The essay below brings that argument directly into the present. Looking at the 2026 Iran war, Yan asks why conflict broke out when it did, given that geography, regime differences and the US-Israeli military advantage had existed for years. His answer focuses on what changed: the choices of political leaders, above all Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.

The op-ed, published by Al Jazeera in Arabic on August 19, 2026, applies his theory to the war and the future of Gulf security. Yan kindly provided me with the English-language version reproduced below.

Yan is a university distinguished professor at Tsinghua University and Honorary Dean of its Institute of International Relations.

Yan Xuetong: Leaders, Not Geopolitics or Institutions, Shape Gulf Security

Since the outbreak of war between Iran and the US-Israeli coalition on February 28, 2026, the media and the public have increasingly viewed the conflict through the lens of policymakers — one defined by the individual ambitions and strategic preferences of US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This phenomenon goes beyond mere journalistic fascination; it suggests that “moral realism” —a theoretical framework prioritizing leadership and political preferences over cold geopolitics— aligns far better with objective reality than traditional international relations theories do.

To understand why, one must examine the shortcomings of prevailing theories. For decades, geopolitical theories attributed the current Gulf war to the fact that the Strait of Hormuz controls between 20% and 30% of global oil supplies. Institutional liberalism argues that the war stemmed from the clash between Western democracies and Iran’s Islamic autocracy. Meanwhile. Structural realism suggests that the overwhelming military superiority of the United States and Israel would dictate the terms of peace and the war’s outcome. Yet, all these theoretical models fail to explain the reluctance of Washington and Tel Aviv to engage in an all-out war with Tehran throughout the entire post-Cold War era — right up until the dawn of Trump’s second term. Throughout those decades, hostility remained a constant, oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz stayed massive, political regimes remained unchanged, and US-Israeli military superiority held firm. In other words, geopolitical conditions, political systems, and military disparities were fixed constants rather than variables. Thus, these theories fail to explain the catastrophic shift in the Gulf.

Moral Realism, however, posits that leaders or policymakers are the ultimate independent variables driving international changes. This war was not an inevitability imposed by any structural factors such as geopolitics, political system or military balance; rather, it erupted because the Trump administration broke with decades of American tradition and embraced Netanyahu’s long-standing proposal to launch a military strike against Iran. Former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry had previously confirmed that successive US administrations explicitly rejected Netanyahu’s demands. Driven by an unbridled and unprecedented political ambition to become the “greatest American president,” Trump disregarded the caution of his predecessors — a course that culminated in the military strikes of 2025 and 2026.

The current trajectory of the war underscores the validity of the moral realism framework while exposing the flaws in competing theories. Regarding the failure of the institutional liberalism: shared democratic values ​​failed to rally the West; indeed, many European nations openly voiced their opposition to the Washington-Tel Aviv axis. Conversely, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states that support the United States share no democratic roots with it. As for the failure of the structural realism, overwhelming military superiority proved unable to curb Iran’s regional influence. On the contrary, one could argue that the conflict actually bolstered Tehran’s strategic regional standing. Furthermore, America’s allies of the GCC neither conferred the US with moral legitimacy nor efficiency of tactical breakthrough; instead, they rendered these nations prime targets for Iranian retaliation. From the perspective of moral realism, both the Trump and Netanyahu administrations suffer from violations of international ethical principles. Amidst the catastrophic humanitarian fallout in Gaza and reputations tarnished by a legacy of broken promises, neither administration possesses the strategic credit required to rally Western allies or achieve the goal of overthrowing the Iranian government.

Consequently, it is the individual leaders of the nations involved —rather than abstract balances of power— that will shape the regional security for the rest of Trump’s current term. As long as the Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei refuses to yield to U.S. strikes and Trump is unwilling to admit failure, the risk of a cycle of mutual attacks between the US and Iran will be inevitable. The security of each Gulf state will depend primarily on the policies adopted by its own decision-makers. The United Arab Emirates will remain vulnerable to Iranian military attacks due to its leaders’ close military cooperation with both Trump and Netanyahu. In contrast, Saudi Arabia faces a lower risk, thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s astute shift toward establishing strategic security partnerships with both Pakistan and Turkey, thereby deliberately reducing Riyadh’s reliance on Washington’s security protection. Under the rule of Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, Oman will face the lowest risk of war, having negotiated a bilateral understanding with Tehran in regard to the management of the Strait of Hormuz. For the rest GCC members, their risk of war will be determined by their leaders’ decision on their security relations with Trump. Those distancing with the White House will find themselves more secure than those who align closely with it.

