BEIJING — While China’s much-hyped clean energy drive has become bogged down in problems of impracticality and policy incoherence, the U.S. has quietly effected a genuine energy revolution that creates huge cost advantages for America’s manufacturing base going forward. With major structural shifts already underway, changing international energy market dynamics present Washington with an opportunity to fundamentally reorient its foreign policy approach, toward China and a broader range of actors, in the decades to come. In 2011, China overtook the U.S. in terms of renewable energy investment and under current plans will surpass the European Union in 2014. Beijing plans […]

The Chinese economy, which has been a driver of global economic growth even as the United States and the European Union have worked to handle their own economic crises, is slowing down. Falling real estate prices combined with a decline in exports and consumer confidence have finally become barriers to growth in an economy that has long seemed unstoppable. Headlines have warned of the ripple effects that a continued economic slide might have, and the two experts who spoke with Trend Lines said the downturn underscores the need for China to make some changes in its growth strategy. Patrick Chovanec, […]

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos visited China earlier this month, where he and Chinese President Hu Jintao signed an agreement to begin considerations for a free trade agreement. In an email interview, Benjamin Creutzfeldt, a lecturer and researcher in contemporary China studies at Externado University in Bogota, Colombia, discussed relations between Colombia and China. WPR: What is driving increased diplomatic and economic ties between China and Colombia over the past decade? Benjamin Creutzfeldt: The driving force behind contact between China and Colombia has been and continues to be trade. Over the past decade, China’s need for the types of raw […]

Chen Guangcheng, the civil rights activist who made headlines when he sought refuge at the American Embassy in Beijing arrived in the United States over the weekend. The incident strained ties between the U.S. and China, particularly as negotiations over Chen’s future drew international attention to human rights abuses in China, and Beijing demanded an apology for what it called interference in internal matters. But human rights advocates call the story a success in a region where human rights advocacy has proved to be a major challenge for the U.S. “When it comes to advocating for human rights, the U.S. […]

BEIJING — Senior leaders from China, Japan and South Korea met in Beijing last weekend for a trilateral summit, where they signed an eye-catching agreement to work toward establishing a free-trade zone, the latest in a flurry of trilateral economic deals in recent months. But despite these developments, the geopolitical situation in Northeast Asia remains fragmented, and a multilateral architecture capable of containing latent regional threats is some way off. Recent months have brought a series of initiatives to increase economic integration among the three countries. In March, Tokyo announced it would invest in Chinese sovereign bonds for the first […]

The agricultural ministers of China, Japan and South Korea signed an agreement last month to work together to improve food security and increase agricultural trade. In an email interview, Roehlano M. Briones, a senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies and research fellow of the Asia Pacific Policy Center, discussed East Asian cooperation on food security. WPR: What are the major food security priorities for China, Japan and South Korea, respectively? Roehlano M. Briones: Let me answer this question from the viewpoint of policymakers. For China the major food security priority is to ensure that the population […]

The leaders of China, Japan and South Korea, which together account for 20 percent of global GDP, will meet in Beijing this weekend for their fifth annual trilateral summit. The summit is intended to enhance cooperation in a wide range of areas, including security issues, but it will focus mainly on trade. Before leaving for Beijing, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda expressed his hope that the three leaders would announce the start of negotiations for a trilateral free trade agreement. But Claude Barfield, a resident scholar and international trade policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, and Richard C. Bush […]

The announcement last week that the U.S. is doubling its foreign aid to the Philippines came as the U.S. ally remains locked in a maritime standoff with China over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea. In an email interview, Richard D. Fisher, Jr., a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, discussed U.S.-Philippines military cooperation. WPR: In what concrete ways is U.S.-Philippines military cooperation being expanded in response to the Philippines’ territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea? Richard D. Fisher, Jr.: After nearly 20 years of U.S. and mainly Philippine indifference following the […]

One issue that warrants greater attention from Washington policymakers moving forward is how relations between Russia and China will affect those two countries’ policies relating to nuclear arms control. In particular, the next administration needs to consider how the U.S. government and other actors can help shape this evolving relationship so that it moves in benign directions, while hedging against possible adverse outcomes. Russia and China have the world’s two most powerful militaries after that of the United States. China is currently undertaking perhaps the most comprehensive military modernization program in the world, while Russia still has approximately as much […]

The saga of Chen Guangcheng, the blind legal activist who sought refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing this past week, is still unfolding. Yet the Obama administration appears to have encountered its own version of President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Hungary 1956” moment: the point at which idealistic rhetoric about U.S. support for freedom and democracy collides with the harsh realities of U.S. national interests. As long as Chen was detained in internal exile in the village of Dongshigu, he was an out-of-sight martyr for whom rhetorical support could easily be expressed without too much risk of damaging the larger Sino-American […]

China-U.S. Talks Begin Amid Chen Controversy

Chinese President Hu Jintao tried to take back center stage after the case of blind fugitive activist Chen Guangcheng threatened to overshadow the opening of the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue talks between the United States and China in Beijing. World News Videos by NewsLook

Chinese Warships Visit Hong Kong

As two Chinese warships dock in Hong Kong for a short visit, the deputy chief of staff of China’s South Sea Fleet says the recent U.S.-Philippine military drill did not target any particular country. World News Videos by NewsLook