation first, rather than rivalry. So finally, I would like to say China is really doing a lot of good things. I think China was also the first country to say no nuclear weapons should be used by Russia in Ukraine. President Xi told Olaf Scholz, no nuclear weapons should be used by Russia in Ukraine. That’s a strong stand. China also did not support the closure of the Hormuz Channel.

We should open the Hormuz Channel and promote peace and dialogue. Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi spoke with almost 40 foreign ministers behind the scenes to promote peace in Iran. In the future, let’s agree on not weaponize anything we are using. For example, can we agree we are not going to be the first user of AI? China said it’s not going to be the first user of nuclear power. Can the U.S., France, U.K., India, Pakistan all say the same thing? Let’s not use nuclear weapons. Let’s not weaponize anything we have. Let’s promote peace and prosperity. That, I think, is the new functionary globalization we need. Thank you.

Francois Miguet

To close on what you’ve just said, let me ask one last question. A lot of people, in my opinion, here in Aix-en-Provence, and especially leaders, managers, talk about technology transfer 20, 25 years ago, China was against the opening of its market, imposed to us Europeans and others, technology transfers, and therefore it was able to catch up on the fact it was lagging in some domains and now it is leading. So should there be technological transfer from China to the rest of the world, accessible to the European market, for example?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely. I think all the multinationals, even the European Union and German Chamber of Commerce, have done service. Most companies still want to do business in China. They keep their investment. The chairman of McKinsey Greater China, recently wrote a book, calling China the best fitness room and best training room for multinational corporations. If you can conquer the Chinese market, sell to 1.4 billion people, you can sell to the world. That’s the state of our technology, on EV, climate change, and everything.

So I think that China definitely would like to invest and facilitate technology transfer if we have a good political environment. You cannot bash China and expect China to give you what you want. I think we really need to have a good relationship. Let’s build up the trust first, and then we can always do good business. And like China is doing for all ASEAN countries, with Latin American countries, African countries. China is the only country in the world that announced that China is going to exempt tariffs, zero tariffs, for 53 African countries. No country is doing that. China is doing that. I think there are many things China can do for Europe and for Western countries, including the Global South.

Francois Miguet:

Thank you. As Corentine said earlier today, we live in a world where interdependencies are well known, and the major states that control significant leverage points, chokeholds, no longer hesitate to use them to serve geopolitical aims. There’s the obvious example of critical metals, which is a lever for China. There’s the latest artificial intelligence from Anthropic, which the Americans banned for the Chinese, and even in Hong Kong. I wanted to ask you all this question collectively: what are the levers that Europe controls today that are of equal importance, and that it could use in a context of tension with the United States or China?

Do we in Europe have something we can use that’s equivalent to Mythos 5 or to critical metals? Perhaps Jean Pisani-Ferry, if you’d like to answer this somewhat difficult question. That’s a tricky question.

Jean Pisani-Ferry

Well, it is a tricky question, but the answer we can give is that we got ASML, the company which has the monopoly of the design of chips — it’s a de facto global monopoly— and we don’t use it. So clearly there is something we can use. I’m leaving this discussion more worried than I came in, because when I arrived, I thought we could find ways to discuss forms of cooperation, and I realized that in fact we don’t measure the efficiency cost of these rivalries and the efficiency cost of weaponization, as Corentine said.

And now I realize, in fact, that we do not measure the efficiency cost of rivalries and the efficiency cost of the weaponization of whatever. And this is dangerous because when we tip over into that, it will be difficult to pull out of it. History shows us, teaches us, that it is very difficult to pull out of such a bad situation.

Francois Miguet

Perhaps someone else — Rafaèle Tordjman — on this?

Rafaèle Tordjman: Well, simply, the major asset we have is that we have 450 million people. In any case the largest population, so just that alone is an asset. When we look at the projections on declining birth rates, including China, China has as many IVF procedures per year as in the rest of the world combined because they’re making enormous efforts to boost the birth rate. Infertility is a major problem, as is the number of births. It is projected that by 2100, if nothing changes, China’s population could drop to 450 million people. That alone is a power we need to leverage.

Francois Miguet

Right. But I believe American demographics are very good shape, and there are 1.4 billion Indians too. And, well, I don’t know if — Corentine Poilvet-Clédière

Corentine Poilvet-Clédière

Unfortunately, and we were discussing this earlier, we don’t really have a hundred options here. The only thing that counts is access to markets, which is what you said: it’s about having a very, very strategic intentionality about where we position ourselves in the value chain, particularly around AI. We haven’t had much time to discuss it, but the real issue with AI isn’t application, it’s an infrastructure. So ultimately it’s an energy policy issue. And the European Union’s energy mix is actually quite interesting in that respect.

That said, one area where we’re completely absent is cloud access. Only 15% of businesses in the European Union today use the cloud. So, to put it simply: no cloud, no AI. And the ones that do use the cloud overwhelmingly use an American cloud. They use an American cloud very predominantly cloud partly because there’s no pan-European cloud standard that’s recognized as sovereign and authorized for systemically important companies. We have a lot of ambition on AI, we have a good energy policy, but we’re completely behind on cloud. These three elements go together, and we can work on this while we still control market access.

Francois Miguet

Kitty van der Hudgen, how do you see paths for improving cooperation, despite this rather bleak landscape?

Kitty van der Hudgen

Million-dollar question. Look, I don’t think it’s going to be easy, but as I said, history has taught us that we can always find a way forward when you unite with what brings you together as humanity. And whether we like it or not, we are independent.

So if we are not able to vaccinate children, diseases are going to travel and end up on your doorstep, and it will disrupt your business. We’ve seen that with COVID. And many of you will be parents here. What do you do when your child does not have access to education or healthcare? You walk. So the despair that follows when we’re unable to reach children — that fuels instability, displacement. That is going to ripple outwards.

And what I want you to retain today is that the more fragile a child’s life becomes, the more fragile the world becomes, and that is worthy of the investment of all of us. Whether you’re in trade, whether you’re in finance, whether you’re in pharma, or whether you’re an individual, because we know it can be done. Thank you.

Francois Miguet

Thank you very much to all five of you. This has been a really interesting panel discussion. We perhaps need to put things into practice. So next year, maybe we’ll need to come back with some better news about a world that’s cooperating a bit better than this year and a little less fragmented. Who knows? Thank you very much.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by the South China Morning Post on September 26, 2025 and revised for this collection, argues that a narrow focus on the property downturn and slower headline growth misses the deeper transformation of China’s economy. It examines how scientific research, green technology, digital and physical infrastructure, human capital, and overseas investment are creating more diversified and sustainable sources of growth.

Critics Are Missing the Big Picture on China’s Economic Transition

As the world’s second largest economy, China is an inextricable part of future global economic development. Its current transition toward green infrastructure, digital connectivity, and world-class research has provided China’s economy with a more dynamic source of growth.

As China transitions from the 14th to the 15th five-year plan, its economic trajectory is once again under scrutiny. External commentary often focuses on the short-term headwinds from a cooling property market and commensurately lowered growth, but these challenges obscure a more important story.

Beneath the surface, China has a vibrant backbone made strong by the synergistic effects of infrastructure, human capital, technology, and an unparalleled commitment to a green transition. These interlocking strengths form a resilient foundation for sustainable growth in the years ahead.

This synergy represents a wave of sustainable, quality development. China stands before a moment of great change as it cultivates a more well-rounded and diversified economy.

One aspect of that synergy is the pace at which ideas travel from the laboratory to the market and are scaled into global industries. China once lagged behind other countries in advanced science. Today, China is a global leader in scientific research. As of mid-2024, China produced 33.8% of the world’s highly cited scientific papers. According to data from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, China now leads in 57 out of 64 key technologies, such as artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, post-quantum cryptography, advanced materials, and renewable energy.

Meanwhile, the Chinese Academy of Sciences is the world’s most productive research institution, with breakthroughs that ripple outwards into commercial applications.

Perhaps the clearest example of this is in the technology underpinning the green transition. In 2023, China installed more solar capacity than the rest of the world combined and had twice the number of wind installations elsewhere. The cost of solar panels more than halved between 2023 and 2024, a change driven largely by the scale of Chinese manufacturing.

These gains have not been limited to China’s domestic energy mix; they are bringing affordable clean power throughout the world. In parts of Africa, for example, solar microgrids and battery storage systems are electrifying communities that legacy grids never reached. Parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America are also speeding up green transitions, thanks in part to increasingly affordable green technology from China.

Moreover, the infrastructure underpinning China’s transformation is world-class. The country now boasts an incredible 436 gigawatts of hydropower, 521 gigawatts of wind, and 887 gigawatts of solar as of 2024. China also has the world’s highest-altitude ultra-high-voltage power grid, enabling long-distance flows of clean energy.

China’s data backbone is increasingly unmatched, with 4.5 million 5G base stations built and connecting over a billion people. Back in 2023, China’s 5G base stations already represented over 60% of the world’s total, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The country has at least 110 “gigabit cities” where 5G network access rates have reached 80%. Meanwhile, under the “Eastern Data, Western Computing” project, China plans to construct eight computing hubs and 10 data center clusters in the country’s western regions to take advantage of the cheaper electricity sourced from renewables.

In addition, China’s strong domestic market is physically connected by more than 45,000 km of high-speed rail—more than the rest of the world combined—and at least 177,000 km of expressway. Its thriving civil aviation market is now the second largest in the world.

With seven of the world’s top 10 container ports, China is also increasingly connected to the world. Through its goods train network linked to Europe, 11 million containers have been transported over the past 13 years.

These synergies extend beyond China’s borders as Chinese companies increasingly shift production overseas, from electric vehicle plants being built in Brazil and Indonesia to renewable energy projects in Africa and West Asia. This approach not only creates jobs and transfers technology, but also ensures global supply chains remain stable and diversified.

Critics point to China’s weak property market and uneven post-COVID-19 recovery as signs of fragility. But the Chinese economy is far less reliant on any single driver of growth than it once was. While the property sector is still significant, it’s just one part of a broader system. High household savings represent another untapped source of domestic strength that could sustain consumption and investment for years to come.

The multiplier effects are striking. China’s physical and digital backbone enables research breakthroughs to quickly move from concept to mass production, reinforcing the feedback loop between science and industry.

For example, top-tier research in battery chemistry can directly boost China’s global leadership in electric vehicles. Advances in high-performance computing and AI can spill over into applications in logistics optimization and healthcare. Breakthroughs in new materials reshape manufacturing, aviation, and renewable energy systems.

The shift under way is clear. China is moving from an economy powered by real estate and exports to an economy driven by talent, innovation, and green growth. This transition is not without challenges. But from universities and laboratories to infrastructure and the cultivation of talent, China is well equipped to turn obstacles into opportunities.

The twenty-first century belongs to the pioneers of green technology. China’s infrastructure, research capabilities, and talent have placed it at the forefront of this transformation, which is built not only on new industries but also on a new vision of the future.

The road ahead will demand continued reform and adaptability. However, with its synergistic model of sustainable growth, China can weather the uncertainties of the global economy while shaping the next phase of growth at home and abroad.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by the South China Morning Post on September 12, 2025 and revised for this collection, examines the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s expanding role in trade, green and digital development, and conflict dialogue. It argues that the SCO and BRICS do not seek to replace the United Nations, but can reinforce multilateralism and help sustain a more inclusive global order when established institutions are paralysed.

China-Led SCO Is a Critical Salve for the Ailments of the Global Order

As the world faces fragmentation and interstate conflict that has not be seen in decades, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is working to drive practical solutions. Neither it nor BRICS seek to replace the United Nations, but amid UN paralysis, organizations that champion regional multilateralism can help sustain global order.

Eighty years after World War II ended, the multilateral system is faltering. The United Nations, once the symbol of post-war peace and cooperation, is increasingly sidelined by unilateral actions and trade wars, amid the marginalization of the Global South in decision-making.

We are at risk of a world where tariffs and sanctions replace negotiation, conflicts multiply, and the very principles of international law are often ignored. If the international community is to avoid drifting further into fragmentation, new governance approaches are urgently needed.

It is in this moment of turbulence that the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) gathered in Tianjin, China, for its largest summit ever, underscoring its growing role as a forum for stability, dialogue, and development across Eurasia.

What began over two decades ago as a regional body to manage border security has evolved into a comprehensive institution with economic, cultural, and, increasingly, global faces. The summit delivered not only political dialogue but also set forth new mechanisms of cooperation, including a SCO development bank.

Chinese President Xi Jinping also unveiled his Global Governance Initiative, the latest of proposals that include the Belt and Road Initiative, Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilisation Initiative. The new framework sets out five guiding principles: sovereign equality, adherence to the international rule of law, support for multilateralism under the UN system, people-centered development, and action-oriented cooperation. The SCO embodies the five principles, providing a platform for countries of different cultures, ideologies, and political systems to cooperate. It is a critical salve for the ailings of today’s global system, in which some states raise tariffs and undermine global institutions, while others call for reform but fail to deliver.

Economic and trade issues stood out in Tianjin. Amid mounting protectionism, the SCO committed to keeping regional markets open and inclusive. Europe has moved to tighten rules on imported vehicles and the United States continues to rely on tariffs and sanctions as tools of leverage, but China has gone in the opposite direction. It is removing its tariffs for 53 African countries, opening its market to some of the world’s poorest nations.

The message is simple: as globalization looks to be retreating, there are still major powers willing to promote openness and inclusion. For SCO members and their partners, that example provides confidence that there is a cooperative path forward.

Just as important, the summit placed digital cooperation and green transition at the heart of its agenda. Across the SCO, local champions from fintech to e-commerce are reshaping economies, while China is providing infrastructure, training, and technological expertise. Projects linking renewable energy to computing capacity, as in Xinjiang, offer models of how to combine resource endowments with sustainable innovation.

SCO member states also pledged to expand scholarships, scientific exchanges, and joint research programs, investing in the human capital needed for the next development phase. These steps reflect the action-oriented spirit China emphasized, turning rhetoric about cooperation into measurable outcomes.

But the SCO is not only about economics. In a world where interstate war has returned on a scale unseen in decades, the organization’s convening power is itself a public good. The Tianjin summit saw the leaders of China, India, and Pakistan at the same table—a rare moment given historical tensions in South Asia. Such encounters do not resolve disputes overnight, but they build the habits of dialogue and trust that are indispensable for peace.

Similarly, the SCO provides a forum where discussions on Ukraine, Gaza, and other conflicts can take place without the ideological divisions that often paralyze other bodies. Its capacity to bring diverse actors together, including states with different political systems and security concerns, is becoming an important counterweight to the polarization dominating global affairs.

The SCO is no replacement for the UN, nor does it seek to be. But as the UN grapples with paralysis, regional multilateralism has a growing role to play in sustaining global order. Alongside BRICS, which has expanded its outreach to Africa and Latin America, the SCO shows how the Global South can organize, articulate its interests, and create institutions. Neither of these organizations reject the current global system; rather, they seek to reinforce the principles of the UN Charter through practical initiatives.

China’s role in this evolution is central. As the world’s second-largest economy, it has both the responsibility and resources to support multilateral efforts. By cutting tariffs, financing infrastructure, sharing technology, and convening dialogue, it shows leadership is not only about military power or diplomatic rhetoric, but also ability to generate benefits and confidence. Whether through the Belt and Road Initiative, development banks, or SCO projects in energy and digital transformation, China shows multilateralism can be revitalized through deeds.

The world is in danger of drifting into disorder. Conflicts are rising, global trade rules are under strain, and the legitimacy of international institutions is being questioned. But the lesson of Tianjin is that alternatives exist. By broadening its mission, launching institutions, and embracing inclusiveness, the SCO shows it can be a pillar of multipolar stability. The Global Governance Initiative’s framework provides a philosophical compass, while the SCO and BRICS supply the practical means to steer through turbulence.

If the post-war multilateral system is to be repaired, vision and action are required. The SCO’s evolution suggests that even in an era of fragmentation, models of cooperation are emerging. For the over 3 billion people of its member states and the wider international community, this is an unalloyed good.

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In a wide-ranging conversation with host Mahmoud Ghazi, Wang discussed China’s rise and its evolving role in the international order. The host spoke in Arabic, while Wang responded in English. As we were unable to translate the Arabic-language portions of the interview, the transcript below includes only Wang’s remarks. His responses have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

The full interview, published on June 26, 2026, is available on Nawafed’s YouTube channel.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder & President, CCG

Thank you, Mahmoud. Thank you for hosting me. We just saw President Trump’s recent visit to China, and you’re right. President Xi actually said we should escape from Thucydides’ trap. Thucydides’ trap is not our destiny. The trap reflected ancient Greek historical cases where many fights occurred when there was a new rising power replacing an existing power.

So basically, President Xi said that’s not our destiny. We are living in the 21st century. China and the U.S. are the two largest economies, and we can really find a way to work together. What was very interesting to see is that they had both President Xi and President Trump agree that China-U.S. relations have now entered a new phase called constructive strategic stability.

This new position, this new norm of China-U.S. relations is constructive strategic stability. This is a sharp contrast to Trump’s first term, where he basically defined China as a strategic rival. Going from strategic rivalry to strategic partnership, and ultimately to strategic stability, is really important.

I also like what you said at the beginning, that China is of course a 5,000-year civilization now and that people are starting to learn more about the history, the culture, the essence of Chinese history, which is seeking peace and never really about expansionism because China is an agricultural country. Chinese people cultivated along the Yangtze River and the Yellow River.

And Confucianism teaches you to respect your parents, your family, and you don’t really travel long distances. I think that culture is still there: peace-loving, hardworking, and getting along with your neighbors. I think it is important that President Trump’s visit this time and witnessing the rise of China again but also, as President Trump puts it, it’s not a G2 status between China and the U.S. I think the two countries have to work together now to address the challenges, disorder, and the disaster we are seeing in Europe, in the Middle East, and everywhere. China and the U.S. should work together. I think this visit was very successful.

…

I think there are quite a few successes from this visit. Number one is that China, in the last decade, since Trump’s first visit nine years ago, China’s GDP almost doubled. And China has risen, and as President Trump rightly said, it’s a G2 now. It’s near-peer status. China has achieved parity almost in many fronts with the U.S. now.

But then the two countries’ relations were really deteriorating for the last 10 years: there is a trade war, sanctions, and a lot of ideological attacks. I remember during the Biden era, when there were talks about democracy versus autocracy. And they defined China as an autocracy, giving China no credit for doing things well, such as lifting 800 million people out of poverty, which represents 70% of global poverty reduction during that period of time.

I think the two countries are also at odds on many fronts. And there were 1,000 to 2,000 Chinese companies on the American Entity List or sanctions list, so you can see the relations were really tense. But this time President Trump came. They started a new recognition of China. They really created a new norm, and President Trump brought nearly 20 gigantic corporate CEOs to Beijing: Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, and all those big business representatives; the largest companies in the world came to Beijing. I think they rebooted the bilateral relationship in a more normal way.

I think that’s the biggest because of the handshake between President Xi and President Trump. They also toured around the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, and they had tea together next to the Forbidden City in Zhongnanhai, which really depicts a great friendly picture to the world; so people around the world feel okay: the two largest superpowers are not destined for war; they’re probably going to escape Thucydides’ trap, like my friend Graham Allison said that.

I wrote a book about how to escape Thucydides’ Trap with Graham Allison. You can see that the biggest achievement is a shift in the narrative, a change in strategic positioning, and a growing mutual admiration among the leaders. And I think give some assurance to the world, but of course there’s more benefit of that. Second, they all discussed trade issues. President Trump said China would buy 200 Boeing aircraft, potentially.

…

It could be 1,000 Boeings if it goes well.

And then there are other agricultural products like beef and beans and things like that. And of course, there is a lot of trade stabilization. There’s no talk of a trade war. Third, I think they also reiterated the importance of peace: they hope that Hormuz is going to be reopened; they don’t like the war in Iran and in Ukraine.

…

I think there’s many reasons attributable to that. I need to mention that in Trump’s second term, China has achieved mutual strategic deterrence. In Trump’s first term, when Trump did all those sanctions and started the trade war, China was just on the receiving end; they could not really fight back. But in Trump’s second term, China’s power, strength, and its soft power has all gone up.

China is now the only country not involved in any war. Russians are involved in a war they cannot finish; the U.S. is involved in a war it cannot finish. China is the cleanest. They are not really having any war with anybody, so they have the highest moral standing and highest respect from around the world for not really interfering with any other country’s internal affairs.

China’s position with the U.S. is much different than it was in the first term. Moving from mutually assured deterrence and disruption, the relationship is now shifting toward mutually assured construction because the U.S. realized that launching trade wars and hitting China with sanctions doesn’t really help the U.S.

And all the business leaders who came with President Trump demonstrated they are so intertwined with China, like 80% or 90% of Apple phones that everybody is using are made in China. There’s no security issue. They’re products made in China that have been sold around the world. Half of Tesla EV cars are made in China. You have so many U.S. companies, 70,000 of them big or small, registered in China. They have $700 billion in revenue every year.

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I think what has changed is the rising of China, the strength of China. I think President Trump was pragmatic. He’s a business leader. He has a vision, and he says, “Okay this is a country we cannot change.”

In the past, they wanted to change China. You are going to become one of us. You are going to be like us. You are going to have the same system, same style, same governance as us. But China has its own logic, has its own culture. Though China has embraced globalization, it follows its own path. The reason President Trump came is to give recognition: “Okay, we cannot change you now or make you different — but now we have to accept you.” I think what has changed is the U.S. starting to accept China. It’s not only the U.S, but leaders across the G7.

For example, this year, Starmer, Merz, Macron, and Carney of Canada came to China. Almost all the G7 leaders came. Except for Japan, everybody has visited China. Everybody has come, which shows that they all recognize China as a new force, as a new pole in this multipolar world, as a new big rising power. They have recognized China can play a huge role in the international arena but also as a Security Council member in the United Nations.

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Well, that’s a good question. The DNA of China has decided that. China has been an agricultural country for thousands of years.

For example, look at the farmers and peasants in China’s civilizations along the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. They basically had to grow three or four crops a year, so they did not have the chance to go anywhere. They’re not a nation of horsemen; they’re not Mongolians, right. They were really people cultivating the land, growing different vegetables and crops. They’re busy all year round.

That kind of culture cultivated the spirit of China: it is largely agricultural; stick with your family; stick with your parents; and respect authority because there’s no religion in China. The government is the only authority there. They have to do all those good things that big, centralized governments are equipped to do: irrigation projects, large-scale coordination, and all those things. That is the DNA of China.

Confucianism says that when your parents are alive, you don’t travel far away; don’t do to other people what you don’t want done to you. So, when you see the history of China in that sense, the main ethnic Han people in China have never invaded any other country. They never really stationed outside China.

For example, in the Ming dynasty, there’s admiral Zheng He. He did seven expeditions far away from China, as far as to Africa. He discovered Africa. He is a great voyager, even earlier than Columbus who discovered the Americas. But they never stayed anywhere; they just came back all seven times.

Even in modern history, probably since 1979 when China opened, it has never started any war. We don’t know how many times the U.S. has started a war already. We don’t know how many times other regions have had wars. China as a big country has never started any wars because of its historic culture, its DNA, and Confucianism. Even though China has gotten much stronger than before, it has never started any war. I think that’s really because of the culture, Confucianism, and a government that is focused on economic globalization. They do not colonize any country. There was no colonial history for China. For some countries, wealth was built by looting or taking away from other countries’ wealth. China never did that. China was always the side being invaded by other countries.

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It’s a very good question. There are some worries about China in the world, particularly in the Western countries. But basically, the reason for that is the system China has is something other countries probably do not have. Since the Second World War, there is a momentum of free liberalism that has really swept the world. We had a democracy; we had all those values that the West has imposed on developing countries.

So, if we all follow the same truth, it would be like the end of history. The author claimed we have only one path; there’s no other path. That’s the assumption for many years: the free liberal world is going to be the dominant final format of everybody. Whether looking at the Arab Spring, Latin America, Asia, the assumption was that everyone has to go the same route as Western countries have gone through. We have to have the street structure. We need to have all those Western imperialism.

