Google’s public dispute with China is likely just the beginning of a challenging year for U.S.-China relations. As tensions over Taiwan arms sales, trade disputes, and UN sanctions continue to hamper bilateral cooperation, Douglas Paal suggests that leaders in both countries must improve their capacity to handle disputes and cooperation at the same time.
As the traditional security guarantor and the principal underwriter of Asian success, the United States now faces a rising China and an emerging economic order. Ashley Tellis argues that in order to maintain power, the U.S. must sustain its military superiority, deepen and expand its economic ties, and pursue a realistic and multifaceted approach to China.
In spite of China’s rapid economic transformation and massive accumulation of foreign currency reserves, Michael Pettis suggests that Beijing’s heavy-handed control of its financial sector hinders China’s ability to transform the world’s capital markets and financial systems.
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While the now-suspended Six Party Talks have experienced cycles of success and failure, China’s core interests regarding North Korea have not changed. Michael Swaine argues that Beijing's highly risk-averse approach to dealing with Pyongyang, which focuses on mediation and limited pressure, will probably continue.
As the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China will be central to efforts to combat global climate change at Copenhagen and beyond. In testimony before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Taiya Smith explains that China is serious about addressing climate change, and assesses the implications and opportunities presented by its recent efforts to reduce carbon emissions at home.
Before China can move from being a great power to a superpower, Minxin Pei points out that it will have to overcome a number of economic, political, environmental, and regional challenges, from low per capita income and an aging and primarily rural population to the threat of ethnic secessionism.
The European Union sees itself as offering “a cultural and governance ideal” for nascent and aspiring regional blocs. Carnegie Beijing co-sponsored a May 4-5 conference on comparative regionalism to explore the EU’s universality and the lessons, if it works, for East Asian integration.
Additional Updates from Beijing:
The G20 Meetings: No Common Framework, No Consensus
Averting Crisis: A Path Forward for China's Healthcare System
The Threat of Protectionism During the Financial Crisis
From 2006 to 2009, the China Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conducted a series of debates on the most critical—and controversial—issues involving China’s economic, political-social, and military evolution and their policy implications. The main purpose of the debates is to provide fresh thinking based on systematic, well informed deliberation of the main issues.
• Debate 1: The Sustainability of the Chinese Communist Party
• Debate 2: China's Economy
• Debate 3: China's Military Modernization
• Debate 4: Human Rights in China
• Debate 5: China's Role in Asia
• Debate 6: China's Trade Policy
• Debate 7: China as a Responsible Stakeholder
• Debate 8: U.S. Policy Toward Taiwan, Time for Change?
• Debate 9: Does China's Financial Sector Jeopardize Economic Growth?