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321. The Great Reset and the Near-Term Implications for the Chinese Economy

Author:
R. Reghunanadhan and J. T. Karackattu
Publication Date:
09-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
AUSTRAL: Brazilian Journal of Strategy International Relations
Institution:
Postgraduate Program in International Strategic Studies, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Abstract:
The Great Reset has had a severe impact on the Chinese economy, with implications domestically, and on the global supply chain. One consequence has been the decline in the overall market demand in China, with a significant negative impact on infrastructure development and the labour industry. A unique aspect is a survey is to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on innovation and integration of digital technologies in China. The authors explicate the impact of the Great Reset on the Chinese economy, the implications on the supply chains that China is a crucial part of, and the global implications thereof.
Topic:
Labor Issues, Economy, Innovation, COVID-19, Supply Chains, and Great Reset
Political Geography:
China and Asia

322. China Tests the Water in Palestinian Diplomacy

Author:
Ramzy Baroud
Publication Date:
10-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
While the ramifications of the recent unity agreement signed in Beijing by multiple Palestinian factions remain to be seen, it is evident that China has stepped up as a leader in the region
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
China, Middle East, Asia, and Palestine

323. The International Economic Implications of a Second Trump Presidency

Author:
Warwick McKibbin, Megan Hogan, and Marcus Noland
Publication Date:
09-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The paper explores policies promoted by former president and now candidate Donald Trump that would potentially affect the global economy. We focus on immigration policy, trade, and erosion of the Federal Reserve Board’s political independence. Each policy has differing macroeconomic and sectoral impacts on the United States and other countries. We find, however, that all the policies examined cause a decline in US production and employment, especially in trade-exposed sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture, as well as higher US inflation. The trade policies do little to improve the US trade balance; however, the erosion of Fed independence does so by causing capital outflows, a significant depreciation of the dollar, and higher unemployment toward the end of 2028, which worsen American living standards. Scenarios combining individual policies show that the changes cause a large inflationary impulse and a significant loss of employment (particularly in manufacturing and agriculture) in the US economy. The negative impact of a contraction in global trade is significant for countries that trade with the United States the most. The adverse effect is offset for some economies by the positive effects of an inflow of foreign capital that would otherwise have gone into the US economy. An online dashboard contains a full set of macroeconomic and sectoral results for all countries.
Topic:
Migration, Central Bank, Trade Policy, Donald Trump, and Deportation
Political Geography:
China and Asia

324. Economic implications of revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status

Author:
Megan Hogan, Warwick McKibben, and Marcus Noland
Publication Date:
09-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The United States’ granting of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status, formerly known as most favored nation status, to China in 2000 resulted in a large expansion of bilateral trade. Concerns over Chinese trade practices and the impact of Chinese exports on US import-competing sectors have contributed to US political discontent and calls for the revocation of PNTR, including by former president Donald Trump in his reelection campaign and in the 2024 Republican Party Platform. The authors find that revoking China’s PNTR status would cause higher inflation and a short-term decline in US gross domestic product relative to baseline from which the economy never fully recovers. The loss of output and employment would be felt unevenly across the economy, with agriculture, durable manufacturing, and mining taking the biggest hits. Stock market prices would fall, with agricultural, durable manufacturing, and mining firms absorbing the biggest declines. All of these impacts would be magnified if China retaliates. Ironically, the revocation would damage the US industrial sector and contribute to a wider US trade deficit.
Topic:
Economics, Bilateral Relations, Manufacturing, and Trade
Political Geography:
China and Asia

325. The Rise of US Economic Sanctions on China: Analysis of a New PIIE Dataset

Author:
Martin Chorzempa, Mary Lovely, and Christine Wan
Publication Date:
12-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
Concerns over China’s national security and human rights activities have led the United States to rely increasingly on financial sanctions and export controls to curb Beijing’s behavior. But the tools are so complex it is difficult to assess their effectiveness. A new PIIE dataset sheds light on this economic statecraft. The first Trump administration added three times as many Chinese entities to export control and other sanctions lists than the previous four administrations; the Biden administration added even more to these lists. Most sanctions and controls target high-tech sectors, especially electronics, military and defense entities, aviation, space, and aerospace; targets are chosen under a veil of secrecy, raising questions over accountability and transparency. The benefits of isolating Chinese firms come with potential costs, hobbling innovation for US and allied business, encouraging circumvention of sanctions, and accelerating Chinese innovation.
Topic:
Economics, Human Rights, National Security, Sanctions, and Exports
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

