China reacted with drastic measures to Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit. Military maneuvers off the island continued on Tuesday, although they were officially scheduled to end at noon on Sunday. The reactions turned out so fierce in the last days because China is afraid of a softening of the One-China principle, analyzes Christiane Kuehl. Taiwan’s representative in Germany recently said in an interview with China.Table that China could be the “one China” if Taiwan could simply be Taiwan. Such statements are met with great opposition in Beijing. Because from their perspective, Taiwan belongs to China. Whoever has a different opinion is considered a hostile force in Beijing’s eyes.
Beijing is therefore watching any movement or even assumed action by the US on the Taiwan issue extremely critically. For China, the Pelosi visit has been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In all of this, however, it should not be forgotten that China could also use this crisis to create new facts. The situation remains very vague for now: When will Beijing end its military drills? Will there be further measures such as sanctions? And at what point will Beijing go too far and force the US to react? At China.Table, we very much hope that the crisis will soon come to a peaceful end.
We use laptops “Made in China” and smartphones from Chinese brands. But what about buying a car from the People’s Republic? Last year, almost 70 percent of the respondents in a Table.Media survey could not imagine doing so. “Build your Dreams” (BYD) is not deterred by such figures. Starting this fall, BYD plans to sell its first models in Germany. So far, the expansion into Europe has been proceeding in rather small steps. BYD is still looking for sales partners and will not be selling large quantities in the EU soon. However, should the market entry succeed despite all hurdles, the company could develop into a “global player” with certain strengths, as Christian Domke Seidel reports.
China’s diplomats sometimes speak quite a different language. The ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, who appears radical even among brisk wolf warriors, announced twice in recent days that the Taiwanese, misguided by the US and their government, would first have to be re-educated after a conquest: “I’m sure that as long as they are re-educated, the Taiwanese public will once again become patriots.”
Ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, a former spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, tried to explain the Chinese position on Taiwan, including historical references. For this, he chose the Washington Post newspaper, where Nancy Pelosi’s rationale for her Taiwan trip had appeared a few days earlier. “In 1943, the leaders of China, the United States, and Britain issued the Cairo Declaration, which clearly stated that all the territories Japan had stolen from the Chinese, including Taiwan, should be returned to China,” Qin wrote. “The Potsdam Declaration of 1945 affirmed that the terms defined in the Cairo Declaration would be carried out.” The statements are true, but that was all a long time ago. However, China often uses history to explain sovereignty matters, for example in the South China Sea.
Qin then turns the page to 1971 and thus to events that are definitely still applicable today. The “Republic of China” lost its seat at the United Nations through Resolution 2758. “Resolution 2758 of the United Nations General Assembly in 1971 recognized that the representatives of the government of the People’s Republic of China were the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations,” the ambassador said.
Not only since Pelosi’s visit has Beijing repeatedly urged the US to abide by the so-called “Three Communiqués” 三个联合公报, which are considered the cornerstone of China-US diplomatic relations established in 1979.
The first document following Nixon’s visit to Beijing states, among other things, that China’s government has stressed that “the Taiwan question once represented the main roadblock to the normalization of China-US relations.” Beijing was firmly opposed to any attempt to create “one China and one Taiwan,” it said. In turn, the US stated in the document, “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.” He added that the US government would not challenge this position. The other communiqués vary the subject.
The crux from today’s perspective: In 1971, the authoritarian government under Chiang Kai-shek in Taipei also claimed all of China. Only with the beginning of democratization had Taiwan abandoned this stance. And it was only then that the idea of “one Taiwan” became relevant at all. So has the US understanding of the communiqués changed? At least that is what Beijing seems to fear.
China and the US are now accusing each other of changing the status quo on the Taiwan Strait after the significant shift in the framework conditions in recent decades.
From Washington’s perspective, Beijing has been raising the threat level against Taiwan for years, shifting the balance. In addition, the use of language has changed further this year to the disadvantage of the one-China idea (China.Table reported).
Beijing, in turn, has seen tendencies toward greater independence since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taipei in 2016. Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) used to openly advocate formal independence. Today, it emphasizes that it wants to maintain the status quo. However, Taiwan is receiving growing support from the West: Parliamentarians from the EU and the US have repeatedly traveled to Taiwan, and Washington has promised new arms deliveries. President Joe Biden recently vowed military support for Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
From China’s perspective, this has already effectively shifted the status quo, as political scientist Mingxin Pei recently noted: “It’s hard to say at what point the new status quo became intolerable for China.” One key factor, he said, was Tsai’s re-election in early 2020 – coupled with a defeat of the traditionally more China-friendly KMT Nationalist Party. “The more the DPP’s political dominance becomes entrenched, the further the Chinese dream of peaceful reunification recedes into the distance,” Pei told China.Table.
