Even if we go back to the Cold War with the Soviet Union, our foreign policy often looked to areas for possible cooperation. First and foremost, we had a number of arms control agreements designed to limit spending and the risks of accidental war. But we also looked to cooperate in other areas, most visibly space travel.

We can take a similar tack in our dealings with China. We can look to cooperate in areas that are mutually beneficial. Two obvious areas that stand out are climate and health. There could be enormous gains for both the U.S. and the world if we freely shared technologies needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as technologies to prevent disease and improve health.

Published: April 6, 2024
Written by: Fatima Hussein

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent a message of mutual cooperation at a meeting Sunday with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, highlighting the improvement in relations since her visit to China last year while recognizing that major differences remain.

After focusing on trade and economic issues for the first two days of her visit, Yellen turned to the broader U.S.-China relationship in the meeting with Li, one of China's top leaders.

United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Dong Jun have held their first substantive talks in nearly 18 months as the two countries work to restore military ties.

The two spoke via videoconference on Tuesday, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The US and China have been working to improve a relationship that had become increasingly acrimonious over issues from Taiwan to the South China Sea, as well as trade and human rights.

Published: April 6, 2024
Written by: Dylan Robertson

Beijing is seeking to improve relations with Ottawa after years of diplomatic unease, and though it’s not clear whether Canada is ready to play ball, some experts say there are practical reasons to look for better co-operation.

“The strained relations between our two countries is actually not what we would like to see,” China’s ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, said in a recent interview.

“We can be engaged in a candid and constructive dialogue.”

Published: April 12, 2024
Written by: Jeff Mahon

In this issue: Balancing security risks and economic opportunities as tensions remain tight, an Australian case in rapprochement, a new interactive BRI tool, Vietnam and the Team Canada trade mission, and more.

Ugly news? Not in trade data

In our last issue we flagged some potential for improved ties following Minister Joly’s meeting with China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi on the sidelines of the February Munich Summit. But the intervening period hasn’t offered much hope. From the Winnipeg biolab controversy to foreign interference, Canadians are getting a steady dose of ugly news. The just released defence policy update sums it up: “China is an increasingly capable and assertive global actor looking to reshape the international system to advance its interests and values, which increasingly diverge from our own on matters of defence and security.”

Published: April 13, 2024
Written by: Nancy Qian

On a recent trip to China with my students, we were all struck by how few Americans had returned to the country since the end of its “zero-COVID” policy in December, 2022.

In Shanghai, our tour guide had hosted only one other U.S. school group, and she expected to have only one more this year – a marked decline from the 30-plus she booked each year prior to the pandemic. In Guilin, where the iconic mountains had previously been among the most visited places on Earth, we were allegedly the first American group to visit since the beginning of 2020. One hopes that more have and will come. But there is no denying that the number of Americans traveling to China, which plummeted during the pandemic, has been slow to recover.

Published: April 10, 2024
Written by: Li Lei

The World Food Programme is closely following China's food policymaking and global aid initiatives, according to the United Nations agency's China Representative Zhao Bing, who praised the country's food supply situation as a bright spot against rising world hunger over the past decade.

Speaking in Beijing early last month on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, the top legislature, Zhao said the world is "not on track" to hit the UN's sustainable development goal that aims to end global hunger by 2030.

China has voiced “deep concern” over escalating tensions in the Middle East after Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles in an unprecedented attack on Israel, raising the prospect of a wider conflagration in a region where Beijing has pledged to play peacemaker and promote its own security vision.

“(China) calls on relevant parties to exercise calm and restraint to prevent further escalation,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, framing the latest tensions as “a spillover from the Gaza conflict” – which it said should be put to an end as soon as possible.

China's top diplomat Wang Yi held phone talks with his Iranian and Saudi counterparts Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud separately on Monday regarding the tensions between Israel and Iran, and the wider situation in the Middle East. Chinese experts emphasized that Beijing's recent actions demonstrate its commitment to playing a constructive role in de-escalating tensions in the Middle East and maintaining stability in the Gulf region

With coverage of themes such as gods and heathens, elves and 'Men', race, mortality and immortality, fate and doom, and language, Reinder's journey to Chinese Middle-earth and back again drastically alters views on Tolkien's work where even basic genre classification surrounding fantasy literature look different through the lens of Chinese literary expectations.