President Donald Trump, right, with Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, during their bilateral meeting at the G-20 Summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec. 1, 2018 (AP photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais).

President Donald Trump is traveling Wednesday to Osaka, Japan, for the G-20 leaders’ summit, where the packed agenda includes a much-anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “The world’s eyes will be on the Trump-Xi meeting,” WPR columnist Stewart Patrick wrote this week, as the two leaders will try to get negotiations for a trade deal back on track after talks broke down last month. From Japan, Trump will travel on to South Korea for talks with President Moon Jae-in about how to restart stalled diplomacy with North Korea over its nuclear program. As the former top U.S. diplomat for […]

Staff members stand near the emblem for the 2019 Group of 20 leaders’ summit at the entrance of the press center of the G-20 Finance Ministers’ and Central Bank Governors’ meeting, in Fukuoka, Japan, June 9, 2019 (AP photo by Eugene Hoshiko).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. When Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump meet Saturday at the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in Osaka, Japan, as expected, the ongoing trade war will be at the top of the agenda. With negotiations at a standstill since May, the meeting is an opportunity to break the deadlock—and for Trump to back off his threats to impose tariffs on nearly all Chinese imports that are not already taxed. A breakthrough was expected last month, until […]

A boat sails past a cargo ship at a port in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, June 10, 2019 (Chinatopix photo via AP Images).

If the U.S.-China trade war develops into a broader cold war, as some observers fear, it will be nothing like the actual Cold War. Between civil war in Russia after World War I, the Great Depression in the United States and then the cataclysm of World War II, America and the Soviet Union never had a chance to develop a significant economic relationship before things hardened into a stark East-West divide. When Washington adopted a containment strategy that blocked most trade with the Soviets, including technology transfers, it had relatively little impact on either economy. The situation with China today […]

School security guards check students’ national ID cards and testing ID cards to allow admittance to the gaokao, China’s college entrance exam, in Gejiu, China, June 7, 2019 (Photo by Matthew Chitwood)

GEJIU, China—Luo Xing stood on the sidewalk outside Gejiu Third High School reviewing her Chinese language and literature test prep guide. She and hundreds of classmates were cramming last-minute for China’s high-stakes college entrance exam, known as the gaokao, as if 12 years of preparation were not enough. The bell finally rang and the school gates opened, allowing Luo Xing and the mass of students to push past throngs of anxious parents, SWAT police and a brigade of motorcycle cops. They disappeared into the school compound to face one of the hardest tests in the world. More than 10 million […]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, center, speaks with the lawmakers during a parliamentary session, Tehran, Oct. 27, 2018 (AP photo by Ebrahim Noroozi).

In this week’s editors’ discussion on the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein; managing editor, Frederick Deknatel; and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, talk about the latest escalations in the United States’ tense standoff with Iran, and whether a path remains to deescalate the crisis. They also discuss the significance of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s rare visit to North Korea. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article […]

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands at a welcome ceremony at Yanqi Lake during the Belt and Road Forum, Beijing, May 15, 2017 (Pool photo by Roman Pilipey via AP).

The ballots hadn’t even been counted yet when the deals were announced. On April 26, just two days after Election Day, Indonesia signed 23 memorandums of understanding with China, worth $14.2 billion in all, for several major infrastructure projects. They came after months of silence about Chinese investment in Indonesia—by design, as President Joko Widodo feared attempts by the opposition to paint him as being too pro-China. It worked, as, in the end, the issue of Chinese investment did not play the same divisive role in Indonesia that it did in elections in Malaysia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Instead, […]

Tens of thousands of protesters carry posters and banners through the streets as they demonstrate against an extradition bill, in Hong Kong, June 16, 2019 (AP photo by Kin Cheung).

In the first decades after the commencement of China’s economic reforms and “opening up,” which began at the end of the 1970s, one question loomed in the minds of Western heads of state and many professional China watchers: How long would it take, as capitalist production and consumerism took hold, for Western forms of law and government to follow? By the time the Soviet Union was dissolved, in 1991, this kind of evolution came to be seen as inevitable, and with the invention and near-universal adoption of the internet, a robust vehicle to help catalyze change in China seemed at […]

A TV news program reports on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to North Korea with file footage of Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, June 18, 2019 (AP photo by Lee Jin-man).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea on Thursday, the first such trip by a Chinese president in 14 years. Longtime allies China and North Korea fought together in the Korean War and are celebrating 70 years of bilateral ties. But both countries are locked in tense standoffs with the United States, which is likely to loom large over the summit. Billed by Pyongyang as a state visit, the opportunity to host Xi is a diplomatic win for […]

Protesters march along a downtown street against the proposed amendments to an extradition law in Hong Kong, June 9, 2019 (AP photo by Vincent Yu).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. The massive demonstrations against a controversial extradition bill that have rocked Hong Kong in recent days “cannot be what Beijing wanted,” as commentator Yi-Zheng Lian argued this week in The New York Times. The simmering anger in Hong Kong toward the central government poses a major headache for China’s leaders as they attempt to extend control over the territory. Protesters took to the streets again Wednesday and surrounded Hong Kong’s Legislative Council, where they were met by riot police […]

A person holds Chinese and American flags at a welcome ceremony with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People, Beijing, Nov. 9, 2017 (AP photo by Andrew Harnik).

As U.S. President Donald Trump and other Western leaders gathered in Normandy this week to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Russia to deepen ties with his “best friend,” President Vladimir Putin. The resulting split-screen seemed to present a study in contrasts: a navel-gazing West that has passed the apex of its global influence versus an ambitious and forward-looking China—building bridges, paving roads and enhancing its stature on the world stage. But is either image really accurate? In this week’s editors’ discussion episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein; […]

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 28, 2019 (AP photo by Mark Schiefelbein).

After my first book came out in 2004, I received a surprise phone call from an assistant to former United States Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, asking if I would meet with him to talk about Africa. Sitting together in his executive’s office at Citibank’s headquarters in Manhattan, he averred that if Al Gore were to win that year’s presidential election, he could return to a leading position in government, and he wanted to know if there was one initiative Washington could take to engage with Africa, what would I suggest? This was a tall order, not least because I had […]

A Chinese paramilitary policeman stands guard in front of Mao Zedong’s portrait on Tiananmen Gate on the 30th anniversary of a bloody crackdown of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, June 4, 2019 (AP photo by Ng Han Guan).

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. China’s notorious security apparatus and strict internet censors did their best to ensure a quiet day on Tuesday, which marked the 30th anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. “Technical upgrades” prevented social media users from performing simple functions, such as changing their profile picture on WeChat, China’s most popular messaging app. Overseas, Chinese nationals found themselves blocked from posting on Weibo, the popular Chinese social networking website. Financial information provider Refinitiv censored Reuters news stories about Tiananmen after […]

The French Navy ship Vendemiaire, docked for a five-day port call in Manila, Philippines, March 12, 2018 (AP photo by Bullit Marquez).

France is stepping up its naval activities in the Asia-Pacific. Last month, the French navy conducted joint exercises with the United States, Australian and Indian navies, just weeks after a separate naval drill with India that involved two aircraft carriers. In April, the French frigate Vendemiaire made a rare passage through the strategically important Taiwan Strait. Some observers fear that these maneuvers could heighten tensions with Beijing, but so far, both France and China have worked to prevent that from happening, says Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of government and international studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. In an email interview […]