This piece originally appeared in Lawfare. Foreign Powers Buy Influence at Think Tanks - New York Times Application Deadline: December 1, 2021. Nonetheless, at least one U.S. university, Georgias Wesleyan College, signed on with CIEF for the duration of its current CI agreement, although others in the U.S. and Europe are proceeding with announced closures. Will Chinas economic slowdown reduce its financing for development elsewhere and otherwise limit development opportunities for its partners? The Biden administration should lift, or provide necessary waivers of, federal funding restrictions on universities that demonstrate appropriate academic freedom and institutional safeguards around their CIs, which are no longer directly funded by the Chinese government. Its mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to provide innovative, practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy, foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans, secure a more open . What are Americas most fundamental interests in its relationship with China and what are desirable but secondary interests with China? U.S. export controls on chip design software and foundry machine tools have also crippled Huaweis HiSilicon, effectively curbing its only potential rival to U.S. advanced chips. 2021/39 "The Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asia after COVID-19 Lindsey W. Ford, Tarun Chhabra, and Ryan Hass, A conversation on the US approach to the Peoples Republic of China with Deputy Secretary of State Wendy R. Sherman, Global China: US-China relations through the lens of technology competition, Global China: US-China relations through the lens of great power competition, Global China: Assessing Chinas growing role in the world, Global China: Assessing Beijings growing influence in the international system, Global China: Examining Chinas approach to global governance and norms, Global China Webinar: Assessing Chinas growing regional influence and strategy, Webinar: Global China Assessing Chinas technological reach in the world, Global China: Assessing Chinas relations with the great powers, Global China: Assessing Chinas role in East Asia, Global China: Assessing Chinas growing role in the world and implications for U.S.-China strategic competition, Chinas choices and the fate of the post-post-Cold War era, Ukraine presents opportunity to test Chinas strategic outlook, Around the halls: Implications of Russias invasion of Ukraine, Pavel K. Baev, Jessica Brandt, Vanda Felbab-Brown, Jeremy Greenwood, Samantha Gross, Daniel S. Hamilton, Bruce Jones, Marvin Kalb, Patricia M. Kim, Suzanne Maloney, Amy J. Nelson, Thomas Pickering, Bruce Riedel, Natan Sachs, Constanze Stelzenmller, Caitlin Talmadge, Shibley Telhami, David G. Victor, and Andrew Yeo, Learning the right lessons from Ukraine for Taiwan, Ryan Hass, Patricia M. Kim, Emilie Kimball, Jessica Brandt, David Dollar, Cameron F. Kerry, Aaron Klein, Joshua P. Meltzer, Chris Meserole, Amy J. Nelson, Pavneet Singh, Melanie W. Sisson, and Thomas Wright, Global China: Assessing Chinas Growing Role in the World, Edited by Tarun Chhabra, Rush Doshi, Ryan Hass, and Emilie Kimball, Balancing act: Major powers and the global response to US-China great power competition, Fiona Hill, Tanvi Madan, Amanda Sloat, Mireya Sols, Constanze Stelzenmller, Bruce Jones, Emilie Kimball, Jesse I. Kornbluth, and Ted Reinert, Playing with fire: Italy, China, and Europe, Charts of the Week: Chinas rising economic and military spending, Rethinking US-China competition: Next generation perspectives, Tarun Chhabra, Rush Doshi, Ryan Hass, Mira Rapp-Hooper, Bruce Jones, and Will Moreland. Furthermore, in August 2021, the U.S. Senate passed major bi-partisan legislation for American competitiveness against rising China, which included $10 billion in funding to establish regional. Although democratic countries have started to push back, with rising calls for greater AI investment and the development of robust AI principles, China nonetheless threatens to outpace the U.S. and its allies in AI research and standards-setting. Echidna Global Scholars Program 2022 at Brookings Institution Brookings - Quality. Independence. Impact. - Brookings Institution By developing state-of-the-art capabilities in AI, China seeks to achieve strategic advantage over the U.S. and its allies. In the strategic competition with China, U.S. alliances and partnerships in Europe and the Indo-Pacific play an important role in enhancing American power. By then, the U.S. government had mostly blocked Huawei from the U.S. market, and in a damning October 2012 report, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee called the company a national security threat amidst allegations it had stolen sensitive information from American companies. For U.S. policymakers, understanding the end-state of Chinas technology transfer system is critical to crafting effective policy. The verdict likely will need to be viewed on a case-by-case basis. What steps can it take in coordination with allies to increase the probability of maintaining Chinas dependence on imports of AI chips? Her expertise is in Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations and China's relations with neighboring countries and authoritarian regimes. To meet this challenge, the U.S. government should increase funding for Mandarin language and China studies courses, but also stop forcing cash-strapped universities to choose between federal funding and properly managed CI programs. The federal government and Congress should work to protect our national security in a manner that does not impinge on the academic freedom or institutional autonomy they also seek to protect. But in terms of issues that could grow directly out of the U.S.