China
Does US-China strategic cooperation have to be so hard?
Author: Evan A Feigenbaum, CFR Can the United States and China cooperate to forestall threats to stability? A new CFR report, Managing Instability on China’s Periphery , asks this question in the context of fragile states and regions that share borders with China — specifically North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan and Central Asia. I participated in the project, which included workshops with Chinese specialists assembled by Peking University. I also wrote the report’s chapter on Central Asia. The project is interesting because the US and China actually have a long history of cooperating in places along China’s border. Just take recent tensions over Afghanistan, for example. These strains belie the degree to which Beijing and Washington worked jointly to defeat the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Washington encouraged Chinese support for the Afghan mujahideen , and the two countries cooperated in other unprecedented ways during the conflict. But that was then. Today, the US and China are often at loggerheads in such places. US officials have argued that Chinese policies help to bolster Myanmar’s ruling junta. Many in Washington argue, too, that Chinese policies have shielded North Korea from the effects of international sanctions that Beijing itself has repeatedly voted for. For their part, Chinese officials often view US policies in these countries as naïve at best, destabilising at worst. Many in Beijing hold the view that US and South Korean ‘failures’ have cornered North Korea and thus urge deepened policies of engagement. In Central Asia, meanwhile, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the region in 2006 and 2007, I heard Chinese officials argue ad infinitum that US actions to promote political reform could, ultimately, destabilise these countries. What’s going on? Does cooperation really have to be so hard? For that matter, is coordination so hard because the US and China lack common interests? I think not. In fact, asserting so is a too-easy cop out because, in most cases, it would be awfully hard to demonstrate empirically that China actually ‘wants’ an unstable Pakistan or would just ‘love’ a North Korea with nuclear weapons. In the countries at the heart of this CFR study, why wouldn’t China share America’s interest in stability, security, development and prosperity? No, I suspect the problem usually isn’t a lack of common interests. It’s that shared interests are very general in nature. Turning (abstract) common interests into (concrete) complementary policies requires that Beijing and Washington overcome two very high hurdles: First, Beijing almost never seems to share American threat assessments anymore. Countries like Iran and North Korea don’t threaten China directly, so Beijing can probably afford to be more relaxed and many Chinese analysts argue that Washington overstates the scope and urgency of such threats. Second, even when Beijing shares America’s sense of threat, countervailing interests still obstruct cooperation. In Afghanistan, for example, China certainly shares America’s core interest: a stable Afghan state that does not harbour, nurture or export terrorism. But Chinese decision-makers have become uncomfortable when told that the path to victory may require a long-term NATO presence on China’s western border, US bases and access agreements in Central Asia, and enhanced US and NATO strategic coordination with neighbours that have had difficult relations with China. So, what’s to be done? More dialogue, perhaps? I’m sceptical. Dialogue, in itself, is not a policy, not least because dialogue for its own sake has not, in the recent past, proved especially useful. The US and China have held routine dialogue on Central Asia since at least 2006. An institutionalised Central Asia sub-dialogue was established in December 2005 in the wake of a meeting of the US-China Senior Dialogue in Washington. But the quality of the conversations has been mixed and few, if any, coordinated actions have emerged from it. Here, then, are a few bottom lines: First, since coordination has been weak, the US and China should aim at complementary, but not necessarily joint, projects and actions. Of course the US and China need, in the first instance, to establish more transparency and a better mutual understanding of each other’s strategic intentions. But both countries are active, for example, with capacity-building programs and projects . So it is important to remember that complementary projects and actions need not be conducted jointly. One example is counter-narcotics work, where Washington and Beijing could coordinate their areas of focus, direct their respective financial assistance packages at similar drugs-related goals, and build complementary capacity while maintaining separate efforts. Second, of course the two countries should aim to improve coordination, but they shouldn’t expect to do real joint contingency planning. Not anytime soon, in any case. US-China coordination will continue to be difficult for the various reasons noted above: China does not often share American threat assessments; China