China found a different path, and it has grown so quickly and become so big that people started asking ‘How come?’ They didn’t do as we did. It didn’t adopt our model, yet they’ve developed better and faster

For example, in 48 years since China opened up, China became the second largest economy in record time. It took other countries hundreds of years probably, but China just did it in a few decades.

Number two, China is also not only one of largest economies, it is also very stable. We have one Five-Year Plan after another Five-Year Plan. The government is also very consistent. For example, in the UK, Starmer has only been in office for two years and is facing another challenge to be removed from office. I mean in the past five, six years, the prime minister has changed five times in the UK. And most of the Western countries are facing this right-wing or left-wing or whatever. You also got economic populism. The term of government has become so short now, the changing of the leaders is so frequent. There are also immigration issues. There are many other issues of injustice and poverty, you name it. When you go to China these days, there are about 260 cities in China with a population above 1 million. There are about 20 cities in China with a population about above 20 million and you don’t see a single homeless person now. Anywhere you go in China, any street, any corner you go to.

That’s a miracle because China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty. 11 years ago, when we had a Paris climate accord, China was merely starting. Chinese people at that time said “Okay, why by the time we are developing, we’re not allowed to pollute now.”Western countries have polluted for hundreds of years. Two-thirds of the ozone layer has the accumulation of your pollutants, so ‘why by the time we develop, we have to restrict?’ That was the thinking at that time. Beijing was very badly polluted. The U.S. Embassy even put out a PM2.5 monitor on the top of their roof, announcing the pollution every day. The Beijing local government didn’t like that. They were like “Okay, since you are saying the Beijing sky is so poisonous, let’s change it.”China suddenly started to use much more renewable energy. Now more than half of the cars in Beijing are all EV. China became the largest EV producer in the world. China now has two-thirds of the global high-speed railway. You can go anywhere in China within 7-8 hours. For example, going from Beijing to Shanghai only takes four hours.

High-speed railway has completely changed China. Of the United Nations’ industrial category, China has all of them. China is leading the world in 200 of them. China is the world’s largest steel producer, largest producer of all kinds of products. China accounts for 30% of the world’s manufacturing power. China must have done something right because it has suddenly become so effective, efficient, and performing so well. I think that is the kind of thing that makes people start to fear or worry about — because “China didn’t use our system; it didn’t follow our kind of election that happens every few years.” We have a system that has one Five-Year Plan after another Five-Year Plan that is consistent and doing very well. And that’s when people are starting to feel concerned.

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I think the West also had its success when it started to liberalize and dismantle the colonial system it had that really brought a lot of productivity and industrialization, which pushed the world into the next stage of development. But now we’re in a new stage of development — the technology era, the internet era, the digital era, the AI era. So the democratic model needs to be upgraded. Because, for example, Western democracy comes from Greece, from Athens where you had public debates, a public square debate. That model originated about two thousand years ago, because the mountain was high and the king was far away, so you had to pick smart people by simple majority. That model has basically been followed until today. But then today’s environment has changed.

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Democracy needs to be improved and become more participatory — not just decided by a simple majority, or by how great a speech you can make to become a strong political candidate, or how eloquent you are.

I could give you China examples, but before I do that, you can see we’re living in the AI age. We have big data, technology, and all kinds of NGOs and think tanks. So there are many more forces now, not just a simple majority or who has the money to fund campaigns. That kind of model produces a pattern of overpromising and underdelivering. That kind of performance is near-term. I’m only thinking about the three or four years while I’m going to be in office, and I’m going to put up all the deficit, all the things just for the short term. There’s no long-term, there’s no five-year plan after another five-year plan.

China has a meritocracy, a system China has practiced for thousands of years. For example, in the old days, if you wanted to be an official, what could you do? You had to take examinations. In the old days, the emperor chose the officials in ancient times, based on who scored best.

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Yeah, they had Confucianism, theories, governing philosophies; all the Confucianism, all that ancient philosophy, ancient thinkers, great thought leaders. So they really had to familiarize themselves with all the governance methodology and then put that into an exam. That system has been passed on till today. For example, today 50 million, 60 million people take the university entrance exam; 30 million are admitted into a university. And every year the government recruits 200,000, a quarter million, civil servants. Three million college graduates take the exam to become one of that quarter million of government officials.

After being selected to become government official, you start at the village, county, municipality, province, central government level. You have to perform at every level, with five years in between. It’s really results-driven. You have to deliver, perform because you’re judged on how good a job you’ve done based on changes to GDP, health, environment, productivity. So this system is really useful in China, and it’s still being used today. And then, furthermore, China is now getting into the digital era. You have a big-data democracy. So you don’t have to make it a majority vote to find out who’s right and who’s wrong because you can use data. You can say, “Okay, this is a good thing, this is a bad thing, and we should do the good thing.” So the government’s decision-making channels are much more abundant and rich than they used to be.

And also, for example, you have a technology democracy; you have all those big think tanks and feasibility studies. The government isn’t smart or stupid; it looks at all the options, all the recommendations, all the proposals, and it can make the right decision. And then they have a consultative democracy where all the elites are either in the NPC (the National People’s Congress) or in the CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference) at all levels — several million of them. The central government has the NPCC and CPPCC. Provincial has the NPCC and CPPCC; municipality has that and county has that — there are four levels.

And if you add them all together, all the parliamentary members and all the CPPCC members, there are a few million of them. They’re making daily recommendations to the government. They can really question the government and do all these things. So there’s a watch, a monitoring process, a balance, all the time. And finally, China today lives in a world of democracies. So who is the opposition party? The biggest one is the United States. Second, probably, Europe. And there are many other countries. All the global media are watching China, criticizing China, all the time — CNN, BBC, you name it.

And so the leaders, whoever is governing there, can take all of that in, read the recommendations and the analysis so they don’t make wrong decisions. They don’t need a majority to tell them this is what to do, that is what to do; they have a much larger macro view.

I’ll give you an example. Ten years ago, twelve years ago, there was such a strong resistance against the idea that China stop polluting because developed countries polluted enough — but now when it’s our time to develop, we were told to stop. But then the leaders read the news everywhere: if you continue to pollute, we’re going to be done; we’re going to destroy the planet.

So, they do not, just based on some local views, think when it’s our time to develop, why should we not be able to pollute?

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I think the Western system has had its merit since its development. I think initially — for example, after the Second World War — when we had liberal democracy, we got rid of the colonial system. I think liberal democracy has great success in doing all those things: let people rise and let people control their destiny. There’s a huge role they played at that time. But as time has gone by, as technology has come, as the internet has come, the individual netizen has risen, then this old model of just one man one vote where we have to depend on a simple majority to do everything — that kind of methodology, may have some problems.

Because, for example, whoever has the money to fund a really big campaign or do a lot of door-to-door knocking to get votes can easily get elected. I mean that’s probably one thing. The other thing I think is that there is — from what I sometimes observe — too much debate, too much talking, empty talk, but there’s no performance in the current system. There’s no action. There’s a lot of promise, but there’s no action.

Even at the international arena, for example, China said, “We’re going to do a Belt and Road,” and China went and did the Belt and Road — they really implemented that. They invested over one trillion U.S. dollars, and three thousand projects finished. Whereas the EU proposed the ‘EU Global Gateway’ — we don’t really see many projects they’re doing. The U.S. said they’re going to do “Build Back Better World,” B3W, but it’s not really happening, many of those things. Domestically, same thing. You just see the deficits keep rising, right? You see all those promises not delivered. For example, there’s still Medicare — the U.S. is not really universal — whereas in China now, even though China has different degrees, there’s 1.3 billion people under some kind of Medicare, big or small, all providing coverage. And there’s 1.2 billion people under social security.

The final thing I think is that we really need public servants to have some grassroots experience. Have you governed a county before? Have you governed a municipality before? Have you governed a province or a state before, before you govern a country? Nowadays, if you’re a good professor, you can become a president, like Obama. So it’s different in China — all the leaders at the top have either been a governor, a mayor, or a minister before; you cannot jump from a county level straight to the top position. So I think that kind of a bureaucratic training, bureaucratic experience and performance that produces results, I think, is lacking in the Western system sometimes.

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No, not really. I think that China probably did strike the right balance. For example, the human rights development in China is really, first of all, we need to not have poverty.

Human rights has many fronts, not just expression: the right of not fearing poverty, the right of not fearing going out in the street in the evenings. I mean, I’ve been to many countries where you cannot go out in the evenings — in China, any city is the safest in the world; you can go out. The right of not living in the street. Nobody is becoming homeless in China these days. There’s the right to get an education, the right to get enough food, all the social security support. Human rights has many fronts, not just speaking against the government.

So China does have a bit of a different culture, because, as I said, China doesn’t have a religion. There’s really no authoritative kind of spirit in China, so people really just respect the government as the only authority.

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Freedom of expression is there. I’m not against freedom of expression. You can always express yourself. For example, I was a CPPCC member in Beijing for many years. So every year we go through something similar to a senate meeting. And like ‘Okay, Beijing streets are too polluted with cars, we need green cars. Then we write a proposal, and the Beijing Transport Bureau will respond to you.

They’ll come to your office and say “Okay, you’re right, maybe we should improve this.” For example, when we made a proposal to the Beijing government — when foreigners come to China, they couldn’t use apps: they couldn’t download or use WeChat. Then the Beijing municipal government immediately adopted our proposal and put up a stand at the airport that says “Please come and download it for your travel in China.”Many examples like that — for example, if an industry is doing something bad, you can make a proposal. So that’s number one — all I am saying is that for several million NPC and CPPCC members, their daily job is to find problems for the government. That’s number one.

Number two, there’s also the media. The media can also be used to report any wrongdoing, providing checks and balances. And social media is enormous: everybody has WeChat, everybody has Weibo, which is like Twitter or X. You can really air whatever you want to air.

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Yeah, it’s monitored, but as I said, the only thing is they have some governing authority, and maybe they don’t want to jeopardize governing authority, because the government has a very efficient, effective way of mobilizing resources and doing all the right things. But also, the most important thing — in Beijing, for example, and every city in China — there’s a mayor’s hotline, 12345. I can pick up the mayor’s hotline, and they’re going to jot down your complaint, then send it to every region you complain about, and find out what’s going on. So they have a different system of monitoring and watching, all the time. It’s not that you cannot express yourself.

So I think China is really unique. For example, in the last decade, China punished several million corrupted officials. In China, every day you see a corrupted official being punished. There’s a Central Discipline Committee for the party. There’s a central monitoring and inspection committee for the governor, and they expose corrupt officials on a daily basis. And in every organization, you have a letterbox or an email box, which you can send in, say, “I feel this guy is corrupted,” and you can complain to the Central Government Discipline Committee.

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And if the same-level government official doesn’t respond, you can go one level further, until it has been exposed. Whenever they promote an official in China these days, they first send out a notice: this guy is going to be promoted to vice mayor — please, for the next two weeks, if you have any concerns, or if he has any wrongdoings, please let us know, send us a word. So he’ll be thoroughly checked before he gets promoted. There’s a probation period of about two weeks or a month since the announcement before he gets promoted.

So this guy is openly displayed in public, in the newspaper, in social media. If I’m not happy with this guy, I can complain. And if I have substance for what he’s doing wrong, I can really expose him, and he will not get promoted, or he could even be sent through the judicial process. So there’s a very strict system in China. That’s why these days, if you go to China, you don’t really see much corruption. There was corruption some time ago. When China just opened up, there was a blurred line between business and government, and possibly a lot of corrupt cases. But now they keep cleaning that up — every day in China, almost, and I’m not joking. Every day, you see on WeChat. There’s news pushed to you. People will say “Look at this guy who got punished, that guy who got punished, that guy who got exposed.” So there’s really a great system of exposing that internally, and it’s much more effective too.

But of course, I think this is because they’re learning from all the world’s advanced systems: you have the probation period, the announcement, the solicited opinions from all the NPC members and CPPCC members, the Discipline Committee doing things; you’ve got the central government inspection committee doing things, and all the ministries are balancing and watching each other’s shoulders so the system is running pretty well.

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For example, China — I think any country is like that — you first need to increase your hard power, like your infrastructure. China has the

best infrastructure in the world now. Half of the skyscrapers in the world are in China, or newly built; China has 70% of the world’s high-speed railways; China’s 5G stations are 10 times that of Europe and the United States; and EV charging posts — China has 60 to 80 million, whereas the U.S. has 1 million. So all that hard power is enormous in China. And out of the 10 largest container ports in the world, seven of them are in China. So once they’ve done that, now they’re starting to do their soft power.

Now you are absolutely right. China’s cinema box office has, for the first time, surpassed the United States’. People are going to watch movies. The cinema box office revenue in China is now larger than in the United States.And then you also see, now all the Hollywood movies, they either have a Chinese actress or actor, or have a China element in the movie, so they can appeal to the Chinese audience.

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I mean, Hollywood — because it’s been a long time, it’s primarily an English-speaking industry and the Chinese language is pretty challenging. In terms of Chinese cinema production, it’s gone up enormously. So I think it’s going to take some time, but China does have some new phenomena — for example, Labubu, that’s from China, right? And then you have these new games like Black Myth: Wukong that swept the world. So it’s starting to become a world phenomenon, a cultural success now.

It will take some time for China to get there, but then, of course, there’s a language problem — Chinese is only used in China, about 1.4 billion people, whereas English is used worldwide. So for that aspect, I think China still has some way to go. But the same goes for South Korea, Japan, all those other Asian countries have done that. India has a different picture, because India speaks English, right, they have Bollywood, it’s doing well. But I think China’s probably much better in manufacturing, making good-quality, reasonably-cost goods. China — you talk about export culture — it’s still in a developing stage, but China is catching up.

As I already said, moviegoers — China is already the largest in the world. And in terms of box office revenue, China is already the largest in the world. And also, these days, you can go to China to see all kinds of movies? I just saw, before, I think last month, the Michael Jackson movie was aired at the same time as in the United States. There’s another new movie that’s just coming out too, so you can watch it in China at the same time as in the United States.

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No, absolutely, you can, because China is now the largest trade partner with 140 countries. So I think the way China conducts its global affairs is different from other major powers. For example, China has never had a military base anywhere. China has not invaded any other country in the last 45 years, right?

So basically, China has only engaged in economic globalization. They embraced economic globalization, and then started trading with everybody. China is trading with everybody on a mutually acceptable basis — I’m not forcing you to trade with me. It’s not like the Opium war where I’m going to use guns and boats to open your market, right? China’s not doing that. China is like, okay, if you want to trade, here’s the market conditions. If you’re willing and I’m willing, then let’s trade. It’s all like that, it’s all free trade, right?

I think there are some complaints: China, your product is so good, and you’re selling too much to us. We are having a deficit. Fine. China then started the International Import Expo in Shanghai, the largest import expo in Shanghai. So if you want to sell to China, China provides you a pavilion in Shanghai, which is the biggest in the world. All the companies come here — here’s my product, I want to sell it to China. And millions of people go to that import expo every year.

So there is one public platform where China is trying to buy more from the outside world, and it has established a mechanism for that. Second, Chinese companies want to invest, want to bring money, technology, and investment to different countries, which China is doing now. And China wants to invest in the United States, in Europe, in every Western country.

But the problem is, if the political trust is not there, if the political relations are so bad, Chinese companies wouldn’t dare to reinvest. That would be another good way to get rid of the concern: Chinese companies will come to your country, send money, send technology, employ local workers, generate local taxes, that’s good for you. So that momentum, that movement, has already started. China has already invested in Belt and Road countries, in Africa, in Latin America.

For example, BYD has a big factory in Latin America; Lula opened a factory in Brazil. 40% of China’s investment to Europe goes to Hungary, because Hungary has the best relations with China right now. Now it goes to Spain because the Spanish prime minister visited China four times in four years; and the Spanish king came in four years’ time as well. So if you have good relations with China, it will accelerate investment. China could invest more here in the UK too. But the political relations are not good — every day there’s a bad story.

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No, I think, first of all, it’s because of ideology. They are like, “Oh, China, you have a different system; you’re an autocracy; you’re not like the U.S.” That’s the colored glasses they’ve worn for a long time, and that hasn’t really changed. Number two is that, we know in the last 10 years the

U.S. started a trade war and defined China as a strategic rival in the first term. And the European Union has also defined China as a systemic rival, and the UK probably did the same. So everybody thinks China is a rival. China doesn’t view it that way — China views everybody as a partner. We have competition, but we can be partners too. China never says “we are rivals” or “adversaries.” You don’t see that in the Chinese vocabulary. China always views everybody as friendly, as a competitor, but also as a collaborator. We can cooperate.

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I think it’s not only the Iran war, but also the Russian war in Ukraine. A lot of people said, “Oh, China is collapsing; China is so bad, the real estate is collapsing; it’s going to be all downhill from now here in China; it’s finished.” No — China is doing fine. Last year, it maintained 5% GDP growth. This year China is doing it again. And green energy, China’s EV car production is now the largest in the world.

So you see all that good news out of China — China didn’t collapse. It was still doing fine, and China’s trade with the world has gone up too. So I think China wants to solve those issues. But then for the Western leaders — UK leaders and all the European leaders — they realize, okay, if we want to get business opportunities, if we want to increase economic prospects for our own people, we have to trade with China; we have to do things with China, because here you get the best cooperation possible. And if we can get China to invest, we can create local jobs.

So that mentality is starting to change because China has successfully gotten out of COVID, which changed its image; and second, China has done well in the last several years. Also, China has opened free visas for every country in Europe, UK included. They may open that to the United States too. And furthermore, you’re right, the war has changed things in a big way too, because they are used to saying, “Okay, now Russia is the bad guy. They started the Ukraine war, the Russia war,” according to the European Union. Now the U.S., Israel started the war in the Middle East, in Iran. So when you look around — where’s the good guy? China seems to be the only good guy. Economically, China is still performing well for the world.

Politically and internationally, they really uphold justice and try to mediate peace and promote peace. For example, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi in the last two months has phoned over 30 foreign ministers — all the Gulf countries, Iranians, Pakistan’s foreign minister, the Iranian foreign minister who was in Beijing for talks, the Russian foreign minister, European foreign ministers, and really everybody — to promote peace in the Middle East.

And then Pakistan, our iron brother, their foreign minister came to Beijing and proposed a five-point peace proposal for Iran. And the Iranian foreign minister was in Beijing just recently as well to discuss how we can get out of this. President Trump was in Beijing too. So China’s soft power, international mediating, and promoting peace has upgraded enormously.

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China is the largest trading nation with almost all the Middle East countries, at least all the Gulf countries. Saudi Arabia sells most of its petroleum to China. China buys 90% of Iranian oil. And for all the Gulf countries, China is their largest trading partner. 40% of petroleum imported comes through the Strait of Hormuz, so it’s absolutely in China’s interest to see this part of the world be at peace and in good condition.

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I think China has been intervening all the time. First of all, a few years ago, China intervened and brokered peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia. And then China gathered 14 factions of Palestinians, brought them to Beijing, and issued the Beijing Declaration for the different Palestinian factions and forces before the Gaza war. And then, even recently, as I said, China’s foreign minister made over 30 phone calls to 30 different foreign ministers — you never see that in the history of Chinese foreign ministers making phone calls like that in such a short time. And a Chinese envoy for the Middle East has been shuttling between all the other countries.

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I think China is a giant economic country compared to the Middle East because China does the largest trading with the Middle East. A lot of the Middle East’s bread and butter comes from China, because China buys most of their products. And the thing is, China does not use its military power, unlike the U.S. or Russia. China refrains from using military power.

So the only power China uses now is economic power and soft power. And just by standing there alone or by issuing a statement, people will think: okay, here’s my bread-and-butter purchaser; and if he’s not happy, I have to respect that. So I think China, by taking those strong stands — for example, when the Iranian foreign minister came to Beijing, China’s foreign minister said, “Okay, let’s not continue the fight; let’s have a dialogue. Let’s keep the strait open.” When President Trump came to Beijing, President Xi said, “We support all the peaceful efforts, we don’t want to see the war continue.”

Just merely stating those strong points, everybody will listen because China is the largest trading power and has leverage with all these countries. Yes, they can hang on for a few months or for half a year, but they can’t hang on forever because they need the money from purchases by China. The U.S. wants to do business with China. The U.S. wants to get out of this mess, and they need China. So everybody needs China. Just like a few years ago, when Saudi Arabia and Iran came down, they said, “Okay, I cannot give you face, you cannot give me face.” Who can I turn to give face? Oh, China is there, let me give it to China.

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The reason China intervened on this is because China sees the benefit of it. They’re both China’s largest trading partners, right? Saudi Arabia and Iran have already been fighting for years. And they’re like: okay, there’s no point continuing to fight, but I can’t give face to you, and you can’t give face to me, so we need to find a third party that we’re all comfortable with where we can all gracefully come down. They needed a ladder to come down, and China was able to provide that ladder.

China can be really powerful enough. If China says, “Okay, don’t fight, let’s sign a deal,” then they don’t fight, because they have to respect China, right? China still plays that role in the current Iran situation there. So if China says don’t fight anymore, and Iran says that China says don’t fight anymore, then they may have to talk to each other and find a solution to that. So China is probably the biggest variable in this whole peacemaking process. China doesn’t have to say, “Oh, if you don’t do this, I’m going to send my troops or my navy.” No, China doesn’t have to do that. China just, by merely sitting there, says, “Hey, guys, don’t fight,” they will try to find a way to talk.

And that’s the soft power China has now, because China has the strongest economic power. If they violate their commitment to China, China could later use its economic power. So Chinese soft power is backed by its economic power, but furthermore, also backed by its strong military power too.

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China has a very strong self-defense power now. China’s military power doesn’t have to be at the same level as the United States. For example, its nuclear capacity is far below the U.S., or even Russia, but that’s already strong enough to provide strong deterrence to the United States. Graham Allison, a Harvard professor, and I had a long discussion: we said, if we had a war break out between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, or any place, the war would go back to the Stone Age; we’d all be finished. Beijing will be gone, Washington, New York will be gone, you’ll be gone — so that kind of deterrence is there.

China and the U.S., on the economic front have achieved a mutually disruptive status. If the U.S. weaponizes chips, weaponizes other things, China could weaponize rare earths minerals to counter U.S. threats. Even though China has this strong defensive military capability, that doesn’t mean China’s going to reach out with that to other countries. China has the largest navy in the world now. China is the largest drone producer in the world. China doesn’t have to use that, but China has that capability, and it’s strong enough. And in terms of all the other deterrence, China has reached first-class AI, whatever — so China doesn’t have to use that, but China can only use its economic cooperation basically. If you’re acting well, we’ll cooperate with you.

If you’re not acting well, we cannot cooperate with you. For example, recently China announced that while the U.S. is raising tariffs for almost every country, China says, okay, all goods from 53 African nations’ that are coming to China will not have any tariffs, which a big incentive for Europeans, for Japanese, for all the other countries to start up a factory in Africa, produce

goods, and sell them to China because all African goods coming to China have zero tariff. China can use its economic power to really say, okay, let’s cooperate. For example, if Iran says, “Okay, I’m not going to open the Strait of Hormuz” — okay, you don’t open it, and then China doesn’t buy 90% of your petroleum, and you’re going to be stuck. I think that kind of influence is enormous.You don’t have to say, “Oh, I’m going to send my aircraft,” which is what the U.S. did. China has aircraft, China doesn’t…

…

I think, first of all, China has strong deterrence capability, but the Iran war was really started by the U.S. and Israel; it wasn’t started by China. There’s a saying in Chinese: those who tied the knots should untie themselves, right? China has nothing to do with it, yet they’re still promoting peace. They’re doing it at the United Nations Security Council, talking to 30 foreign ministers on this issue. They invited President Trump to Beijing where one of the major issues was discussed.