According to many experts, Beijing fears a slow erosion of principles from the three communiqués. “The US is deliberately undermining peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Bangladesh over the weekend. “The usual tactic of the US is that they first create the problems, and then use them to achieve their goal.”
There are signs that the US is trying to repeat its “old tricks” by planning Pelosi’s visit, Wang said. After that, they want to use the arising tensions for their own purposes. The goal, he said, is to expand the US military presence in the region. Washington is looking for a reason for this.
Experts confirm that the two sides interpret the situation in vastly different ways. “Beijing views Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as part of a US policy shift toward open support for Taiwan’s independence and a withdrawal from its long-held position of ‘strategic ambiguity,’” Valarie Tan of the Merics Institute for China Studies tells China.Table. “This has strengthened China’s resolve to step up its efforts to reunify Taiwan.”
The extended military drills demonstrate that, from China’s perspective, a line of acceptability has been crossed. Beijing is trying to communicate its perception internationally with practical actions after words no longer proved to be enough. It may be that China is also using the conflict to create facts – just as Wang accused the United States of. In terms of arguments, however, China’s official reactions to the visit do not bring anything new to the table: Even the anger appears to be managed centrally. The US moves are “extremely irresponsible, provocative and dangerous,” writes Qin Gang. Other state representatives expressed similar sentiments.
Whether China expects Taiwan to declare independence is unclear.“Taiwan is one of the few issues that might take China and the United States into conflict,” Qin Gang points out. “Extra caution and a sense of responsibility are indispensable when it comes to Taiwan.” He means caution on the part of the United States in particular. Beijing, meanwhile, has never ruled out a violent conquest of Taiwan.
According to Merics researcher Tan, however, it is not hot-tempered nationalists that are driving Beijing to react so harshly. Rather, it’s this fall’s CP Party Congress, where Xi is seeking a third term. “It is undoubtedly a politically sensitive and important time for the Chinese leadership.” They cannot afford to appear weak, she states. Above all, they do not want to have their authority undermined by the United States, she said.
Nonetheless, censors in China have been instructed to tone down extreme militaristic opinions on the Internet, Tan observes. Especially when they “do not agree with the official narrative that the United States is the aggressor and provocateur – and not China.”
It’s a brand name that promises greatness: “Build your dreams” (BYD). The Chinese automaker has attracted a lot of attention in recent months because the brand is on the fast track economically. Two figures prove that very clearly. First, 300 percent. That is how much vehicle sales grew in the first half of 2022. Despite lockdown, chip shortages, and supply chain disruptions. The Chinese supplier sold over 641,000 vehicles, almost 80,000 more than the supposed best-in-class Tesla.
The second figure: $9 billion. That is how much the shares in BYD, which Warren Buffett bought for $235 million in 2008, are worth presently. The brand is now worth more on the stock market than Volkswagen and has overtaken the German group in terms of electric mobility in China (China.Table reported).
At present, BYD is still mainly celebrating these successes on its home market of China. But the company also wants to establish itself on Western markets. The company is still taking its expansion step by step, but if it manages to establish itself in traditional car countries such as Germany and the USA, BYD would have made it – and would have risen to become a global carmaker. The last Asian company to achieve this was the South Korean brand Hyundai.
BYD has recently found a sales partner for Germany and Sweden: Hedin Mobility Group. The company has 235 locations. In Germany, however, there is only one, and that is in Bremerhaven. In 2021, according to the annual report, a single local employee sold a total of eleven Dodge brand cars. There was a lot of hype in specialist circles about BYD’s European launch. However, the fact that the company is only just starting to recruit dealers has been overlooked.
BYD’s success in China is based on the Chinese company’s broad positioning. It has existed since 1995 when BYD was still producing batteries for cell phones and MP3 players. It was not until 2003 that company founder Wang Chuanfu diversified his company and began to develop EVs. The battery and EV divisions were so successful that BYD is now one of the world’s largest manufacturers of rechargeable batteries. Moreover, one in four EVs in China – actual EVs, and hybrids – comes from BYD. The only reason that share isn’t even larger is the lack of production capacity. A bottleneck that the recently opened fifth factory at least alleviates slightly. Thanks to this fact, the brand will be able to produce 3.4 million cars per year in the future.
