Category: The Diplomat

China’s policymakers have long grappled with a data and cybersecurity policy conundrum: how to balance government control without torpedoing business sentiment. To date, the pro-control camp has prevailed, ensuring that China’s policymakers treat its cyberspace as comparable to physical territory, with increasingly restrictive controls as (perceived) data risk to national security increases. At the same time, policymakers have touted the power of data as a new engine of economic growth.  This muddled approach – presenting data as both a needed means of economic development and something that must be reviewed…

As U.S. President Joe Biden hosts Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio for a state visit, and prepares for a historic trilateral summit also including the Philippines’ President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., China is emphasizing its own partnerships. On April 8, the same day Kishida arrived in Washington, D.C., Russia Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov began a two-day trip to Beijing. On April 11, the same day Biden, Kishida, and Marcos will gather at the White House, China is sending its third-ranking leader to North Korea. Despite China’s consistent claims that the China-Russia…

Chinese President Xi Jinping and former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou met on April 10 at 4 p.m. at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.  Earlier media reports suggested that Ma and Xi would meet on April 8. It has been speculated that the original date of the meeting was changed so that Ma and Xi would meet on the same day as a summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, who is in Washington, D.C. on a state visit. Spokespeople for the Chinese…

Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Tuesday in a sign of mutual support and shared opposition to Western democracies amid Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. “We would like to express our highest appreciation and admiration for the successes that you have achieved over the years and, above all, over the last decade under your leadership,” Lavrov told Xi, according to Russian media. “We are sincerely pleased with these successes, since these are the successes of friends, although not everyone in the world shares this attitude and…

April 3 began as a typical day for the people of Taiwan. Workers and students set out on their usual commutes as cities across the island bustled with the usual activities of daily life. At 7:58 a.m. local time, during the peak of morning rush hour, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off the east coast of Taiwan, marking the most significant seismic event in nearly 25 years.    To put the size of this earthquake into context, a magnitude 7 earthquake has been described by seismologists as having the “energy equivalent to…

A bipartisan consensus in the U.S. House of Representatives culminated in the passage of legislation in that, if also passed by the Senate and signed into law by the president, would require the Beijing-based company, ByteDance, to either divest from its U.S.-based subsidiary – TikTok – or have it be removed from the U.S. market in six months.  U.S. lawmakers see TikTok as being intimately linked to Beijing, “a foreign adversary” that “poses the greatest national security threat of our time.”  The latest build-up in tension started in 2019 in…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on China on Friday to address manufacturing overcapacity that she said risks causing global economic dislocation, and to create a level playing field for American companies and workers. Starting a five-day visit in one of China’s major industrial and export hubs, she raised what the U.S. considers to be unfair Chinese trade practices in talks with senior Chinese officials. “The United States seeks a healthy economic relationship with China that benefits both sides,” she said ahead of a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He…

Earlier this week, U.S. President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first phone call since the two leaders met face-to-face in San Francisco last November. In the Chinese readout of the call, Xi reportedly stated that “China-U.S. relations are stabilizing.” Both sides have accepted the premise that bilateral competition requires diplomatic communication. Nonetheless, beneath the veneer of stability, the bilateral relationship is arguably more precarious than at any point since the Biden administration entered office. The list of underlying tensions and risks across the relationship continues to grow.…

On the night of March 11, 2024, the new ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Panama, Xu Xueyuan, arrived at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City. Ambassador Xu is a career diplomat and the former deputy chief of mission in China’s embassy to the United States of America. She replaced Ambassador Wei Qiang, an eloquent, Spanish-speaking and highly regarded diplomat, who served in Panama for more than six years after the establishment of diplomatic ties in 2017. Xu brings an interesting set of experiences to the table. She…

In 2021, the Biden administration adjusted the United States’ strategy of technological restrictions on China, from Trump’s decoupling to a “small yard, high fence” approach that emphasized decoupling from China in the realm of cutting-edge technologies. However, looking back over the past three years, the scope of U.S. technological restrictions on China has expanded from its initial focus on high-end technology to encompass all technologies deemed “related to national security,” including products and virtual services.  Such an escalation could be regarded as a shift from “small yard, high fence” to…