China–United States relations

Looking ahead, what do you look for and what should we be looking out for Southeast Asia?

Unfortunately, I think we're at a high point of U.S.-China relations because for those reasons we were discussing, you have to see that there's going to be an increase in tensions.

Maybe you're not going to get the tariffs back up to 150% as they were very briefly.

But that doesn't mean you're not going to get a lot of other restrictions on export controls and a focus on AI is going to become more and more important on AI diversion and AI diffusion.

I'm

going to dig into that because China is the primary country engaging in a trade war with the United States and the current detente expires next year.

How will this new Congress affect the U.S.-China relationship?

Well, when the when the Busan 2, so to speak, expires in January, I think that will be when we have the new Senate and House seated and it will be overwhelmingly Democratic controlled.

And what we have seen is a Congress, including Republicans, who are willing to be much tougher on China.

So

what does all of this mean for U.S.-China relations? Does it have any implications at all?

So for people who want to understand the nature of the US-China relationship, these plenums are moments where we can take stock about what the party cares about, what the party worries about.

And Xi Jinping, as much as his gaze looks at the outside world, the fact that so many of these plenums are concentrated on domestic politics at home shows where a lot of his bandwidth is going.

And this document mentions foreign policy in the sense that it describes how the balance of power in the world is changing increasingly in the favor of the Global South and the East, but that nevertheless protectionism, hegemonism, are on the rise and that the international challenges are greater than ever.

And so for Xi Jinping, he has this idea that the party thrives and strengthens itself in moments of challenge.

And the party certainly went through one in U.S.-China relations over the last year and came out on the other side in his mind stronger, which gets to the second element of where I see foreign policy in this document, which is how the party is using it to pursue this mission of telling the outside world that Western liberal democracy is not the end of history and that China has come up with an even better solution to the problems of modernity.

So these plenum documents talk about how throughout the world you are seeing protests and chaos and elections and politicians promising something and then it going away as soon as they are voted out.

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I'm Alexander Boyd.

I think it's going to help on both sides for sure.

So you'd say we're entering a more stable phase in U.S.-China relations?

I'd say so.

Compared to the first Trump administration, compared to a few years under Biden's governance to now, this is probably the most stable period between U.S. and China for a couple of reasons.

That dynamic has evolved considerably under U.S. President Trump, who has cultivated a seemingly close personal relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

With November's midterm elections, and for U.S.-China relations more broadly.

NHK World's Ebizuka Megumi brings us a closer look.

This military company, Red Cat, manufactures drones at its headquarters in the western state of Utah.

security.

The importance of our work right now is to continue to inform policymakers that make real decisions on legislation that will impact U.S.-Taiwan relations right here in Congress.

And indeed, congressional lawmakers could soon have much more influence on U.S.-China relations.

If Trump's Republicans lose legislative control to the Democrats in the midterms, that leaves Trump much less freedom to unilaterally implement American policy on China, no matter how close his relationship with Xi.

Rebecca Fannin and Xiaoyu Yuan joined Michael Berry to discuss what's driving this cultural wave and whether it can reshape how Americans understand and relate to China.

We hope you enjoy this podcast by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Good afternoon, good morning, wherever you may be online.

Welcome to our event today.

I think they're going to think, why can't we have something like that in the US? The image of China becomes a material for domestic american argument about the infrastructure right the affordability and also the future So I think the concise version is that the state is building much of that ocean, but it doesn't create the wave, right? It is up to the creators, the companies, consumers, and also the platform algorithms on TikTok to create that wave.

And the state benefits from all of it and try to amplify it without making his hand become too visible.

And if we can kind of extrapolate a little bit from this to U.S.-China relations, I'm curious, when we look at, say, U.S. political discourse, there's still a lot of this demonization of China.

And I think Rebecca already mentioned these policies that are meant to limit China influence that are in place, whether they be protectionist policies or limiting the importation of certain technologies or vehicles.