Unlike many competitors, BYD has a fairly secure supply of raw materials. Not only has the company its own battery factories, but it also acquired mining rights for lithium in Chile earlier this year. In Africa, the brand wants to take over six more mines. BYD’s batteries are also managed without cobalt. Mining and production are so smooth and the end product is of such a high standard that even Tesla would like to buy batteries from the competitor in the future.
Thanks to its subsidiary BYD Semiconductor, the brand also has the chip shortage under control. The company also produces semiconductors for automotive systems. BYD is currently negotiating an IPO with the Chinese stock market regulator. This is intended to raise funds for research and development.
Thanks to diversification along the value chain, BYD has enormous cost advantages over the competition in addition to the security of supply. Although batteries have been getting cheaper and cheaper for years, they still account for about a third of the cost of an EV. BYD can also take advantage of laws. In China, EV makers have to recollect their batteries. However, the automaker has also diversified here and is the only automaker to open a recycling factory.
BYD will also have to rely on these advantages for the market launch in Europe and it will need to have staying power. Experience has shown that new brands have a hard time, especially in Germany. Lexus never got beyond a niche role, and Infiniti ceased operations altogether, even though Toyota and Nissan, two companies with European experience, are behind it. But BYD is not deterred by this. On the contrary. In 2022, the brand wants to sell 20,000 cars in Europe. Against the background that there were just 1,000 in 2021, that is a very ambitious plan. Even from the original once issued 200,000 units in 2023 – an expansion fantasy from the pre-Covid era – Wang has never moved away.
Sinolytics is a European consulting and analysis company specializing in China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and concrete business activities in the People’s Republic.
“I thought I had done something wrong when the White House called me,” Ryan Hass recalls in an interview with China.Table. But he didn’t. President Obama wanted Hass to join his China team. In the meantime, the diverse experiences of those years have been useful to him in analyzing current developments in relations between China and the United States.
Early on, Hass is drawn far away from home – at first, he went from the West Coast of the USA to the East Coast in Washington, the capital, to study. But Hass wants to live abroad and be involved in his country’s foreign relations. He takes the entrance exam for the diplomatic service in his senior year of college. “I didn’t expect to pass the exam,” Hass admits. In fact, at 23, he became the youngest junior diplomat in his class.
The Pentagon then systematically trained Hass for a career in Asia and China specifically. “But the China I then encountered was very different from the China I had been prepared for.” That’s because Hass arrived at the US Embassy in Beijing in 2009. A year after the financial crisis, the West had weakened and the Olympics had given China new confidence. “You could feel the tectonic plates shifting,” Hass recalls.
Amid this power shift, Hass became director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the White House National Security Council in 2013 – hence the call from Obama. “It was an incredible experience and the opportunity of a lifetime to work for the president,” Hass says. He accompanies Obama on his visits to China. Even then, there is a sense that US-China relations are hardening.
China is challenging the supremacy of the USA. The global centers of power are shifting. By venturing a look into the future, however, Hass paints a nuanced picture: While China’s rise is not linear, China’s position at the center of supply chains and trade architecture is strong. “The world is thus becoming more multipolar, but in this multipolarity, the US and China stand out.” For both, this makes it increasingly difficult to influence the affairs of other countries, he said.
Since 2018 as a senior fellow at the renowned Brookings Institution think tank, Hass has been analyzing how the United States should position itself in the new world order. Hass is certain that fierce competition will shape US-China relations for years to come. But so will the interdependence of the two countries. The US must thus try to keep up with China instead of putting the brakes on it and damaging itself in the process. In this way, domestic policy becomes foreign policy. And the competition with China will then be fought with investments in schools, roads, and start-ups.
Nevertheless, Hass emphasizes that there are red lines. Where the US enables China’s revisionist foreign policy, the competition must stop, he demands, sounding more like a politician here. In concrete terms, this means export restrictions, for example in semiconductor production. Ideally, the competition would then function like a marathon: Fair and with as few clashes as possible. In the end, it remains to be seen who has more staying power. Jonathan Lehrer
Illuminated Lego bricks? Our dessert today shows a high-rise apartment in Hong Kong’s Quarry Bay district.
