China's war of ideas in the South China Sea
James Borton is a non-resident senior fellow at Johns Hopkins Strategic Advanced International Studies Foreign Policy Institute and the author of "Harvesting the Waves: How Blue Parks Shape Policy, Politics, and Peacebuilding in the South China Sea." Sherry Chen is presently pursuing a dual degree between Columbia University and Sciences Po Paris, and she is a research associate at the South China Sea NewsWire.
While naval patrols and island-building dominate headlines about the South China Sea, China is waging another, quieter campaign -- one that unfolds not at sea, but in seminar rooms, policy briefings and academic dialogues. At the forefront of this campaign are state-aligned Chinese think tanks that are steadily shaping the narrative surrounding Beijing's maritime ambitions.
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The Diplomat
2 hours ago
- The Diplomat
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To accumulate industrial leverage over the U.S., China played the long game. The U.S. must do the same. Imagine the China-U.S. trade war as two opposing armies exchanging bursts of gunfire, one volley after another. Responding to China's unfair trade practices, the United States imposed tariffs on a broad range of Chinese exports. In turn, China restricted rare earth exports necessary for American automotive and defense manufacturing. The U.S. retaliated by freezing jet engine sales, technology that China can't find anywhere else. Then came a lull. In June, President Donald Trump announced that China would resume exports of rare earths, in return for the U.S. providing China with the student visas it wanted. Subsequently, the U.S. and China announced a formalized agreement to resume Chinese heavy rare earth exports, while the United States will resume jet engine, software, and ethanol exports. But this isn't a truce. It's only a ceasefire in a trade war that is likely to erupt again and again in the coming years. China left its growing infrastructure for export controls in place: rare earth export licenses require sensitive information disclosures and only last for six months. And once the trade war breaks out again, the United States may find that China has more ammunition than it does. To accumulate this much industrial leverage over the U.S., China played the long game. The U.S. should take this pause in the trade war to begin doing the same. As China grew to become an industrial superpower over the last three decades, it encouraged other manufacturing countries, particularly the U.S., to rely on it as the primary supplier for dozens of critical minerals. The dependence is even more stark in rare earths: China's export licensing regime caused U.S. imports of high-performance magnets to fall by 93 percent. This adds up to Chinese leverage in the short, medium, and long term. 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The Diplomat
2 hours ago
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Communist Party-ruled China, contrary to what its leaders like to say during their charm offensives, does not embrace these values and seeks to transform the international order in its own authoritarian image. As long as China continues to flout the rules of the international order with its unfair economic practices, widespread human rights violations, and support for unlawful aggression, it is not in the EU's interest to warm up its relations with Beijing. The China-EU summit will hence serve to confirm how differently the two sides see the world, how different are the values they hold dear, and how widely their interests diverge. Held in the proximity of the Great Wall, the discussions between European and Chinese leaders will once again demonstrate that there continues to be a great wall between the EU's values and interests and those of China's.
The Mainichi
4 hours ago
- The Mainichi
China-N. Korea trade rises 30% in 1st half of 2025
BEIJING (Kyodo) -- China's trade with North Korea in the first half of 2025 rose about 30 percent from a year earlier, official data showed Friday, indicating a recovery in bilateral economic ties even though Pyongyang has been boosting its relations with Moscow. In the January-June period of 2025, the total value of China's trade with North Korea amounted to some $1.26 billion. Beijing is Pyongyang's largest trading partner and longtime economic benefactor. Pyongyang's main export items to China include wigs and artificial eyelashes, with cheap North Korean labor processing raw materials delivered from Chinese dealers and sending market-ready products back. Major exports from China to North Korea include plastic goods used to manufacture carpets and wallpaper as well as furniture and bedding. These items are believed to have been used for the development of housing and factories in the country. Shipments of Chinese rice and fertilizers to the neighboring country have also resumed, according to diplomatic sources. Bilateral trade exceeded $6.5 billion in 2013 but began dropping sharply in 2018 after U.N. Security Council resolutions were adopted in 2017 against Pyongyang over its continued nuclear tests and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Meanwhile, North Korea has dispatched workers to factories in northeastern China since late last year in possible violation of a U.N. resolution that bans such a practice. However, it remains unknown whether Beijing has issued work visa for those laborers and how long they are allowed to stay in the country. Dozens of North Korean technicians have visited China since May for training programs in such sectors as transportation, energy and agriculture, according to diplomatic sources. Pyongyang's dispatch of unpaid trainees abroad does not violate the U.N. sanction, they said.