Ultimately, a state’s security is mainly determined by the strategic choices made by its national leaders rather than impersonal structural factors. By examining Gulf security through the lens of moral realism, we can foresee the regional security situation within Trump’s second term. (Enditem)

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The East is Read

Yan Xuetong says policy makers should be placed at the center of theoretical analysis in international relations

The following article was a revised version of the one published in the Chinese-language Quarterly Journal of International Politics, Issue 3, 2025. The author, Yan Xuetong, is Honorary President of the Institute of International Relations, Tsinghua University, and serves as an Academic Advisor to…

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a year ago · 22 likes · 3 comments · Yuxuan JIA and Zhao Huiyi

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That background makes the following conversation particularly interesting. Guo is not simply commenting on one product line. He has worked across R&D, supply chains, devices, corporate management, and Huawei’s top leadership, and in this newly-published lengthy discussion with newly recruited employees he offers something close to a tour of Huawei’s current strategic thinking.

Several passages stand out. Guo says Huawei has no plans for broad business expansion and will remain focused on connectivity and computing. In ICT and computing, he says Huawei’s ambition is to “become Nvidia”: its competitive advantage should not depend on possessing the best proprietary large language model, but on allowing virtually any model to run efficiently on Ascend, Kunpeng, SuperPoDs and Huawei clusters. By contrast, he argues that Huawei’s device, intelligent-driving, and cloud businesses do need competitive models of their own.

He is also unusually explicit about Huawei’s weaknesses. China, he says, remains relatively behind in compute, while Huawei itself continues to face constraints in advanced semiconductor manufacturing. His answer is not to deny those disadvantages but to argue that Huawei can compensate through system architecture, closer integration of design and manufacturing, clusters, SuperPoDs, and what Huawei calls the Tao (τ) Law, which seeks to substitute “time scaling” for conventional geometric scaling. He even says that the upcoming Ascend 950 series could narrow the gap with competitors despite process limitations.

Just as revealing is the way Huawei’s leadership is thinking about AI inside the company. Guo divides the future workforce, somewhat starkly, between a small number of people who will “build AI” and the much larger number who will “use AI.” He argues that the scarce skill in the latter category may not be programming but the ability to define and formulate good questions — one reason, he says, that people trained in literature and philosophy may become increasingly valuable. He also describes AI as possibly “the last technological revolution of human society,” a working assumption that, in his telling, now justifies changes to Huawei’s organization, processes, talent system and management.

There are also passages likely to attract attention for reasons beyond technology. Guo describes Huawei as seeking a “third path” for a sanctioned company: neither disappearing into the “jungle” nor ending up “in prison,” but surviving and remaining competitive. His discussion of corporate responsibility is strikingly Friedmanite.

Milton Friedman famously declared in 1970 that “the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” Guo does not speak in quite the same language of shareholder value, but the family resemblance is hard to miss: he argues that “business is the greatest form of charity,” that commercial success is itself a company’s greatest social responsibility, and that Huawei best serves society by remaining competitive, creating value for customers, employing and paying people lawfully, and paying its taxes. He makes the contrast, within the realm of corporate social responsibility, especially blunt by calling for Huawei to reject what he terms baizuo — literally “white left” — thinking, a pejorative Chinese internet expression generally directed at Western progressivism .

The following summary was published on September 10, 2026, in Xinsheng Community (心声社区, literally “Community of Voices”), Huawei’s employee communication platform. Launched in 2008, Xinsheng was designed as an internal forum where employees could discuss company policies, technology, management and their own experiences. Huawei itself has described it as a “Roman Forum” for the company. According to Huawei’s 2023 annual report, the platform was receiving around 110,000 visits a day that year, including roughly 90,000 from Huawei employees and 20,000 from outside visitors. Some of its content, including senior executives’ speeches, interviews and internal discussions, is made publicly accessible.

The platform occupies an unusual place in Huawei’s corporate culture. Ren Zhengfei, its founder, has described it as a venue for open internal criticism and debate, part of what he sees as the company’s mechanism for correcting its own mistakes. In 2019, amid intense international scrutiny of Huawei, Ren even told reporters that if they genuinely wanted to understand the company, they should read Xinsheng Community.

满怀热爱，积极作为，在智能时代贡献价值——监事会主席郭平与新员工座谈纪要

Stay Passionate, Take Initiative, and Create Value in the Intelligent Age ——Summary of Huawei Supervisory Board Chairman Guo Ping’s Discussion with New Employees

2026-09-10

Good afternoon, everyone.

I believe I was the first fresh university graduate to join Huawei. I joined the company knowing very little, but as I worked I kept seeing more and more opportunities, so I stayed, all the way until today. I am very glad to have witnessed Huawei grow from just a handful of people into the company it is now. I have also been fortunate that, as the company grew, I was given many opportunities to develop myself.