-China relationship, and that both sides take seriously enough to make the prospect of high-end warfare credible, the Taiwan issue stands out. China aspires to global technology leadership. Our mission is to conduct in-depth research that leads to new ideas for solving problems facing society . How does current U.S. policy respond to Chinese influence and strategy in the region? Powering a Clean Energy Future. West didnt respond to multiple requests for comment. MOE replaced Hanban with a new agency to manage overseas language and culture exchanges, the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC). Can the U.S. and China work together integrating renewable energy and electrifying end uses of energy? Analysis / Bias Brookings Institution is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization funded through donations. At larger universities with separate Chinese language departments teaching for-credit courses, CIs typically focus on language teacher training, K-12 language classes and community language and cultural outreach. Taiwan Funding of Think Tanks: Omnipresent and Rarely Disclosed Are there lessons from the history of U.S.-China relations that could inform Americas approach toward China going forward? It should disaggregate legitimate national security concerns, including Chinese espionage and technology theft, from academic freedom issues that are best left to our universities. Online. To what extent do China, the United States, or the region see the regions relationships with China and the U.S. as zero-sum both in terms of economic and security relationships? Broadly, can the U.S. and China find a way to cooperate on energy and climate issues amidst their strained relationship? On April 27, The Hamilton Project and the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will convene leaders and experts to examine the future of clean energy innovation and deployment. CI partnerships also became embroiled in a Department of Education (DOE) initiative to enforce a foreign gift reporting requirement. Local news, weather, sports, events, restaurants and more, Huaweis surprising ties to the Brookings Institution, Sign up for a weekly roundup of thought-provoking ideas and debates, Commanders draft class fills several needs, features plenty of value, From World Series hero to MLBs worst, Patrick Corbin keeps taking the ball, Commanders draft Illinois DB Quan Martin, Arkansas C Ricky Stromberg. U.S.-based China and Taiwan-oriented groups also offer various Chinese education, culture and teacher training courses, as well as teaching of Chinese dialects and traditional Chinese characters still used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Beyond WeChat, China is now home to many of the worlds leading fintech companies, including Ant Financial and JD Finance, among others. Tanks and Think Tanks: How Taiwanese Cash is Funding the Push to War Given this reorganization and CIUSs role, the State Department might revisit its foreign mission designation. However, despite successes in fintech and smart cities, China continues to struggle to innovate in key areas, particularly advanced computer chips and the expensive machines that make them. Some questions this group will explore include: China is increasingly using diplomatic and economic tools to challenge the terms of global order and governance; how should the United States and others respond? Chinese leadership appears to have recognized the potential constraints early on and has worked to adapt the Chinese system to combine the innovative aspects of capitalism with more rigid, traditional socialist features. It should also increase Mandarin language and China studies funding under other critical language programs, and re-authorize the Fulbright program with China, including language awards, that were terminated in July 2020. Germanys China dilemma takes on a new urgency, Chinas shrinking population and constraints on its future power, April 2023 update to TIGER: A perilous moment rife with risks, USMCA Forward 2023 Chapter 2: Imports from Asia, Power play: How the US benefits if China greens the Global South, The United States, China, and the new non-aligned countries, China and India: The future of the global consumer market. What are the opportunities and challenges that a networked Indo-Pacific presents for U.S. national strategy: from the skillful management of the security minilaterals, to the perennial search for rebalancing U.S. regional strategy with a compelling program of economic engagement? Devising effective policy prescriptions will require new thinking about how the United States should navigate its relationship with China. This number includes at least seven CIs that are scheduled to close in 2021. In essence, Chinese technological innovation is a system of re-innovation, or zaichuangxin; it does not mirror other global paradigms. At stake are core democratic values that underpin free and open societies. There also is deep interdependence between the United States and China across a range of issues. The consequences of U.S.