Yang Guoliang, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) in Beijing, frames U.S. pursuit of strategic competition with China as a reemergence of Western imperialism. He suggests the relative shift in economic power away from the West in past decades, toward the rest of the world, has led Washington to characterize globalization as “out-of-control” and introduce its own set of restrictions on international commercial engagement. While reiterating the need for continued reform and opening up, he underscores the need for China to set its own limits on commercial openness — particularly in the realm of inbound foreign investment from the West — in order to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, a top economist at the Bank of China Securities unpacks the potential trade impacts of a second Trump administration on China. He argues that Trump 2.0 may not be universally unfavorable from Beijing’s perspective, given he is entering his second term more focused on domestic issues and China currently maintains a lower trade deficit with the United States than other countries. Though he suggests Trump 2.0 could be less volatile than Trump 1.0, Guan cautions that Beijing still needs to prepare for U.S.-China trade relations to worsen and views domestic reforms and economic performance improvements as key to strengthening China’s position.

Three Chinese economists from JD.com lay out potential impacts of tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to impose on China, arguing that U.S. domestic concerns will most likely reduce the duration and magnitude of such measures, thereby minimizing their impacts on the Chinese economy. They argue that regardless of the scale of Trump’s trade actions, Beijing should seek to bolster its national strength through proactive international trade integration with other countries.

Chinese researchers Sun Xuguang and Zhu Caihua explore the new paradigms of China’s trade as it responds to its industrial upgrading and domestic circumstances. They argue that as China seeks to become a manufacturing superpower, it has come to compete directly with developed countries in advanced manufacturing fields, engendering trade frictions with them. In the case of the United States and Europe, China’s changing trade patterns that now prioritize integrating domestic technology have in the authors’ view threatened to break up the Western high-tech monopoly and inevitably faced pushback.

In this article, Renmin University scholar Cui Shoujun assesses the drivers of evolving China-Latin America relations and identifies tailwinds and headwinds for this relationship down the road. He identifies 2015 as a transformative year in this relationship, marked by the establishment of the China-CELAC forum and more strategic regional engagement by China in the following years. He suggests that going forward, Beijing will need to appreciate diversity among regional capitals, encourage broader and more even Chinese commercial engagement across Latin American countries, and navigate U.S. intentions and anxieties about PRC presence in Latin America in seeking to develop ties with the region.

Lou Yu, a scholar from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), traces opportunities and challenges for continued development of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and broader regional engagement in Latin America. Lou is relatively sober on prospects for bilateral ties, pointing to the geopolitical situation in Latin America (specifically, growing U.S. and European interests in the region), substantial crime rates and associated security challenges to Chinese investment, and political instability in many Latin American countries. Nevertheless, Lou suggests that political trends in the region – including a resurgence of left-leaning governments – may result in greater openness to BRI engagement going forward.

Two scholars from Fudan University analyze the evolving role of the Belt and Road Initiative in cultivating China-Latin America relations. They characterize Latin America as a key partner that China can work with to promote a reorientation of its trading relationships away from the United States and other advanced Western economies, and they trace growing diplomatic, cultural, and economic exchange between the two sides. Nevertheless, the authors also soberly identify complex challenges that could undermine such developments, including U.S. suspicion of China’s engagement in the region and political and social instability in many Latin American countries. They recommend Beijing proactively seek to deepen cooperation with Latin America on supply chains, infrastructure construction, and people-to-people exchanges, and strategically address the development needs of Latin American countries in order to build influence in the region.

The CCP Politburo holds “collective study sessions” on a semi-regular basis, in which an outside academic or government expert leads a discussion on a selected topic. Such sessions are important signals as to what issues the senior leadership finds important. The 18th collective study session of the 20th Central Committee Politburo was held on December 9, 2024 and was presided over by Xi Jinping. Xi delivered a speech emphasizing the need to improve border governance including by supporting economic development in border regions and creating better transportation and commercial linkages between border regions and the rest of China.

This is a set of questions and answers related to the 20th Central Committee’s Third Plenum Resolution in July 2024. Jointly compiled and published by teams at Study Press (学习出版社), a publishing house under the CCP Propaganda Department, and the Party Building Books Publishing Press (党建读物出版社), under the CCP Organization Department, the document is intended to improve understanding and implementation of guiding principles laid out in the plenum. These excerpts, selected by Interpret: China, cover Beijing’s approach to technology upgrading, military reform, supply chain security, soft power projection, and domestic topics such as social stability and demographic change.

The CCP Politburo holds “collective study sessions” on a semi-regular basis, in which an outside academic or government expert leads a discussion on a selected topic. Such sessions are important signals as to what issues the senior leadership finds important. The 17th collective study session of the 20th Central Committee Politburo was held on October 28, 2024 and was presided over by Xi Jinping. Xi delivered a speech emphasizing the need to build China’s soft power and cultural influence abroad.