Media Type: Article
Feng Yujun, a leading scholar of China-Russia relations, outlines Russia’s evolving geopolitical posture and outlook two years into its war in Ukraine. Feng explores how Russia is adapting diplomatically and economically to war-induced isolation from West, including by expanding its relations with the Global South. Moscow’s relations with Beijing remain strong, Feng argues, although framings of the partnership as “limitless” have ceded from official Chinese discourse.
In this interview, Xu Poling, a Russia expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, reflects on lessons learned from recent research trips to the country. He seeks to explain Russia’s relative resilience in the face of sanctions, concluding several factors are at work – the quick imposition of strict outbound capital controls, forced sales of foreign currency to increase central bank holdings, insistence on selling gas to Europe in rubles, and de-dollarization efforts since 2014.
This article was written during the consultation period for new national security legislation through Article 23 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law. Shao Shanbo, previous head of the former Hong Kong Central Policy Unit (a government think tank advising the Chief Executive that was revamped under a new name in 2018), addresses criticism voiced within Hong Kong and by external observers over the bill’s potential breadth. Prominently, he argues that terms such as “incitement” are not vague because they have been clarified by legal precedents within the city’s common law system.
Jie Dalei, an expert on Taiwan and U.S.-China relations, analyzes the results of the 2024 elections in Taiwan in this piece published by the Institute of International and Strategic Studies. He seeks to explain the failure of the Kuomintang (KMT) to secure the presidency, considers the future of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), and assesses implications of the president-elect Lai Ching-te administration for cross-Strait and U.S.-China relations.
Qu Qingshan, one of China’s top Party theorists, argues that developing and modernizing the financial system is an integral component in the pursuit of modernization and “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” He emphasizes that for China to be a strong player in the global financial system, several structural risks in the domestic finance industry must be addressed. This piece appears in one of the leading Party newspapers and echoes Xi Jinping’s recent emphasis on strengthening the financial system, signaling policy priorities.
Wu Zhaohui, vice minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology and China’s lead delegate at the 2023 Bletchley AI Summit, delivered a keynote address at a summer 2023 AI conference in Beijing. This news coverage includes highlights of his speech where he suggested ChatGPT will usher in a ‘new industrial revolution,’ and have significant impacts on labor, production, business models, and the global economic landscape more broadly.
This is a news report of a January State Council meeting, where rural revitalization, regulation of the food delivery industry, and capital market regulation were discussed. Alongside these topics, the State Council emphasized the need to better integrate artificial intelligence (AI) in manufacturing. This signals focus at senior leadership levels on the role AI can play in China’s bid to become an advanced manufacturing powerhouse.
Meeting in San Francisco in November 2023, Biden and Xi agreed to launch U.S.-China talks on the risks associated with advanced AI systems and potential areas for bilateral collaboration. In this piece, researchers at Tsinghua University detail where Washington and Beijing’s interests on AI issues might converge, and what they see as the most fruitful areas for discussion. While there is some consensus on basic principles around AI in the defense sphere, they argue, more fruitful discussions will center on non-traditional security fields – including the social governance challenges engendered by AI and the application of AI toward anti-crime and anti-terrorism objectives.
This is a transcript of a July 2023 speech delivered by Shi Yinhong, an international relations scholar at Renmin University, and an interview conducted by Xue Li, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and Politics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Shi argues that due to rising suspicion of China in developing countries and economic resource constraints at home, Beijing must become much more targeted and responsive to the needs of developing countries in initiating and facilitating projects along the BRI. Shi also encourages Beijing and Chinese experts to be careful when making public assessments of the geo-strategic significance of the BRI so as not to raise concerns in potential partner countries.
Da Wei, a professor at Tsinghua University, argues the Xi-Biden summit in November 2023 revealed U.S.-China relations have entered a “new normal” characterized by four features: mutual acceptance that tension will continue indefinitely, mutual assessment that full-blown conflict would be unacceptable, mutual understanding that neither country will fulfill its strategic goals completely, and mutual observation that economic and social resilience is possible amidst intense bilateral competition.