They invited the Palestinian foreign minister and the Iranian foreign minister. China is backing Pakistan to be a mediator because Pakistan has the best relations with China. So China is never out of this; China is doing all these things. China only falls short of this: “If you don’t do that, I’m going to send navies.” No, that’s the imperialist approach. The Chinese approach is a more civilized, more modern approach. We are going to do diplomacy, but also we’re coupling that with economic influence and impact, because if you’re not going to solve this issue — first of all, China has a very strong voice to push for a ceasefire, to stop the fighting. China has pushed for that, and that’s been achieved now. Next is to push everybody to the negotiating table. And then, thirdly, China can be a guarantor, right? Both sides say, okay, we don’t want to fight, but who can guarantee that we won’t? China comes in and says, okay, I can be the guarantor; I can be a judge, if you will, in the future. So that kind of role, only a country like China with a strong military, economic, and political status can play.

…

What I think is that the Taiwan issue is a domestic issue, and China always prefers peaceful unification, because Taiwanese are Chinese, right? They use the same language, enjoy the same culture, and they have the same habits. There are half a million cross-strait marriages between mainland China and Taiwan. And last year, four million Taiwanese came to the mainland. They made four million trips, double the trips they made a year ago. And China just recently expanded the entry ports for Taiwanese from 60 to 100. Now they don’t need a visa or anything. They can just go to the entry port and say, “I’m going to come to the mainland,” and they’ll get a certificate to enter.

And the Fujian government said, okay, all the Taiwanese people that are coming here can get free schooling, employment, social security or Medicare because we welcome you. They treat Taiwan as their own citizens, as their own people. Why would we fight them? The only condition under which they’re willing to fight is if there’s foreign interference and a separatist movement. For example, if there are some diehards in Taiwan who maybe want to separate Taiwan from China, so China reserves the right, but only in that case — if that happens — China may use means other than peaceful ones. In the general sense, they’re trying to do it peacefully.

So this time, Trump came to China seeking a larger peace. He talked with President Xi about Iran. He wants to get out of that situation; he wants to make peace there. He wants peace in the Ukraine-Russia fight too, because he’s been trying for quite a while, but there has been no progress. He did that for Gaza some time ago too. So he’s seeking a larger peace. And in his inaugural speech last year, he said he wants to be a president of peace; he wants to get a Nobel Peace Prize. So China can help with that. But also, at the same time, can the U.S. help China peacefully unite with Taiwan?

China has a very strong deterrence regarding Taiwan. I don’t think the U.S. wants to fight China on the issue of Taiwan. This question has been asked of President Trump by U.S. journalists many times; Trump never answers that question, unlike his predecessor Biden, who said, “Oh, we’re going to defend Taiwan, we’re going to fight for Taiwan.” No, President Trump is a very smart person — he sees the bigger picture. I think sooner or later, Taiwan will be part of China, because this integration, this evolution of intertwining, will eventually happen.

…

On the Taiwan issue, President Xi’s statement was very strong. In front of President Trump, in front of the whole world, President Xi said Taiwan is the clash point between China and the U.S; we have to handle it properly, carefully; if we do not handle that properly, we may end up in conflict and fight. That was what was said in front of the whole world.

President Xi said that to President Trump, and President Trump said, on Air Force One, that he understood President Xi’s strong position on Taiwan — he understood that. And they never said no; they never said, “Oh, I disagree,” or whatever — no, they didn’t say that. So I think there was some understanding of each other.

…

Well, the U.S. is not directly involved in the Russia-Ukraine war, or Ukraine against Russia — they’re only behind that. They support with some weapons; now they’re even selling weapons, not supporting for free. The U.S. is not sending any soldiers to fight in the Ukraine war. And the U.S. is not even sending soldiers to fight in the Iran war.

And even a country like Iran — if it takes a long time, they can’t really finish that war, let alone having a conflict with China over Taiwan; that would be very dangerous for the U.S. to do.

…

That’s what I’m saying. The U.S. has attacked Iran directly, with Israel’s help, with everybody involved in that war, from its military bases. But even for such a strong American-Israeli alliance against Iran, a country that’s been sanctioned for 40 years, the U.S. can’t win very easily; they can’t claim a victory; they can’t finish their business. They’ve used every unthinkable method already — killing the supreme leaders, wiping out military commanders, you name it, they’ve done everything; big bombings and all those things — but they still can’t conquer Iran, let alone pick a fight with China. Iran is one-tenth, or one-twelfth the size of China. In terms of GDP, it may be many times smaller than China. Even in military power, many times smaller. If they can’t finish a country like Iran, I don’t think the U.S. is going to challenge China, because China is much, much stronger.

So that’s why I think President Trump is wise, and is smart, to say, “We cannot change you, so let’s coexist peacefully; let’s find a way to compare notes, find common ground, do something better for the world, provide some good leadership for the world.” So that’s, I think, the significance of this visit.

…

I think the multipolar world is coming. Last year, when the Munich Security Conference opened, they issued a report — the report was named “Multipolarity” — and I was one of the key panelists discussing that with the Munich Security Conference chairman, along with two other leaders from Europe and Africa on this multipolar world.

I think a multipolar world is the reality now, yet multipolar world governance has not arrived yet. We’re in that kind of evolving process. In this evolving process of a multipolar world — the U.S., China, the EU, other Global South countries — we’re going to shape a new dynamic. So I think we’re in that kind of period now. That’s why all the G7 leaders are coming to China — Trump is coming to China, to find out what other positions are out there, ways we can collaborate. So we’re in the process of defining the new governance of the multipolar world, and China will become a big pole, the U.S. is still a big pole, and the EU too.

I think there are quite a few poles; and they’ll figure out that if they don’t work together, they’ll be wiped out by AI, for example, or wiped out by climate change. So we have to work together. So I think that kind of unipolar world is gone, and the multipolar world has arrived. But multipolar world governance is not there — we have to reform the UN; we have to increase the Global South’s rights in all the international organizations; we have to reflect the current global power structure, which was made 80 years ago and hasn’t really changed much.

The U.S. is withdrawing from 66 international organizations. China is still supporting those multilateral systems. China stands to fill some of those vacuums. For example, when the U.S. withdrew from the WHO, China donated 500 million to the WHO. The U.S. has not been paying the United Nations its 22% budget on time — delay and delay. China pays its 20% every year on time, and China is supporting the multilateral system. I think we’re in that kind of adjustment period, but sooner or later…

…

I think it’s complementary. China doesn’t want to replace the U.S. China is, of course, for the multilateral system; if there’s a gap or shortage, China can make up for that as much as it can.

And of course, in some areas, China can probably provide more leadership — for example, infrastructure. China launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the AIIB, and China is a leader in global infrastructure. China can be a global leader in the green revolution or in globalization. For example, in the 19th century, the UK invented steam power, and the UK led 19th-century globalization. In the 20th century, Edison invented electric power, and the U.S. invented the internet and led the digital revolution, leading in the 20th century.

In the 21st century, China has 70% of global green power production now — it’s leading the green globalization. China will continue to lead the green globalization. We already see it in EVs that China is leading the world. I mean, last month, Beijing had the Beijing Auto Show, the largest ever — 1 million people attended, 2,000 companies came, 200 new models displayed — and China is already the leader in that. So you see, at different stages, China, the U.S., and Europe, they all have their competitive advantages. China is now in the driver’s seat in terms of green globalization.

So I think, in that sense, we’re not saying, “oh, who’s replacing who” — it’s just that, as it develops, whoever has the competitive advantage, whoever is making more contributions, is going to take on more responsibility and have a greater role in collaborating with everybody.

So that’s why you see, this year, so many global leaders are coming to China — the Russians came after Trump; everybody is rushing to Beijing as if Beijing has become the capital of the world now. So I think China will play a positive role, working with every country. That’s China’s commitment, China’s declaration, and that’s what China is doing. China only pursues economic globalization. The Belt and Road has been implemented for 13 years now, and China has invested over one trillion U.S. dollars in 3,000 projects — the biggest infrastructure push for the Global South. China, as I said, allowed 53 African countries to export their products to China tariff-free, and the trade between China and Africa has gone up significantly. That will continue.

…

I think it’s mutually beneficial, because we had this Silk Road 2,000 years ago, through China, the Arab world, Central Asia, and Europe; that Marco Polo route is still there. But now we have this new Silk Road, this Belt and Road; and particularly with what

happened in Iran and in Hormuz, the land-mass rail transportation — China dispatches about 10,000 trains annually to Europe, through Central Asia and all the other countries. So that will continue, and that’s really beneficial because — for example, you mentioned Germany, there’s a German city that’s at the receiving end of China’s dispatches, trains, and everything; with China’s help, many very good local jobs were created. China also helped Greece — the port of Piraeus it developed has created so many jobs and helped local communities.

…

No, I think any trade is mutually beneficial. For example, as I said, China didn’t force anybody to buy; it was all market conditions, and it was through agreeable negotiations.

But I do think that China is very interested in investing in Germany. I was actually proposing to all those German industries, all those German companies to come to China: Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, and all the rest. They’ve had a very successful experience in China. Actually, 40% of the EV cars exported out of China were made by foreign companies, by European companies, by Tesla, by Japanese companies — not totally China.

So a lot of foreign companies are making their manufacturing base in China, and they benefit from that. But I’d also suggest further — why can’t those joint ventures in China, who have so much experience in China, joint-venture together back to Europe, back to other countries? And then China can do more of the tech, do more of the investment. So I think, just like the Japanese did in the ‘80s and ‘90s — there were a lot of complaints about the Japanese just exporting, not doing much, but the Japanese massively invested in all these countries, and that criticism came down. I mean, China can do the same.

So I think, with all those good transportation networks, with all the competitive advantage of each other. European companies can also provide much more service to China. China’s service sector is still way below that of European countries. China may be good at manufacturing, but not good at services in many ways. So I think there are many ways we can do this. But also, Chinese companies are now interested in massively investing in Europe and other countries — Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, everywhere. So let’s really welcome that Chinese wave of investment as a way to solve this problem, and also, they can joint-venture together into other countries too, joint-venture together into other countries.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by the South China Morning Post on April 1, 2025 and revised for this collection, argues that closer economic, technological, and cultural cooperation among China, Japan, and South Korea could serve as the backbone of a more integrated and resilient Asia.

In a Broken World, China-Japan-Korea Cooperation Is Asia’s Backbone

By blending economic advantage, technological skill, and cultural bonds, cooperation in East Asia could be elevated into a transformative inspiring force for the region.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Tokyo recently for the 11th China-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ Meeting—the first since November 2023. During the visit, he also co-chaired the Sixth China-Japan High-Level Economic Dialogue with Japan’s Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya.

The results were promising: 20 consensus points emerged from the economic dialogue, spanning trade to green development, alongside a commitment to hold a trilateral summit by the end of the year.

Just days earlier, speaking at the 20th Roundtable Japan in Tokyo, I witnessed the palpable momentum for cooperation in East Asia. Our three nations are bound by geography—neighbours who cannot escape one another. This proximity demands that we prioritise our geopolitical relationships, harnessing our collective strengths for mutual benefit.

Our economic interdependence is a cornerstone of regional stability. Last year, China-Japan trade hit US$293 billion—Japan is China’s second-largest trading partner, while China is Japan’s top trading partner and import source, and the second-largest export market after the US. South Korea’s exports to China, its biggest market, rose by 6.6 per cent last year. Investment flows thrive too: Japanese companies bolster China’s manufacturing, while Chinese companies tap South Korea’s tech sectors.

Yet, global trade faces headwinds. The return of US President Donald Trump signals renewed protectionism, with tariff threats and a US-led North American bloc looming.

Wang has stressed that talks on a China-Japan-South Korea free trade agreement should be resumed soon. Building on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which has boosted intraregional exports, such an agreement could leverage Japan’s precision manufacturing, South Korea’s semiconductor prowess and China’s logistical might.

China is also pursuing frameworks such as the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA)—initiated by New Zealand, Singapore, and Chile—and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Japan, a CPTPP linchpin, could support China’s accession, fostering shared prosperity.

Beyond trade, cooperation must address regional challenges. First, ageing populations pose a crisis. China has over 300 million people aged 60 or older—nearly a quarter of its population—straining healthcare and pensions. Japan, with decades of experience in elderly care and robotics, and South Korea, with its healthcare tech innovations, offer models worth emulating. Joint research could turn this demographic shift into an opportunity.

Second, climate change demands collective action. Sharing the same ecosystem, we face challenges from air pollution to marine threats. Recent dialogue includes the September 20 consensus reached between China and Japan, committing to transparency over the management of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Third, supply chain resilience is vital amid disruptions. China’s ports, railways, and workforce complement Japan’s manufacturing and South Korea’s semiconductor expertise. Our proximity positions us to forge secure, efficient supply chains—imagine a “Made in East Asia” label rivalling global competitors.

Economic ties are only half the story. Our shared heritage—steeped in Confucianism and Buddhism—fosters mutual understanding. These traditions emphasise harmony and respect, easing communication at governmental and societal levels.

Among youth, this bond thrives: K-pop fans in China, anime lovers in South Korea, and Chinese students in Japanese universities fuel a dynamic cultural exchange. Tourism amplifies this connection—China’s visa facilitation measures, paired with Japan’s welcoming policies, have sparked a surge in visits.

This reflects the power of open borders and a shared culture. As these ties deepen, political barriers erode, paving the way for a united East Asia.

Regional integration is gaining momentum, and Asia must seize this opportunity to lead. As economic powerhouses, China, Japan, and South Korea—representing 1.6 billion people—can spearhead this effort alongside the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other partners, gradually forging an “Asian Union” that could unite nearly half the world’s population and economy by the middle of the century.

McKinsey predicts Asia will drive half of global consumption growth by 2030, a testament to our innovation potential: China supplies nearly half the world’s top artificial intelligence (AI) talent, while Japan and South Korea stand among global leaders in patent filings.

DEPA’s emphasis on digital trade complements the RCEP and CPTPP, bolstering regional resilience and cementing Asia’s role as a global digital leader. This trio could pioneer joint initiatives such as coordinated AI research hubs linking Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul or a unified e-commerce platform streamlining trade.

Our combined market size and innovation capacity rival any bloc’s, offering a counterbalance to Western dominance and reducing reliance on external powers. Success here could inspire broader Asian unity, from standardised 5G networks to joint space exploration. By blending economic might, technological prowess and cultural bonds, we can elevate cooperation into a transformative force, inspiring global integration.

The trilateral partnership of China, Japan, and South Korea is Asia’s backbone, and in a fractured world, it is a lifeline. Trade, supply chains, and cultural bonds trump differences. The consensus points reached in Tokyo prove pragmatism works. Let’s harness our strengths and shape an Asian century—now.

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Beijing’s message to the world’s tourists: come here and judge China for yourselves

Zichen Wang

By relaxing visa rules, Beijing has two things on its mind – boosting its economy and improving its self-image

Walk through central Beijing today and one thing quickly becomes apparent: foreigners are back. They are taking photos outside the Forbidden City and sitting in cafes around Gulou and Sanlitun. The shift is visible online, too; YouTube is increasingly filled with videos titled “China Shocked Me” or “My First Week in China”. Most of the creators are tourists, not China specialists or journalists, and many of them are encountering the country for the first time.

The resurgence is striking because to many outside observers China’s story has become one of closure and increased security – of intensifying strategic rivalry with the west, expanded anti-espionage enforcement and increasingly constrained foreign reporting, including the withholding and revocation of visas for US journalists. Yet on the ground, another story is unfolding. When it comes to its relationship with the rest of the world, Beijing increasingly appears to be betting on direct exposure: come to China and judge for yourself.

Driving the change is one of the most consequential shifts in China’s external engagement in years: an expanded and upgraded policy for travelling without a visa. From 2023, Beijing started to grant 30-day visa-free entry to ordinary passport holders from 50 countries, including every G7 member except the US, and 25 of the EU’s 27 member states. Its 240-hour visa-free transit policy also now allows eligible travellers from 55 countries, including the US, to spend up to 10 days in large parts of China while travelling onwards to a third destination.

And it’s working. In the first half of 2026, entries and exits across China’s borders once again reached a historic high. Arrivals by foreign nationals rose by 20.6% from a year earlier. Notably, 17.8 million entered without a visa, accounting for 77.7% of the total.

There is a clear economic rationale. With domestic consumption under pressure, inbound tourism offers a welcome boost. But economics alone cannot explain either the scale of the change or its political significance. This is not simply a tourism campaign – it is a new form of opening up.

That choice is especially striking amid a broader global retreat from cross-border openness. As geopolitical rivalry increasingly shapes the movement not only of capital and technology but also of students and travellers, many governments – including that of the US – are making entry more restrictive. Beijing is moving in the opposite direction in one deliberately limited sphere: it is making short-term visits easier, including for citizens of countries with which it has political, ideological or even security tensions.

Perhaps even more interestingly, it is also doing all of this without asking for the same in return. For decades, Chinese diplomacy emphasised reciprocity, but the current approach marks a confident break with that habit. Countries such as the UK and Japan still require visas from Chinese travellers, but British and Japanese citizens do not need visas to visit China.

The wager is straightforward: let visitors encounter a China more complex than the one presented in geopolitical headlines – high-speed trains, mobile payments, dense cities and ordinary people – and hope that while a week-long visit may not erase political disagreements, tourists will leave with a more informed view. For Beijing, that may be enough.

The expansion of visa-free travel has coincided with a recent, broader shift in international opinion: a Pew Research Center survey published this week found that China is now viewed more favourably than the US in most of the 36 countries surveyed, reflecting both improving perceptions of China and worsening views of the US.

For decades, China sought to improve its global image through intermediaries: media organisations, thinktanks, universities and public diplomacy programmes. Despite substantial investment, attitudes in many western countries remained unfavourable, while many Chinese people became sceptical that western media and policy elites would ever interpret China sympathetically. The new approach relies less on institutional gatekeepers. Individuals – including travellers from four members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – can come and see the country for themselves.

At the same time, the influx of visitors is reshaping China’s domestic environment. Public security authorities have ordered hotels to stop refusing foreign guests by claiming that they lack the qualifications needed to receive them. Payment platforms have also made it easier for overseas users to pay through Visa, Mastercard and PayPal. These changes may sound technical, but they matter: the arrival of more foreign visitors is creating pressure to remove stubborn practical obstacles.

This more open approach, however, has clear limits. Beijing is making it easier to visit China but not to work, settle or belong there. Even as barriers to short-term mobility fall, deeper boundaries around residence, employment and information remain intact. This distinction came to the surface when China recently introduced a K visa for overseas graduates: it is supposed to attract young talent in science and technology, and is modest by international standards. But the policy prompted a fierce public backlash online over job competition, alleged preferential treatment for foreigners, and the importation of labour at a time of anxiety about employment and welfare.

The backlash partly rests on an exaggerated sense of China’s attractiveness to foreign workers. The linguistic and cultural barriers are high. Internet restrictions wall China’s digital ecosystem off from global platforms. And welfare and schooling remain difficult for most foreigners to access, while the country’s incomplete transition to a market-led economy limits the careers available to them.

Nor should the return of foreign tourists and vloggers be confused with the return of the old expat community – the long-term presence of Americans and Europeans in the country has not recovered to its pre-pandemic scale. Trade frictions, decoupling, corporate localisation and geopolitical caution have all reduced the number of China-based jobs available to foreign workers.

But while the visa-free experiment will not resolve strategic rivalry or erase disputes over trade, technology and security at a time when many countries are raising barriers, Beijing has chosen, in one important domain, to lower them. China is no longer simply trying to explain itself better. It is becoming more willing to be seen.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by the South China Morning Post on March 16, 2025 and revised for this collection, examines how Donald Trump’s deal-oriented approach could create openings for cooperation on trade, investment, Taiwan, and peace in Ukraine.

The US-China Thucydides Trap Is by no Means a Foregone Conclusion

From helping mediate in Ukraine aligning with the economic and geopolitical goals of the US under Donald Trump, China may yet defy this dangerous historical specter and produce practically positive political and economic outcomes.

The Thucydides Trap–the idea that a rising power and an established hegemon are destined for war–often frames China-US tensions and conflict as inevitable. Yet I believe the outcome is determined not by fate, but by choice.

Harvard professor Graham Allison, who popularised the term with his 2012 Financial Times article, agrees with me on the role of human agency. As he put it during an event for my book, Escaping Thucydides’s Trap: Dialogue with Graham Allison on China-US Relations, held last month on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, “Structural forces account for 75-80 per cent of the outcome, but human agency shapes the rest.”

Peace is not an illusion–it’s a viable option if we act decisively.

The Thucydides Trap is based on the competition between Athens and Sparta, a rivalry that ended in war. History offers plenty of similar warnings—rising powers frequently collide with dominant ones. Yet exceptions exist. In the 1890s, Britain and Germany avoided military conflict through economic competition. Allison’s book, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, does not predict doom; it challenges us to rewrite the pattern.

That China’s economy achieved 5 per cent growth last year and is projected to grow by another 5 per cent this year despite US containment efforts underscores the stakes. Over 70,000 American companies generate US$600 billion in sales annually there, with Tesla’s Shanghai operations driving its global success. These connections are not incidental – they’re a foundation for mutual benefit, favouring cooperation over confrontation, much as trade once steadied European power relations.

US President Donald Trump’s return to power introduces a new dynamic. While 80 per cent of Americans view China unfavourably, Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping’s leadership during his campaign. His focus on economic outcomes over ideological divides sets him apart from Washington’s norm.

In Munich, Allison predicted that by January 2026, US-China relations would “surprise us on the upside”, citing Trump’s deal-oriented approach and signs of thawing rhetoric. Appointees like former CEO David Perdue and financial expert Scott Bessent suggest a preference for practical engagement over entrenched hostility.

Trump’s emphasis on economic priorities opens avenues for dialogue on trade and technology. China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, set to begin next year, could provide a framework for new agreements – perhaps in infrastructure or investment in the United States—inline with Trump’s stated interests.

On Taiwan, mainland China’s economic incentives, such as deepened economic and tourism exchanges, could help ease tensions and foster coexistence. While a modern communiqué, building on the 1972 Shanghai accord, which marked the normalization of US-China relations might outline mutual commitments to stability and prosperity.

But this extends beyond bilateral ties – it’s a chance to shape global outcomes. Consider Ukraine. Allison argues China could play a pivotal role in resolving that conflict. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said no American troops would be deployed there, leaving peacekeeping functions to European and non-European forces.

Further, Russia’s concerns of NATO encroachment would likely require broader involvement from unaligned parties, and a substantial deployment of non-European peacekeepers. China is already the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping forces among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and, together with other BRICS countries, could help convene peace talks, support a negotiated settlement on the Russia-Ukraine war, and provide the neutral peacekeeping presence and security guarantees necessary to sustain it.”

Trump’s aim to halt that war aligns with this opportunity; his planned visit to China within 100 days of taking office, is a window Beijing, Washington, Brussels, Moscow and Kyiv should seize – we should restore UN credibility and authority and pass a UN Security Council resolution to send UN peacekeeping forces to Ukraine. Negotiations on trade, investment, and even a phase two or phase three agreement could also yield gains in areas Trump values.

Organizing international forums to reframe power transitions as opportunities for collaboration, not just conflict, could shift global perspectives. Success would stabilize regions and show China’s capacity to turn rivalry into partnership.

Trump’s tariff threats unsettle markets, but his preference for deals over doctrine offers China an advantage. Foreign Minister Wang Yi emphasized in Munich that China’s approach rests on respect and mutual benefit–a consistent stance amid uncertainty.

Beijing can propose trade agreements or technology collaborations that appeal to Trump’s advisers, including business leaders drawn to China’s economic weight. It could encourage a practical approach in Washington. On issues like TikTok, an economic deal might reduce friction. Globally, China can leverage forums like the G20 to articulate a clear message of coexistence – not merely a rebuttal of conflict, but a constructive vision for stability through openness.

The Thucydides Trap is not a foregone conclusion–it’s a call to action. President Xi said it well: “There are a thousand reasons to make the China-US relationship a success, and not a single one to harm it.”