China reacted with drastic measures to Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit. Military maneuvers off the island continued on Tuesday, although they were officially scheduled to end at noon on Sunday. The reactions turned out so fierce in the last days because China is afraid of a softening of the One-China principle, analyzes Christiane Kuehl. Taiwan’s representative in Germany recently said in an interview with China.Table that China could be the “one China” if Taiwan could simply be Taiwan. Such statements are met with great opposition in Beijing. Because from their perspective, Taiwan belongs to China. Whoever has a different opinion is considered a hostile force in Beijing’s eyes.
Beijing is therefore watching any movement or even assumed action by the US on the Taiwan issue extremely critically. For China, the Pelosi visit has been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In all of this, however, it should not be forgotten that China could also use this crisis to create new facts. The situation remains very vague for now: When will Beijing end its military drills? Will there be further measures such as sanctions? And at what point will Beijing go too far and force the US to react? At China.Table, we very much hope that the crisis will soon come to a peaceful end.
We use laptops “Made in China” and smartphones from Chinese brands. But what about buying a car from the People’s Republic? Last year, almost 70 percent of the respondents in a Table.Media survey could not imagine doing so. “Build your Dreams” (BYD) is not deterred by such figures. Starting this fall, BYD plans to sell its first models in Germany. So far, the expansion into Europe has been proceeding in rather small steps. BYD is still looking for sales partners and will not be selling large quantities in the EU soon. However, should the market entry succeed despite all hurdles, the company could develop into a “global player” with certain strengths, as Christian Domke Seidel reports.
China’s diplomats sometimes speak quite a different language. The ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, who appears radical even among brisk wolf warriors, announced twice in recent days that the Taiwanese, misguided by the US and their government, would first have to be re-educated after a conquest: “I’m sure that as long as they are re-educated, the Taiwanese public will once again become patriots.”
Ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, a former spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, on the other hand, tried to explain the Chinese position on Taiwan, including historical references. For this, he chose the Washington Post newspaper, where Nancy Pelosi’s rationale for her Taiwan trip had appeared a few days earlier. “In 1943, the leaders of China, the United States, and Britain issued the Cairo Declaration, which clearly stated that all the territories Japan had stolen from the Chinese, including Taiwan, should be returned to China,” Qin wrote. “The Potsdam Declaration of 1945 affirmed that the terms defined in the Cairo Declaration would be carried out.” The statements are true, but that was all a long time ago. However, China often uses history to explain sovereignty matters, for example in the South China Sea.
Qin then turns the page to 1971 and thus to events that are definitely still applicable today. The “Republic of China” lost its seat at the United Nations through Resolution 2758. “Resolution 2758 of the United Nations General Assembly in 1971 recognized that the representatives of the government of the People’s Republic of China were the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations,” the ambassador said.
Not only since Pelosi’s visit has Beijing repeatedly urged the US to abide by the so-called “Three Communiqués” 三个联合公报, which are considered the cornerstone of China-US diplomatic relations established in 1979.
The first document following Nixon’s visit to Beijing states, among other things, that China’s government has stressed that “the Taiwan question once represented the main roadblock to the normalization of China-US relations.” Beijing was firmly opposed to any attempt to create “one China and one Taiwan,” it said. In turn, the US stated in the document, “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.” He added that the US government would not challenge this position. The other communiqués vary the subject.
The crux from today’s perspective: In 1971, the authoritarian government under Chiang Kai-shek in Taipei also claimed all of China. Only with the beginning of democratization had Taiwan abandoned this stance. And it was only then that the idea of “one Taiwan” became relevant at all. So has the US understanding of the communiqués changed? At least that is what Beijing seems to fear.
China and the US are now accusing each other of changing the status quo on the Taiwan Strait after the significant shift in the framework conditions in recent decades.
From Washington’s perspective, Beijing has been raising the threat level against Taiwan for years, shifting the balance. In addition, the use of language has changed further this year to the disadvantage of the one-China idea (China.Table reported).
Beijing, in turn, has seen tendencies toward greater independence since President Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taipei in 2016. Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) used to openly advocate formal independence. Today, it emphasizes that it wants to maintain the status quo. However, Taiwan is receiving growing support from the West: Parliamentarians from the EU and the US have repeatedly traveled to Taiwan, and Washington has promised new arms deliveries. President Joe Biden recently vowed military support for Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
From China’s perspective, this has already effectively shifted the status quo, as political scientist Mingxin Pei recently noted: “It’s hard to say at what point the new status quo became intolerable for China.” One key factor, he said, was Tsai’s re-election in early 2020 – coupled with a defeat of the traditionally more China-friendly KMT Nationalist Party. “The more the DPP’s political dominance becomes entrenched, the further the Chinese dream of peaceful reunification recedes into the distance,” Pei told China.Table.