We are now living through what our country calls “changes unseen in a century.” Artificial intelligence is sweeping across the world and will undoubtedly reshape every industry. You are joining Huawei at precisely this juncture. That represents an opportunity for you, and it is also an opportunity for Huawei.

I hope that on Huawei’s broad platform, you will create extraordinary value for yourselves, for the company, and for society.

Q&A

01

Go Deep in Our Areas of Focus and Create Greater Value

Q: Over the past few days of orientation, we learned that the company’s revenue has recovered to its historical peak level. Will the company adjust its business strategy in light of the current situation?

Guo Ping: In March 2021, Huawei released its annual report showing revenue of more than 890 billion yuan in 2020, an all-time high. In the years that followed, confronted with extreme external pressure and sanctions, we fought tenaciously to survive under very difficult circumstances while maintaining business continuity and competitiveness.

Looking ahead, Huawei’s core strategy is focus. We will continue going deep in the areas we are good at — connectivity and computing. We have no plans to expand into additional businesses.

We hope to achieve better performance, provide digital infrastructure solutions to customers around the world, provide diverse options for the development of artificial intelligence, and contribute to the rise of China’s electronics industry.

That is our vision for the future: go deeper in the fields we have chosen and create greater value.

Q: After suffering major blows including sanctions, Huawei has returned to a trajectory of rapid growth. But the external environment remains extremely uncertain. If Huawei faces further suppression in the future, will it be better able to cope with it?

Guo Ping: That is quite a philosophical question.

First of all, we have been living under pressure for a long time. That is an established fact, not a hypothetical scenario.

You need not worry too much. What can truly prevent Huawei from developing is not the external environment, but our own internal capabilities.

China has a dynamic market and demand generated by a population of 1.4 billion. That is sufficient to sustain Huawei’s survival, although of course Huawei does not develop only within China.

What concerns us is whether we remain competitive relative to our domestic and international competitors: whether we can provide competitive products and services and create value for customers.

I would not encourage you to pay excessive attention to grand narratives. Focus more on the work in front of you. Do your own job well. As your experience and understanding grow, you will naturally accumulate more experience in solving problems.

Q: With supply-chain costs rising, how should Huawei adjust pricing strategies across different parts of the supply chain? And could Huawei’s smartphone sales eventually surpass Apple’s?

Guo Ping: Apple’s CEO is a master of supply-chain management in our industry and someone from whom we should learn. I myself once ran Huawei’s supply chain.

Given the constraints Huawei currently faces on the supply side, maintaining supply is our bottom line. We need to do an even better job managing what IBM taught us about the on-time kitting rate and procurement lead times, accelerate turnover, reduce inventories, and make sure no link in the supply chain breaks.

Huawei does not make surpassing any particular company its development objective. We focus on doing our own job well.

The global market, including the device market, can accommodate many companies and many kinds of products. Huawei is committed to increasing the core value of its products, giving consumers an experience worth what they pay, and becoming a brand that consumers love and trust.

Production volume and market rankings are not goals we deliberately pursue. They are natural consequences of having competitive products.

In supply chains, we need to keep learning humbly from Apple, including the competitiveness, flexibility and resilience of its supply chain.

We and our suppliers are mutually dependent partners. When things are at a peak, if you take other people’s feelings and interests into consideration, then when things are at a trough, others will also be more willing to take your circumstances into consideration.

Q: I interned at Huawei’s Guangdong representative office last year. My impression was that competition in the carrier market has become more difficult than in previous years. From the perspective of senior management, how do you see the future development of the carrier business? And in what form, and when, will the 6G era arrive?

Guo Ping: Of all Huawei’s businesses, the carrier business is the one in which we are most globally competitive, and it has the highest input-output efficiency.

But the carrier business also faces unique challenges.

Rules governing spectrum resources are determined by the ITU, the International Telecommunication Union, while wireless and other technical standards are developed by organizations such as 3GPP.

Simply following established standards and remaining competitive within them is only the most basic level.

Huawei entered the market as a latecomer by being better, faster, more efficient and more economical, and in this way gained market share. We then gradually became an important contributor to industry standards.

Looking forward, Huawei wants to contribute to exploration that goes from zero to one, while also using our strong execution capabilities to continue delivering better, faster and more economical solutions.

Of course, market development is influenced not only by technology, but also by geopolitics, security, influence, control and other considerations. So in addition to technological implementation, Huawei must pay attention to standard-setting, the structure of the market and the advantages that come from leadership.

The evolution of wireless standards is a continuous process.

Huawei hopes to promote a single unified global standard and to continue being an important contributor to that standard, an implementer of it, and a participant that succeeds commercially within it.

Q: Huawei has sold a cumulative 20% stake in Yinwang 引望. Will Huawei reduce its management of Yinwang in the future? How do you see the future relationship and forms of cooperation between Yinwang and Huawei?