From helping to mediate in Ukraine to investing in the US, we can defy historical trends. Deepening ties with American business leaders close to Trump can also reinforce a focus on practical outcomes rather than political posturing. Facilitate peace talks to unite the Global South. Align the 15th Five-Year Plan with US economic goals. Ease tensions through collaboration, not confrontation. Peace requires effort, not chance. The time to act is now.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, adapted from a background paper prepared for the Trilogue Salzburg in August 2025 and revised for this collection, examines how the decline of unipolarity is accelerating regional integration and creating a more dispersed international order.

Transformation and Opportunities in the Multipolar Era: Regional Integration, Global Governance, and China’s Historical Wisdom

At the edge of a new, multipolar world, we stand at a crossroads of evolution and division. While some countries would like to divide the world into camps, China’s historically based long-term vision is one of integrated evolution that benefits all nations.

The world today is undergoing profound transformation. The once dominant unipolar order, US hyperpower, has gradually given way to a more complex and diverse multipolar landscape. While China has long been an advocate of multilateralism, its presence is now no longer deniable. At the Munich Security Conference, it was the central topic of discussion and was treated effectively as already a truism. Further more new blocs are rising, regionalism is resurging, and independent actors are asserting their autonomy. Traditional patterns of influence are being replaced by new forms of cooperation and competition. Amid this sweeping change, understanding the motivations and dynamics behind these shifts—especially how countries like China are likely to respond, drawing on their deep historical and cultural legacy—has become essential to grasping the future of international relations.

This evolving global landscape is still neck deep in the throes of globalization. Even as the star of economic liberalism seems to be under threat and liberal internationalism in retreat, the processes of regional integration and cooperation across multiple continents have only accelerated, signaling a decisive move away from centralized power toward a more distributed and interconnected world order. This is the core of Globalization 3.0, in that even as economic globalization slows at the broadest scope, all the forces undergirding globalization have remained in play and adjusted to this new post-hegemonic order.

And now that the movement toward multipolarity is unmistakable, with power and influence no longer concentrated in a single superpower or locked in bipolar rivalry, we are seeing a world of greater freedom of action, for better and worse. The dispersion of power across multiple centers and programs of regional integration as a reaction stands out as one of the most vivid expressions of this shift.

In North America, the United States has embarked on an effort to build its own pole, first under the Biden administration, when it tried to retrench itself in its traditional alliance structures and build a united front against the rising power of China, with assemblages such as the Quad and AUKUS as well as increasing NATO involvement in the Pacific. But amidst the second Trump administration, the United States has changed course, embarking on a more narrowly focused North American pole, attempting to coerce Canada, and Belgium via Greenland, to pursue closer relations, while threatening to reassert control over the Panama Canal. These moves reflect a changing world and a determination to solidify a more modest pole amid intensifying global competition.

Meanwhile, Europe is accelerating its integration process and investing in military capacity and cooperation. Emerging from its post-Brexit slowdown, the European Union, which has since its inception expanded from six founding members to 27, now looks to continue with countries like Ukraine and Moldova as official candidates, signaling continued interest in external growth. Meanwhile, internally, economic integration, with the expansion of the EU’s single market, the Eurozone and the Schengen Area, continues. Taken together, these facilitate the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people, and have seen member states cede rights and limited sovereignty by entrusting the supranational EU with greater authority, on topics ranging from the negotiation of trade deals to regulations on food production. Meanwhile, military spending within NATO is soon to rise to 4.5% of GDP across the Alliance, mostly impacting Western European members by signaling the end of their peace dividend and of Europe as a disarmed continent. Despite challenges from populism and political extremism, the EU remains committed to pressing forward with a dual-track approach of deepening and widening integration, while investing in the assets needed to act independently of the US security guarantee.

Beyond Europe and North America, the rise of the Global South has catalyzed the decentralization of power within the international system and demonstrated another path forward. The 2008 global financial crisis propelled emerging economies into global governance and led directly to the creation of the G20 Leaders’ Summit—forming the basis of a new framework for cooperation on economic and global issues. Emerging economies hold 11 seats within the G20, and the African Union’s inclusion at the 2023 New Delhi summit further amplifies the Global South’s voice. BRICS countries stand as prominent representatives of this new wave and have become key drivers of the multipolar evolution. In 2022, measured by purchasing power parity, the BRICS nations accounted for 31.5% of the world economy—surpassing the G7’s 30.7%. This gap is only likely to widen as opportunities for developing economies outpace those of developed ones.

At the same time, Asia is witnessing a surge in regional cooperation. High-profile summits involving China, ASEAN, and the Gulf Cooperation Council have underscored efforts to enhance economic connectivity, energy collaboration, and diplomatic dialogue—reflecting a growing recognition of the importance of regional solidarity in navigating global uncertainties.

Within Southeast Asia, the “ASEAN-X” mechanism exemplifies a pragmatic and flexible approach to regional integration. By allowing differentiated and phased implementation of commitments, ASEAN advances regional unity while respecting member states’ sovereignty and diversity. Simultaneously, Southeast Asia is actively deepening cooperation with external powers and international partners, enhancing its strategic connectivity and influence in global governance. ASEAN’s own dual approach—strengthening internal cohesion and expanding external partnerships—reflects the broader trend also seen in Europe of intensified regional cooperation under multipolarity. It positions Southeast Asia not only as a cohesive regional bloc but also as a dynamic actor contributing to the construction of a balanced, multipolar international order.1

Similarly, Latin America is actively pursuing regional integration as a strategic response to external pressures and internal challenges. The 27th São Paulo Forum, convened in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, gathered over 1000 representatives from more than 400 political parties, organizations, and social movements across Latin America, the Caribbean, and 21 countries worldwide. Under the theme of regional integration, the forum critically examined challenges posed by US and NATO hegemonic actions, the rise of right-wing forces and ongoing global crises that undermine regional unity. In response, it emphasized the necessity of strengthening solidarity and cooperation among left-wing parties to advance pluralistic and inclusive regional integration. Rejecting neoliberalism, neocolonialism, and exclusionary trade agreements, the forum advocated resistance against imperialist interference and unconventional warfare.2 Through comprehensive development plans and political unity, Latin America demonstrates a clear commitment to enhancing regional cohesion and collective empowerment.

Across Latin America, Africa, India, and all the nations of the broader Global South, there has been an increasing latitude and tendency to pursue independent foreign policies. This impulse is comingled with a refusal to align strictly with any major power bloc, with non-alignment reflecting a desire for greater autonomy and diversified partnerships. Meanwhile, liberal internationalism has receded in the United States, and the rise of tensions has hindered the free flow of trade. Yet despite these two factors, the continuing growth of global trade demonstrated another quiet truth: If the state of global trade over the past decades has been a dance, then yes, the dance partners may be changing, and regional dynamics may grow more pronounced. But people are still looking for partners in the waltz. Trade itself remains fundamental to undergirding the prosperity of the present, even as it has become more unpopular in developed nations.

Further, the Global South as a whole seems to thoroughly understand that global challenges, such as climate change, development, and security, require flexible, multilateral solutions. Collectively, these trends illustrate that the world is no longer defined by singular or binary power structures. Instead, regional blocs and independent actors together shape a complex new multipolar order characterized by overlapping networks of cooperation, competition, and negotiation.

As alluded to earlier, during the Biden administration, attempts were made to revive a Cold War style ideological approach, building coalitions of “like-minded” countries to counter China. Initiatives like AUKUS and the Quad brought in new partners such as India and framed the issue as a struggle between democracy and authoritarianism to preserve the “free world.” However, with changes in US leadership and shifting geopolitical realities, these ideological divisions have rapidly fallen by the wayside and China’s relations with countries previously aligned against it have begun to improve.3 This shift highlights a defining feature of the emerging multipolar order: The world is no longer shaped by rigid ideological blocs, but by a flexible, overlapping web of pragmatic regional groupings.

If disruption is a rupture—a sudden break where conditions on the ground are exposed as having rested on false assumptions, as with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar order—then evolution is when leaders and stakeholders recognize change early and understand its implications.

We have already cleared the first hurdle: We have seen the change coming. Just as thinkers like John Robert Seeley foresaw that Britain’s era of global hegemony would not last as “nations organized on a vaster scale,” we today stand at the threshold of a new multipolar era. Fundamental shifts in the world’s economic organization are already under way, signaling the slow but inexorable end of American hegemonic power. China’s response to this oncoming global change and the solution it offers is deeply rooted in its millennia-old history and rich cultural traditions, which imbue the country with a distinctive sense of confidence and composure. Over thousands of years, through the rise and fall of dynasties, through the birth of the modern Chinese state, the Chinese people have cultivated a broad historical perspective, one that allows engagement with today’s international challenges as transient episodes within the vast continuum of time. A long-term view fosters a mindset of patience and careful deliberation, encouraging thoughtful responses rather than impulsive reactions. By understanding that crises and upheavals are often temporary, China is approaching global uncertainties with a calm prudence, always seeking the right timing and approach to navigate change effectively.

This long perspective is complemented by China’s heritage, which has instilled a strong sense of pragmatism and stability in the national character. For centuries, self-sufficiency in agriculture shaped a collective mentality centered around “having enough to eat, no need to panic.” Even when external circumstances become turbulent or threatening, the worst-case scenario requires a calm focus inward on sustaining the nation. This has freed China from the need to respond aggressively or make hasty compromises under pressure. With the exception of the Mongol invasions of Japan, which were birthed of a young foreign dynasty in control of the Chinese mainland, China has always calmly set its own pace and strategic direction: avoiding starting wars, and instead maintaining stability even amid instability.

However, this pragmatic approach should not be mistaken for conservatism or isolationism. History shows that China has often turned periods of turmoil into opportunities for transformation and growth. Many of its greatest leaders and founding emperors emerged in times of chaos, seizing moments of uncertainty to establish new orders and reshape the nation. Meanwhile, it was the complacency and hegemonic breakout of the Qing dynasty that led to the great divergence in both military and technology that in part led to China’s weakness in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This historical experience nurtures a mindset in which change itself is not something to be feared; rather, it is a natural and inevitable part of life that must be understood and harnessed. Change represents opportunity and what truly matters is the ability to recognize emerging trends, set clear objectives, and adapt flexibly to evolving circumstances.

Consequently, China’s strategic approach today is anchored in having well-defined long-term goals while maintaining flexibility in how to achieve them. It embraces a pragmatic attitude that any method or path contributing to these goals is worth pursuing, without rigid adherence to fixed formulas or ideologies. In the complex and shifting landscape of international relations, China not only seeks to protect its own national interests but also aims to play a constructive role in global governance.

China’s success reinforces this message. China proves that peaceful nations can both benefit from economic globalization and deftly sails against the headwinds facing our current era, offering compromise, peace, and mutual benefit for all.

For example, in crises such as the conflicts in Ukraine or the Middle East, China consistently maintains an independent and balanced stance, actively engaging in diplomatic mediation efforts to promote peace and stability. This reflects an understanding that global disorder can also create openings for constructive influence, and that success depends on seizing the right moments to shape outcomes beneficially for both China and the wider world.

Reflecting on the tumultuous history of the last century, China’s journey offers valuable lessons. During periods of national crisis and decline, the Chinese people engaged in tireless experimentation with various social, political, and economic models in search of a viable path forward. The country became a vast laboratory where multiple governance systems—from parliamentary democracies to presidential regimes—were tested. Many of these efforts faced significant challenges due to incompatibilities with China’s unique cultural and historical context.

Through intense competition among these different ideas and real-world trials, the People’s Republic of China as it exists today gradually took shape. This historical process underscores a simple but important truth: Sustainable solutions arise only from pragmatic approaches tailored to a nation’s specific circumstances and realities. Since the founding of the PRC, this principle of pragmatism has guided many of China’s most pivotal decisions—from the historic normalization of relations with the United States to the launch of the reform and opening-up policies that propelled China’s rapid modernization. Had China chosen alternative paths, the country and indeed the world today would look very different.

And now China offers its own solution to all who would listen: a peaceful and empowering evolution, rather than a hard rupture of disruption—through the five principles first articulated at the Bandung Conference in 1954: mutual respect for sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. China is offering itself up, engaging economically and peacefully with every continent, looking toward the mutual benefit born of trade, trust and capacity building that can glue us all together in an evolution, not a revolution, to bring the world together and make it a better place. From the China–CELAC forum in Latin America to the China–FOCAC forum in Africa, from the ASEAN-X models to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), China is committed to this path.

In sum, the world stands at a crossroads of evolution and disruption. The trend toward multipolarity and regional integration marks a clear break from the colonial era’s spheres of influence and the rigid bipolarity of the Cold War. Today’s world is shaped by voluntary cooperation among sovereign states, overlapping, inclusive regional frameworks, and pragmatic, flexible strategies rooted in each nation’s history and culture. China’s approach—anchored to long-term goals while adapting with flexibility—exemplifies how historical wisdom and practical experience can provide stability and opportunity amid uncertainty. As global power continues to diffuse and regional networks grow more complex, the ability to adapt, cooperate, and maintain clarity of purpose will be essential to navigating the challenges and opportunities of the multipolar age.

In the think tank panel “Emerging Powers in a Multipolar World: Many Paths, One Destination,” Wang joined

• Charles Powell, Director, Elcano Royal Institute, Spain;

• Luanda Mpungose, Outreach and Partnership Manager at the South African Institute of International Affairs;

• Rachel Rizo, Senior Fellow, Strategic Studies Program, Observer Research Foundation, India;

• Daniel Kochis, Senior Fellow, Center on Europe and Eurasia, Hudson Institute, United States;

• Manoel Corrêa do Lago, Senior Consultant, Brazilian Center for International Relations, Brazil

to discuss whether the world is moving toward genuine multipolarity or a new form of bipolarity; the growing role of BRICS, middle powers, and the Global South; the future of multilateral institutions; and opportunities for cooperation between established and emerging powers.

The video recording of the panel is available on CCG’s official YouTube channel.

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

Mihaela Papa, Director of Research and Principal Research Scientist, Director of BRICS Lab, MIT Center for International Studies (CIS), USA

Minister Gerit Radman, Speaker Androsovich, thank you for your inspiring remarks and for welcoming and hosting us here at the Dubrovnik Forum. Good morning, everyone. I’m honored and delighted to moderate this think tank panel on “Emerging Powers in a Multipolar World: Many Paths, One Destination”. We are joined today by a distinguished group of experts bringing perspectives from across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States.

I would like to introduce our panelists: Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, Center for China and Globalization, from China; Charles Powell, Director, Elcano Royal Institute, from Spain; Luanda Mpungose, Outreach and Partnership Manager at the South African Institute of International Affairs; Rachel Rizo, Senior Fellow, Strategic Studies Program, Observer Research Foundation, from India; Daniel Kochis, Senior Fellow, Center on Europe and Eurasia, Hudson Institute, United States; and last but not least, Manoel Corrêa do Lago, Senior Consultant, Brazilian Center for International Relations, from Brazil. So we are very fortunate. Thank you so much for joining us.

We often describe the emerging order as multipolar, but it’s not always clear what we mean by “multipolar.” Does it refer to a more balanced international system, a more fragmented one, or simply a world in which many actors seek greater autonomy, multi-alignment, new partners, diversification, while still operating under the strong gravitational pull of U.S.-China competition? To assess whether emerging powers are becoming new poles in the order, we also need to ask: what makes a country a pole? Is it economic weight? Technological capacity, especially now in the AI era? Military power? Demographic scale? Institutional leadership? Or the ability to preserve autonomy under pressure?

So our discussion today seeks to address three questions. The first one: are we moving toward a genuinely multipolar order, or toward a new bipolarity? What forms of influence are emerging powers actually exercising? The second, how is this reconfiguration of the global order affecting multilateral processes, as well as U.S. and EU strategies? And finally, where do we see opportunities for constructive cooperation among emerging powers, and between established and emerging powers?

So for our first question, on the shape of the emerging order, I’d like to begin with perspectives from China, Brazil, and South Africa. Maybe the best place to begin is actually with China, because next year will be the 30-year anniversary of the 1997 China-Russia declaration on the multipolar world. And last month, President Xi and President Putin renewed that language, and renewed the initiative, in a new declaration on multipolarity and the new type of international relations. And we also saw President Xi met with President Trump, with a lot of talk about the crucial bilateral relationship for the world order. So is China’s vision genuinely multipolar, and if so, who are the poles — or are we entering a bipolar system? Maybe shall we start with Huiyao?

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder & President, CCG

Thank you, Mihaela, for this great moderation. First of all, I’d like to thank the organisers for inviting me to this beautiful, scenic city that is famous in the world.

No, I think you’re absolutely right — we’re getting into a multipolar world now, and that’s already a reality. I remember, last year I was in Berlin, we kicked off the Munich Security Conference’s annual report. The title of the report was “Multipolarity.” I was one of the four panellists there to kick off that report. But since then, I’ve seen more recognition of multipolarity — of a multipolar world — because it’s already a reality that everybody seems to accept now.

So the challenge we’re having today is that we’re in a multipolar world, but we don’t have a multilateral system to support this multipolar world. So we’re in a transition, trying to reach some new equilibrium. So you ask, who are the new poles? Absolutely — I’m sure we’re here in Europe; the European Union is a pole. Of course, the United States is a pole. I think China is a pole. India and the Global South countries are poles too, and middle powers probably as well.

But the thing now is, we could have a new, big pole rising — the BRICS countries. For example, the BRICS countries’ GDP has already reached almost 40%, and they account for about half the global population, whereas the G7’s GDP has greatly declined and represents only about one billion people. So it’s quite a contrast. I see these two big — if you want to call it a bipolar bubble, there are two big poles like that, but ideologically very divided sometimes.

So what I hope is that, as we get into a multipolar world, all the countries, all the poles, must work together — like we’ve come to the Dubrovnik Forum to talk about this — and gradually build up a consensus. We need to reform the current multilateral system we established. For example, we’re not trying to turn away from the existing system, but to improve and enhance it a lot. We should reform the multilateral system — the UN, the WTO, and the WHO.

China actually plays a huge role now in supporting the existing system. The United States is withdrawing from 66 international organisations, and China is actually supporting many of them. President Xi recently has proposed the Global Governance Initiative. China is now the second-largest donor to the United Nations; it is the largest peacekeeping-troop-sending country among the P5. When the U.S. pulled out of the WHO, China announced it would donate 500 million U.S. dollars to the WHO.

So I think China is playing a positive role, contributing 30% of global GDP growth and becoming the largest trading nation with 140 countries. So I think, as one pole, China is going to be a stabiliser, a promoter, and a cooperator for the new multipolar world.

Mihaela Papa

Wonderful. I think it’s important to stress the entrepreneurial initiatives, and I think the World Trade Organisation is also one that’s getting reshaped.

So thank you, and let’s go now to Latin America and Brazil. Brazil has also long supported a more multipolar and representative international order, with an emphasis on avoiding rigid blocs and empowering multilateralism — especially in these big conferences, the multilateral diplomacy of sustainable development, which Brazil is really known for all over the world. So is Brazil’s vision of multipolarity similar to China’s, or where do you see the trends in Brazil? And also, if you could broaden out to some hemispheric challenges you see in the current order.

Manoel Corrêa do Lago, Senior Consultant, Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI), Brazil

Thank you very much, and thank you very much for this invitation. We’re very honoured to participate in this forum, and I’m still under the spell of seeing Dubrovnik for the first time yesterday, going to the old city. I’m very much taken by this at the moment.

What I would say is that Brazil’s commitment to multilateralism is a very old story because when European powers were fighting among themselves in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brazil established each one of its frontiers — one with France, French Guiana; one with England, ex-English Guiana — and each with the other South American countries through negotiations and arbitration. So there’s not one inch of Brazilian frontier, which is the result, for instance, of conquest. Everything has been the result of the application of international law and the resort to arbitration.

So after the Second World War, when the United Nations was created and all the mechanisms were set up, Brazil was very active in the making of it, and we have no reason to believe that the best way isn’t the multilateral one — which in no way impedes the bilateral strengthening of ties. That’s why, for instance, Mercosur is so important to Brazil; BRICS is an important forum too.

You asked a very good question about what makes a country a pole. We believe there are all sorts of reasons for Latin America being a pole because we have almost 700 million people there. We probably have the largest biodiversity on the planet. We have, on the whole, a clean energy matrix. And if we take the Mercosur countries together, we’ve become a very, very important and successful food producer for the world. So there’s no reason we shouldn’t do the same in other areas as well.

And we understand that African countries can become poles too, and we see the extraordinary example of China over the last 30 years, and more recently of India — very remarkable achievements. So we look forward to a multipolar world where each continent develops its own applications.

And in the recent context of China and the U.S., we at Mercosur see, with great enthusiasm, the agreements we’re progressing with Singapore, with Japan, and now, very recently, the very important agreement with the European Union. So we very much look forward to seeing Europe — with its half a billion people and such important GDP — become more of a pole than it has been so far. So yes, we welcome a world of many poles.

Mihaela Papa

Wonderful, thank you. So turning to South Africa. From a South African perspective, does multipolarity create greater agency for African states, and what do you perceive in South Africa in terms of the debates and discussions on multipolarity?

Luanda Mpungose, Outreach and Partnership Manager, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), South Africa

Thank you very much, and it’s a singular honor to be joining this panel of think-tankers and knowledge producers of the world. I think I want to take a bit of a step back and reflect on the fact that when Africa enters global fora or global systems, it enters them already established. If you look at the birth of multilateralism and the creation of what we call the Bretton Woods system or institutions, we were on the periphery when those were created. And if you go on to look at the birth of a single hegemony, that was post-Cold War, when the U.S. kind of won the contestation with the Soviet Union — and there, again, Africa kind of positioned itself together with the Global South, forming the Non-Aligned Movement.

So we’re entering systems already established, and we play a very peripheral role — not by choice, but because of how the system has been set. Nevertheless, I think cooperation, and the underpinnings of cooperation, is why we think these systems are important, and we want to cooperate those systems, and be among the forebears of the rules and norms that make the global system we work within.

And I think I’m going to rely on the minister’s plea for us to have very frank conversations. Even as we enter these systems that have been put before us, it hasn’t been as though we’re recognised as equal players. It’s almost a contestation of geopolitical underpinnings, and basically we’re being mobilised to take sides. Nevertheless, I think what we increasingly are communicating as a region is that we actually have agency beyond that, and we’d like the global system to have rules that are fair and equitable.

But as it stands, it’s a question of whose rules, and who those rules apply to — because certainly, if a country in the Global South does something, the world reacts very strongly; however, if it’s a country in the Global North, we see that met with silence. So that level of hypocrisy becomes a very fundamental critique that we raise as South Africa, and largely as the African continent.

Nevertheless, I think the important thing is that we’re certainly headed toward a multipolar world — we’re probably already in it. But I’d argue it’s a multipolar world with very special features, because now we’re seeing the role of emerging markets and middle powers pronounced like never before.

South Africa is one of the BRICS member countries, and we’ve received a lot of criticism for being a member. In the initial stages, when BRICS was formed, it was looked at in the West as a counter to global cooperation and the multilateral system. But if you really investigate BRICS’s positioning, it’s actually emerged as a protector of multilateralism, at a time when the people who created the system have regressed and eroded the rules and norms we know to be fundamental and key.

So we look largely at these platforms of plurality as well as cooperation as a space where we can effect reform — both from inside the multilateral system and possibly even outside, creating alternatives that will work for the Global South. So certainly, multipolarity, from my perspective — but with special features.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. I think the three speakers actually introduced BRICS as an important aspect of the multipolar debates. So to what extent do the three of you see BRICS evolving as a a building block for a future system, or, actually as I think Luanda you mentioned, something around which the core of the new system will be built? Because if we look, for example, at Russian statements, it’s very much the new system will be built around BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. That’s a very different trajectory than BRICS being a building block of the new international system that needs reform, modernization, and upgrading. So what are your thoughts here? I don’t know who wants to start.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yeah, perhaps I could add on that. I think that whether it’s BRICS or the SCO or others, it’s really a new form of a multipolar world taking place. But I do think they don’t want to throw out the old system or establish a new one — they want to cooperate within the system we already have.

