In this edition of the Hoover Institution Briefing on Confronting and Competing with China, scholars explore the new economic, political, diplomatic, and security issues worth considering in the US-China relationship. Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy discusses a broader response to China’s economic threat than simple tariffs, while Glenn Tiffert convenes a gathering on the future of US-China scientific cooperation. Hoover fellows also release new research concerning China’s export of potentially harmful mass-surveillance technology and expertise around the world.
Featured Analysis
Coercion and Countermoves: The US-China Economic Rivalry
On the latest episode of China Considered, Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy speaks with Melanie Hart, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, about China’s economic coercion practices, their impact around the world, and how the US can respond. Hart reflects on her time working at the State Department, crafting policies to reduce vulnerabilities to Chinese economic pressure.
Economy and Hart elaborate on their January 2025 op-ed in Foreign Affairs, arguing that the new Trump administration needs more than targeted tariffs to manage competition with China. Hart also speaks of scenarios such as that faced by Lithuania, which confronted coercive trade measures by China starting in August 2021; it was able to replace almost all of its trade with China with products from other states in Asia.
Watch or listen to the episode here.
Reflections: The Li Rui Diary
For the Hoover Institution Library & Archives’ Reflections series, Senior Fellow Frank Dikötter discusses the unique value of the diary of Li Rui and its contribution to understanding the history of the Communist Party in China, in particular the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989. Li Rui was a longtime Chinese Communist Party (CCP) insider and historian who witnessed the violent crackdown in 1989 from his apartment window. He became a reform advocate interested in stemming authoritarianism in the CCP.
The Lui Rui papers are housed at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. Explore the finding aid for the collection here.
Watch the video here.
Continuing US-China Scientific Collaboration in an Era of Heightened Concern
As contending interests and visions for the world continue to complicate the US-China relationship, the US government has taken steps to address security concerns in the science and technology domain, including misappropriation of research and malign technology transfer. Some of these approaches, however, have generated negative consequences, according to prominent Chinese American scholars.
That’s why the Hoover Institution’s Program on the US, China, and the World, cochaired by Distinguished Research Fellow Glenn Tiffert, gathered scientists and China scholars together on November 7, 2024, to discuss a new path for facilitating academic collaboration between US and international researchers while also addressing security concerns and overcoming mistrust and fear.
Read more here.
Studying China—as China Stares Back
In this piece in Defining Ideas, Hoover Fellows Brett Carter and Erin Baggott Carter speak about the chill of Chinese intimidation their students encounter when learning about China’s authoritarian tendencies. The fellows’ shared interest in authoritarian regimes has led them to come up with innovative ways to research and gauge the scale of repression in China, from unique public opinion polling within China to an exhaustive content analysis of the propaganda in China’s largest state newspaper. Brett and Erin talk about how they elevate each other’s work and the experiences that brought them to study authoritarianism.
Read more here.
Highlights
Philippines: America’s Ally and Strategic Archipelago
On the latest episode of Battlegrounds, Senior Fellow H.R. McMaster speaks with Gilberto Teodoro Jr., who served as the Philippines’ national defense secretary from 2007 to 2009. They discuss the history of US-Philippine relations, the longstanding defense cooperation between both nations, and the wider security picture in Southeast Asia. Teodoro talks about the rising tensions between the Philippines and China over islands and shoals in the South China Sea, and the means China uses to attempt to coerce Filipino leaders into compliance.
Watch the episode here.
The Cost of Lies: Will 2025 Be the Year the IMF Stops Covering for China?
On his Substack, Visiting Fellow Matthew Turpin writes about the annual report on the Chinese economy put out by the research firm Rhodium Group. In their latest review, Rhodium analysts find not only that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is hiding the nation’s true economic data but that it’s likely that staff at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are aware that PRC economic data is misleading. He suggests that IMF analysts refrain from challenging the validity of the data in order to maintain access to the regime. Despite whatever is motivating IMF staff to go along with these falsehoods, Turpin argues, lies have long-term consequences. “When an institution like the IMF willfully falls victim to ‘authority bias’ (aka abets the Party’s lies), the rest of the world is worse off,” he writes.
Read more here.
What to Do About China? A Conversation with Elizabeth Economy
Elizabeth Economy spoke with Edith Terry, editor of the e-magazine for the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, about how the Trump administration should manage the US relationship with China, how Chinese soft power has fared in the Global South, and where China’s diplomats may have made mistakes. They also talk about how the US can reinvigorate its diplomatic efforts to counter Chinese activities in emerging economies.
Read their conversation here.
A China-Taiwan War Would Start an Economic Crisis. America Isn’t Ready (subscription required)
Writing in The New York Times, Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann and Hugo Bromley argue that China’s expanding military exercises in the seas and skies around Taiwan demonstrate that now more than ever the US needs to develop a plan to deal with a possible blockade or invasion of Taiwan. From its effect on semiconductor exports to the cascading impact on America’s other allies in the region, Chinese interference in Taiwan would rapidly threaten US interests. The paper that underpins this essay, On Day One: An Economic Contingency Plan for a Taiwan Crisis, was also reviewed in Foreign Affairs in January 2025.
Read more here.
Spotlight
Brett Carter and Erin Baggott Carter Explore Uses of Huawei Telecom Exports
In a new paper published in the journal Perspectives on Politics, Hoover Fellows Brett L. Carter and Erin Baggott Carter evaluate how Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei––at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party––is exporting digital surveillance technologies to other states, selling, installing, and advising on the use of such tools embedded in their 5G wireless hardware. Brett and Erin explore how the recipient state uses the Huawei technology it receives, based on its existing political system. “In the world’s autocracies, Huawei technology facilitates digital repression,” they write. “We find no effect in the world’s democracies, which are more likely to have laws that regulate digital privacy.”
Read the paper here.
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