Over the last few weeks, members of the strategic studies team at Tsinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) held discussions with Tencent Research Institute and AliResearch during the team’s summer research project. Participants from CISS included AN Gang, SONG Bo, BIAN Yongzu, DONG Ting, ZHU Rongsheng, SU Yanting, WANG Jingshu, et al.

On August 11, the CISS team held a virtual seminar with Tencent Research Institute. ZHANG Qinkun, Secretary-General of the Tencent Research Institute, delivered welcome and concluding remarks. ZHA Xiaogang, Director of the Center for International Policy at Tencent presented research outcomes regarding the internationalization of digital companies as well as specific concerns of the business world about competition and cooperation in areas affected by China-US relations. The Institute’s Senior Researcher ZHAO Zifei shared the results of his research on unicorn companies in China and the US. Other discussants included Tencent Researchers XIAO Fei and LIU Yuanyuan. 

On August 5, the CISS team visited Alibaba’s brand new showroom of its Beijing branch and engaged in a panel discussion on the prospects for technology cooperation and competition between China and the US in areas such as AI and digital technology and on the integration and governance of cross-border platforms with CUI Shufeng, Director of the Industry Research Center at AliResearch, SU Zhong, Senior Technologist at AliResearch, and Alibaba Researchers ZHANG Cheng, LI Peng, WEI Liping, and GU Dengchen. 

During the discussion, Dr. Su Zhong presented Alibaba’s R&D layout of the “Deep Foundation” in its technology sphere as well as his analysis of the future technology competition between China and the US. Cui Shufeng shared his insights into the “decoupling” of Chinese and US capital markets and the development trends of China’s platform economy from the perspective of the business sector. In addition, Gu Dengchen summarized AliResearch’s observations on the regulatory measures both in domestic capital markets and on American and European platforms.

The participants agreed that the face-to-face exchanges across international relations institutions and corporate research institutions were pragmatic and efficient, which contributed to a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the developments in important issues. They look forward to more exchanges of this kind in the future.