326. US-South Korea Cyber Cooperation: Towards the Higher-Hanging Fruits

Author:
Jenny Jun and So Jeong Kim
Publication Date:
12-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
In the past decade, the US and South Korea faced a relatively narrow set of challenges in cyberspace, notably North Korea’s cyber crime facilitating sanctions evasion. In the next decade, however, the two countries will face a more diversified set of challenges with growing North Korean ties with Russia, its involvement in the war in Ukraine, and intensifying US-China competition. The US and South Korea must develop a joint playbook for responding to scenarios of disruptive cyber operations targeting South Korean public and private sectors and prepare for an even more difficult environment for curbing North Korea’s cyber crime as Russia provides a way out. Over the past two years, the US and South Korea have significantly deepened and broadened cooperation on cyber issues and have expanded cooperation further to trilateral and multilateral settings. The two countries established several regular high-level and working-level dialogues, have issued joint sanctions and threat advisories, and deepened mil-to-mil cooperation. However, 2024 has been a watershed in terms of shifting geopolitical dynamics on and around the Korean peninsula. Cyber threats will become more diversified, and the bilateral relationship will be tested at the seams without a clear joint strategic concept and operational plan.
Topic:
Sanctions, Geopolitics, Multilateralism, Strategic Competition, and Cyberspace
Political Geography:
China, Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