-China competition over AI and emerging technology extend far beyond the digital domain. It was initially seen as a Democrat think-tank, but it has progressively moved to the right -- while simultaneously being more ecumenical in its choice of scholars. Despite a bipartisan congressional finding announced in February 2019 of no evidence that these institutes are a center for Chinese espionage efforts or any other illegal activity, the 2021 NDAA broadens the restriction to funding for any program at universities that host CIs. employees 565 2021 Technology is a huge component of this rivalry, particularly as both China and the United States push to set the standards in key emerging technology fields like 5G, quantum computing, and more. AAUP recommended that universities cease involvement with CIs, which it characterized as as an arm of the Chinese state, unless their agreements are transparent to the university community, afford them control over all academic matters and grant CI teachers the same rights enjoyed by other faculty. (Huawei contributed between $100,000 and $249,000 to Brookings from July 2012 to June 2013.). U.S. policymakers have increasingly done away with the largely debunked notion that non-free market countries cannot innovate. These technologies include heavy-duty gas turbines, high-pressure piston pumps, steel for high-end bearings, photolithography machines, core industrial software, and more. However, the legal, illegal, and extralegal appropriation of foreign technologies and products is only one part of the story. Taken together, the growing success of Chinese universities and companies discredits the idea that only democracies are amenable to innovation. Without understanding this, the United States will struggle to craft effective policies and get ahead in the U.S.-China tech competition. A 2019 report from Chinas National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) even attempts to differentiate Chinese smart cities from foreign ones; the latter focus on the management of things, while the Chinese version focuses on people. In 2006, the Brookings-Tsinghua Center (BTC) for Public Policy was established in Beijing, China, as a partnership between Brookings Institution in Washington, DC and Tsinghua University's School of Public Policy and Management in Beijing, China. Formerly a professor at Brown University, West has written 19 books, according to his LinkedIn page, and is a respected commentator on issues involving technology policy, privacy and security. Universities should, of course, continue to be vigilant against the potential for unwelcome influence including implicit pressure on faculty to self-censor, as well as to ensure compliance with the Department of Educations foreign gift and other reporting requirements, and visa rules for CI exchange visitors. In short, China has demonstrated its capacity to indigenously innovate, but this capacity has not yet proliferated across all key sectors. In 2014, the scholars John Delury and Orville Schell opined that the Chinese party-state had continued to shock the world with its ability to change course and prevail, despite its rigidities and constraints. Fortunately, there are steps that the United States, working in partnership with other democratic governments, can take to safeguard democracy and liberal values in an age of AI. It was approved by the Myanmar government in January 2018. Brookings Institution - Media Bias/Fact Check Aside from financial instability arising in the two big economies, there are various external shocks that buffet countries or regions. [2] This project is a 135MW gas to power plant by Sinohydro (a brand of Power Construction Corporation of China) and Supreme Trading. Methane is a short-lived, but very potent greenhouse gas. West joined Brookings in 2008. It also aims to leverage new forms of AI-enabled surveillance and repression in ways that strengthen its illiberal model of governanceboth within China and around the world. RYAN HASS is Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. Beijing's 're-innovation' strategy is key element of - Brookings Yi Gang, then deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, speaks at a 2016 event held by the Brookings Institution in Washington about China and the world economy. Brookings Institution | History, Research, & Influence | Britannica It is modernizing its forces with a range of advanced technologies while preparing a nuclear weapons buildup that could make it a near-peer of the United States by the nuclear metric within a decade or so. These include: What approach can the U.S. pursue across strategic domains to integrate economic, military, and diplomatic measures to avoid conflict with China? What actions can the United States take to allow for China and other developing countries to have greater say in these institutions? The transportation and industrial sectors are important to both countries and ideally the U.S. and China can work together on technology development and implementation to electrify and decarbonize these two difficult sectors. The Week of April 24, 2023 | American Institute of Physics After being added to the U.S. Department of Commerces Entity List in 2020, Chinas most advanced chip foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), has struggled to meet its goals. In a 2014 report on CI partnerships, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) argued that allowing third-party control of academic matters compromises academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Looking to the longer term, there is a need for more development finance to support infrastructure and other public services. Indeed, whether by theft or forced transfer, the acquisition of foreign intellectual property has served as a key component of Chinas technological forward march. Who funds the new Brookings? - Washington Post