China In The World

One week after Vice President Pence’s Hudson Institute speech, Paul Haenle spoke with professor Da Wei, assistant president and professor at the University of International Relations in Beijing, to understand China’s reaction to the speech and discuss what steps the U.S. and China might take to address the current tensions over trade and economics. Haenle noted that official Chinese narratives about the U.S.-China trade war have been absent Chinese reflection or discussion of what role China’s own policies have played in creating trade tensions. Haenle argued that many of the concerns on structural issues – i.e. market access, intellectual property rights, forced technology transfer, and China’s industrial policies – are of common concern by the international community. Casting these concerns only in the U.S.-China bilateral context leads to narratives in China that accuse the U.S. of seeking to contain China’s rise, rather than as shared global concerns. Da Wei stressed that as China celebrates its 40th an