And what I think is probably more important now is that the old system, the Bretton Woods system, reflects what was true 80 years ago. But a lot of things are happening now — climate, AI, pandemics, robotics. All those things are happening, and I think BRICS countries, and of course the G7, the G20, the UN — we should all work together. It’s just that we now have multiple stakeholders in this world, rather than only a unipolar or single-stakeholder world — everybody’s a stakeholder now, all these polar stakeholders.

So I think it’s a joint effort now, bringing all those big blocs together — but we need some anchor role from BRICS countries for some time, and also from the European Union and the United States too. So I think we need those big poles to work together for a better world.

Luanda Mpungose

So perhaps I’d say that BRICS was born out of a realization that middle powers or developing economies need to cooperate, and its mandate started as largely economic, vis-à-vis trade — and it morphed into a bigger global-governance project. And I think Henry has mentioned that the areas BRICS looks at now have expanded. We’re looking at AI, we’re looking at climate — the agenda is really expansive. And I think the fundamental underpinning there is largely the recognition that the system isn’t fair, and it’s responding to that.

But I think, increasingly, even beyond BRICS, there’s also another grouping called MIKTA, and many other coalitions that exist. The more the system is unfair, and the more systems and institutions are being weaponised against those considered the losers in the system, the more they’re going to want to innovate and come up with alternatives. If I look, for instance, at local-currency payments, that was born out of a decision by certain countries to impose unilateral sanctions rather than referring to a multilateral system, and we increasingly saw the weaponisation of that. So the more you do it, the more countries are going to want to innovate and look for alternatives.

So I kind of see BRICS as both — it is a system that’s challenging the current order, not because it wants to make significant changes, but because it wants reform and equity. But more than that, countries also advance their own interests, and some of those aren’t aligned with each other’s interests. But that’s important because then the consensus conversation comes to the fore; and BRICS is specifically interesting from my perspective because if there’s no consensus, a project, whatever it is, doesn’t move forward, and then they’ll agree to disagree and move on to other platforms. But largely, in areas that have been very difficult, they’ve been able to find consensus.

So Mihalea, I see it as largely a combination of the weaponisation of systems and the lack of reform of the current system to actually be fair and equitable — and that’s where BRICS is largely responding at the moment.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. Any other comments on this?

Manoel Corrêa do Lago

Yes. I would say that we are so much in need of forums — sometimes some diagonal, transversal forums — so that specific questions are better addressed in those forums rather than in others. I think it would be a great mistake to look at BRICS as a sort of anti-Western mechanism. I think it is in the same way that the G7 is not an anti-Global-South mechanism. I think it gives immense opportunities for dialogue between countries that have not so far developed their relationships bilaterally, and I believe it enriches, let’s say, the diplomatic agenda by having this particular sort of outlook.

Now, of course, BRICS has to live up to its expectations. So far, I believe it’s still more a project than a reality, but definitely, it’s not a group set against another set of countries or groups. So that’s my view.

Mihaela Papa

I would certainly say yes to that, because the BRICS work I’m doing — actually, the data shows that most of the cooperation is sustainable-development, industrial-development, and development-centered.

So let’s go now to India, and Rachel if I can ask you to give us a sense. India seems to really be the master of multi-alignment, thinking about multipolarity and making the most of alignments, both with the United States and with BRICS. India is also currently chairing the BRICS group, but more broadly, what do you see the debates in India converging on, and where do you see the current situation?

Rachel Rizo, Senior Fellow in the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation

Yeah, absolutely. First, I’d like to echo the other panelists in saying thank you for the invitation — it’s a beautiful city, and it’s wonderful to be here. I want to start with a little anecdote that can sort of frame whether we’re talking about multipolarity or bipolarity. There

were two really important meetings that happened last month. One got a lot more airtime than the other one. The first was a very highly publicized meeting between President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Trump went into this meeting, in my opinion, from a place of relative weakness — he needed to try to get the Chinese to help convince the Iranians to open the Strait of Hormuz, and needed a deal on critical minerals. We’re obviously having a different conversation today — this is a very fast-moving conflict in the Middle East.

But there was also another meeting happening simultaneously. This is the meeting of the BRICS foreign ministers, which took place in New Delhi. Now, my question for the audience is: which meeting do you think the Chinese foreign minister went to? He stayed in Beijing for the meeting with President Trump. So I think that gives you a good sense of how both the U.S. and China are thinking about this moment — neither label fits cleanly.

The U.S.-China relationship still organises a lot of the system’s gravity, especially on tech and security, but the texture of the world underneath it, I think, is multipolar, and India plays an important role here. I think the difficulty, obviously, is that when you look at a bloc like BRICS, there really isn’t an organising principle or a set agenda because there isn’t really a vision of what a non-U.S.-led multipolar order might look like, or how BRICS could use its collective power.

But I think India’s chairmanship is a useful lens because it shows the limits of treating BRICS as a coherent anti-Western bloc — as you were saying. What has India done? They’ve pushed BRICS toward more of an economic and institutional theme — looking at things like New Development Bank reform, local-currency settlement, supply-chain resilience, and away from the more confrontational oranti-Western framing that Russia and China might prefer in a bloc like this.

And I think this is exactly what you were saying, Mihaela; this is multi-alignment in practice. Multi-alignment has been a mainstay of Indian foreign policy for decades, and it will remain a mainstay of Indian foreign policy. India sits in BRICS and in the Quad simultaneously, and I think its chairmanship really reflects this — it can strengthen the Global South’s bargaining position without committing to a bloc identity against the U.S. or Europe.

Some things to watch out for. I think it’s important to look for potential friction — we’ll talk about China-India in a bit — potential friction with China over expansion, and any rhetoric about de-dollarisation. India has always hit the brakes on anything that reads as a unified currency challenge to the dollar.

But I think the bigger takeaway is that the BRICS chairmanship reveals the organisation’s internal coherence as much as it reveals its growing weight. And I think India’s year is a really good test case for whether BRICS can be a platform for several simultaneous models and strategies at once, rather than needing to coalesce around a single one.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. So I want to now pivot a bit toward our second question: how does this reconfiguration of the order affect multilateral processes? Some of that touched on U.S. and EU strategies. How should the United States and the European Union adjust their strategies? Are they adapting existing institutions, being newly entrepreneurial, or how do you see their strategies evolving? Let me start now and bring in Daniel, please.

Daniel Kochis, Senior Fellow, Center on Europe and Eurasia, Hudson Institute, USA

Thank you for that — again, pleasure to be here. Dubrovnik is almost too nice a city to hold a conference in, as we were talking about earlier, but the fact that we’ve been able to bring so many people together here, I think, is a testament to the conversation we’ve already been having.

I think, similar to where I believe Rachel was going — I believe we sit right now in an unhappy, asymmetric bipolar world, more than a multipolar one. There’s the U.S. and China and their respective blocs. Neither is particularly happy with the current stage, but they’re both in it. I think there are many states that would like to see the emergence of a multipolar world order, but I don’t believe it has yet emerged because there isn’t a coherent structure outside of those two blocs.

I think the Trump administration believes that the unipolar moment is irretrievable; it’s not worth the investment to try to recapture. But they also believe there’s a need for shock therapy, both domestically and internationally, to best position the United States for long-term success in the world order as it now stands. So you see that animating some of the U.S.’s actions in Latin America, efforts on critical minerals, which have been a key focus of the administration. There’s also a focus, I think, on getting the American house in order internally — reconstituting the border, a key focus once again on manufacturing, and another is reforming U.S. defense acquisitions. It’s a Sisyphean task, perhaps, but one the U.S. believes is necessary to adapt to the challenges the country currently faces.

Internationally, the administration’s mantra is on fixing what they believe are unfair trade relations. And I think from the administration’s perspective, just a broad view, what the U.S. has been doing isn’t working, so let’s try to shake things up. Who would have thought that the Venezuelan government, for instance, would be touting, in their words, a joint operation with the U.S. to eliminate a drug kingpin, just a few weeks ago? This just shows you how quickly things are adapting and changing, in this reactive momentum of the administration.

And this animates, I think, as well, how the U.S. under President Trump is approaching Europe — it’s quite a bit about shaking things up. There’s once again a focus on demographics, a belief that the U.S. is trying to use shocks to change the European trajectory. Not all of these shocks, of course, have been well received — the Greenland example, of course, is the key one there. But I don’t see Europe evolving into its own pole. I think that would be a mistaken attempt to do so, and I don’t think it’s likely to happen. I think, just this week, the EU joined the Pax Silica. I think that’s very indicative of the fact that Europe is going to remain part of the U.S.-led Western bloc, rather than trying to constitute a pole of its own. And simply put, the scale of the challenge from the autocratic pole is too strong for the U.S. or Europe to overcome without the other.

So what is the U.S. doing right, and doing wrong? Well, I think some of its efforts on manufacturing, on supply chains, which will be a focus later in the day, have been a success so far. I do think there’s been some mismanagement of alliances, which I think is harming the ability of the United States and Europe to work together to address the state of the current world order. And I think there’s a real, missed opportunity so far from the U.S. in terms of how it’s engaging with other regions — with Africa, with Latin America. I mean, the United States currently has five, that’s it, confirmed ambassadors in Africa. By contrast, China is only lacking an ambassador in one country. Russia is expanding its presence in Africa, and the U.S., I think, is largely absent from the continent. So there are real, missed opportunities, I think, when you think about how the world is progressing.

Finally, maybe a word on the multilateral system from a U.S. perspective. I think, in its current form, there’s a belief in many corners of the U.S. that the multilateral system is simply no longer fit for purpose, and reforming many of these institutions has proven impossible, and these institutions won’t necessarily magically start delivering absent that reform. And so what’s possible, from a U.S. perspective, is developing new, “skinny” organizations, or groupings of nations with shared systems and values that can theoretically deliver in a better way than the multilateral system.

We had, in April, the U.S. Trade Representative, and he encapsulated this view when he talked about the WTO, saying the U.S. put forward ideas and reform papers, other countries sent proposals, but the organization simply is unable to reform, and therefore, in his words, we probably need to get back to smaller groupings of more like-minded countries. And I think that’s, probably in many ways, the dominant view — at least from the conservative side of the political spectrum in the U.S. But I think it has some resonance elsewhere too. So I don’t foresee a return to the multilateral world order as we once knew it. The U.S. is unwilling, and perhaps unable, to enforce the rules. Europe can diplomatically and institutionally support multilateralism, but cannot enforce the rules. And I don’t think the two dominant blocs I started my remarks on agree on even what the rules are, or whether they can or should be followed. So I don’t see a renewal of the multilateral system. I think it’s going to be much more these smaller groupings, and hedging behavior.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. I wanted to follow up on two points. Is your sense that the United States is pursuing primacy? Is it political, is it economic — in light of the National Security Strategy? That’s the first follow-up. And the second: there are different debates in the U.S. about whether Trump is a multilateral president or not. Obviously, multilateralism at the universal level is different from multilateralism at a less-than-universal level. So, are we now seeing the end of primacy ambition, or do you see it differently, based on the National Security Strategy?

Daniel Kochis

I think there’s a recognition from the administration and from the U.S. that the world is simply a bipolar world order — that the challenge the U.S. faces is, in many ways, much more significant and multifaceted than it was during the Cold War, and that the idea of recovering primacy is a mirage. But at the same time, I think there’s a recognition that the U.S. is quite vulnerable; and so the shock, for instance, of the critical-minerals stoppage was a true shock to the administration and has informed some of the ways it’s behaved since. So what

they’re trying to do is shore up the areas where the U.S. is especially vulnerable, and this pressure, I think, is also animating the way it’s behaving toward its allies — much like Athens, when it was feeling pressured by Sparta, kept pressing its allies. I think the U.S. is doing the same thing — feeling the pressure from the Chinese-led bloc, and it’s animating the way it’s pressuring its allies to move quickly in alignment with the United States.

And that, of course, has some downsides, because you can press too hard, and I think in some cases the U.S. has done that, and it’s hampered its ability to work together with its European allies. But frankly speaking, I don’t see that relationship is going to endure. I don’t see that changing. I don’t know if it’s an end of ambition for primacy, but I think it’s a recognition that that world has passed, and we’re in a bipolar world order, and the U.S. needs to do many things in order to compete and survive in the system as it currently is.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. So, Charles, please — turning it over to you: could you tell us more about the perspective you see from the EU? And feel free to comment on anything else you’d like to.

Charles Powell, Director, Elcano Royal Institute, Spain

Thank you — it’s lovely to be here. Since we’re on EU territory, let me try to say something nice about the European Union. But before I do, Mihaela, thank you for your moderation and for all the exchanges we’ve had prior to this event.

Intellectually and academically, it’s interesting that all of you, except one speaker, assumed that we’re living in a multipolar world — and yet we can’t actually name the poles. We don’t have a list of poles. I find it interesting, for example, that there are nine countries in the world with nuclear weapons. Surely that makes some states more important and relevant than others, but I’d be reluctant to regard North Korea as a pole. I’d be reluctant to regard Pakistan as a pole, and I have my doubts about the state of Israel as a pole. These are countries that perhaps punch above their weight, but I don’t think they’re poles.

So I think we need to think more carefully about what we mean when we talk about a multipolar order, and I agree with our American colleague, in the sense that I think we’re transitioning toward something, and it’s still unclear whether the destination will be a multipolar world, or perhaps a G2 bipolar world. The Trump-Xi Jinping summit was mentioned. What I found interesting about that is that they both seemed pretty comfortable with the idea of a G2 world. That was my impression. Perhaps a declining power having to adjust to decline, and a rising power, already fully risen in many ways — China — beginning to enjoy the fruits of being a superpower, and acknowledged as such by the declining power. So the jury’s still out on whether we’re actually moving toward a multipolar world.

What about the European Union? Well, this is also very interesting, because in all its official documents, the European Union supports multipolarity; it claims to look forward to the emergence of a multipolar world. But fascinatingly, it never describes itself as a pole. And that’s not entirely surprising, because — what are we? We’re a union of 27 sovereign member states. I always argue we’re, above all, an internal market of 450 million people, which isn’t nothing.

Remember, the EU, with a population of only 6% of the world’s total, produces about 17-18% of the world’s economy — that’s not insignificant. But internally, we’re very reluctant to regard ourselves as a pole, and I think that has a lot to do with our history, the history of European integration. We are a project for peace. We were born to avoid a fourth Franco-German war, after the 1870 war and the World Wars. We’re a community of law, and I still believe we’re a normative power, and this means we find it extremely difficult to think in terms of hard power, of military power. Although, by the way, last year we spent €380 billion on defense, which is not much less than what the Chinese claim to spend. And I say “claim,” because my Chinese colleague will correct me — there’s a bit of a debate as to the accuracy of official Chinese figures. But be that as it may, we’re spending a lot on defense.

But we’re reluctant to see ourselves as a pole, for lots of reasons. The four or five largest states

— Germany, France, Italy, Spain, maybe Poland — all have their own ambitions. But at the same time, as the great Belgian politician Paul-Henri Spaak said, Europe consists of two kinds of states: small states, and small states that haven’t yet realized they’re small. And I include France and Germany in that, frankly — even the countries with populations of more than 50 million are actually rather small states, and Germany is beginning to discover this, I think.

So, to quote a former, recently deceased Spanish foreign minister, “we’re a herbivore surrounded by carnivores,” and in a sense, we’re very ill-suited to do well in this increasingly transactional world. Now, I’d like to think the EU may one day decide it wants to be a pole, but we’re certainly not there yet, as far as I’m concerned.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. So, during our discussion, initially, a question of middle powers emerged, and there was recently a very important speech by Mark Carney on middle powers — with some dramatic elements, “either you’re at the table or you’re on the menu,” and so on. And that made me reflect: is there any middle-power coalition you’d find that’s really a successful example — let’s say, if Mark Carney’s idea went forward, that would be the path to follow? So I wanted to go to Luanda on the question of IBSA — India, Brazil, South Africa. This was a major middle-power coalition, and I still remember the South African foreign minister, before South Africa joined BRICS, saying she hoped BRICS would strengthen IBSA — but then we’ve seen BRICS basically overtaking a lot of IBSA’s agenda. So from your perspective, why didn’t this middle-power coalition thrive as much as BRICS, or what does it take to make a middle-power coalition thrive? And then, if I can ask the rest of the panel to think about which is a successful middle-power coalition that you’d like to highlight — one that Carney’s speech might potentially point to as, “oh, this is the middle-power coalition that worked.”

Luanda Mpungose

Yes, thank you very much. Mihaela, with your permission, I just want to react to one or two things, and then I’ll come to the question. I think our colleague raised an interesting point about U.S. ambassadorial representation in Africa currently, and what that speaks to in terms of relations with that region. And I think a fundamental thing that’s increasingly intolerable, in this current order and this global system, is the paternalistic, finger-wagging behaviour we see toward countries considered less powerful.

And here I want to bring in an anecdote of what’s currently happening in South Africa. We’re one of the countries that were fortunately allocated an ambassador, who’s just started. But even before the ambassador had the chance to present credentials to the president, he was already in the media, behaving in what we consider undiplomatic ways — very critical of the government, very critical of our foreign policy and relations with certain countries. But if you look across the Atlantic, to the U.S. — a South African ambassador to the U.S. was participating in a webinar where he called President Trump a white supremacist. He was immediately expelled and given 72 hours to leave the country. So that kind of attitude toward relations with Africa — I don’t think there’s space for it in the current global system, and as the U.S. tries to push, I think the Global South will also push back even more.

And we also see that in Latin America, with the whole Huawei debacle, where the U.S. wanted Latin America to take a certain position, but Latin America introduced this concept of non-alignment — which is not the same as neutrality — and we’re seeing this concept emerge again. We know the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War era, and now there’s also this new non-alignment, which is really underpinned and enforced by: we’ll advance our relations based on our national interest and our foreign policy. So I just wanted to make that emphasis, provoked by the interesting points that were brought before

Before I speak about middle powers — I think it’s important, we’ve all acknowledged that the world isn’t the same. We heard it during the opening remarks, and I think, more or less, all the colleagues here have acknowledged that. If you look at what’s happening in the WTO — I mean it’s correct — we’re looking at plurilateral approaches now. But the question is whether the plurilaterals are undermining the fundamental principles of multilateralism. That’s why you find countries such as India and South Africa blocking the plurilaterals — and I think South Africa has now conceded, because it was under a lot of pressure, that it’s blocking progress. But it’s interesting to me that we speak of progression as plurilaterals because what does that say about multilateralism? So South Africa now supports this but won’t be participating in the plurilateral approach. India, however, is still blocking it, because it’s fundamentally safeguarding the principles of multilateralism.

So, the role of middle powers now, and it’s not just something that emerged with the speech by Prime Minister Carney. In fact, we’ve been saying this for quite some time in the Global South, but it seems as though he was met with the moment, because when he made that speech in Davos, it really transcended and created a moment globally.

But really, we’ve been saying this — if you look at speeches by our foreign ministers, and probably some of our African governments, we’ve been preaching the concept of partnerships between middle powers, partnering to ensure we have fruitful alternatives that will complement the multilateral system.

So, in terms of whether we’ve defined the rules of this current order, you find out what the rules are if a Global South country invades another country. However, the rules become ambiguous if the U.S. captures a sitting head of state, whether he’s right or wrong. From a principle of multilateralism, the global order, capturing and detaining a sitting head of state — where does that fall in the rules? It’s very ambiguous in that case, but when it’s Russia invading Ukraine, you see that coming out quite significantly.

And perhaps I’ll end with the role of Europe. We in Africa are very confused sometimes by the response we see emerging from Europe. We consider Europe a very important player in the global system, and yet, when South Africa took the Palestine matter to the ICJ, for the first couple of months, where it was really significant to see Europe emerge and say something, it was quiet. And yet, on Ukraine, countries in Africa were being pressured to condemn Russia. So again, it’s this hypocrisy and double standard that leaves us a bit dumbfounded. But nevertheless, I think the role of middle powers currently is to safeguard the rules. We know what the rules are; they’re defined in instruments and frameworks. And I see, increasingly, middle powers coming together to be the norm entrepreneurs and safeguards of the current rules and norms.

Mihaela Papa

This is a very important point — if anybody would like to respond?

Charles Powell

Carney is my hero, can I say this in public? But he said “medium powers,” and then which ones did he mention? He said Canada should work with the EU, with Australia, with Japan. He’s not really talking about medium-sized powers, he’s talking about like-mindedness, and that’s a completely different kettle of fish completely. I don’t see a coalition of medium-sized powers adding anything significant to the equation. The real question is: are we still dividing the world into democracies and autocracies? I think we’re not — I think that ship sailed, sadly, in my view, in many cases. He’s really talking about like-mindedness, countries that share a similar worldview and a similar view of multilateralism, which has very little in common with Chinese or Russian interpretations, and probably North American ones under the Trump administration as well .

Mihaela Papa

Yes, Rachel, and then—

Rachel Rizo

I think we should also look at the potential growth of the relationship between the European Union and India. If you look back at this year, two major things happened in January, in New Delhi. First, the EU and India signed a free-trade agreement, “the mother of all deals,” as they call it. Ursula von der Leyen was Prime Minister Modi’s guest of honor at the Republic Day celebrations. This is an FTA that had been under negotiation for over 20 years, and, in my opinion, the of the Trump administration, and the desire to create something new and build new partnerships, really gave the two sides the momentum they needed to get this over the finish line.

But the second thing that happened in January, alongside the FTA, was that the EU and India signed a Security and Defense Partnership, which offers an EU-wide framework to build the relationship with India that’s already being driven by member states within the EU. So there are a few things here: first, you can look at real defense-industrial-base cooperation between the two sides; you can look at supply-chain resilience; you can look at the green transition. But you could also look at something that I don’t think gets as much airplay or much discussion, which is that students are looking to go to other places besides the U.S. now, specifically Indian students. So when you look at mobility, and at youth partnerships, Europe is becoming a real destination for Indian students, as they look at the United States as a less desirable market. So we’re really losing out there, and the EU is really gaining.

Mihaela Papa

Yes, go ahead.

Manoel Corrêa do Lago

In a certain way, the EU is proof that middle powers can get together and achieve important, successful results, though, as Charles has mentioned, the EU, with its 27 members, hasn’t formed, let’s say, a single political unit.

But we haven’t, in our discussion so far, put Russia into the equation, and we’ve been raised in a bipolar world where Russia is other side. Still speaking about Europe — if, as it may be happening, the war in Ukraine, against all expectations, after four years, is maybe taking another turn; is it not the first success of a united Europe, in the sense that Europe has taken the responsibility of giving this sort of support? I’m very impressed by the consequences of these four years, in terms of the weakening of some of the elements that cemented the world order before — for instance, the fact that Syria has changed; the fact that you don’t have the Venezuela-Cuba connection any longer. I think what seemed to be a certain axis is no longer present, and maybe this is a consequence of the fact that Europe faced a very difficult situation on the Ukrainian front.

So, looking back at Latin America and the particular case of Brazil — of course, we welcome diversification, developing as many relationships as possible, as a country with Brazil’s potential. But definitely, the United States is the most important relationship we’ve had for the past century, and it’s been a very fruitful one. So we look at diversity and multipolarity, not as something against country X or Y, but as reestablishing a certain type of balance, and maybe establishing some sort of deterrence too, against the idea that countries have to follow only their own paths.

I believe the recent developments around Mercosur, the trade agreements, and the potential for cooperation between Latin American countries — for instance the case of critical minerals, which they can develop together, not to the exclusion of other investors, but which they can also develop on their own. I believe it’s more a reestablishment of balances, rather than something in which you’re facing off against other countries. So that’s how I’d look at it. But again, if I may return the question — how do we put Russia in the equation? We’re speaking about poles, and we haven’t spoken about Russia so far.

Mihaela Papa

All right, so Huiyao if you’d like to take that over?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, great. I think we’re having a very fascinating discussion: you ask about the future of the multipolar world, and I hear our colleagues asking, “Where’s the pole? What’s the future?” It’s not really happening yet, but actually, I tend to agree, probably, with our American colleague, that it’s probably a little bit bipolar now. President Trump was in Beijing, and he was also saying “G2” and all those things, right? So that’s a possibility. So I envision that we’re actually getting a new multipolar world — maybe there are two major poles, but also many other middle poles as well. Multipolar doesn’t mean all poles are the same size — it could be two major poles, but then some other poles too.