Guo Ping: Yinwang is a company controlled by Huawei that has established capital ties with a number of partners. The intelligent automotive components business provided by Yinwang is an extension of Huawei’s ICT business.

Huawei has businesses involving intelligent agents that benefit from data-flywheel dynamics. The most prominent examples at present are smartphones and intelligent driving.

AI agents need the support of a data flywheel.

In the telecom-carrier business, the network belongs to the carrier and Huawei assists the carrier in achieving autonomous network operations.

In intelligent vehicles, however, Huawei provides intelligent-driving services directly through Yinwang.

For quite a long period of time, I expect Huawei will continue to bear responsibility for leading Yinwang’s development.

Q: Does the Intelligent Automotive Solution 车 BU plan to expand overseas in the coming years? How should we prepare?

Guo Ping: Huawei’s intelligent automotive components business has been global from the very beginning. It has never been limited to China.

But automobiles are highly regional products and are particularly sensitive geopolitically. Intelligent vehicles in particular involve issues of data, security and privacy.

Huawei’s intelligent automotive components are a global business, but Huawei has chosen not to manufacture cars.

Whether an automaker chooses to sell only in China or to go global depends on the strategy of that automaker.

Q: With technology developing so rapidly, is the company making forward-looking investments in future markets in order to seize opportunities? Even if they cannot make money in the short term, would Huawei invest in areas in the way that Elon Musk explores outer space and Mars?

Guo Ping: Huawei’s vision is to realize customers’ dreams in the field of electronic information. That is our core pursuit.

Looking back, in the early 1990s China had a telephone penetration rate of only about 2%. Around 1995, a mobile phone — what people called a dageda 大哥大 — could cost 10,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan, while the average monthly salary of an urban employee was only a few hundred yuan.

Huawei has devoted itself to realizing users’ dreams in electronic information.

That may sound ordinary, but we have already achieved many breakthroughs. Communications that were once available only to a small number of people have become something enjoyed by the public around the world.

In connectivity, we serve not only China but the entire world, connecting people with people and people with things. Our business has expanded from simple telephone calls to supporting data, voice and video.

Those are the achievements we have made in the fields we selected.

Huawei has no plans to manufacture satellites or spacecraft. Those are not our businesses.

We intend to do the best possible job in our chosen areas of connectivity and computing and realize our customers’ dreams.

That is already a very great objective, and the market is more than large enough.

02

Play to Our Strengths and Avoid Our Weaknesses: Constant Change and Enduring Vitality in the AI Era

Q: How do you think the development of AI will improve the efficiency of employees in office work and R&D? Will it lead the company to adjust systems for recruitment, training and performance evaluation? And given that the company is making an all-out strategic shift toward AI, what advice do you have for new employees on integrating, growing and developing after joining Huawei?

Guo Ping: I believe all of you have noticed that the world’s leading companies are paying enormous attention to AI and actively putting it into practice.

We also regard making AI a reality as Huawei’s greatest opportunity.

At present, the core players in compute, talent and data are primarily in the United States and China. We believe Huawei can represent the highest level China has to offer and provide a robust alternative for China and for the world.

The second opportunity is that Huawei has businesses, including smartphones and intelligent driving, that operate through data-flywheel-driven technological iteration.

Using artificial intelligence to build world-class, globally competitive AI agents is an important opportunity for us.

As for employee behavior, I imagine many of you already experienced this while studying.

If humans compete with AI at solving problems or producing standard answers, humans will have difficulty winning.

But AI still does not possess the ability to proactively ask questions in the same way. How to formulate questions skillfully and how to keep asking follow-up questions are extremely challenging capabilities.

So after you join Huawei, employees’ patterns of behavior will change profoundly. Managers’ styles of management and our evaluation systems will change accordingly.

I have discussed this with university professors. In the future, perhaps a very small number of the most brilliant people in society will “build AI,” while the majority of people will “use AI.”

The scarcest capability when using artificial intelligence is not mastery of a particular programming skill. It is the ability to describe and formulate a problem precisely.

That is why people trained in literature and philosophy are increasingly valued.

Once you enter the workplace, you will directly confront the enormous transformation created by artificial intelligence — and this transformation has only just begun.

Q: The AI industry is booming, and the company has recruited a large number of AI specialists. But model training and inference remain concentrated in only a few departments, while traditional businesses such as ICT have less involvement. How can Huawei better combine AI talent with traditional industries so that such people create the greatest possible value?

Guo Ping: “AI talent” is a very broad concept.

For the ICT industry, applications of artificial intelligence will focus more heavily on inference.

Take carrier networks. From 2G through 5G and into future networks, network elements are extremely diverse and complex, and operations and maintenance are very expensive.