does not support the US approach to political or economic reform in, say, Central Asia or Pakistan; and finally, countervailing interests, clashing security concepts, and mutual suspicions will remain an obstacle for some time. That means contingency discussions of, for example, donor principles and modalities in a prospective food crisis — in Central Asia or North Korea, for example — could build a better platform for US-China coordination than, say, aiming high at the big security issues. Third, to use an American football metaphor: the two countries don’t always have to ‘throw long’. Working now on peripheral issues may well give both countries a better chance to work over time toward core strategic issues. My bet is that coordinating economic policies will prove easier than coordinating security policies. And coordinating with ad hoc groups — for instance, with the Asian Development Bank’s Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation program — will provide China with some ‘cover’, and thus prove easier than coordinating bilaterally. At the end of the day, the US and China badly need to create a track record of concrete successes. And this is especially true in the places where shared strategic interests exist but remain awfully abstract. Evan A Feigenbaum is Adjunct Senior Fellow for East, Central and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. A version of this article was first published here at the Council on Foreign Relations. North Korea: Why is Seoul and Tokyo Cooperation Necessary? North Korea: strategic thinking, strategic response China-Pakistan space technology cooperation
Author: Evan A Feigenbaum, CFR
Can the United States and China cooperate to forestall threats to stability?
A new CFR report, Managing Instability on China’s Periphery, asks this question in the context of fragile states and regions that share borders with China — specifically North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan and Central Asia. I participated in the project, which included workshops with Chinese specialists assembled by Peking University. I also wrote the report’s chapter on Central Asia.
The project is interesting because the US and China actually have a long history of cooperating in places along China’s border. Just take recent tensions over Afghanistan, for example. These strains belie the degree to which Beijing and Washington worked jointly to defeat the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Washington encouraged Chinese support for the Afghan mujahideen, and the two countries cooperated in other unprecedented ways during the conflict.
But that was then.
Today, the US and China are often at loggerheads in such places. US officials have argued that Chinese policies help to bolster Myanmar’s ruling junta. Many in Washington argue, too, that Chinese policies have shielded North Korea from the effects of international sanctions that Beijing itself has repeatedly voted for.
For their part, Chinese officials often view US policies in these countries as naïve at best, destabilising at worst. Many in Beijing hold the view that US and South Korean ‘failures’ have cornered North Korea and thus urge deepened policies of engagement. In Central Asia, meanwhile, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the region in 2006 and 2007, I heard Chinese officials argue ad infinitum that US actions to promote political reform could, ultimately, destabilise these countries.
What’s going on? Does cooperation really have to be so hard? For that matter, is coordination so hard because the US and China lack common interests?
I think not. In fact, asserting so is a too-easy cop out because, in most cases, it would be awfully hard to demonstrate empirically that China actually ‘wants’ an unstable Pakistan or would just ‘love’ a North Korea with nuclear weapons. In the countries at the heart of this CFR study, why wouldn’t China share America’s interest in stability, security, development and prosperity?
No, I suspect the problem usually isn’t a lack of common interests. It’s that shared interests are very general in nature. Turning (abstract) common interests into (concrete) complementary policies requires that Beijing and Washington overcome two very high hurdles:
First, Beijing almost never seems to share American threat assessments anymore. Countries like Iran and North Korea don’t threaten China directly, so Beijing can probably afford to be more relaxed and many Chinese analysts argue that Washington overstates the scope and urgency of such threats.
Second, even when Beijing shares America’s sense of threat, countervailing interests still obstruct cooperation. In Afghanistan, for example, China certainly shares America’s core interest: a stable Afghan state that does not harbour, nurture or export terrorism. But Chinese decision-makers have become uncomfortable when told that the path to victory may require a long-term NATO presence on China’s western border, US bases and access agreements in Central Asia, and enhanced US and NATO strategic coordination with neighbours that have had difficult relations with China.
So, what’s to be done? More dialogue, perhaps? I’m sceptical.