327. Effective US government strategies to address China’s information influence

Author:
Kenton Thibaut
Publication Date:
07-2024
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
China’s global influence operations have received increasing attention in the national security community. Numerous congressional hearings, media reports, and academic and industry findings have underscored China’s increased use and resourcing of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) tactics in its covert operations both in the United States and abroad. In response, US government offices the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), among others, have made strides in raising awareness of the issue and charting pathways to increase the resilience of the US information ecosystem to foreign influence. To date, however, the efforts to counter the influence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been fragmented. That fragmentation is indicative of a lack of cohesion around the concept of influence operations itself. Across the government and nongovernment sectors alike, there is considerable variation regarding the definition and scope of information manipulation. For example, the Department of State’s (DOS’s) GEC has an expansive definition, which includes “leveraging propaganda and censorship, promoting digital authoritarianism, exploiting international organizations and bilateral partnerships, pairing cooptation and pressure, and exercising control of Chinese-language media.” Others define it more narrowly as disinformation and propaganda spread by a foreign threat actor in a coordinated, inauthentic manner, and largely occurring on social media platforms. This variation is a reflection of the holistic and multifaceted nature of Chinese influence. Coercive tactics and influence operations have long been a central part of China’s strategic tool kit and core to how it engages with the outside world. Because China conceives of the information domain as a space that must be controlled and dominated to ensure regime survival, information operations are part of a much bigger umbrella of influence that spans the economic, political, and social domains. It may be more useful to think of information manipulation as existing within the broader conceptual framework of China’s weaponization of the information domain in service of its goal to gain global influence. As previous work by the Digital Forensic Lab (DFRLab) has shown, China’s approach to the information domain is coordinated and proactive, taking into account the mutually constitutive relationships between the economic, industrial, and geopolitical strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The aim of its efforts is to gain influence—or “discourse power”—with the ultimate goal of decentering US power and leadership on the global stage. One of the main mechanisms through which the CCP seeks to achieve this objective is by focusing on the dominance of information ecosystems. This ecosystem encompasses not only narratives and content that appear in traditional and social media but also the digital infrastructure on which communication systems rely, the policies that govern those systems at the international level, and the diplomatic strategy deployed by Beijing’s operatives abroad to gain buy-in for the CCP’s vision of the global order. The DFRLab’s previous two reports, which explored China’s strategy and the impacts of its operations abroad, found that the United States will not be successful in addressing the challenges of Chinese influence if it sees that influence as separate from the interconnected economic, political, and technical domains in which its strategy is embedded. To this end, the DFRLab hosted a series of one-on-one expert interviews, conducted research and workshops, and held a virtual roundtable discussion with scholars and practitioners with expertise on or experience in addressing authoritarian influence and information operations, US government processes and policies around these issues, and Chinese foreign policy. This issue brief is part of a larger body of work that examines the Chinese government’s interests and capabilities and the impacts of party’s efforts to shape the global information ecosystem. The focus of this report is on how the US government can best respond to those challenges, including the architecture, tools, and strategies that exist for addressing PRC influence and information manipulation, as well as any potential gaps in the government tool kit. This report finds that, to mount the most effective response to Chinese influence and the threat it poses to democratic interests at home and on the international stage, the United States should develop a global information strategy, one that reflects the interconnected nature of regulatory, industrial, and diplomatic policies with regard to the information domain. A core assumption undergirding this concept is that US policymaking space tends to over-index on the threat of information manipulation in particular while under-indexing on the core national interest of fostering a secure, interoperable information environment on a larger scale. The limits of understanding Chinese influence as systemic and part of a broader strategy has sometimes led US response to be pigeonholed as an issue of strategic communications, rather than touching on the information and technology ecosystems, among others, where China focuses its information and influence efforts. Responding to Chinese influence with government messaging is not sufficient to address the complex nature of the challenge and places the United States in a position of reactivity. In short, understanding that the CCP (1) integrates its tech industrial strategy, governance policy, and engagement strategy and (2) connects its approach at home to how it engages abroad, the United States needs to do the same, commensurate with its values. It should not respond tit-for-tat but rather have a collective strategy for a global competition for information that connects its tech strategy to its governance approach to its engagement around the world. That is not to say that a US strategy on information resilience should mirror China’s, or that such a strategy should be developed in response to the PRC’s actions in the information domain. Nor is it to say that the United States should adopt a similar whole-of-government approach to the information domain. There are silos by design in the US system and important legal and normative foundations for the clear delineation of mission between them. What this issue brief argues for is a strategic breaking down of silos to facilitate proactive action versus a dangerous breaking down of legally required silos. This report emphasizes that the United States should articulate how major initiatives like the CHIPS and Science Act, regulatory approaches like the recent executive orders on AI and data security, and the DOS’s recent cyberspace and digital policy strategy are part of a cohesive whole and should be understood and operationalized as such. The strategy should outline what the United States stands for as much as what it is against. This requires that the United States frame its assessment of threat within a broader strategy of what its values are and how those values should be articulated in its regulatory, strategic, and diplomatic initiatives to promote open information environments and shore up information resilience. This includes working with allies and partners to ensure that a free, open, and interoperable internet is a global priority as well as a domestic one; developing common standards for understanding and thresholding foreign influence; and promoting connectivity at home and abroad. One finding of this report is that the United States is already leaning into its strengths and values, including championing policies that support openness and continuing support for civil society. This, along with the awareness of influence operations as the weaponization of the information domain, is a powerful response to authoritarian attacks on the integrity of both the domestic US and global information spaces. The United States has a core national security interest in the existence of a rules-based, orderly, and open information environment. Such an environment facilitates the essential day-to-day tasks related to public diplomacy, the basic expression of rights, and investment in industries of strategic and economic value. Absent a coherent strategy on these core issues related to the integrity of the United States’ information environment that is grounded in an understanding of the interconnected nature of their constitutive parts, the challenges of foreign influence and interference will only continue to grow. This issue brief contains three sections. For sections one and two, experts in different aspects of the PRC’s information strategy addressed two to three main questions; during the course of research, further points were raised that are included in the findings. Each section represents a synthesis of the views expressed in response to these questions. The third section comprises recommendations for the US government based on the findings from the first two sections.
Topic:
Media, Disinformation, and Digital Policy
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