But then the problem is, how can we achieve this new equilibrium among the major poles? And I see something happening. In the Trump era, phase one, he was talking about strategic rivalry with China; now, in his second term, he came to Beijing and said, let’s have strategic stability, a constructive one. So that’s a shift. I think if the U.S. and China can maintain strategic stability, which I think they’re trying to do. We’re going to see President Xi visit the U.S. in September.

We’re going to have the APEC summit, Trump coming to Shenzhen, and then the G20 summit, with the president going to Miami. We’re going to see a lot of exchange between these two poles.

But I think that’s probably exactly what’s happening with the middle powers. We’re talking about middle powers. Middle powers actually don’t have to pick sides now. As Charles just said, it’s no longer autocracy versus democracy where we have to really pick by the merits. And that’s what Carney said too. He came to Beijing, too. Carney made a lot of comments about importing 50,000 Chinese EV cars, lifting all the tariffs on China, against what the U.S. has done. So I think that’s a good example. In this future multipolar world, you have two major poles, but then other mid-size poles too, and they don’t pick sides now; they actually work with whoever’s right, whoever’s useful, they don’t pick a side.

And an important thing, I think, China is doing right, is joining RCEP. You talk about the most successful cases, RCEP is very successful. RCEP is China’s largest trading partner. And of course, China also has the China-Africa summit, the China-Latin America summit, the China-Arab summit, the China-Central Asia summit — covering all the regions, economically focused, rather than military or security focused.

So I think, if that peaceful competition remains between the two major poles, all the other poles will see — okay, whoever benefits us, we don’t have to pick sides, we choose whatever’s useful for our own country. So I think that’s probably the future of the multipolar world, and that new equilibrium would really be better than the former Soviet Union-U.S. dynamic, because it’s not ideologically driven — it’s economic development and sustainability driven. And that’s where China is leading — leading the green powers, leading in all those areas; that’s why we see all the G7 leaders coming to Beijing, except Japan, this year. And that’s why we’ve seen, when you talk about autocracy versus democracy — you see how democracy works in the UK; in 10 years you’ve changed seven prime ministers, right?

So what I’m saying is, you can’t blame China’s success just on its autocracy — it’s not just that; China has a meritocracy, a consultative democracy, so the system works well. So I really think the future multipolar world will be really merit-based, and you’ll have two major poles, but the middle powers now have the best of the world now; they don’t belong to any side, but they can really push the new equilibrium toward the betterment of the world. And that’s probably the future version of the world.

Luanda Mpungose

I mean, as an African, for me, positionality is always so interesting, and I’m intrigued by the perspectives from the two panelists, because if I’m hearing correctly, it’s the importance of non-alignment, being able to choose your own partners and compete in a peaceful manner, and also an element of pragmatism — you choose your partners based on your interest, as long as it’s peaceful, etc.

But I think there’s a certain level of exceptionalism I also want to highlight, again, in this room — from where we sit, as Africa, we don’t get afforded that. It’s almost like our partners want to choose for us who we must partner with and cooperate with. I mean, just as I was flying here, I saw a tweet by the U.S. ambassador, who was highly critical on social media of our deputy president’s state visit to China, as well as another engagement we had with Iran. And again, the South African government came out and criticised this undiplomatic behaviour.

But I think the meat of what they’re saying is that we’re a country free to exercise our own foreign policy, and we exercise non-alignment based on the explanation I provided earlier. And what they’re saying is: the U.S. is criticising South Africa for cooperating pragmatically with certain partners, and yet they themselves cooperate with those same partners. So what does that tell us, from an African perspective — are we also afforded this pragmatism and non-alignment that’s emerging from the discussion here, which seems to be playing out quite well for other partners in different spheres of the world? So it’s just an interesting thing I wanted to bring to the forum.

Mihaela Papa

I think the U.S. was mentioned many times — if you’d like to respond? I mean, how do you see the Trump administration now, in terms of emphasizing economics versus military relations? And if you have any comments, Daniel.

Daniel Kochis

I think this is sort of a prelude to what the administration views as another round of more active competition. Thinking about Carney’s comments, in some ways, what he was actually speaking about was hedging behavior of these middle powers that sit within the Western bloc. So you have the EU’s deal with India, now India isn’t buying Russian kit, nobody wants to buy Russian kit, so there’s opportunity for European firms. The French, I guess, are going to work with the Gulf on maybe a new fighter jet. So there are opportunities within the system, but I think that’s what he’s talking about are sort of alignments within an alignment. But beyond those blocs, I don’t see much that would really coalesce these middle powers to be able to work together outside the traditional blocs.

For the U.S., economics are a key tool the administration is trying to use to achieve more security ends. You’ve seen that with tariffs, you’ve seen that with favored rates — I think that’s the way the administration is trying to use economic tools to achieve security ends. So I think that is the sort of way I would think about that.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. Any other comments? So I think we’re ready for our final theme — opportunities for constructive cooperation among major powers. Let’s start with Rachel, where do you see the opportunities for cooperation? I know you’ve been both in the U.S. and now in India — both between emerging powers, and between so-called old and new powers.

Rachel Rizo

I’ll talk specifically about the opportunities between India and China, a relationship that gets a lot of discussion, especially in New Delhi. But I think it’s difficult to talk about this relationship without sounding aspirational and naive, so you have to keep it pretty narrow and focused. And right off the bat, you have to name the asymmetry in this relationship pretty

honestly, which is a relationship defined by an unresolved border. There’s a massive and lopsided trade deficit; and on top of it all, there’s real, deep strategic mistrust. Who’s Pakistan’s number-one arms supplier? It’s China, and it has been for a very long time — decades. So any cooperation between these two powers needs to be built on top of these realities; you can’t just pretend them away.

But I think there are real openings that are functional and economic, rather than strategic. Look at, for example, climate and clean-energy supply chains; China dominates solar and battery manufacturing, and India needs to scale up fast. This is an area where economic logic could potentially outrun politics, if we allow it to, and that’s a good thing, if both sides let that happen. I think there are multilateral venues where both sides share an interest in reforming the system, rather than confronting one another — certainly not as allies or partners, but more as fellow travelers, I would say. Look at things like WTO dispute-settlement reform, voice and representation at the IMF and World Bank, coordinating on debt-relief mechanisms for the Global South. These allow India and China to cooperate on reshaping rules without requiring trust on security issues.

But I think border-de-escalation mechanisms remain the precondition for almost anything else. There was a 2024 step toward disengagement, where India and China reached an agreement on patrolling along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, and this matters, I think, less for what they resolved than it does for showing that both sides still want a functioning crisis-management channel. So, at the end of the day, I think this is a relationship not moving toward a partnership in any meaningful sense, but one where both sides are testing how much transactional cooperation is really possible while strategic competition continues underneath.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. So turning to Huiyao — when Chinese policymakers think about potential conflict, what relationships are they most concerned about? Are they more concerned about the U.S.-China relationship, the China-India relationship; how would you paint the picture?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yes, thank you, Mihaela. Great question. What I think Chinese leaders and the Chinese government have emphasized many, many times is that the core interest is the Taiwan issue, cross-strait relations. I think if the U.S. doesn’t take a very aggressive posture and recognises the One-China principle, things are really okay. I think that’s why the U.S. now realizes they want a bigger piece. President Trump said he wants to be “president of peace” in his inaugural speech. He wants to help settle the Russia-Ukraine conflict; he wants to settle the Iran-Israel-U.S. conflict, and he needs China. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has phoned over 30 some foreign ministers to calm down all sides on this peace deal, and President Trump openly thanked China for supporting the Iran-U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding. So you see China is behind a lot of things happening for securing peace.

I think the U.S. also recognizes China’s interests. I’m glad to hear President Trump said, “Okay, we’re not going to send soldiers to Taiwan, 9,500 miles away, and we don’t want to interfere, and we’re going to temporarily hold weapons sales.” That’s good progress.

But further — our colleague mentioned China-India relations. I think China and India, as the two largest countries, are the most populous in the world, with almost three billion combined population. They are two leading positions within BRICS. I don’t see any reason why we can’t get along well. Of course, we had border clashes before, and Russia’s had border clashes many times too, but we can normalise relations. I see no reason we can’t normalise with India, because I remember, in the ‘80s, China was trying to learn from India, when India’s GDP was almost the same as, or even larger than, China. Now China’s five times larger than India. So I think there’s huge complementary collaboration and cooperation possible, because we have the same infrastructure issues, the same environmental issues, the same green-power issues, the same communication issues. There’s a lot of room for China and India to work together.

And not only that, but internationally, on the political stance, we both safeguard the Global South, we safeguard BRICS countries. I don’t see a reason we can’t work together. Foreign Minister Wang Yi is in India right now, meeting Modi; and the BRICS summit in India this year, I think, will be a good occasion. Our leader will probably go again this year. So I think there’s a great opportunity for the two countries to set aside their small differences, and really take the interest of the whole world, the whole Global South, into account — and of course, work with Europe, with the U.S., with everybody.

So I think — India is the leader of the Non-Aligned Movement. As Tito used to do in Yugoslavia — why not? Not taking sides is probably the best thing, and China always supports the Non-Aligned Movement. I really think India and China have a huge opportunity, because there’s so much economic potential to work together, and at the end of the day, it’s really the economic benefit, the livelihood of the people, that counts for a government to sustain itself.

So I don’t think temporary geopolitical alliances make much sense. And these days, we already have a big deterrence — there’s no need for war. So I think China is a peaceful, stabilising factor for the region, for ASEAN. Recently, China helped calm down the Cambodia-Thailand conflict too. So I don’t see conflict happening. China hasn’t invaded any country for many decades, has not colonised any place, never established a military base anywhere — whereas the U.S. has 7-800 military bases. China has 8,000-plus economic projects worldwide. That’s the difference. That, I think, is why China, India, and all the Global South can work together.

Mihaela Papa

So, thank you — I think it’s interesting, especially in terms of India-China relations, how optimistic you are about it. One area we forgot to mention, and I wanted to bring it to everyone’s attention, is the G20. Do any of you have thoughts on whether the G20 plays an important role as an opportunity for collaboration across major powers, or do you see it moving in another direction?

Henry Huiyao Wang

Maybe I can add on that. I published an article in Foreign Policy about six months ago about the G20. I think the G20 should be involved with the UN Security Council, because the G20 is well balanced — there are 10 Global South countries, 10 Global North countries, and it represents 85%, even 90%, of global GDP if you include the African Union.

So it’s really important to get the G20 into the Security Council. The current Security Council is only about 15 countries; let’s get a G21 there, five permanent members, another 16 associate permanent members. We can probably stop the abuse of the single veto, like Russia and the U.S. have vetoed over 100 times, and China has vetoed 20 or 30 times; let’s reform that. Then we can really have a more powerful, new power structure to reflect this multipolar world, giving balanced power — not only that, but also reforming the World Bank and IMF, with China and India, to reflect that.

Mihaela Papa

All right, any other thoughts? G20—

Luanda Mpungose

I’ll come in. South Africa, of course, was presiding over the G20 in 2025, and we’ve now been disinvited from participating in the current G20. And I think, for me, that cooperation showed that different thinkers, different markets, and different powers can cooperate and work together effectively.

If I look at the G20 championing some of the key global-governance issues — a meeting of the G7 countries and a lot of the Global South countries as well — for me, it represents a platform where we can dialogue on issues, and even though our standpoints differ, we can arrive at some sort of consensus. It’s an interesting space. While we’re currently in a space of dissensus, unable to agree on a lot of things as countries, it’s a space where, ultimately, we can make compromises and move the process forward.

So I think it’s a different experiment, an interesting project for that reason. But the world is increasingly changing, and I think we’re also seeing the rise of plurilateral approaches, especially on trade issues, and I think some of us thought President Trump’s term would just shake things up a little, but we would be able to go back to normalcy once he finished. But at this point, I think the world has been shaken up so much that “normal” doesn’t exist anymore, and we have to rethink our strategies to suit this new normal we find ourselves in.

And I think, for me, the future of cooperation also needs to consider how we interact with one another in a fair, equitable, and respectful manner, as equal partners of the global system. And certainly, with the rise of IBSA, and IBSA morphing now into BRICS and other formations that will come up, they’ll still need to cooperate with the West and with other formations, because ultimately, cooperation is underpinned by us coming together and moving the agenda forward. So certainly, the G20, for me, is a prime example of how we can reach that cooperation.

Mihaela Papa

Wonderful, thank you. So I think we’re now at the last panel before lunch, and I’d like to give an opportunity to all our panelists for some final thoughts. I promised we’d leave on a positive note. I want to ask if there is any institution, diplomatic practice, or something that gives you hope, that inspires you for the future of the world order, and thinking about multipolarity — where are the opportunities that inspire you? Whoever wants to start, or we can just go straight down the line. [laughter] Manoel?

Manoel Corrêa do Lago

Yes, well, I think the multilateral institutions — some of them, maybe even bilateral institutions, like Mercosur — I think, even though Mercosur hasn’t so far fulfilled its promises, it’s taken a new path in the last two years. We look with great expectation at the

EU-Mercosur agreement, for instance. I think it can have very strong implications. I think we have to think about the problems of the system that was created in the postwar period, but we can’t throw it off completely. I think it’s an important heritage we have to stick to, at least in its philosophy of respect for rules, for international law, for the sovereignty of each country.

And I think, as Henry pointed out, there’s much we can work together on. A recent example, going back to the Mercosur-EU agreement — apparently, Brazil and Argentina would be in very different ideological positions, which I question if this more a stereotype than a reality? Both countries were absolutely enthusiastic about the agreement, and they worked together. So the fact that you have elements of polarization — you have the Amazonian countries, the boundaries with French Guiana, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, and so on. We have a common cause against organized crime, which has become transnational. So there’s no reason for us not to cooperate with other countries that want a common activity in relation to this.

So I’m optimistic that pragmatism on issues common to us can become stronger than some of the labeling we’ve been living through, and that we can go after small successes which add up together.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. Daniel, moving on to you — what gives you hope?

Daniel Kochis

I think Ukraine has turned the tides. We’ve seen the failure of multilateralism. We can’t get much of the Global South to vote against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine in the UN system. We’ve seen a failure there, but I think the realities on the ground give me a lot of hope. I think it was the Saab CEO who recently said the most important thing the Western bloc can do is fully incorporate Ukraine’s industrial base into the West — and I have hope there.

And I do think that China has, in the past, played a role in warding off Russian nuclear ambitions or potential escalation in that war. But China is still, of course, the main supporter of Russia’s aggression. Russia couldn’t propagate its war without Chinese assistance. So I do think there’s more that could be done there, and maybe there’s an opportunity, if the reality on the ground is such that the cost overrides the potential gain in that relationship.

And I do think the U.S. and India can do a lot in terms of manufacturing. I think we’ve only really scratched the surface of that potential. So there are some areas that I have hope for; but multilateralism, I am a little bit more dower on.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you so much. Rachel, please, briefly?

Rachel Rizo

Yeah, I’d just echo what Dan said. I think we’re moving toward an era

— I guess you could say going back to an era — of “coalitions of the willing,” when multilateralism becomes broken. You see emerging partnerships between countries that want to get things done, and can get things done, and I think we’ve seen that especially with the Europeans in Ukraine. So that’s what gives me hope.

Mihaela Papa

Luanda?

Luanda Mpungose

I’d say it’s institutions and humanity, specifically if you look at the ICJ process, and how the world is now coalescing around that process at the ICJ, with the objective of preserving humanity. What’s happening in Palestine is now a humanitarian crisis, and it’s resonating around just humanity. I think that gives me hope that the world can still make a difference.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you, Charles?

Charles Powell

What I liked most about Mark Carney’s speech was that he acknowledged that the so-called “rules-based liberal international order” has never existed. This is basically what the French philosopher Voltaire said about the Holy Roman Empire in the 18th century — “it’s not holy, it’s not Roman, and it’s certainly not an empire.” So the liberal international order was never complete; it was an aspiration, and millions of people throughout the world felt excluded from it. So let’s not get too nostalgic about something that never existed. Moving forward, there’s a lot actually happening underneath the surface. And at the risk of sounding nerdy, next month, the International Telecommunication Union will be meeting in Geneva, hosting the seventh summit on Artificial Intelligence for Good. We’re all worried about artificial intelligence, and we don’t really have an international, global framework to deal with it — but there are still modest, discreet multilateral initiatives, such as the ITU, doing an extremely good job, which rarely gets mentioned by the media.

Mihaela Papa

Thank you. And please, take us home.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you — I’ll be brief. What gives me hope, what still makes me optimistic? Well, I think there are quite a few factors. I see the multilateral system weakening, but the poly-multilateral system is actually strong — like RCEP, for example, the largest free-trade agreement in the world, and now China’s largest trading partner. Of course, the CPTPP too. You saw Australia and Japan take it over after the U.S. exited it, and now the UK has become part of it, the European Union is interested in it, China is interested in it. So I see that still happening. And, of course, the AIIB, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the New Development Bank — all those things are still happening.

So I’d think that, of course, we still have the European Union, which is still there, and RCEP, which is still pretty strong. So we see the world, on many fronts, still advancing multilateralism, even as the global system as a whole has been weakening. But I think we’re now getting a multipolar world, and we need everybody to work together for a better, multilateral future.

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Event Information

Date: 23 July, 2026

Venue: Beijing

Language: English

Format: A dialogue between Professor John A. Quelch and CCG President Henry Huiyao Wang, followed by an audience Q&A

Registration: Please scan the QR code below

or click the registration link.

Featured Speaker

John A. Quelch CBE

American President and Executive Vice Chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, Distinguished Professor of Social Science at DKU and the John DeButts Professor at the Fuqua Business School, Duke University. Between 2017 and 2022, he was the Leonard M. Miller University Chair, Vice Provost of the University of Miami and Dean of the Miami Herbert Business School. Before 2017, he was both the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health.

Professor Quelch has substantial experience as a non-executive director. In the United States, he has served on the boards of Alere (14 years), Amerant Bancorp (4), Aramark (5), Gentiva Health Services (4), Pepsi Bottling Group (6) and Reebok International (12). He has also served as a board member of three pre-IPO data analytics companies, Datalogix and Vitrue (both sold to Oracle) and Affinnova (sold to A.C. Nielsen). He currently serves as a director of GenScript, Smithfield Foods and the fintech Surfin Meta.

In the United Kingdom, Professor Quelch served on the board of WPP, the world’s leading marketing services company, for 25 years (including seven years as chair of the audit committee). In the UK, he has also been a director of Blue Circle Industries (2), easyJet (3) and Pentland Group (3).

Professor Quelch has significant experience as a board chairman. He was appointed pro bono chairman of the Massachusetts Port Authority following the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 and served three Massachusetts governors, both Republican and Democrat, during his eight year tenure. He also served pro bono for thirteen years as Honorary Consul General in New England for the Kingdom of Morocco and three years as Chairman of the British American Business Council of New England.

Professor Quelch’s executive experience includes service as Dean of three business schools: London Business School (1998-2001), China Europe International Business School (2011-2013) and Miami Herbert Business School (2017-2022). He is one of only three persons to have served as Dean of three leading business schools on three continents.

Professor Quelch is an expert on corporate strategy, global brand-building and customer behavior. His books include Choice Matters: How Healthcare Consumers Make Decisions (Oxford University Press, 2018), Consumers, Corporations and Public Health (Oxford University Press, 2016) and All Business is Local: Why Place Matters More Than Ever in a Global, Virtual World (Penguin Portfolio, 2012). He is (co)author of seventeen Harvard Business Review articles including a landmark paper on corporate governance titled “Bringing Customers Into the Boardroom”.

Professor Quelch was educated at Oxford University (BA and MA), the University of Pennsylvania (MBA) and Harvard University (SM and DBA). He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for services to British business in 2011 and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2020. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG) and former Counsellor to the China State Council.

Dr. Henry Huiyao Wang is Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), Former Counselor to China State Council appointed by Chinese Premier. In addition, he is a former Vice Chairman of China Association for International Economic Cooperation (CAIEC) under the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), former Vice Chairman, China Talent Research Society under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. He is also a former Vice Chairman of China Public Relations Association; currently he is Standing Director of China Institute of International Economic Relations under PBOC, and a Director of Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and a Director of China National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation, both organizations under the supervision of Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dr. Wang is a Steering Committee Member of Paris Peace Forum and Metropolis International and was an Advising Board Member for International Organization of Migration (IOM) of the UN. He is a Distinguished Professor of China Foreign Affairs University and sits on the Advising Board of Richard Ivey Business School of Canada, Advisory Committee for Global Competence Development of Tsinghua University. He was the former Dean of the Institute of Development at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China.

Prior to founding CCG, Wang worked in both the public and private sectors at home and abroad. He was a former official at the then Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC), and later served as Chief Trade Representative for the Canadian Quebec Government Office in Hong Kong and Greater China, Managing Director of Asia at SNC-Lavalin, and Vice President at AMEC-AGRA in Canada.

Dr. Wang pursued his PhD degree at University of Western Ontario and University of Manchester. He was a Visiting Fellow at The Brookings Institution, a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and a Senior Fellow at Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada. He has taught at Peking University, Tsinghua University and the University of Western Ontario as an adjunct professor. He has published over 100 books in English and Chinese along with hundreds of journal articles and opinion pieces on international relations, global governance, global migration, China outbound and inbound investment and trade, Chinese Diasporas and Chinese think tanks etc.. He is the Chief Editor of 12 Springer Nature Series books China and Globalization and his other books, Global Development and Cooperation with China (Springer, 2025); Escape the Thucydides Trap in Dialogue with Graham Allison on US-China Relations (Palgrave 2023); The Ebb and Flow of Globalization(Springer, 2022);The Globalization of Chinese Enterprises: Trends and Characteristics (Springer, 2020); Handbook on China and Globalization (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019).

Dr. Wang is a frequent speaker at international events such as the World Economic Forum, Munich Security Conference, Paris Peace Forum, WTO Public Forum, Global Solutions Summit, Athens Democracy Forum, Munk Debate, Berlin Foreign Policy Forum, and Milken Global Forum.

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The event featured Henry M. Paulson, Jr., founder and chairman of the Paulson Institute, executive chairman of TPG Rise Climate, and 74th Secretary of the Treasury under U.S. President George W. Bush.

CCG has uploaded the video recording of the luncheon to its official YouTube channel and WeChat blog.

The following transcript is based on a recording and has not been reviewed by any of the speakers.

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

Your Excellencies, 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 communication to promote pragmatic cooperation between China and the world. Today’s luncheon is also a special edition of CCG Global Dialogue, our flagship platform that brings together policymakers, scholars, and business leaders from around the world to discuss the most pressing global challenges. As a forum for open exchange, the dialogue fosters cross-cultural understanding and pragmatic solutions on issues ranging from governance and sustainable development to economic cooperation and international security.

Today’s theme is Henry Paulson’s insights involving China-U.S. dynamics and global strategic outlook. As we look at the current global landscape, relations between major powers are evolving rapidly, following the recent presidential summit. At the same time, we are witnessing adjustments to global industry and supply chain, alongside breakthrough advancements in new energy and core technologies. Against this complex global backdrop, precise trend, judgment, and the strategic vision have become core competitiveness for all stakeholders. This is precisely why we are here today. Today, we are honored to convene this VIP Luncheon.

It is my great honor to invite our distinguished guest, Mr Henry Paulson, to join us for this exclusive luncheon dialogueue. Mr Paulson will exchange in-depth views with representatives from China’s business and academic communities on latest global economic trajectory and development trends in China-U.S. bilateral relations. Before we start, let’s take a moment to acknowledge some of our special guests and the VIPs who are here.

We have invited representatives from host organisations, distinguished diplomats, government authorities, academic institutions, international organisations, corporate leaders, and media representatives.

