Chinese businesspeople have found it hard to expand in the West, since many countries have enacted strict rules regarding Chinese investment. Manufacturers have had to move parts of their supply chains outside the country if they want to retain Western clients working to reduce their exposure to China. Many Chinese workers have lost their jobs as a result.
Chinese tech companies are facing significant scrutiny. Citing national security concerns, the U.S. government is pushing ByteDance, the Chinese internet company, to sell TikTok, its popular short-video app, or face a ban in the country. The U.S. has already banned its use on government devices, as have Canada, Britain and EU nations. TikTok’s chief executive, Shou Zi Chew, is scheduled to testify in Congress today.
Feng Yujun, a professor and a top Russia expert at Fudan University in Shanghai, argued in a speech in December that China has paid too much, economically and politically, for its ties with Russia, according to a transcript of his speech.
“We not only need to maintain a long-term friendly cooperative relationship with Russia but also need to maintain a constructive partnership with the United States, because our relationship with the U.S. will determine China’s overall international environment in the future,” he said.
Mr. Xi has rapidly been changing the direction Mr. Deng laid out. He did not follow the former leader’s guidance that China bide its time and hide its capabilities while developing itself. Instead, Mr. Xi bragged about China’s tech power when nearly all of it was built atop Western technologies.
He also has turned China’s cooperative diplomats into confrontational warriors on the international stage. Under him, the Chinese government has repeatedly tried to used its economic weight to coerce any company or any government that dared to criticize it.
Mr. Deng was once asked why China attached such importance to its relationship with the United States. He replied, “Looking back over the past few decades, every country that has had good relations with the U.S. has become prosperous,” according to a memoir by a top expert on the United States, Li Shenzhi, a well-known liberal intellectual.
Li Yuan
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