But so has a decline of American student interest in China studies and learning Mandarin Chinese. CNAS recommended "higher degrees of transparency" to help "ensure that this funding is not generating hidden forms of foreign lobbying . It should also consider authorizing the Confucius Institute U.S. Center (CIUS) to serve as a visa sponsor to assist Chinese teachers and staff of CIs obtain the proper visas, as well as enable CIUS to serve as a clearinghouse for information on such PRC personnel for relevant U.S. government agencies. Boards of directors composed of university officials and faculty from each side exercise general oversight. The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. On April 11, Tanvi Madan joined Global Georgetown for the discussion, Assessing Chinas Influence in South Asia.. The program aims to build the research and analytical skills of NGO leaders and academics who have substantial experience and ties to developing countries. In turn, Brookings Institute staff like Richard C. Bush (a former member of the National Intelligence Council and a U.S. national intelligence officer for East Asia) vociferously champion the . Can the U.S. and China manage their relationship in a way that allows for collaboration on climate and energy challenges? Tomorrows tech policy conversations today. Although recent estimates suggest that China is still behind the United States in terms of quality of its universities, Chinas significant progress over the last two decades should not be discounted. The Declaration also contains references to softer issues, like deforestation and societal benefits of decarbonization, along with technological issues like the circular economy and carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration. According to the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), these programs led to the creation of the worlds first light quantum telephone network and advances in low-cost solar batteries. Passed in August 2018, the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) prohibited the Pentagon from financing Chinese language programs at universities that host a CI, absent Department of Defense waivers, which have not been granted. These closings and the attendant inflammatory rhetoric exacerbate a national foreign language deficit at a time when training Mandarin speakers familiar with an ever more consequential China should be a national priority. Isaac Stone Fish: Why are U.S. companies working for a Chinese firm thats implicated in ethnic cleansing? Highlight the major dimensions of Chinese influence within key global (and powerful regional) frameworks and institutions, and their strategies for achieving it; and parse the distinction between those areas where increased Chinese influence is injurious to U.S. interests and Western values, those where it is not consequential, and those where it is constructive; Examine Chinas strategies in those global fora that are seeking to develop frameworks for the global governance of under-regulated domains, especially technology (in conversation with the working group on tech) and space; Propose U.S. and Western strategies for response. The Indo-Pacific Quad, which includes the United States, Australia, India, and Japan is increasingly an important forum for American policy in the region. A few examples: Brookings . The Indo-Pacific is evolving in one more fundamental way: the rewiring of the lines of security and economic cooperation. Assessments of innovative capacity by regime type, while interesting in theory, have not held up in practice. What are the implications of Chinas economic expansion and what can the U.S. and others do to set and promote global norms and standards? The Biden administration has the opportunity to reassess the concerns, evidence and U.S. actions taken with respect to the remaining Confucius Institutes and Classrooms. In addition, some universities still have difficulty finding qualified Mandarin teachers, especially at the K-12 level, to satisfy remaining demand. What is the proper balance between working to create external incentives and disincentives that move China in Americas preferred directions, and dealing directly with China to influence how they define and pursue their interests? It wasnt long ago that many U.S. government officials and China experts still clung to the idea that Chinese innovation was mostly based on copying U.S. methods and technology. Deterring a cross-Strait conflict: Beijings assessment of evolving US strategy. At least three U.S. universities with CIs have hosted the Dalai Lama, although a CI director warned another universitys provost that re-scheduling a cancelled visit by the Dalai Lama could disrupt relationships with China, leading the provost to observe that a CI does present opportunities for subtle pressure and conflict. Most CIs do limit their scope to language and traditional culture, leaving political and other topics to other university contexts. From 2018-2020, the Brookings Global China project produced one of the largest open source diagnostic assessments of Chinas actions in every major geographic and functional domain. Each year they provide a transparent annual report regarding finances and funding. Reports - Brookings What would the impacts be at home and abroad? Other military contingencies involving China, for example those in the so-called gray zone, are worrisome too, ranging from the South China Sea to the East China Sea. Nor can the possibility of direct U.S.