From the Paulson Institute, we have invited Deborah Lehr, Vice Chairman and Executive Director; Kelley Folino, Chief of Staff to Chairman Henry Paulson and Chief Operating Officer of the Paulson Institute; Jerry Yu, Chief Representative of the China Office and Managing Director of the Paulson Institute; Gracie Sun, Senior Advisor and Managing Director of the Green Finance Center at the Paulson Institute; Tina Ren, Deputy Chief Representative of the Paulson Institute; Terry Townshend, Advisor to the Paulson Institute; and Vicky Beal, Executive Assistant to the Chairman’s Office.

We have also invited ambassadors, including H.E. Marcos Galvão, Ambassador of Brazil to China. Welcome, Ambassador. We are also honoured to welcome H.E. Rol Reiland, Ambassador of Luxembourg to China.

We have also invited distinguished government representatives and experts, including Huang Rengang, Vice President and Secretary-General of the China Society for WTO Studies, MOFCOM; Huo Jianguo, former President of the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, MOFCOM; Jiang Shan, former Director General of the Department of American and Oceanian Affairs, MOFCOM; Ma Jianchun, President of the China Society for WTO Studies, MOFCOM, and former Director General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, MOFCOM; Xu Chaoyou, former Director General for International Exchanges and Cooperation, CCIEE; and Zhu Hong, former Minister at the Chinese Embassy in the United States.

We are also joined by colleagues from embassies and diplomatic missions, including representatives from the British Embassy Beijing, the Embassy of Canada, the Embassy of Iceland, the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia, the Embassy of Mongolia, and the Embassy of Vietnam.

From international organisations, we have invited representatives from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Columbia Global Center Beijing, GSMA, the International Monetary Fund, the International Sustainability Standards Board, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, among others.

We have also invited representatives from international corporations and multinational companies, including Goldman Sachs, Merck China, Cargill China, bp China, and many other important companies.

We are also pleased to welcome media representatives from the South China Morning Post, Global Times, Beijing Daily, The Choutao Journal, Phoenix New Media, Reuters, CGTN, and China Net, as well as representatives from prestigious universities in China and abroad.

Next, please allow me to introduce Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of Center for China and Globalization, former Counsellor of the State Council of China, to deliver opening remark and introduce our distinguished guest, Mr Henry Paulson. So, Floor is yours, Henry.

Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President, CCG

Honourable Secretary Paulson, Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Today is truly a great day as we hold the 24th CCG VIP Luncheon. While I am speaking, please go ahead and enjoy your salad.

What I would like to say is that we are extremely honoured and very pleased that Secretary Paulson, despite his very tight schedule during his visit to China, has come here to meet us, share his views with us, and have a dialogue with us.

As we all know, China-U.S. relations have entered a new phase. It is therefore very important that we gather here to reflect on, think about, and, of course, look ahead to the future of our bilateral relations. CCG is also very pleased to host this global dialogue, where we have been able to engage with so many great leaders, opinion leaders, academics, and business leaders. We are extremely happy to have Secretary Paulson with us today.

Of course, I know all of you are very eager to hear what Secretary Paulson is going to share with us. So let me first introduce Secretary Paulson and his truly impressive career before we begin our dialogue.

Secretary Hank Paulson is a business leader, conservationist, statesman, and author. He has also just released a new book. He is the founder and chairman of the Paulson Institute, a well-known think tank and do tank. He also serves as Executive Chairman of TPG Rise Climate, among many other important roles.

Secretary Paulson is dedicated to advancing free markets, environmental protection, the rule of law, and many other important causes. His career spans two stints in the public sector, a long career in the private sector, and the founding of his own not-for-profit think tank.

Secretary Paulson served as the 74th Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush. As Treasury Secretary, he led the nation’s response to the financial crisis of 2008, helping to stabilise the global financial system and avoid a second Great Depression. He also designed the Strategic Economic Dialogue to revitalise the way U.S.-China relations were conducted, which has been very helpful in many ways.

Before that, he had a 32-year career at Goldman Sachs, serving as co-chairman and co-CEO in 1998, and as chairman and CEO beginning in 1999. He was a very strong business leader. As a banker, he grew Goldman Sachs’ presence in China, believing that it was important to bring best-in-class practices and standards to China.

Today, Secretary Paulson is the chairman of the Paulson Institute, which aims to foster a U.S.-China relationship that helps maintain global order in a rapidly evolving world. A think tank and do tank founded in 2011, the Institute operates at the intersection of economics, financial markets, environmental protection, and policy advocacy, in part by promoting balanced and sustainable economic growth. The Institute’s approach grows out of Secretary Paulson’s commitment to purposeful engagement and to promoting U.S.-China ties in ways that help keep Americans strong and safe.

In 2021, Secretary Paulson launched and became Executive Chairman of TPG Rise Climate, the climate-investing platform of the global private equity firm TPG. His leadership of TPG Rise Climate reflects his belief that there is an urgent need to accelerate action against climate change, and that innovative vehicles for private-sector financing will be essential to meeting this challenge.

Secretary Paulson is also co-chair of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group, together with former U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. The Economic Strategy Group convenes, in a non-partisan spirit, a diverse range of distinguished leaders and thinkers to address significant structural challenges in the U.S. economy. It is a very important platform.

Secretary Paulson is also a lifelong conservationist. He was chairman of the Nature Conservancy’s Board of Directors, and founded and co-chaired the Asia-Pacific Council of The Nature Conservancy. In 2011, he founded the Latin America Conservation Council, comprising business and political leaders, which he also chaired for many years. He was also co-chair of the Risky Business Project from 2013 to 2017.

So you can see the wide range of Secretary Paulson’s activities. He has been deeply dedicated to climate, the environment, green development, and many related areas.

Furthermore, Secretary Paulson is the author of the bestsellers On the Brink and Dealing with China. He is also the co-author, with Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner, of two books, First Responders and Firefighting.

Secretary Paulson graduated from Dartmouth College in 1968 and received an MBA from Harvard University in 1970.

Now, without further ado, let us welcome Secretary Paulson. We are going to have a great dialogue with him. Secretary Paulson, welcome again to the CCG VIP Luncheon. While we are talking, everyone can also enjoy the luncheon.

Secretary, welcome again to CCG VIP Luncheon.

Henry Paulson, Former U.S. Treasury Secretary; Founder and Chairman, Paulson Institute

Henry, let me thank you for doing this, and all of you for being here today. So many colleagues, I would say I’ve never had an introduction like that. It was embarrassing, I’ll tell you that. But I don’t mind being embarrassed that way. So,

Henry Huiyao Wang

Well, it is a historic and very impressive career. That is why we wanted to give such a full introduction. I did not want to miss anything.

Mr Secretary, we are actually very excited about your new book, Reflections on China, a collection of articles and interviews. This collection brilliantly captures your evolving, long-term observations on China’s economic transformation and broader U.S.-China dynamics over time.

Looking back at the core arguments you made in those contexts, and in contrast with today’s competition and strategic rivalry, which of your earlier assessments do you feel have truly stood the test of time? And if you were to write a new collection today, what message would you send to policymakers and the public?

Henry Paulson

Of course, we all know that the U.S.-China relationship is the most consequential. I have consistently argued for a high-level economic dialogue, because I saw the benefits of this when I launched the Strategic Economic Dialogue as Treasury Secretary. Quite recently, I had an op-ed in The Washington Post where I made the point about how important it was that the two leaders, the U.S. and China, meet, because they can set the right tone and the parameters for a relationship. As part of that, I made the case that it was important to have a high-level dialogue to set goals and action steps to drive progress.

Now, we didn’t get what I called for was a strategic rebalancing dialogue, but we got something that can achieve the same objectives, because what we see is this Board of Trade and Board of Investment, mindful of each country’s priorities on the security side, have the same objective, which is to drive more trade and more investment between the two countries. I’m particularly focused there on investment and investment flow, because I do think U.S. companies could use better guidance on where to invest in China, and vice versa, Chinese companies deserve better guidance on where to invest in the U.S. I’m particularly focused on investment in private equity funds. So, to begin with, there.

Secondly, I have been mindful of the fact that both countries are going to do what they believe is in their security or their economic interest. I warned a good number of years ago against an economic iron curtain, because I believe that there are plenty of areas for us to work together with China to our mutual benefit in the economic area. But we have to be careful here and really think strategically. So we have to be careful that decoupling doesn’t become dysfunctional.

Then I would say, for the last six or seven years, I’ve made the point that we’ve got this great power rivalry. It’s really important that each country recognise the other as a major power, as a permanent power, and that we avoid crossing red lines, so that intense competition doesn’t devolve into economic conflict or military conflict, which very easily could happen. We could stumble into conflict because of miscommunication, miscalculation, and escalation.

Lastly, the advice that I’ve given, and I’ve given for a good while, is that in this major power rivalry, I think it is really important that each side recognises the other as a great power, number one. Number two, that we have really robust dialogues in the economic and security areas and that we work hard to find areas where we can cooperate and work together mutually. The trick is going to be, while we’re intensely competing, that we have guardrails, so we don’t devolve into military or economic conflict.

At the end of the day, I’m very encouraged by the first meeting of presidents, where President Xi, I think, summed it up when he said what we have is constructive strategic stability. I think that says it pretty well.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great, thank you, Secretary Paulson. That’s excellent. I think the recent President Trump visit to Beijing has been really encouraging, and we see both presidents have come to a great consensus that we could have strategic stability, constructive strategic stability. That’s the word they use, actually. So this is very important.

I remember in the first term of Trump, during which he issued his national strategic report, it talked about strategic rivalry. Now, in the second term, his strategic report doesn’t mention strategic rivalry, but now we are coming to a constructive strategic stability. It’s a great thing, a great new narrative, and probably new stability that affects him.

So, with the upcoming President Xi’s visit, because they are going through another three possible meetings, at APEC, at G20, and of course September’s state visit, we’re going to see another probably three visits. So what do you think are the further, more things that we could achieve?

Henry Paulson

[Audio unclear] So I used “managed stability”, which was rooted in mutually assured economic disruption, because each side knows that the other could take steps to disrupt the other. So again, we have stability based upon this mutually assured economic disruption, on the one hand. But on the other hand, we have a trust deficit. We have to really understand that bigger than the trade deficit is a trust deficit. That is a significant problem.

I have made the point repeatedly here that it’s so important. [Audio unclear] As I look at it, this trust, we need to cover it, because there are profound challenges out there, and we know what they are. There is AI, agentic AI, a profound challenge, pandemics, nuclear proliferation. So there are profound challenges, right? I think the best chance we have is having our two presidents work together to solve these problems.

So now, where are we, and how do we look ahead? I’ve got to start with where we are with the first meeting. The first meeting’s emphasis was on stability, and the accomplishments were small steps. The accomplishments were Boeing sales to the U.S., exports to the U.S., soybeans, energy, and, as we said, the Board of Trade and the Board of Investment. I think it’ll be important to see how those are actually implemented. That will be very important.

Again, it’s going to be very important that they make progress on some of these big challenges. Looking ahead, I really think that is the key, because they’ve got the upcoming state visit in D.C. on the 24th. They’ve got the opportunity for two other meetings, and of course they’re having regular phone calls. So the key opportunity here is how do we recognise — and let me tell you, the challenges we have in the world today are really profound.

We’ve got the geopolitical challenges, war in Iran, war in Russia — Russia in Ukraine, Iran. So we’ve got those geopolitical challenges. We’ve got the things that I talked about before: the pandemics, the agentic AI, and so on. Then we’ve got challenges that I look at as being more severe than my government does, in terms of biodiversity destruction and climate change. These are so significant that no country can solve those by themselves, and the best starting place is to have the two biggest economies get together and cooperate.

This is why these senior leader meetings are so vitally important. Looking ahead, I’m saying huge challenge right now, big trust deficit. It’s not going to be easy at all, but it’s very, very important. So we’ve got stability, we’ve made some progress, but the relationship is still fraught, and we’ve got a long way to go. But I’m greatly relieved, as I think people in America are quite positive by this first step, as I think people are in China. I think they’re positive and relieved.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you, thank you, Secretary Paulson. That’s great news. Actually, I think it’s great that both presidents keep meeting as time goes on for this year, and also further. I think you mentioned the new phrase, “mutually assured economic disruption,” right? That’s really, I think, a great way of reflecting the current reality of the status of China-U.S. relations. As a matter of fact, through eight years of trade war, sanctions, countermeasures, and reciprocal measures, now we have come to the stage where both countries realise it doesn’t really make sense if we have mutually assured economic disruption.

You are also absolutely correct. I think China and the U.S. are the two largest economies and probably the two largest geopolitical powers as well, and we have a huge responsibility for global peace. You can see what has happened in Iran, in Ukraine, and in many parts of the world. We actually have to work together.

You also mentioned AI, pandemics, and also all those things. I think absolutely those bigger interests will really bind us together, so that we should really take the high moral ground and, as the two largest economies, work together to try to avoid a rivalry position, or maybe decoupling, because decoupling is not really the option, I think.

So what do you think about things that we can continue to do, like financial stability, global status of economic growth? I remember well that in 2008, during the financial crisis, you basically architected this rescue plan for bailing us out of this financial crisis. Now we need more wisdom on how we can really keep the world, not just financially, but geopolitically, but also with AI and many, many more challenges now.

Absolutely, trust building is probably the key word and the most important thing you mentioned. I would think that we have to work on that, step by step, so that we can achieve a new equilibrium, that really we have to work together, from mutually assured economic destruction to mutually assured economic construction.

Henry Paulson

Yeah, that would be a good place to go. You alluded to something, Henry, because you talked about the financial crisis and the ability that I had to work with Wang Qishan and Zhou Xiaochuan and others made a big difference.

Now, when you look at the world, we’ve got many, many issues. There are systemic financial and economic issues, because we’ve got some economies very strong, like the U.S. At the same time, China’s economy has more problems. We’ve got different macroeconomic policies around the world. There is, in my judgment, a fairly high chance that we’ll have some kind of financial disruption.

Now, with high levels of debt around the world, sovereign debt everywhere, there’s less flexibility and capacity to deal with a financial crisis, if we have one. So I’ve argued, and one of the things I’ve consistently argued, that it’s important that the U.S. and China have the right people talking to each other, monitoring the domestic risks and the economic risks. I don’t think that these conversations, in and of themselves, will be able to identify the next crisis or prevent it. But the huge advantage is they’re talking, they’re building trust, and the right people are talking to each other. So if and when something happens, they’ll have the lines of communication, and they’ll have a basis to work and stabilise. That is something that I think is very, very important.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely, you are right. I think this high-level dialogue, particularly also in the financial and economic sectors, is really important. Actually, we see quite well that even during the trade talks, for the last number of talks since Trump’s second administration, we see Vice Premier He Lifeng and Minister Li Chenggang, and of course Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, and the USTR. They meet regularly. They have met five or six times already.

So I think, in a situation like this, we really need to keep deep dialogue to stabilise. Now you talk about this possible disruption in the financial area. What about companies? We have so many multinationals attending our luncheon today. On corporate strategy amid geopolitical crosswinds, during your tenure as CEO of Goldman Sachs, you witnessed the acceleration of foreign enterprises embracing the China market. Today, American multinational corporations really value their supply chains or are adopting a China-plus-one strategy.

So, if you were still in the corporate world, what advice would you give to American CEOs and Chinese CEOs? Because we see recently Trump brought 17 biggest company CEOs to China. So on the business side, what do you see? Because we are too much embedded with each other, and how can we really further promote cooperation amid the geopolitical crosswinds?

Henry Paulson

So, Henry, actually, I’m still very much in that business, because I’m being approached all the time by corporate CEOs asking for advice on China. So this is something I’m living continually, and I give different advice depending on the industry and the company’s competitive position internationally and in China.

Now, you mentioned supply chains. I think any well-managed company today needs a resilient supply chain, so they can never be dependent on one country for critical portions of the supply chain. So you start there.

Then I would say the other thing, if you’re a CEO today, your job is complex because you’ve got to manage the geopolitical risk we’ve talked about. You’ve got to have political scrutiny, so you know you’re going to have that, and then you’re going to have the risk of unexpected export controls and sanctions. So you need to deal in that world.

Now, the advice I give to companies, though, is this: if they are a leader globally and they want to continue to be a leader globally, you walk away from China at your own peril. You have to understand this market, and you can’t understand it unless you come here. So you start there.

Now, my job is becoming more difficult, because today what we’re seeing is so many companies, when they look at the laws in China and the way the national security laws work and cross over into the economic area, they’re forced with sometimes a decision whether they’re going to obey U.S. law or Chinese law, and if they violate it, they are subject to being arrested. So that is a risk.

As I thought about it, one of the things I’ve also noticed, which has surprised me, is that, as the second largest economy in the world, China doesn’t have nearly as much foreign direct investment as you would expect. When I looked at those numbers, I didn’t quite believe it. So I asked people to go back and show them to me again. I really do believe China is going to want the investment. Investment has even slowed down here among Chinese entrepreneurs, so they’re going to want the investment, they’re going to need the investment, and this is one area I think we can work on in that dialogue.

So when we look at the Board of Trade and the Board of Investment, that is something that I think would be constructive to work on.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Absolutely. I think the two new things about the recent outcome of the President Trump-Xi summit are the establishment of these two boards, the Board of Trade and the Board of Investment. There are so many things complementary to both countries.

We know that, as you said, 17 CEOs followed Trump, and they are all still quite positive on China’s development. Also China now has established, I think, world-class infrastructure, supply chains, talent pools, and also all the logistics. So it makes a lot of sense now that we have to have the balance, of course, competitive advantage, of course also political and geopolitical disruption.

But I think China is still the best country for U.S. companies to work here. For example, there are almost 2,000 Chinese companies now on the American entity or sanctions list. There are probably about 20 American companies that are also on the Chinese entity list, largely for selling weapons to Taiwan.

So I think if we are going to resume the trust, and then we also realise in this world we cannot live without each other, and then it is such a very embedded ecosystem that we have to work together. I remember you mentioned that we cannot live in two different systems. If we have all separate systems, then the whole world has to do everything twice, with huge waste, and it’s really not good for both countries.

So I think this gradual pickup of some of the trust and cooperation between our two countries is so important. Of course, there is always structural competition, there are always other disruptions, but overall I think we need to find out what are the most important things to work with each other.

So your advice is valuable. I think that we have to find out what is really good for companies, and what are the words. China is also a big market, the U.S. is a big market, and things like that.

So just on financial stability and systemic risk prevention, since you have most masterfully navigated the 2008 financial crisis, you have a lot of great experience there. With soaring global debt, as you also mentioned, the U.S. probably reached 40 trillion, and divergent monetary policy today, do you see a new macro-financial risk that is coming? Or how should the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies, coordinate together to prevent the next black swan event?

Henry Paulson

Henry, as I said earlier, I think that there’s a relatively high possibility that there’ll be some kind of financial disruption, which could lead to a financial crisis, and that it’s going to be harder for the world to respond because sovereign debt is so high right now, and there’s less flexibility. There’s more opportunity for disruption because of everything that’s going on geopolitically, but also because you’re going to have very different macroeconomic policies.

If an economy is struggling a bit, like China, it’s going to have a different macroeconomic policy than the U.S., right? As I’ve emphasised, it’s so important that the right people talk to each other. During the 2008 crisis, I was talking regularly with Wang Qishan, Zhou Xiaochuan, and others about all kinds of things. So when we needed it, we were able to get together and coordinate.

I’ve often said, listen, you can talk a lot, and the odds of being able to identify what’s going to cause a crisis or prevent it are very low. But if and when the crisis comes, if you’re talking, you’ve got the trust, you know who to talk to, and you can respond and minimise the damage. And I’m pleased that that’s happening.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. Absolutely, we have to keep the dialogue and talk, and also keep that frequency. That’s what I think is a big credit for President Trump, for doing that, and also for Chinese leadership as well, that we maintain such a great intense dialogue in 2026. It could have a lot of stabilising effects that they’re going to achieve this year.

Also on bilateral trade, we see there is a slowing down of the trade dispute. Of course, there is a truce being made, but still we can see China-U.S. trade, even though the deficit has come down, but the U.S. deficits with other economies are going up. In that sense, also, when we talk about the trade deficit, there are a lot of multinationals actually making that. For example, 40% of China’s international trade was conducted by multinational and foreign enterprises. We see many good examples of Apple, Tesla, and all making good products in China, but maybe the deficits are on China and profit is on the companies.

So in that sense, I mean, also the U.S. is having a huge trade surplus on U.S. dollars. I mean, they’re having many dollars, and the U.S. maybe has a trade surplus on goods. So do you think that we should have new studies, maybe to really find out what are really the benefits of trade cooperation?

Henry Paulson

Henry, I do. I think there’s the risk right now, which we see, and it’s not as much on U.S.-China as it is on China with Europe and Southeast Asia, because what we see is because of really big imbalances in China that have existed for some time. But now the Chinese economy is so big, with these imbalances, we’ve got huge excess capacity.

China is going to export maybe as much as one and a half trillion dollars of product in the world, and this is going to be problematic in two ways. First of all, it’s big enough to disrupt certain economies in Europe and in Asia, number one. Number two, it’s going to cause trade frictions. So that is something I know China is focused on.

But what we have right now is that the renminbi is low because it’s essential for China to have those exports to keep the economy going. When I was Treasury Secretary, the imbalances were bigger as a result of the same problem, but the economy was smaller. Today, China is a leading trader with economies that have 70% of global GDP. They’ve got great products. When you look at the EVs, the batteries, the solar panels, when you look at the products they have, they’ve got great products. But the elephant is too big for the tent right now. So I think that’s a risk we have to be mindful of. China needs to be mindful of it.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Yeah, I think the trade actually is absolutely right, going very strong. But also in China, though, there is a new phenomenon. China’s outbound investment is increasing as well. So we see a lot of Chinese companies interested in investing in Europe, in the U.S., in Latin America, and that’s the Board of Investment we established in China-U.S. It is really great.

Henry Paulson

I think that’s so important. That’s what I’m really hoping, that we’re going to get some more specific criteria on where Chinese investors can invest in the U.S. and not get hung up with CFIUS. So it’s going to be important to find areas that are subject to national security and economic security issues, that are acceptable to invest in, and get those standards.

Again, I think it’s very important also that right now China needs to invest, can invest in private equity funds in the U.S., which they’ve done for a long time. But right now, the regulations are such that it’s hard for U.S. private equity funds to accept the money because they have to sign problematic documents. Again, that’s something else that the Board of Investment can work through.

There are plenty of issues to work through, and I’m optimistic, but they’re not easy. None of these are easy. If they were easy, they would have been done by now. So there are so many sensitive areas.

Henry Huiyao Wang

That’s great. I think exactly what this Board of Investment, we hope to achieve, is really to promote more investment among each other. Particularly now China can do more investment, manufacturing, and going global, so that we can address some of those trade deficit issues by investing in more categories.

Of course, we talk about this trust issue. Actually, two weeks ago, we had a dialogue with David Shambaugh. He came here in Beijing. And he said there may be over-securitisation, over-emphasised security. That may not be a good trend on both sides. So we have this technology competition now, we have this AI disruption, which is unprecedented in the history of our bilateral relations and the world at large.

How do you think we can overcome this technological competition, but also avoid AI disruption? Because I remember Henry Kissinger, in his last piece of op-ed with Graham Allison, was talking about this AI race and real AI disruption. Now we’re embracing the AI era. How can we avoid anything devastating that is going to happen if we’re not too careful, particularly the U.S. and China?

Henry Paulson

Well, right now we know that this is where the competition is taking place, right? It’s taking place with the most advanced technologies and with AI. There’s robust competition, and the fact that it’s unconstrained really by either nation means that it’s moving very, very rapidly.

I think the risks are twofold. We’ve all talked about agentic AI, and that’s what Henry Kissinger talked about a long time ago. I know your leaders are focused on it, our leaders are focused on it. So I think that is something that is really quite a profound risk, a really, really profound risk. It’s not going to be easy to deal with, but the best chance of dealing with it is if our two countries could get together and come up with forms of governance here that work. I think it’s not easy, but necessity is the mother of invention.