If cars can achieve intelligent driving, can our networks use artificial intelligence to achieve autonomous operations and maintenance?

That requires applied AI talent.

But the talent structure has to be diverse. People who build AI need extremely strong creativity in order to ensure the competitiveness of our products and solutions.

Of the three major elements of artificial intelligence, China is relatively behind in compute.

But when it comes to data, China has industrial applications covering almost every category. We therefore have advantages in data applications, inference applications and application scenarios.

In talent, the two sides are broadly comparable.

In this competition, and particularly after all of you join Huawei, I hope that talent and an environment that allows talent to develop well will drive Huawei to establish advantages in this field.

Q: At the strategic level, how does the company view developing its own large models? What are the short-term and long-term objectives?

Guo Ping: Huawei focuses on connectivity and computing, but different business units have different requirements when it comes to proprietary large models.

For our ICT and computing businesses, Huawei’s objective is to become Nvidia.

Huawei’s core advantage should not lie in owning a proprietary large model.

It should lie in helping customers build excellent large models and ensuring that any large model in the world can run efficiently on Huawei’s Ascend, Kunpeng, SuperPoDs and clusters.

For our device business and intelligent-driving business, by contrast, it is preferable to have our own large models.

Most mainstream open-source large models open only their weights. Companies still face many difficulties when they subsequently conduct additional training or fine-tuning. There is also a time lag in the release of open-source data.

So in devices and intelligent driving, proprietary large models offer greater advantages.

For Huawei Cloud, as cloud and artificial intelligence become increasingly integrated, a cloud business without a competitive large model will itself lack competitiveness.

Huawei Cloud therefore must possess a proprietary large model in order to maintain its competitive advantage.

Huawei’s large-model strategy is closely tied to the objectives of its individual businesses.

We will continue investing, but we will take different approaches depending on the business scenario.

Q: My understanding is that Nvidia’s moat comes from advanced process technology, hardware-software co-design and the CUDA ecosystem. What advantages does Huawei already possess in semiconductors that could become moats, or have the potential to become moats? What capabilities would Huawei like to develop in the future but still lacks today?

Guo Ping: When I was a student, Intel introduced the IDM model, integrating design and manufacturing.

TSMC later invented the foundry model, separating design from manufacturing.

Huawei faces constraints in advanced process technology. That makes it even more necessary for us to promote closer integration between design and manufacturing and use comprehensive advantages to compensate for shortcomings in process technology.

In its earlier years, Apple’s processor process technology was not necessarily the most advanced either, but through architectural restructuring and software optimization, it was able to deliver an excellent user experience.

Ms. He Tingbo has proposed what she calls the Tao (τ) Law. At its essence, it replaces geometric scaling with time scaling, tightly integrating areas of process technology and manufacturing that had become separated, and improving competitiveness under constrained conditions.

This path could have value for the global semiconductor industry as a whole. But because Huawei faces more severe process constraints, exploring this path is more urgent for us.

As for moats, I recommend reading the transcript of the four-hour discussion with DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng.

One of the points made there is that technological iteration is accelerating in the AI era. That could weaken moats such as Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem, while artificial intelligence itself may enable breakthroughs or even substitutes.

Our Ascend 950 series, despite process constraints, is narrowing the gap through architectural innovation and has the potential eventually to catch up with our competitors.

The key is whether we can deliver the customer experience and solve the customer’s final problem, rather than simply piling up specifications.

It is like smartphones: users care about the value created by performance.

Huawei is using systems-architecture thinking to reorganize the elements of competition and to build an overall advantage through clusters and SuperPoDs.

This is also an example of Huawei playing to its strengths and avoiding its weaknesses.

I hope that after joining the company, each of you will also learn to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses, both in your personal development and in your work, and thereby create value.

Q: I previously read your article “Constant Change and Enduring Vitality” 《常变与长青》 and was deeply impressed. If Huawei wants to remain enduringly successful, how should it achieve “constant change”?

Guo Ping: Huawei has always been undergoing change. The purpose is to adapt to the development of the times and build competitiveness.

Every transformation is based on assumptions about the future. Assumptions — to predict the future and make decisions — is the most important starting point.

Microsoft once assumed that every person would need a computer equipped with an operating system. That assumption helped create Microsoft.

IBM, which was the giant at the time, believed that the market potential for personal computers was limited and that the world would need only five mainframe computers.

Huawei’s current assumption is that artificial intelligence may be the last technological revolution of human society.

We need to establish competitive advantages in this revolution.

To do so, our organization, processes, capabilities and talent all have to match that objective.

No one can remain correct forever during a process of transformation.

If we make a mistake, we need to put aside our pride, correct it quickly, catch up with the trend of the times and try to lead it.

Transformation is not something we perform for other people to see.

