The US Commerce Department added seven Chinese supercomputing entities to its Entity List, citing activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the US. If enacted, the bill would place additional sanctions on Chinese officials accused of alleged human rights abuses in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, authorize funds to “promote democracy” in Hong Kong, and void all restrictions on US officials’ interaction with Taiwanese counterparts. It will also establish a program to help Indo-Pacific countries develop infrastructure to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and would expand the scope of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) to monitor relationships between Chinese and American educational institutions. Statements released by both sides indicate that the two presidents discussed a wide range of issues, including their complex bilateral relations, their stances on Taiwan, and views on health security, climate crisis, global energy supplies, and key regional challenges in North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran. President Biden told reporters on Wednesday, July 20 that he intends to meet with President Xi “within the next 10 days”, as China-US relations grow increasingly tense. On the same day, Chinese Ambassador to the US Qin Gang, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, criticized the US’ increasingly close ties with Taiwan, stating that “The United States is … blurring out the “One China’ policy”.
Normalized Trade Relations
“We firmly oppose NATO using China as an excuse to expand eastward into the Asia-Pacific and urge NATO to reflect on its own behaviors, change course, and contribute more to global security and stability,” Chinese defense spokesperson Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang said at a regular press conference on Thursday. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Monday that NATO’s Indo-Pacific partners—which includes Japan and South Korea—were “very, very aware” of China’s “massive” military expansion, pointing to several Chinese defense companies that rank among the top arms makers globally. “No matter what they say or do, they cannot change the fact that Taiwan is part of China,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said. The United States imposes a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, citing the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
At the time, the president claimed the levies would decrease the U.S. trade deficit with China, bring back manufacturing jobs to the United States, and force China to reform its trade practices, including intellectual property (IP) theft. Meanwhile, China retaliated with its own tariffs on U.S. goods and has even imposed export controls on critical minerals central to the manufacturing of automobiles, semiconductors, and military weapons worldwide. The US Department of Commerce has implemented sweeping new export controls that will require companies to receive a license to export US-made advanced computing and semiconductor products to China. The release states that the purpose of the export controls is to “protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests” and will “restrict the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) ability to both purchase and manufacture certain high-end chips used in military applications”.
Biden, Xi Seek to Repair the Relationship
The MOF readout stated that in the meetings, the Chinese side raised issues of concern for China, such as US tariffs on Chinese goods, export controls, fair two-way investment, and the ban on Xinjiang-related products. It also echoed the US stance on healthy competition, stating that “China believes that to achieve a healthy China-US economic relationship, we must fully respect the legitimate development rights and interests of all parties, and conduct healthy competition in accordance with market economic principles and WTO rules”. The past few administrations’ increased economic confrontation with China has raised questions about the future of the trade relationship. Neither U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods (and retaliatory Chinese tariffs on U.S. exports) nor U.S. export controls has shown signs of being rolled back.
- The United States, European Union, and Japan are discussing industrial subsidies, and if a common position is reached, that could aid World Trade Organization reform and put pressure on China to curb and be transparent on its massive subsidies.
- They also discussed signing a memorandum of understanding on cooperation on disability affairs in the near future.
- Many of the newly targeted companies are subsidiaries and affiliates of major state-owned companies and businesses named on the earlier blacklist.
- Beijing views Taiwan as part of China and has stepped up political and military pressure towards its reunification with mainland China.
- Due to clashing legislation in China and the US, many US-listed Chinese companies were unable to allow the PCAOB to audit their operations until an agreement was reached between US and Chinese regulators last year.
A Russia-NATO War Would Look Nothing Like Ukraine
- The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council has announced it will extend the tariff exemption on a batch of goods that were due to expire on February 16.
- These meetings indicate a concerted effort from both sides to rekindle bilateral communication following a fallout over the so-called “spy balloon” which ended in US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceling a planned trip to China in February.
- The US has placed a dozen more Chinese entities on the Commerce Department’s blacklist, known as the Entity List, citing national security and foreign policy concerns.
With North Korea’s role in the Ukraine conflict raising concerns, Biden urged China to forex trading vs stock trading leverage its influence to prevent further escalation. This marked their final meeting before Biden leaves office, as President-elect Donald Trump’s administration prepares to take over in January. Topics ranged from cybercrime, Taiwan, and the South China Sea to trade, North Korea, and Russia.
A total of 549 products were initially up for consideration for reinstatement of tariff exemptions, but only products that met certain criteria were ultimately chosen for the exclusions. Amid fallout from a Chinese airship dubbed a “spy balloon” observed flying in US airspace (Montana), several media outlets have reported that the Biden administration has postponed Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s diplomatic visit to China, due to take place on February 5 and 6, citing a State Department official. A statement from a spokesperson from the Chinese Foreign Ministry confirmed that the airship was Chinese but that it is “a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes”. The statement also said that China “regrets the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace”. In a speech delivered at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies on Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen struck a conciliatory tone with regard to the US’ increasingly fraught relationship with China, stating that the US seeks a “constructive and fair economic relationship with China”. However, US-China relations remain an issue of major concern for US companies in China, with 87 percent of respondents stating that they were pessimistic about bilateral relations.