Then I think there’s another risk that is going to come first. Let me just say at the beginning, so I don’t sound like a total Luddite, that AI is bringing huge benefits to the economy and a number of companies and industries. It’s got some pretty amazing benefits. I visited a number of AI companies here, and it’s extraordinary what we’re seeing.

But make no doubt about it, it’s going to destroy jobs. So all those that say, “Oh, well, this is just another industrial revolution,” well, that took place over a long period of time. This is moving so quickly, so that will be disruptive. It’s causing a lot of concern. Economies, countries, companies have got to be figuring out how to deal with those that lose their jobs.

Here it’s easier sitting here being a former government leader than a current one, because I’ve got to tell you, it’s a lot easier to cite the problem than come up with a solution. One thing I know, in the U.S., we don’t do a great job of training, right? The government doesn’t do a great job of training, so maybe industry needs to do more.

Again, glad you cited that. That’s an area where our two countries need to come together. But we’re a long way from doing it right now. To just raise the topic is one thing, but each country needs to figure out what they’re going to do themselves, right? And before they can get together with the other. This is moving pretty quickly, so this is something significant, and it’s something I’m glad you brought up.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Paulson. That’s really important. As you mentioned, AI is accelerating so fast. I mean, not like the Industrial Revolution, which took many decades. This is really a brink of AI. We see daily changes. That’s really so fast to cope with. Absolutely, China and the U.S. have to work together.

I’m glad to see both governments actually having a dialogue on that since Trump’s visit, and I hope continuously we’re going to talk about that, to have some governance, possibly regulations, to really work together. As you also mentioned, companies and industry should talk to each other and also have some joint efforts. That is a great, great idea.

Now my last question before I open the floor to the audience is that we know that you’ve been a dedicated contributor to the Nature Conservancy, to climate change, to green development, and many, many things you’ve been doing for those years. China, obviously, is a large green economy now, and the largest green power producer in the world. Do you see in this arena that China and the U.S., knowing that we have to fight climate change, even though we have some different views on that, but I do see that we are so complementary as the two largest emitters. So how can we work together on the green? You have been a leader in this field, on nature conservation and also fighting climate change.

Henry Paulson

Well, I’m really glad you brought that up, because this is a huge focus of mine, both climate change and conservation and biodiversity preservation. As I said earlier, I think species are declining at 1,000 times the historical rate, and so this poses significant risks. I spend a lot of time, and my institute spends a lot of time doing that.

I’m really pleased to report here that the Paulson Institute, working with some great partners in China, has done a lot and is continuing to do a lot. I was thinking today, going back years ago, I was involved in the first pilot national parks in China and Yunnan, and boy, was that fun, interesting, inspiring work, right? So that to me was something that has been very significant.

We’ve worked with Ma Jun on green financing principles on the Belt and Road. When I was looking at the progress today, we’ve got 52 signatories, 23 supporters, in 19 different countries. So again, something that’s quite significant.

One of the things that the Paulson Institute did, working with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, we looked hard at the coastal wetlands, which were being threatened, and we mapped them, came up with a lot of good data that helped policymakers in China decide how to prioritise which sites needed to be saved and what the restoration plan was.

I worked closely with my friend Xu Lin on the U.S.-China Green Fund, and we worked on that. I had a terrific meeting with Madam Zhao at the AIIB yesterday, because again we’re doing work there on groundbreaking work on green infrastructure, looking at nature and saying, how do we invest in it? How do we store it? How do we save it?

Then the thing that is taking up a huge amount of our effort is we are doing a redo of our groundbreaking study on financing nature on the biodiversity crisis. Here, the situation has gotten worse, and so the problem is accelerating. We’re looking ahead to the Biodiversity COP17 in Armenia. But this report is going to be — hopelessness is the enemy here. So we’re going to focus on all the progress that has been made, on new strategies, new projects that can work if they’re rolled out and at scale. There are some really good ones.

So I will tell you here, and this is a good question for us to end on, because I am really looking forward to working in China. Now I need to say at the outset, when we look at biodiversity, we look at conservation, we look at climate change, I look at them and say they’re not a risk, they’re a certainty. Climate change is a certainty, no risk here. It is a certainty. Some of the other things we’re talking about are risks.

I’m in a different spot than my government. I’d like the government of the U.S. to be in a different position here. So what I tell our team is that it makes it all the more important for NGOs like the Paulson Institute to be working in this area, working across the border, doing work in China and in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. We’ve stepped up our involvement in this area to try to do our job, and again, we look forward to continuing to work in China.

Henry Huiyao Wang

That really should be congratulated. That’s great news. I’m very pleased that the Paulson Institute is taking such a dedicated effort to fighting climate change, keeping biodiversity and nature conservation, and of course all this green development. China, being a country that has also been probably the leader in the green transition, has a lot of room to work together.

I really think this is a great area that both countries in the future could work on. I’m really thankful for the Paulson Institute for taking a leading role in promoting climate change prevention, but also green cooperation.

I really want to thank you so much for sharing all those great insights with us. Now we’re going to open the floor. Please raise your hand if you have any questions. Maybe we’ll get one first from Minister Zhu Hong. He was former Minister for Trade at the Chinese Embassy in Washington for many years. Minister Zhu Hong.

Zhu Hong, former Minister for Commercial Affairs, the Chinese Embassy in the United States

Thank you. Thank you. We are so glad to hear two Henries’ dialogue, very impressive. Mr Paulson, first, I would like to pay my tribute to your idea and work on the Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) 20 years ago. Actually, Ms. Zhang, sitting beside me, was in the office of the Ministry of Finance, in charge of these issues. So through the S&ED, we still can see those perspectives and advantages to our two nations’ relationship.

In today’s world, in today’s time, how can we resume such a strategic dialogue? Secondly, my question is regarding the business community, because I had long been Minister for Commercial Affairs in the U.S., and I think the business community had a not so good time a few years ago. After President Trump’s visit, I think the good timing is coming. So how will this visit, also this autumn’s President Xi’s visit, promote our bilateral economic and business dialogue? Thank you.

Henry Paulson

Okay, well, first of all, I take my hat off to you, and thank you for all your work.

Second of all, in terms of the S&ED being resumed, I actually believe that the Board of Trade and the Board of Investment, if they are implemented properly, achieve the same goal, which is more trade, more investment. You have to deal with the same issues, right? You have to deal with the same tough issues, and the issues are more difficult today than they were when I was here.

When I was doing this, I basically said, the key is the economic side. If you get the economic relationship right, that’s the propeller, that’s the lens through which China will look at this. If we get that right, other issues will be easier. Of course, today more than not, people are looking through the military lens. The economic lens really can be win-win. The military lens is win-loss.

So I think one of the key things we need to do is, each side is going to protect their priorities on the economic and military side, but I think we need to look and say what are really legitimate issues and what are the ones where we can expand trade and investment. That’s hard, and that’s hard politically.

But I think the biggest benefit so far of the summit between the two presidents is the tone. Right now there’s a more positive perception of China in the U.S. Among Republicans in the Senate and the House, they are more restrained in their criticism or more positive about the opportunities. So I think with that wind at the back, it’s going to make it easier to do some of the things we need to do.

But I do think we need to cut through some of the underbrush and some of the things I mentioned. I really think China, and the way the regulations and the law are set up and coming down, is actually scaring some U.S. companies in terms of investment here. I think clearly there are Chinese companies eager to invest in the United States, and they deserve to know what criteria there are, where they can invest. So I’m really hoping that will make a difference. As I said, I’m again really hoping that investment in private equity funds will resume.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great, good news. I think the two boards, Board of Investment and Board of Trade, will be more active. As if SED can be, a lot of the same effectiveness can be achieved. Okay, we go to the next question. The lady here. Okay.

Erin Zhang, Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs, Goldman Sachs International Bank Beijing Office

Thank you. I’m Erin. I’ve been with the firm for almost 10 years, so it’s a great honour that I can join this event and hear your insights directly. It’s really a great honour. Thanks for all the sharing.

I think dialogue between these two countries is so important at the moment, and we agreed to see the summit between the two state leaders last month. Hopefully, it paves the way for a sustainable relationship for this year and beyond.

My question is really related to the outcome from the summit, that is for the Board of Trade and Board of Investment. For the Board of Trade, at least we see some directions. But for the Board of Investment, we are really closely monitoring the development, and we see a lot of questions from the clients. But our understanding is that there is kind of no timeline for the next step for the Board of Investment.

Thinking about the sanctions, maybe from the U.S., restrictions on capital investment to the U.S., and maybe the new outbound investment from China, to me, I feel it is such a challenging job for the next step for the Board of Investment. So my question is, what’s your expectation for the Board of Investment? Where can it start, and what should be the priorities for it?

Henry Paulson

Well, let me say to you, I share your view. I share your view that it’s important. It’s going to be more difficult. Even in the trade area, they’re going to work on areas where there are less sensitive issues. Given the sensitivities and the issues you cited, it’s a challenge on the Board of Investment. So I begin by saying I’m going to watch that very carefully.

Now, what’s been said publicly, and I think Secretary Bessent said it, is that to begin with, we need to look at situations where you’ve got two enterprises wanting to do a deal, that they could go and clear with each side and be told whether there’s going to be a CFIUS issue or not. So they wouldn’t announce a deal and then find there was a CFIUS issue. You saw something worked out with TikTok and ByteDance, but there haven’t been a lot of those situations. So that’s a starting point.

But as I said, I think it’s going to take strong leadership by the two countries. I remember early on when President Xi made his first trip to the U.S. as a vice president, and he was clearly going to be president in the fall. He got together with a number of us who had worked on U.S.-China for a long time, and he’d asked me to do some things for the trip. When we got together, he asked everyone, what was the key to U.S.-China relations? And he said, let me tell you what I think the key is. I’m going to do what’s in our best interest, China’s best interest. I’m always going to do that, and I wouldn’t respect the U.S. president if he didn’t do the same. But there are going to be plenty of things that are in our mutual interests, but are unpopular in our countries. So it’s going to take someone strong enough to agree to do things that are in mutual interests that are unpopular.

We’ve now got two presidents that are strong enough to do that, but it’s more difficult than it was when President Xi mentioned it, because the relationship has moved beyond that point. Let’s not make a mistake that China is building closer partnerships with U.S. enemies, right? And we’ve got different security relationships, we have a whole lot of regulations, so it’s not going to be easy.

That’s why I said the thing I’m going to look at most carefully is how these things are operationalised. Let me tell you, it’s not going to be easy, but I’m expecting both sides to make progress here. That’s something we should all be watching.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Great. You mentioned these leaders that can do things unpopular at home, but then really for mutual benefit. That’s a great vision. I think that’s what we are seeing probably today as well. So we hope to continue. We’ll have maybe another question from — yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. We’ll take the two together. Okay.

Song Dongze, Reporter, Phoenix New Media

Hello, everyone. I’m Katherine Song from Phoenix New Media. Mr Paulson, thank you very much for your wonderful speech. My first question is, as we know, U.S. tech stocks plummeted last Friday, and although there was a rebound, the market is still hotly debating whether the AI bubble is bursting. What’s your take on this? Is AI still worth investing in?

My second question is, speaking of AI, many ordinary people have neither the capital nor insider information to rely on. So is it feasible for them to use AI to trade stocks? Like, I ask AI, which stock should I buy, or should I sell it? What is the most important message you would like to convey to them? Thank you very much.

Henry Paulson

Okay, wow. So in terms of AI, there are massive amounts of money flowing into AI right now. What’s happening is money is being invested and market values are going up based upon the money that’s being invested rather than earnings today. So I would expect that at some time there’ll be a correction. It’s hard to predict when, and there’ll be some winners and some losers. That’s all I can say. I can’t predict a market, but I will tell you this is very real in terms of money that’s being spent.

Secondly, I never advise investors on things. I know that there are plenty of Chinese investors that have been very unhappy with decisions they made in the market from time to time, and there’s speculation. But no, I wouldn’t. I personally wouldn’t rely on AI to make a decision, but I would rely on AI to get me the information I need, right? Get information. But you have to make sure, because there’s so much stuff that’s out there that’s fake. You need to be careful. You need to be careful.

I will tell you one other thing. I don’t trade in the market, and I certainly wouldn’t trade based upon AI, personally.

Yubin Du, Reporter, CGTN

Thank you so much to Henry. Thank you very much. My question is about climate change. I remember around over 10 years ago I read your book, Dealing with China, the first one to tell the world that President Xi told you, hey, we’re going to make a new land outside Beijing to relocate some resources for sustainable development. Also, we know, Henry, the Paulson Institute helped China to build the national park system.

However, if we see right now the current administration in the U.S. doesn’t have too much enthusiasm about climate change and green development, what do you see? Is this a possible field that China and the U.S. still can work together on, and whether it still has many opportunities for Chinese enterprises to work in this field? Thank you.

Henry Paulson

So, here’s what I would say. I can’t add anything to what you’ve said about where the government is, and I’ve said the government’s in a different place than I am.

But I would say there are plenty of people in the U.S., and plenty of local governments and companies, that are aware of the climate risk. You would have to be blind and dumb not to be, right? When you see the world is overheating, you can argue about what causes it, but the world is — I think we all know what’s causing it — but even if people don’t want to admit that the world is overheating. There’s a lot that people need to do, and companies need to do also, including resilience and adaptation.

So we want to mitigate emissions. But given what’s already up there, we know we’re not going to meet the one and a half degrees, probably not two degrees, but two degrees is better than two and a half, or whatever. So there are all sorts of investment necessities and opportunities.

I’m finding that the climate fund that I’m Executive Chairman of, despite all the rhetoric, I’ve never seen so many good opportunities to invest where you can reduce climate emissions, or you can make a difference in terms of resilience.

Again, there’s a need. As I said earlier, I don’t view this as a risk. I view it as a certainty. We need to prepare for it. Companies need to harden their supply chains. We need to look at our power and our energy systems. This is an area where I give China a lot of credit for what they’ve done in terms of products like batteries, EVs, solar panels, diversifying energy sources, and so on. But there’s a lot that needs to be done. Don’t think that U.S. citizens and companies aren’t aware of this.

Ji Xiaoyu, Founder, Tianjin Haileybury International School; Chair, Murong Capital Fund

Mr Paulson. I’m from the Western Returned Scholars Association 2005 Committee, and I myself am a technology investor. So I have a question for you.

We all know that you were very famous for managing the 2008 financial crisis and stabilising the market. Now, do you think AI is going to cause the AI fever in the capital market? Is the AI fever going to cause another financial crisis as huge as the 2008 crisis or the 2000 dot-com crisis? If you do think so, what would you suggest the government do to prevent the bubble collapse? Or do you think it’s destiny that it will come again and again, and we will have no way to prevent it. Do you think there are any opportunities for China and the U.S. to cooperate to do something to prevent or manage the crisis?

Henry Paulson

Here’s what I think. I think it is absolutely impossible to identify what will cause the next crisis, right? There’s always someone that has pointed to it, and then afterwards they say, “See, I saw it.” But other people don’t see it, and they won’t see the next one.

So I would say this: as long as you have governments and political decision makers, you’re going to have flawed policies or adverse risks and conditions that are going to cause crises. The key thing is hopefully you will be able to get involved soon enough to mitigate them before they become too great.

Now, in the U.S., as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, we have the tools, and I think the knowledge, to know what we’ve got to do, because the only way you can stop a panic is with government capital. In the U.S., it takes great courage to stand up and “do the rescue or a bailout”. In China, that’s the first move, and it takes great courage to let the markets work, right? China has been propping up non-viable assets at the sub-national level for some time. So we’ve got different policies. There are all kinds of risks around the world.

But the key thing, which you cited in the 2008 financial crisis — I personally think if we have a crisis, I don’t think it will begin in the U.S. I could be wrong, but I think the markets are resilient enough and liquid enough in the U.S. I think it’s apt to take place outside of the U.S. But regardless of where it takes place, the world is getting smaller and smaller in terms of the risks and the way they move.

People will say globalisation has ended. I say BS to that, right? Look at pandemics. Look at the way money moves around the world with lightning speed. So when there is financial disruption, and we know there will be sometime, because there always will be, when there is, we need to cooperate and coordinate and do what we can to limit the risk. So that’s the best answer. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but what I’m telling you, trust me, it’s right.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Okay, great. I think, given the time, we’ll have to end here. I think we had a very stimulating, very exciting, and also very encouraging, constructive dialogue. I absolutely agree with Secretary Paulson that we need to engage in deep dialogues, frequent dialogues, at high level and at all levels. But also, we have to be very earnest in building trust. I mean, that’s probably the biggest deficit we’re having now.

Furthermore, I think Secretary Paulson gave a lot of good suggestions, like we have to carry on with this Board of Trade, Board of Investment, and of course also we need to be really on AI. We have to harness AI, but also at the same time prevent the risks of that.

Furthermore, I want to congratulate you on your new book that has really come out just recently. So we really appreciate your time to come to China, to come to the CCG VIP Luncheon. I’m sure our distinguished guests here really enjoyed your great talk. We hope to have you again. If you have any last words you want to say, we would love to hear them.

Henry Paulson

Henry, my last words are thank you. Thank you for doing this, for putting this together. Thank you to all of you for coming and listening. I’m sorry, but I have to move pretty quickly, because I’ve got another meeting to go to. So, thank you.

Henry Huiyao Wang

Thank you very much.

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The volume brings together Wang’s writings on China’s evolving role in globalisation, global governance, great-power relations, and the emerging multipolar world. The following excerpt, first published by the South China Morning Post on June 26, 2025 and revised for this collection, focuses on China’s role in the global green transition and argues that clean energy leadership could become one of the defining forces shaping the next phase of global order.

Green Power Leadership: Why China Can Lead the Climate Revolution

As green transition becomes one of the defining technological trends of the 21st century, the question is not whether China is leading the world but whether it can sell its climate leadership fast enough to build a better future for all.

The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in 2007 that “green is the new red, white and blue,” arguing it the United States could cement its tech leadership through clean technology. However, the ensuing decades have seen US political dysfunction turn that on its head. Now in 2025, he argues that US President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will only “make China great again.”

It’s not hard to see why he might think that. There is an intimate connection between generation capacity and national economic output. In a world driven by increasingly energy-hungry AI models, large digital infrastructure outlays, and traditional industrial processes, abandoning the cheapest form of energy generation yet discovered to defend legacy interests in fossil fuels seems foolish.

It has been a truism since the beginning of the 2020s that, per dollar spent on capacity, renewables now beat fossil fuels on price, and renewables are not dependent on a continuous stream of outside fuel at fluctuating prices.

In that challenge lies opportunity. In a world plagued by climate instability, energy insecurity, and economic uncertainty, the next global leader will be crowned not by war or wealth but by capability and capacity. Delivering on clean energy at scale will be the leading edge upon which these are determined, and China is positioning itself at the center of this transformation. It is becoming the world’s largest producer of solar panels and electric vehicles and underwriting a green revolution that could redefine global governance.

As economic historian Adam Tooze recently pointed out during a dialogue at the Center for China and Globalization, China has effectively ignited a green energy revolution, forging capacity where there was once only framework and far-off dreams of substitution. In 2023 alone, China installed more solar capacity than the entire world did the previous year, and it’s driving down the prices of installations elsewhere.

The cost of solar has dropped to just 11 cents per watt of capacity in 2024. As Tooze said, “Because that dominance – and it is dominance – of so many areas of production, very high quality, very high flexibility, and integration across the entire supply chain and reasonable cost, means that it’s difficult for other people to imagine their economic future.”

Just as steam power helped usher in the British Empire and the transistor catalyzed American technological leadership, today green power is laying the groundwork for China to contribute to the next phase of global leadership. Unlike earlier industrial revolutions, the green transition, by its nature must be collaborative, inclusive, and global in scope.

Climate change is, after all, a problem that threatens us all regardless of borders, especially in the world’s least developed regions. In these places, new installations will build out capacity that previously never existed.

Global governance must evolve to reflect this shared future. If China can help lead the world to curb climate change, we will not only contribute to stabilizing the planet but also help write a new chapter in the architecture of international cooperation.

The transition is already bearing domestic fruit. China is moving from a state-led, subsidy-heavy model to a more efficient, market-driven green economy. Photovoltaic subsidies were phased out as the industry matured, allowing technological improvements and economies of scale to drive solar adoption on merit alone. Electric vehicle (EV) subsidies are being phased out, pushing domestic carmakers toward a renewed focus on innovation, quality and global competitiveness.

Yet China’s competitiveness also poses a problem. To fight climate change, we must overcome a growing trust gap. China’s rise up the value chain has already begun to displace incumbents in developed economies in areas such as automotive manufacturing, but displacement need not be the logic of China’s rise.

To anchor itself and support the green transition, China must build trust through action and do so in a way that does not deprive local economies of opportunity. It will need to continually embrace a global “going out” strategy, one that is “in the world, for the world” by tangibly investing in foreign markets to expand the capability of Chinese business and spread the rewards of economic integration.

The world can benefit from endeavors such as LONGi Green Energy’s joint venture in solar manufacturing in Ohio and BYD’s first EV plant in Thailand. Chinese-built transmission lines, for example, can bridge solar farms in North Africa to power grids in Europe.

Of course, there will be resistance from entrenched interests and legacy industries. But for ordinary people around the world and governments seeking affordable power, the sooner the world’s green transition, the better.

If the nineteenth century belonged to steam and the twentieth to silicon, the twenty-first will belong to those who master the green transition. The question is not whether China is leading this revolution. The real question is whether China can sell the world on its climate leadership fast enough to build a better, more sustainable future for all.

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This year’s forum, held under the theme “The Age of Multipolarity: Many Directions, One Future,” brought together political leaders, senior officials, diplomats, representatives of international organisations, and think tank experts from around the world.

High-level participants included Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković; Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Gordan Grlić Radman; Portuguese Minister of State and Foreign Affairs Paulo Rangel; Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Antonio Tajani; Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset; OSCE Secretary General Feridun H. Sinirlioğlu; and Lu Shaye, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on European Affairs.

Henry Huiyao Wang spoke on June 26 at the think tank panel “Emerging Powers in a Multipolar World – Many Paths, One Destination,” the first working session following the opening segment. The session was moderated by Mihaela Papa, Director of Research and Principal Research Scientist, and Director of the BRICS Lab at the MIT Center for International Studies. Speakers also included Charles Powell, Director of the Elcano Royal Institute; Luanda Mpungose, Outreach and Partnership Manager at the South African Institute of International Affairs; Rachel Rizzo, Senior Fellow in the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation; Daniel Kochis, Senior Fellow at the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute; Paul McCarthy of The Heritage Foundation; and Manoel Corrêa do Lago, Senior Consultant at the Brazilian Center for International Relations.

Later the same day, Wang joined the panel “Geopolitics of Artificial Intelligence: Who will Rule the Digital Future?” moderated by Mato Njavro, Dean of the Zagreb School of Economics and Management. Other speakers included Sania Nishtar, Chief Executive Officer of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; Tatiana Valovaya, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva; Ivan Crnčec, State Secretary at Croatia’s Ministry of Justice, Public Administration and Digital Transformation; and Tomasz Snażyk, CEO of AI Chamber CEE.

Mabel Lu Miao participated on 26 June in “Melting Ice, Rising Stakes: Critical Materials, Geopolitical Competition and Global Health,” a panel moderated by Valbona Zeneli, Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Željko Reiner, Deputy Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, delivered the keynote remarks. Speakers included Irena Hrstić, Minister of Health of Croatia; Ayano Kunimitsu, State Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan; Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe; and Daniel Kochis of the Hudson Institute.

On 27 June, Miao also joined “Asia-Pacific in Motion: New Powers, Old Rivalries,” moderated by Đana Luša, Full Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb. Other speakers included Ly Thuch, Senior Minister and First Vice President of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority; Vijavat Isarabhakdi, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs of Thailand; Željana Zovko, Member of the European Parliament; and Jordan Embree, Research Associate at the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation.

During the forum, Wang and Miao also attended a gala dinner hosted by Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on the Adriatic coast.

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