Dialogue, in itself, is not a policy, not least because dialogue for its own sake has not, in the recent past, proved especially useful. The US and China have held routine dialogue on Central Asia since at least 2006. An institutionalised Central Asia sub-dialogue was established in December 2005 in the wake of a meeting of the US-China Senior Dialogue in Washington. But the quality of the conversations has been mixed and few, if any, coordinated actions have emerged from it.
Here, then, are a few bottom lines:
First, since coordination has been weak, the US and China should aim at complementary, but not necessarily joint, projects and actions. Of course the US and China need, in the first instance, to establish more transparency and a better mutual understanding of each other’s strategic intentions. But both countries are active, for example, with capacity-building programs and projects. So it is important to remember that complementary projects and actions need not be conducted jointly.
One example is counter-narcotics work, where Washington and Beijing could coordinate their areas of focus, direct their respective financial assistance packages at similar drugs-related goals, and build complementary capacity while maintaining separate efforts.
Second, of course the two countries should aim to improve coordination, but they shouldn’t expect to do real joint contingency planning. Not anytime soon, in any case. US-China coordination will continue to be difficult for the various reasons noted above: China does not often share American threat assessments; China does not support the US approach to political or economic reform in, say, Central Asia or Pakistan; and finally, countervailing interests, clashing security concepts, and mutual suspicions will remain an obstacle for some time.
That means contingency discussions of, for example, donor principles and modalities in a prospective food crisis — in Central Asia or North Korea, for example — could build a better platform for US-China coordination than, say, aiming high at the big security issues.
Third, to use an American football metaphor: the two countries don’t always have to ‘throw long’. Working now on peripheral issues may well give both countries a better chance to work over time toward core strategic issues. My bet is that coordinating economic policies will prove easier than coordinating security policies. And coordinating with ad hoc groups — for instance, with the Asian Development Bank’s Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation program — will provide China with some ‘cover’, and thus prove easier than coordinating bilaterally.
At the end of the day, the US and China badly need to create a track record of concrete successes. And this is especially true in the places where shared strategic interests exist but remain awfully abstract.
Evan A Feigenbaum is Adjunct Senior Fellow for East, Central and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. A version of this article was first published here at the Council on Foreign Relations.
- North Korea: Why is Seoul and Tokyo Cooperation Necessary?
- North Korea: strategic thinking, strategic response
- China-Pakistan space technology cooperation
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Does US-China strategic cooperation have to be so hard?
China
Is journalist Vicky Xu preparing to return to China?
Chinese social media influencers have recently claimed that prominent Chinese-born Australian journalist Vicky Xu had posted a message saying she planned to return to China.
There is no evidence for this. The source did not provide evidence to support the claim, and Xu herself later confirmed to AFCL that she has no such plans.
Currently working as an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, Xu has previously written for both the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, or ABC, and The New York Times.
A Chinese language netizen on X initially claimed on March 31 that the changing geopolitical relations between Sydney and Beijing had caused Xu to become an expendable asset and that she had posted a message expressing a strong desire to return to China. An illegible, blurred photo of the supposed message accompanied the post.
This claim was retweeted by a widely followed influencer on the popular Chinese social media site Weibo one day later, who additionally commented that Xu was a “traitor” who had been abandoned by Australian media.
Following the publication of an ASPI article in 2021 which exposed forced labor conditions in Xinjiang co-authored by Xu, the journalist was labeled “morally bankrupt” and “anti-China” by the Chinese state owned media outlet Global Times and subjected to an influx of threatening messages and digital abuse, eventually forcing her to temporarily close several of her social media accounts.
AFCL found that neither Xu’s active X nor LinkedIn account has any mention of her supposed return to China, and received the following response from Xu herself about the rumor:
“I can confirm that I don’t have plans to go back to China. I think if I do go back I’ll most definitely be detained or imprisoned – so the only career I’ll be having is probably going to be prison labor or something like that, which wouldn’t be ideal.”