China Becomes Largest U.S. Foreign Creditor
As many as four million people die in the three-year conflict until the United Nations, China, and North Korea sign an armistice agreement in 1953 PDF. That is likely to result in US tariffs being capped at 55 per cent and China’s at 10 per cent, according to analysts, with Washington using the hiatus to ensure that Beijing resumes rare earths exports and Beijing seeking more organised negotiations to moderate Trump’s unpredictable approach. The squabbling and negotiating of the past few months appear to have done little to resolve Washington’s complaints about unfair Chinese trade practices and America’s massive trade deficit with China, which came to $262 billion last year. And last month, after another meeting in Geneva, the two countries had agreed to dramatically reduce massive taxes they’d slapped on each other’s products, which had reached as high as 145% against China and 125% against the U.S.
What Regime Change Means in Iran
But like cyber before it, AI’s reconfiguration of long-held beliefs about international security has the potential to jar even powerful states to brush the dust off potentially stale (and destabilizing) policies. It might also allow us to affirm both the common sense and the less obvious at a time when such matters should not go unsaid. Other emerging technologies are ripe subjects for policymakers to imagine the harrowing unknown—then swiftly find value in dispelling the worst myths they conjure. There is a lot of discussion in Washington and Beijing about the implications of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, but no clear consensus on how AI advances will impact how the world’s two leading powers relate to each other. In the following collection of short essays, Brookings scholars from different disciplines offer their forecasts on how AI will influence U.S.-China relations over the next five years. The collection of short essays spans security issues, export controls, education, disinformation, risk reduction, public-private partnerships, and shared threats from AI in the hands of rogue actors.
The EU sanctioned four Chinese individuals, including a top security director, for alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The US, on the same day, sanctioned two Chinese government officials in connection with what they called the “serious” human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. The meeting was brokered by US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top foreign policy official Yang Jiechi, who reached an agreement after six hours’ meeting in Zurich. This came after Biden and Xi spoke by phone on September 9, 2021, only their second since Biden took office, seven months later after their first call. The export controls will affect both US companies and companies from a third-party country that sells US-made items to China. Moreover, it also “restricts the ability of U.S. persons to support the development, or production, of ICs integrated circuits at certain PRC-located semiconductor fabrication “facilities” without a license”.
Sunnylands Summit
In October 2022, the Biden administration introduced the first of what would be successive rounds of controls on the export to China of semiconductors and placed restrictions on China’s access to related technologies. The administration was clear that the purpose of these measures was to impede China’s ability to advance its AI capabilities. Third, such a statement came about after careful and often halting dialogue at a time when formal engagement was non-existent. And it was accelerated by quiet and politically risky diplomacy when expectations were notably low. Talks on both “tracks” were animated by a mutual desire to affirm some baseline of stability precisely because AI has created a space without custom, where policy was driven by mutual interest, before conditions embodied such fears.
Think Global Health
The United States and its allies contend China’s quota violates international trade norms, forcing multinational firms that use the metals to relocate to China. Trump launched a trade war with China in his first term, imposing tariffs on most Chinese goods in a dispute over China’s attempts to supplant U.S. technological supremacy. Trump’s trade team charged that China was unfairly subsidizing its own tech companies, forcing U.S. and other foreign companies to hand over sensitive technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market and even engaging outright theft of trade secrets. CFR Senior Fellow for Trade and International Political Economy Jennifer Hillman says Beijing has perfected the model of obtaining Western technology; it uses the technology to develop domestic companies into giants, and then unleashes them into the world market—at which point foreign companies can no longer compete. “You start to see how big a problem it is to try to live in this world in which China owns more and more markets and you can’t get in,” she says. The United States has been the most vocal critic of Chinese trade practices, but other countries including European Union (EU) members and Japan share these concerns.
Still more imperative is a need to begin addressing nuclear risks posed by technologies, such as offensive cyber and anti-space weapons that could take out nuclear command centers and control or blind satellites. These issues and the hypersonic missile arms race are new mutual vulnerabilities that may threaten crisis stability. It will not be easy or quick to mitigate these risks, but China’s possible willingness to begin serious talks in these areas as well as the rest of the Biden-Xi summit menu are the metrics to determine if a framework for managing a competitive coexistence is possible. The complexities—and existential risks—of the multidimensional relationship between two nuclear weapon states bumping against each other pull in different directions.
