Translation Tag: US-China relations
A researcher affiliated with the People’s Bank of China examines the nature and effects of a perceived growing U.S. tendency to deploy financial sanctions toward geopolitical objectives. The article outlines an extensive set of recommendations Beijing can take to better prepare for and protect against various sanctions scenarios, including deepening China’s global economic integration, improving diplomatic and trade ties with U.S. allies and partners, and promoting reform of the international monetary order.
Wang Shushen, an expert in U.S.-Taiwan relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, argues that shifts in the level and nature of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan that began under the Trump administration are forcing Beijing to deploy its own set of deterrence measures. These dynamics, Wang argues, will make it difficult to prevent and control a crisis in and around the Taiwan Strait in the future.
In this 2016 analysis, Zhang Wenzong, an expert at a state security-backed think tank, argues that Beijing must bolster its ability to withstand and counter U.S. deterrence strategy by strengthening its own economic and military resilience, overseas strategic partnerships, and domestic stability.
Zuo Xiying, one of China’s top experts on international security, examines evolving U.S. deterrence strategies in light of rising strategic competition with China. He argues that the gap in conventional deterrence capabilities between China and the U.S. is rapidly narrowing owing to China’s technological and military advances and what he sees as the decline of the U.S. industrial base. As a “stress reaction” to this perceived decline, Zuo argues U.S. policymakers have begun to discuss declining American conventional deterrence capabilities vis-a-vis China more frequently. Zuo warns that Beijing should approach shifts in relative capabilities cautiously, and recognize that the U.S. is expanding its “toolbox” of mechanisms that can be leveraged flexibly to deter China, particularly in the case of heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Wang Wen, a distinguished scholar from Renmin University argues that while internal and particularly external risks to China’s development have undoubtedly grown, the “period of strategic opportunity” heralded formally by Jiang Zemin in 2002 endures. In Wang’s view, Chinese leadership must internalize this belief and proactively communicate it publicly, as “targeted encouragement for the future” that in turn maintains “medium-to-high growth in all fields of society.”
Emphasis added throughout text by editors.
Researchers at the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology examine the U.S. strategy of deterrence by denial against China since 2017, tracing developments across the Trump and Biden administrations and assessing likely impacts on China’s efforts to shape its regional security environment. The authors argue that while these strategies have “achieved some of the expected effects,” they will be constrained abroad by the security interests of regional U.S. partners and allies and domestically through disagreement among U.S. political parties and U.S. military branches about how to approach building denial capabilities.
Emphasis added throughout text by editors.
One of China’s most well-known scholars of American studies, Da Wei, argues that the United States and China need to reach a new strategic understanding about Taiwan in order to avoid a larger crisis. However, he suggests that this has become more difficult “because some of the long-term fundamentals underlying the Taiwan issue have changed,” including the deterioration in U.S.-China relations, the narrowing power gap between the United States and China, and the growing power gap across the Taiwan Strait.
How is Beijing assessing the effectiveness of U.S. deterrence approaches vis-a-vis Taiwan? Writing in one of China’s leading IR journals, Renmin University’s Zuo Xiying argues that while the U.S. “failed to deter Russia from taking military action,” its actions since the invasion to support Ukraine and punish Moscow have “produced a powerful deterrent effect against China with regard to the Taiwan issue.”
A researcher at the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology provides a lengthy analysis of the changing security order in the Indo-Pacific.
An international relations scholar at Tsinghua University assesses the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, concluding that the U.S. is seeking to restrict China’s regional and global influence for the foreseeable future.