Neither a keyword search nor reverse image search on the photo attached to the original X post turned up any text from Xu supporting the netizens’ claims.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Malcolm Foster.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Read the rest of this article here >>> Is journalist Vicky Xu preparing to return to China?
China
Guide for Foreign Residents: Obtaining a Certificate of No Criminal Record in China
Foreign residents in China can request a criminal record check from their local security bureau. This certificate may be required for visa applications or job opportunities. Requirements and procedures vary by city. In Shanghai, foreigners must have lived there for 180 days with a valid visa to obtain the certificate.
Foreign residents living in China can request a criminal record check from the local security bureau in the city in which they have lived for at least 180 days. Certificates of no criminal record may be required for people leaving China, or those who are starting a new position in China and applying for a new visa or residence permit. Taking Shanghai as an example, we outline the requirements for obtaining a China criminal record check.
Securing a Certificate of No Criminal Record, often referred to as a criminal record or criminal background check, is a crucial step for various employment opportunities, as well as visa applications and residency permits in China. Nevertheless, navigating the process can be a daunting task due to bureaucratic procedures and language barriers.
In this article, we use Shanghai as an example to explore the essential information and steps required to successfully obtain a no-criminal record check. Requirements and procedures may differ in other cities and counties in China.
Note that foreigners who are not currently living in China and need a criminal record check to apply for a Chinese visa must obtain the certificate from their country of residence or nationality, and have it notarized by a Chinese embassy or consulate in that country.
Foreigners who have a valid residence permit and have lived in Shanghai for at least 180 days can request a criminal record check in the city. This means that the applicant will also need to currently have a work, study, or other form of visa or stay permit that allows them to live in China long-term.
If a foreigner has lived in another part of China and is planning to or has recently moved to Shanghai, they will need to request a criminal record check in the place where they previously spent at least 180 days.
There are two steps to obtaining a criminal record certificate in Shanghai: requesting the criminal record check from the Public Security Bureau (PSB) and getting the resulting Certificate of No Criminal Record notarized by an authorized notary agency.
This article is republished from China Briefing. Read the rest of the original article.
China Briefing is written and produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The practice assists foreign investors into China and has done since 1992 through offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Please contact the firm for assistance in China at china@dezshira.com.
China
China Unveils Plan to Upgrade Industrial Equipment
China unveiled a comprehensive action plan for upgrading industrial equipment, with a focus on driving technological innovation and economic growth. The plan, released on April 9, 2024, aims to enhance competitiveness and sustainability within the manufacturing sector through extensive investment and regulatory support.
China announced an ambitious action plan for industrial equipment upgrading, which aims to drive technological innovation and economic growth through extensive investment and regulatory support.
On April 9, 2024, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and six other departments jointly released a notice introducing the Implementation Plan for Promoting Equipment Renewal in the Industrial Sector (hereafter referred to as the “action plan”).
Finalized earlier on March 23, 2024, this comprehensive action plan addresses critical issues related to technological innovation and economic development. It reflects China’s proactive stance in enhancing competitiveness and sustainability within its manufacturing sector. The initiative underscores the recognition of industrial equipment upgrading as a top policy priority.
The scope of China’s action plan to upgrade industrial equipment in manufacturing, is extensive, covering various aspects such as:
In line with China’s ambitious goals for industrial modernization and sustainable development, the action plan outlines several key objectives aimed at driving substantial advancements in the industrial sector by 2027.
These objectives encompass a wide range of areas, from increasing investment to enhancing digitalization and promoting innovation, including:
The objectives and key actions proposed in the action plan are summarized below.
This article is republished from China Briefing. Read the rest of the original article.
China Briefing is written and produced by Dezan Shira & Associates. The practice assists foreign investors into China and has done since 1992 through offices in Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Please contact the firm for assistance in China at china@dezshira.com.
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- China Unveils Plan to Upgrade Industrial Equipment
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