It is necessary for survival and development. It is a mission that our era requires us to accomplish.

Q: In compensation, employee protection and social responsibility, what differences do you see between Huawei and other leading technology companies?

Guo Ping: What is great about Huawei is that we create value for customers through our own products and services.

We do not rely on donations, nor do we rely on lobbying to stop somebody else.

So we absolutely have to reject “baizuo” — “white left” — thinking.

Huawei has one path, and only one path: use our products and services to create value for customers.

I believe business is the greatest form of charity, and commercial success is the greatest social responsibility.

Pay taxes according to the law. Employ people according to the law. Provide corresponding and dignified compensation according to the law.

Those are the greatest contributions a company can make to society.

If we allowed the company to decline or go bankrupt, causing major upheaval for our hundreds of thousands of employees and their families; if our suppliers suffered serious harm; if our customers suffered serious harm; if customers could not maintain business continuity or protect their investments — that would be socially irresponsible.

So business is the greatest form of charity.

Keeping Huawei competitive forever is Huawei’s greatest contribution to society.

Of course, Huawei will support charitable causes within its capabilities. But we do those things because they come from our hearts and because we genuinely want to do them, not for media publicity.

Q: Faced with technological iteration and industrial transformation, what core capabilities should new employees develop in order to maintain long-term competitiveness?

Guo Ping: One thing that is extremely important after you join Huawei is the ability to keep learning.

The knowledge you acquired at university may already be obsolete on the day you begin work.

When you receive an assignment you have never encountered before, you cannot say, “I never studied this,” and use that as an excuse.

The workplace cares about your ability to solve problems and deliver results.

So you need the courage to take responsibility, but you also need the capability to do the job.

After entering the workplace, you should not expect to find ready-made answers in books.

You need to integrate what you have learned, internalize it and apply it flexibly.

The ability to keep learning is the most basic capability required for survival and development in the workplace.

03

Only Passion Can Sustain You to the End

Q: In your eyes, what kind of company is Huawei? Has your understanding of Huawei changed during different periods?

Guo Ping: Before Huawei came under comprehensive sanctions in 2019, it was a company that went from victory to victory.

We started with only a handful of people acting as distributors for other companies’ products. From the 1980s until today, we seized almost every major opportunity in our field and successfully converted those opportunities into results.

A company placed under sanctions normally has only two possible destinations.

One is “in jungle” — forced to survive as a fugitive in the wilderness.

The other is “in prison” — trapped inside a cage.

Huawei is trying to open up a third road: doing everything possible to stay alive.

That in itself is already quite remarkable.

We hope to retain a keen sense of smell, identify future opportunities and use our execution capabilities to convert those opportunities into reality.

Even if we make mistakes, we want to retain the ability to correct them, allowing us eventually to catch up and overtake others.

Simply recognizing an opportunity does not guarantee that Huawei will succeed.

Take large models. Huawei started relatively early, but we did not establish a dominant position.

There is no reason to become discouraged by that.

Leading technology companies both inside and outside China have invested enormous sums and many have yet to achieve major breakthroughs. Instead, companies such as Anthropic, Kimi [Moonshot AI] and DeepSeek have made breakthroughs.

This demonstrates that large companies have advantages, but they also have disadvantages.

The form of an enterprise needs to keep changing and renewing itself if it is to adapt to the future.

The same logic applies to individuals.

At university, my major was computer organization and architecture. But today’s technology is completely different from what we studied then.

That is why, no matter how difficult the circumstances, Huawei must recruit outstanding new graduates every year.

We need fresh blood and new ways of thinking to face the future.

I hope you will not see Huawei simply as a job. I hope that while you are here, you can contribute to changing the company, the industry, and even the world.

Q: Huawei places great emphasis on a culture of self-criticism. When putting that into practice within a team, how should we strike the right balance — being willing to confront shortcomings without creating anxiety or damaging morale?

Guo Ping: Self-criticism comes from an individual’s own understanding. It is not a struggle session.

It is based on reviewing events that have already happened, with the objective of drawing lessons and clarifying how to improve in the future.

So self-criticism emphasizes self-understanding, self-review and self-improvement. External forces can only play an auxiliary role.

The key word, therefore, is “self,” not “criticism.”

The individual has to actively recognize the problem and summarize, distill and reflect upon what happened.

Without that self-awareness, if all that remains is other people criticizing you, it becomes a struggle session.

That would completely depart from the original purpose of self-criticism.

Q: You have worked at Huawei for more than 30 years and experienced very different stages in the company’s development. What has allowed you to remain so engaged through difficulties and changes? And how should new employees maintain motivation over a long career?

Guo Ping: Although I have spent a very long time at Huawei, I have continually worked on challenging assignments.