According to many experts, Beijing fears a slow erosion of principles from the three communiqués. “The US is deliberately undermining peace in the Taiwan Strait,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Bangladesh over the weekend. “The usual tactic of the US is that they first create the problems, and then use them to achieve their goal.”
There are signs that the US is trying to repeat its “old tricks” by planning Pelosi’s visit, Wang said. After that, they want to use the arising tensions for their own purposes. The goal, he said, is to expand the US military presence in the region. Washington is looking for a reason for this.
Experts confirm that the two sides interpret the situation in vastly different ways. “Beijing views Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as part of a US policy shift toward open support for Taiwan’s independence and a withdrawal from its long-held position of ‘strategic ambiguity,’” Valarie Tan of the Merics Institute for China Studies tells China.Table. “This has strengthened China’s resolve to step up its efforts to reunify Taiwan.”
The extended military drills demonstrate that, from China’s perspective, a line of acceptability has been crossed. Beijing is trying to communicate its perception internationally with practical actions after words no longer proved to be enough. It may be that China is also using the conflict to create facts – just as Wang accused the United States of. In terms of arguments, however, China’s official reactions to the visit do not bring anything new to the table: Even the anger appears to be managed centrally. The US moves are “extremely irresponsible, provocative and dangerous,” writes Qin Gang. Other state representatives expressed similar sentiments.
Whether China expects Taiwan to declare independence is unclear.“Taiwan is one of the few issues that might take China and the United States into conflict,” Qin Gang points out. “Extra caution and a sense of responsibility are indispensable when it comes to Taiwan.” He means caution on the part of the United States in particular. Beijing, meanwhile, has never ruled out a violent conquest of Taiwan.
According to Merics researcher Tan, however, it is not hot-tempered nationalists that are driving Beijing to react so harshly. Rather, it’s this fall’s CP Party Congress, where Xi is seeking a third term. “It is undoubtedly a politically sensitive and important time for the Chinese leadership.” They cannot afford to appear weak, she states. Above all, they do not want to have their authority undermined by the United States, she said.
Nonetheless, censors in China have been instructed to tone down extreme militaristic opinions on the Internet, Tan observes. Especially when they “do not agree with the official narrative that the United States is the aggressor and provocateur – and not China.”
It’s a brand name that promises greatness: “Build your dreams” (BYD). The Chinese automaker has attracted a lot of attention in recent months because the brand is on the fast track economically. Two figures prove that very clearly. First, 300 percent. That is how much vehicle sales grew in the first half of 2022. Despite lockdown, chip shortages, and supply chain disruptions. The Chinese supplier sold over 641,000 vehicles, almost 80,000 more than the supposed best-in-class Tesla.
The second figure: $9 billion. That is how much the shares in BYD, which Warren Buffett bought for $235 million in 2008, are worth presently. The brand is now worth more on the stock market than Volkswagen and has overtaken the German group in terms of electric mobility in China (China.Table reported).
At present, BYD is still mainly celebrating these successes on its home market of China. But the company also wants to establish itself on Western markets. The company is still taking its expansion step by step, but if it manages to establish itself in traditional car countries such as Germany and the USA, BYD would have made it – and would have risen to become a global carmaker. The last Asian company to achieve this was the South Korean brand Hyundai.
BYD has recently found a sales partner for Germany and Sweden: Hedin Mobility Group. The company has 235 locations. In Germany, however, there is only one, and that is in Bremerhaven. In 2021, according to the annual report, a single local employee sold a total of eleven Dodge brand cars. There was a lot of hype in specialist circles about BYD’s European launch. However, the fact that the company is only just starting to recruit dealers has been overlooked.
BYD’s success in China is based on the Chinese company’s broad positioning. It has existed since 1995 when BYD was still producing batteries for cell phones and MP3 players. It was not until 2003 that company founder Wang Chuanfu diversified his company and began to develop EVs. The battery and EV divisions were so successful that BYD is now one of the world’s largest manufacturers of rechargeable batteries. Moreover, one in four EVs in China – actual EVs, and hybrids – comes from BYD. The only reason that share isn’t even larger is the lack of production capacity. A bottleneck that the recently opened fifth factory at least alleviates slightly. Thanks to this fact, the brand will be able to produce 3.4 million cars per year in the future.
