I’m reporting for NPR this week from China. It’s my first trip here since 2019, when Donald Trump was president and the pandemic hadn’t begun. Now comes a chance to glimpse what’s changed.
Early in the visit I went for a run down a riverside path in Beijjng, which led past old trees and newer skyscrapers. The concrete paths were in perfect condition, having been upgraded in recent years. On the bridges crossing the river, traffic was as bad as always, but the streets are notably quieter than in the past: all motorbikes, and a great many cars, are battery-powered.
Less quiet are the concerns people express about China’s economy. It hasn’t fully recovered from China’s “zero covid” pandemic lockdowns. Analysts here point to a weak real estate market, a loss of consumer confidence—and the resources China is pouring into its rivalry with the United States.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting this week. He’s stopping in Shanghai and Beijing, attempting progress in “managing competition” between the two great powers.
US diplomats hope to cooperate with China on issues from counternarcotics to artificial intelligence. And both sides, in their way, will promote the lonstanding bonds between the two countries. On our first morning here, the official English-language newspaper China Daily led with a story about an American whom President Xi Jinping met during his time in Iowa back in 1985. In Shanghai on Thursday, Blinken met with students at a branch of New York University.
But Blinken also plans to raise China’s strategic partnership with Russia—which US officials see as supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine. An official adds that he will discuss “unfair economic and trade practices,” which is surely something Chinese leaders will raise from their perspective. Chinese officials do not talk of “managing competition,” instead accusing the US of trying to contain China’s rise.
President Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods. President Biden has proposed even higher tariffs on Chinese steel. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned against China dumping cheap products overseas. Biden’s administration has sanctioned Chinese companies that the US views as aiding China’s military or taking part in human rights abuses. The US is also on its way to forcing a sale or ban of TikTok.
Biden’s administration has taken steps to strengthen US cooperation with allies and other democracies in the region, from India to Australia to Japan and beyond. Their combined economic and military power would be hard for China to match. As we’re hearing on the radio this week, some Republicans want to go further, warning that the U.S. may not be ready in time for any Chinese military move against Taiwan, a US-supported democracy that China claims as its own.
China’s President Xi has also changed his country’s approach, bidding to dominate high-tech industries and reduce dependence on the US. Beijing is able to draw on enormous reserves of money and talent, though it faces some headwinds. Many foreigners have moved out of China, and foreign direct investment is down. China’s aging population has begun to decline, and the government is fighting to overcome what is, by Chinese standards, slow growth.
We are entering a new chapter of an old story. Years ago, before another trip to China, I read a book called The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom. John Pomfret traced the US and China’s shared history, which dates back at least to 1783. In that same year that the United States confirmed its independence from Britain, American traders sent a ship to trade with China. They’d never before had the right to do it, because a British company had held a monopoly. In the generations that followed that voyage, many adventurous Americans made their fortunes in “the China trade,” which often included opium.
In more recent times, people on both sides of the Pacific made fortunes as China became the world’s workshop.
As I prepared for this trip I’ve been reading an advance copy of a book by Edward Wong, a New York Times correspondent of Chinese descent, who was based in China and now covers US diplomacy. His book At the Edge of Empire offers a view of the US and China not only as two nations but two empires—and also two peoples who each have “a profound belief in their own innocence” as they contend with each other and go about shaping the world.
Wong tells the story through his own family history, reaching back to the 1940’s in Hong Kong. Wong’s connection to both empires is deeply personal—but he’s hardly alone in having ties to both places. All of us have a stake in where the story goes next.
Thanks for reading Differ We Must, my companion to the book of the same name, which tells Lincoln’s life story through his meeting with people who differed with him. For those who recently subscribed, this Substack explores our modern-day differences, at home and sometimes abroad.
It's great that you're back in China; I've been listening to your comments on NPR and look forward to hearing more from you!