For example, I once served as a deputy chief engineer in R&D.

When that project ended, Mr. Ren [Zhengfei] transferred me to take charge of the manufacturing headquarters. That organization covered manufacturing, procurement, integrated planning and other functions.

Apart from a brief internship during my undergraduate graduation project, I had no relevant experience.

Faced with that challenge, I had two choices.

One was to avoid it because I lacked the capability.

The other was to face the problem directly and solve it.

I chose the latter.

Huawei’s expectation for rank-and-file employees is “do the work you love”: choose a position you love and are capable of doing.

For senior managers, however, the requirement is “love the work you do.”

As a manager, you have to solve the problems faced by the company.

Personal growth should begin with doing the work you love and doing your own job well.

When the company recognizes your ability, or when it faces a particular difficulty, you then need to shift toward loving the work you are asked to do and completing it excellently.

There are two main career-development paths at Huawei.

One is to go deep in a professional field and become a technical expert. That is vertical development.

The other is management, which is more of a zigzag path.

Management positions are not something that can simply be arranged for you. They are driven by demand.

There has to be a need and an opportunity somewhere, and you have to be capable of doing the job.

In the process, you gain additional experience and capabilities.

Q: As chairman of the Supervisory Board, you are responsible for evaluating managers and developing the pipeline of future managers, and you have seen many people grow into leadership positions. From your perspective, what characteristics do people who go far at Huawei have in common? What advice do you have for employees who have just joined?

Guo Ping: Mr. Ren once said there are two basic conditions for working at Huawei over the long term: honest labor and competence in your job.

Those remain the requirements for every employee today.

A company or organization with a future should positively reward people who make contributions.

And the best reward is to give them opportunities.

Take me as an example.

I joined Huawei as a new graduate. I was able to do my job and produce results, and so I was given opportunities to take on greater responsibilities.

While you were in school, teachers may have encouraged you to develop comprehensively and compensate for your weaknesses.

Once you enter the workplace, my advice is different: play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses.

Take the things you are good at and do them to the extreme.

Turn the things you love into outstanding contributions, allowing your strengths to become stronger and stronger.

You contribute to the company, and the company gives you more opportunities in return.

That is how the individual and the company grow together.

Q: You have said before that “choice matters more than effort, and making choices requires capability.” For fresh graduates who have just joined Huawei, how should they remain flexible enough to adapt to changes and transfers within the company while still doing their current jobs well? When personal interests conflict with organizational needs, what criteria should they use?

Guo Ping: The development of a human life is not linear.

It is determined by a small number of critical junctures.

Take my own experience.

Getting into university in the 1980s, choosing to study computer science, going south to Shenzhen, and joining Huawei — these were all critical junctures in my life.

There were critical moments after I joined the company as well.

I originally thought I would simply settle down and work in R&D. Then I was presented with the opportunity to take charge of the manufacturing headquarters.

That was a challenge.

You cannot fully plan the path of your life.

Every person has to make choices based on their own judgment.

When confronted with a choice, think carefully.

Am I capable of doing this?

Does it fit with the future I envision?

If the answers are yes, then even if you fail, you will have no regrets.

The direction of your life is determined by your choices at critical junctures.

Choose correctly, and you move forward with the momentum.

Choose incorrectly, and when you are young you still have the capital to start again.

If you have capability, there is nothing to fear.

You dare to seize opportunities.

And even if you fail, youth itself remains your greatest source of confidence and gives you enough room to begin again.

So the most important thing is to possess the courage to choose.

The same logic applies to the development of a company.

Huawei initially distributed other companies’ products.

At the time, many distribution companies failed to develop their own products. When the companies whose products they represented disappeared, the distributors disappeared with them.

But Mr. Ren decided that Huawei should develop products of its own.

We moved from fixed-line communications into wireless, then optical transmission, data communications and devices.

Only when you understand a business deeply can you make choices without fear.

Q: You have worked across R&D, supply chains and many other departments and experienced several critical transformations at Huawei. For a new employee, what is the most important underlying principle that should be upheld throughout an entire career?

Guo Ping: You should join Huawei because you love the career you have chosen.

Do not force yourself.

A career is rarely smooth from beginning to end. You will inevitably encounter setbacks and difficulties.

Only passion can sustain you all the way to the end.

Without that passion, work becomes like sitting in prison. Every day becomes an ordeal while you wait for the workday to end.

That makes you miserable, and it also makes it difficult for you to make a genuine contribution to the company.

Q: During the early stages of a career, what capabilities and qualities are most important for long-term growth? And based on what you have observed, what are the clearest differences between young people entering the industry in your generation and new employees today, in their characteristics, thinking or ways of working?

Guo Ping: The conditions for joining Huawei have never changed: honest labor and competence in your job.