Unlike many competitors, BYD has a fairly secure supply of raw materials. Not only has the company its own battery factories, but it also acquired mining rights for lithium in Chile earlier this year. In Africa, the brand wants to take over six more mines. BYD’s batteries are also managed without cobalt. Mining and production are so smooth and the end product is of such a high standard that even Tesla would like to buy batteries from the competitor in the future.
Thanks to its subsidiary BYD Semiconductor, the brand also has the chip shortage under control. The company also produces semiconductors for automotive systems. BYD is currently negotiating an IPO with the Chinese stock market regulator. This is intended to raise funds for research and development.
Thanks to diversification along the value chain, BYD has enormous cost advantages over the competition in addition to the security of supply. Although batteries have been getting cheaper and cheaper for years, they still account for about a third of the cost of an EV. BYD can also take advantage of laws. In China, EV makers have to recollect their batteries. However, the automaker has also diversified here and is the only automaker to open a recycling factory.
BYD will also have to rely on these advantages for the market launch in Europe and it will need to have staying power. Experience has shown that new brands have a hard time, especially in Germany. Lexus never got beyond a niche role, and Infiniti ceased operations altogether, even though Toyota and Nissan, two companies with European experience, are behind it. But BYD is not deterred by this. On the contrary. In 2022, the brand wants to sell 20,000 cars in Europe. Against the background that there were just 1,000 in 2021, that is a very ambitious plan. Even from the original once issued 200,000 units in 2023 – an expansion fantasy from the pre-Covid era – Wang has never moved away.
Sinolytics is a European consulting and analysis company specializing in China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and concrete business activities in the People’s Republic.
“I thought I had done something wrong when the White House called me,” Ryan Hass recalls in an interview with China.Table. But he didn’t. President Obama wanted Hass to join his China team. In the meantime, the diverse experiences of those years have been useful to him in analyzing current developments in relations between China and the United States.
Early on, Hass is drawn far away from home – at first, he went from the West Coast of the USA to the East Coast in Washington, the capital, to study. But Hass wants to live abroad and be involved in his country’s foreign relations. He takes the entrance exam for the diplomatic service in his senior year of college. “I didn’t expect to pass the exam,” Hass admits. In fact, at 23, he became the youngest junior diplomat in his class.
The Pentagon then systematically trained Hass for a career in Asia and China specifically. “But the China I then encountered was very different from the China I had been prepared for.” That’s because Hass arrived at the US Embassy in Beijing in 2009. A year after the financial crisis, the West had weakened and the Olympics had given China new confidence. “You could feel the tectonic plates shifting,” Hass recalls.
Amid this power shift, Hass became director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the White House National Security Council in 2013 – hence the call from Obama. “It was an incredible experience and the opportunity of a lifetime to work for the president,” Hass says. He accompanies Obama on his visits to China. Even then, there is a sense that US-China relations are hardening.
China is challenging the supremacy of the USA. The global centers of power are shifting. By venturing a look into the future, however, Hass paints a nuanced picture: While China’s rise is not linear, China’s position at the center of supply chains and trade architecture is strong. “The world is thus becoming more multipolar, but in this multipolarity, the US and China stand out.” For both, this makes it increasingly difficult to influence the affairs of other countries, he said.
Since 2018 as a senior fellow at the renowned Brookings Institution think tank, Hass has been analyzing how the United States should position itself in the new world order. Hass is certain that fierce competition will shape US-China relations for years to come. But so will the interdependence of the two countries. The US must thus try to keep up with China instead of putting the brakes on it and damaging itself in the process. In this way, domestic policy becomes foreign policy. And the competition with China will then be fought with investments in schools, roads, and start-ups.
Nevertheless, Hass emphasizes that there are red lines. Where the US enables China’s revisionist foreign policy, the competition must stop, he demands, sounding more like a politician here. In concrete terms, this means export restrictions, for example in semiconductor production. Ideally, the competition would then function like a marathon: Fair and with as few clashes as possible. In the end, it remains to be seen who has more staying power. Jonathan Lehrer
Illuminated Lego bricks? Our dessert today shows a high-rise apartment in Hong Kong’s Quarry Bay district.
