On December 22 and 23, 2018, the Center for International Strategy and Security, Tsinghua University (CISS) held the Symposium on “A Changing World and China-US Relations: Direction, Choice and Path” in a Beijing suburb. Bringing together over 40 renowned Chinese experts and scholars and representatives from enterprises, the seminar featured heated and intensive discussions on international situations and changes in China-US relations. The major arguments laid out at the forum are as follows:
The international order is currently under pressure of transformation. Experts believed that due to major-country competition, absence of order and weakened US global leadership, the international order is on the brink of a great transformation, and there is a possibility for collapse of the global system as well as polarization of international politics. By attempting to reconstruct the rules and standards of international organizations, the US is forcing members in the international community to take sides again. Meanwhile, third-party factors are having a greater impact of the developments of China-US relations. Peripheral countries in Asia are also one of the major concerns of both China and the US. In recent years, China has been proactively adjusting its moves, easing the situations which had been complicated by factors like the overlapping of disputes over territorial sovereignty and maritime interests and foreign economic strategies.
The domestic contradictions of the US have grown to be a major factor in China-US relations. At present, the US is troubled by various severe problems, including broadening wealth gap, political polarization, social cleavage, democratic dysfunction and enormous debt. Finding itself in a blind alley, the US has to highlight external conflicts so as to divert people’s attention from domestic issues, which has significantly undermined the stability of China-US relations. Currently, the competition between two countries centers on interests, for instance, Washington has been asking Beijing to buy more exports from the US and provide non-discriminatory national treatment for US enterprises in the Chinese market. In the long run, the US will set greater store by reconstructing a power structure and rule system to its own benefits.
Both China and the US are paying more attention to their co-opetition in the arena of high technologies. As China advances its industrial upgrading, there has been more and more homogeneous competition between China and the US, which makes the US worried that China’s rise will challenge its dominance in the world. Recently, the US has been attempting to make the gap between it and China shrink at a slower pace by fueling a trade war. Meanwhile, it is also taking concrete actions to detach from China in sensitive areas like high technologies. For the time being, the US usually prioritizes cutting-edge technologies, key sectors and innovation talents in its competition with China, in a bid to restrict the latter’s acquisition of superior technologies. In the long run, the US needs to constantly consolidate the global system where it plays a dominant role, so as to sustain its leadership in the international landscape. However, after 40 years of interaction and cooperation, China and the US have established an extensive and in-depth partnership. A host of US enterprises have benefited much from their deep roots in China. There is only a minuscule chance that the bilateral relations will deteriorate on all fronts, which, in addition, is against the will of the business community and general public in the US.
Competition in one or a few areas is more likely to have a spillover effect. The China-US competition in the South China Sea and across the Taiwan Strait as well as the subsequent risks may spill over into the overall picture of the China-US relations. To avoid such situation, China should develop more “consensual codes of conduct” together with the US to make the bilateral relations more flexible and resilient. At the same time, since the actions of the US military in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait are likely to escalate, China should get prepared by formulating detailed contingency plans for potential risks and problems and enhance the collaboration of various domestic crisis response agencies. Moreover, China should stay committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, encourage North Korea- and South Korea-US talks to ease tensions , and strengthen China-US cooperation in denuclearizing North Korea.
Appendix: List of attendees
Fu Ying
Director of the Center for International Strategy and Security, Tsinghua University
Jin Liqun
President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
Yuan Peng
President of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations
Zhang Baijia
Former Deputy Director of the Party History Research Center of the CPC Central Committee
Yao Yunzhu
Director Emeritus of the Center on China-American Defense Relations, Academy of Military Science
Zhou Qiangwu
Director General of the International Economics and Finance Institute of the Ministry of Finance
Zhu Feng
Executive Director of the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies, Nanjing University
Wu Xinbo
Dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University
Da Wei
Assistant President of the University of international Relations
Feng Yujun
Vice Dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University
Diao Daming
Associate Professor of the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China
Fan Jishe
Dean of the Department of Strategic Studies under the Institute of American Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Chen Qi
Professor of Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University
Huang Jing
Academic Dean of the Institute on National and Regional Studies, Beijing Language and Culture University
Huang Renwei
Former Vice President of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences
Li Chen
Associate Professor of the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China
Li Tao
APUS Group
Liu Feng
Professor of Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University
Ma Xiaoye
Vice President of SGS China and former Chinese observer to WTO
Qu Bo
Dean of the Institute of International Relations, China Foreign Affairs University
Shen Dingli
Professor and former Executive Vice Dean of the Institute of International Studies, Fudan University
Shi Xiaoqin
Research Fellow of the School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University
Song Guoyou
Deputy Director of the Center for American Studies, Fudan University
Tang Xiaoyang
Associate Professor of Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University
Wang Shuai
Research Fellow of the National Institute for Global Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Wang Wen
Executive Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China
Wang Huiyao
Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization
An Gang
Editor of World Affairs and Senior Fellow of Pangoal Institution
Xue Li
Director of Department of International Strategy at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Zhang Tengfei
CEO of UMBRO
Zhao Kejin
Vice Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University
Zhao Minghao
Associate Fellow of the China Center for Contemporary World Studies, International Department of the CPC Central Committee
Zhou Bo
Director of the Center for Security Cooperation at the Office for International Military Cooperation in the Ministry of National Defense
Zhou Fangyin
Dean of the School of International Relations, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
Hu Bo
Director of the Center for Maritime Strategy Studies, Peking University
The National Institute for Global Strategy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences provided academic support for the symposium.