-China conflict be dismissed should there be another Korean War. How does direct diplomacy with China impact Americas ability to create favorable external conditions for influencing Chinas choices, and vice versa? In 2009, the 973 Program supported 123 new scientific programs and 424 ongoing projects. This working group will first seek to define Chinas role in these three regions and highlight the factors that determine its influence. The success of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy will hinge on the administrations ability to work with Asian counterparts. Beijing will want to visibly register its displeasure, lest its leaders be accused at home of tolerating Taiwan's efforts to move further away from China. Indeed, the connections between the Chinese party-state, state-owned companies and banks, and technology firms gives China an unrivaled ability to provide what experts refer to as the complete value package, presenting non-Chinese companies with few options when it comes to competing. The report said the Johns Hopkins School of Advance International Studies, a major foreign policy education and analysis institute, has received funding from Tung Chee-hwa, a vice chairman of. The relationship is tilted toward long-term systemic rivalry, but it is not an exclusively rivalrous relationship. Government backing and incentives for research have enhanced Chinas innovation potential. The Center is a unique institution dedicated to helping advance China's legal reforms, improving U.S.-China relations, and increasing understanding of China in the United States. The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China's intelligence and spy recruitment. What are the kinds of improved deterrent strategies and warfighting strategies for the United States and allies that would mitigate these risksto include different U.S. defense postures in the region, improved innovation and modernization strategies for the American armed forces, and a better-developed concept of integrated deterrence as that incipient concept is now being discussed at the Pentagon and beyond? Although Japanese and South Korean firms also sit within the top ten holders of smart city patents, State Grid Corporations 7,156 patents in November 2020 was more than double second-ranked Samsungs mere 3,148 patents. China Center Releases New Report on U.S.- China Policy with Brookings China has emerged as a truly global actor, impacting every region and every major issue area. These entities include Huawei, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the State Grid Corporation, which holds the number one spot. Moreover, after the Hanban reorganization in June 2020, CIUS is no longer directly supported by Chinas MOE, nor has it received any funding from CLEC or CIEF and must look to fundraising from Chinese and U.S. universities and other sources. China is running out of productive places to invest in infrastructure, and rising debt levels will further complicate its growth path. Chinese smart cities provide another example of Chinas ability to derive something innovative from pre-existing technologies. Large government-sponsored initiatives like the National Basic Research Program (973 Program) launched in 1997, the National High-Tech R&D Program (863 Program) established in 1986, and others have helped to funnel finances and resources to Chinese scientists and entrepreneurs and streamline the innovation process. China is the largest official bilateral creditor to the developing world, mainly via infrastructure loans at commercial interest rates in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). To be sure, some private U.S. NGOs offer Mandarin learning, including an Asia Society program with 35,000 students studying Chinese in 100 K-12 schools around the country that are linked with sister schools in China. Chinese capabilities and ambitions have grown substantially to become the second largest economy in the world, largest trading partner for all regional economies, and a formidable military power with sizable and non-transparent defense expenditures. Brookings - Quality. Independence. Impact. This working group will examine the impact of Chinas relations with Russia, India, and Europe on Sino-American relations and the U.S. response. China, East Asia [email protected] (202) 478-3434 Yun Sun is a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. What steps can be taken to prevent escalation to general war or nuclear war if a U.S.-China conflict over Taiwan begins? Multiple factors, including dimmer China-related job prospects, as well as pollution and academic and lifestyle concerns relating to study within the PRC, explain this trend. These findings will help shape discourse on the tools available to the United States and its partners to address Chinese behaviors of concern. What initially began as a strategy to import and copy the technology and innovations of other nations has changed to reflect Chinas growing ability to take foreign ideas and concepts and mold them with respect to Chinas domestic requirements. How state and local leaders can harness new infrastructure funding to build a stronger, more . Chinas recent advancements in AI and related technology have raised concerns in Washington and elsewhere. Beijings re-innovation strategy is key element of U.S.-China competition, effectively curbing its only potential rival. What are the policy implications for the United States overall economic competitiveness and its national security? Regardless of the skepticism that it could do so, China has demonstrated its capacity to innovate and compete technologically on a global scale.