328. Adapting US strategy to account for China’s transformation into a peer nuclear power

Author:
David Shullman, John K. Culver, Kitsch Liao, and Samantha Wong
Publication Date:
09-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
China’s rapidly improving nuclear capabilities and expanding nuclear arsenal underpin its recent rise as a nuclear peer power. For the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region, the uncertainty of China’s intentions behind this nuclear expansion poses a major challenge. It necessitates a revisit of the fundamental assumptions underpinning US and allied planning and preparation for a potential conflict with China. The 2022 White House National Security Strategy1 and National Defense Strategy2 identified China as the only competitor with both the intent and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological wherewithal to reshape the international order. The 2022 United States Nuclear Posture Review noted how China has embarked on an ambitious expansion, modernization, and diversification of its nuclear forces and established a nascent nuclear triad.3 The report further assessed that Beijing will likely possess at least 1,000 deliverable warheads by the end of the decade.4 China also sustains extensive and ambitious space operations. According to the Department of Defense’s 2022 China Military Power Report5, as of 2021, China’s 260 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites were the largest collection of such constellations globally other than the United States’. The transformation of China’s military capabilities no longer represents the linear, stepwise modernization of an outmoded military that characterized the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for the past two decades. Since the PLA launched its major internal command and service restructuring in 2015, previous doctrinal and teaching publications acquired and exploited by Western analysts are out of date and likely declining in relevance. By extension, much of the Western analysis of PLA plans, operations, and concepts of deterrence and escalation control are also likely to be out of date. China’s rapid expansion of strategic warfighting capabilities (i.e., nuclear forces, space/counterspace systems, and cyber/information operations) represents tremendous discontinuity in the pace, scope, and scale of the PLA’s transformation, necessitating a major US reassessment of Chinese strategy, doctrine, and warfighting operations. The commonly accepted notion that deliberate Chinese nuclear force modernization is characterized as “running faster to stay in the same place” to sustain a minimal retaliatory posture is assessed to have evolved. China now has a higher likelihood of using its newfound nuclear power to more actively deter or compel6 its opponents and safeguard its core interests. This includes perceived external threats that could negatively impact domestic political interests. As a step in this reassessment, this project reevaluated China’s strategy, doctrine, and warfighting concepts in light of its ongoing rapid transformation into a peer nuclear power, examined implications of this assessment for future US contingencies in the Indo-Pacific region, and produced several actionable findings and recommendations for US government decision-makers that can be addressed in the next five- to ten-year horizon.
Topic:
Defense Policy, National Security, Nuclear Weapons, Conflict, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

329. Competing for the Global South: Asia and the Quest for Leadership in a Multipolar World

Author:
Filippo Fasulo and Nicola Missaglia
Publication Date:
11-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
As the world transitions into a multipolar era, an increasing number of nations are challenging Western dominance and reshaping the global order. Central to this shift is the rise of the Global South, led by Asia’s powerhouses - India and China. These two nations, each offering distinct governance, development, and security models, are in a growing competition for influence. Countries across the Global South are advocating for a more equitable international system, demanding debt restructuring, climate action, and solutions to emerging security challenges. What strategies will India and China propose to address these demands? And how will their rivalry shape the future of the Global South as a unified force on the world stage?
Topic:
Leadership, Global South, Multipolarity, International System, and Geoeconomics
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

330. The Rise of Fragmentation. A New Economic Security Era?

Author:
Alessandro Gili and Filippo Fasulo
Publication Date:
09-2024
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
Abstract:
Multiple crises have shaken the foundations of the global economy, and the resulting instability has yet to recover. Instead, it has led to increasing fragmentation along political and ideological lines. The current geoeconomic order is increasingly defined by the use of advanced trade defense and economic security tools, such as tariffs, trade barriers, sanctions, and export restrictions, which have become more sophisticated. Major economies are adapting to this new reality by shaping their own definitions of economic security, particularly to safeguard critical and high-tech sectors. The EU, the US, and China are each calibrating their economic security strategies, seeking a balance between openness and protection that maximizes their respective advantages. However, in this shifting international landscape, new actors are emerging with the potential to influence the global balance of power. What type of "new globalization" is emerging? Could economic security tools become the new normal in the global economy? What are the key economic security strategies adopted by the world's leading economies?
Topic:
European Union, Economy, Ideology, Tariffs, Trade, Economic Security, Instability, Fragmentation, and Geoeconomics
Political Geography:
China, Europe, and United States of America