Today: the promise, the peril, and the challenge of China. China is a re-emerging superpower that is increasingly contesting the United States for economic, political, military and even cultural dominance in the world. In recent years the question of how to successfully manage our relationship with China has become even more pressing, and even more vexing. We are clearly deeply interconnected with the Chinese economy and even dependent on it, as recent supply chain disruptions have shown. The emergence of the Covid pandemic and discussions of managing global warming at COP26 have shown in the starkest terms just how much we need Chinese cooperation to tackle the biggest challenges that our country and the entire world face.
At the same time, we find ourselves embroiled in conflict — over the Trump trade war, repression of the Uighur ethnic minority that many including the United States government have called a genocide, over the disruption of the democratic government in Hong Kong, lingering flashpoints with Taiwan, and the increasingly aggressive economic investment agenda that China has been pursuing around the world. And we face growing uncertainty over the future course that China will take as president Xi Jinping solidifies his hold on power and takes bold steps to shape Chinese Society.
To help us understand where China is, where it may be going, and how the United States and the world should work with China, we are very fortunate to have Michael Schuman. Michael Schuman is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub and author of “Superpower Interrupted: The Chinese History of the World.” He just wrote a fascinating article in the Atlantic called Xi Jinping’s Terrifying New China.