That requirement was the same in the past, is the same today and will remain the same in the future.

I do not agree with labeling every generation or age group.

Every generation has its own characteristics.

I agree with a point made by DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng.

In work, perhaps 50% consists of top-down, directive assignments, while the other 50% consists of creative work.

Looking forward, Huawei’s R&D will also contain different kinds of work, and therefore require different kinds of people.

Development work exchanges knowledge for money. It requires orderly organization and strong top-down execution.

Research work exchanges money for knowledge. It absolutely cannot be generated automatically through prescribed actions or fixed procedures. It depends on a fit between individual characteristics and the nature of the work.

So I hope that before joining Huawei, all of you have thought carefully and seriously about whether this is a job you genuinely love.

Huawei offers opportunities for internal transfers.

But exercising that choice may carry a cost.

It is like applying to change your major at university: you have to go through procedures, the process may be painful, and you are not guaranteed to succeed.

Q: As a new technical employee, much of my daily work involves repetitive and basic R&D tasks. It can be difficult to see immediate technological breakthroughs, and sometimes that creates a sense of uncertainty. How should new employees build core capabilities through ordinary foundational work so that they are prepared for difficult long-term technological challenges?

Guo Ping: Once you enter the company, your identity fundamentally changes.

While you are in school, your role is to acquire knowledge, accumulate capabilities and prepare yourself for work.

Once you enter the workplace, your role becomes confronting the work itself, completing tasks and making contributions.

If you have accumulated solid knowledge and capabilities and can complete your work with confidence and competence, then under Huawei’s rules you will receive opportunities to take on more important responsibilities.

Through practice, you will develop personally.

If, on the other hand, you are unable to handle your current work or encounter difficulties, then you need to proactively address your shortcomings.

Teach yourself the relevant knowledge, accumulate experience, actively seek help from colleagues and friends, and establish the capabilities required to do the job.

Growth in the workplace is far faster than growth on campus.

You learn to swim faster in the water than you do in a classroom.

But there is something you need to understand.

When you are in the water, the purpose of swimming is not simply to learn.

It is to survive.

If you do not swim, you sink.

Your first responsibility in the workplace is to be competent at your job.

Only by continually improving your capabilities and taking on greater responsibilities can you obtain better opportunities for development.

The most important thing is to make the psychological adjustment and successfully complete the transition from student to professional.

Q: As new employees, we are eager to learn from the experience accumulated by previous generations at Huawei. What core qualities of the older generation of Huawei employees does the new generation most need to inherit? And what established ways of thinking do we need to break away from in order to make new breakthroughs?

Guo Ping: Whether we are talking about the older generation or the younger generation, the common purpose is to make a contribution to the company.

A McKinsey research report once said that what matters most to a company is managing vitality, not managing age.

Take the robotics industry.

A robot involves perception, a “brain” system, and a “cerebellum” responsible for balance.

Perception requires long-term accumulation. It requires materials and verification and the combination of theory with practice.

The core of the brain is algorithms, where younger people have an advantage.

The cerebellum and balance system depend on technological accumulation and engineering experience.

Only by combining all three can you create a complete system.

Since its birth, Huawei has not succeeded because its hard conditions were superior to everybody else’s.

We have relied on “a broadly correct direction and an organization full of vitality,” integrating the capabilities of the entire organization to achieve success.

As Mr. Ren once put it, he is like a bucket of glue, sticking everyone tightly together.

In modern society, complex work often cannot be completed by one person acting alone.

We have to cooperate with people from different levels and backgrounds to jointly deliver competitive products.

Q: Solving complex problems often requires collaboration across multiple teams. For new employees who lack professional influence and experience, how can they promote cross-team cooperation and bring problems to an effective resolution?

Guo Ping: I think there are two aspects.

First, deeply understand the problem. Identify the gaps in your own knowledge and learn independently to fill them.

Second, make good use of systems for seeking help, including the company’s expert databases and guidance from more experienced colleagues.

For example, our R&D organization uses a mentoring system. Mentors help new employees integrate into their positions and complete the transition from students to qualified engineers.

During this process, you can discuss problems and seek help from colleagues inside the company and experts outside the company.

For example, Huawei’s 2012 Laboratories gives out a Spark Award every year and solicits solutions to difficult problems from around the world, encouraging universities, students and research institutions to participate.

Use the resources of society to help solve problems.

The key is self-motivation combined with proactively seeking help.

These two capabilities will help you complete the transition in your role.

In your future work, you should continue using collaboration and help-seeking systems to compensate for shortcomings in knowledge and experience and eliminate your blind spots.

Q: How should we balance work and life?

Guo Ping: I do not believe there is a single standard answer to work-life balance.

Wherever you are, the balance between work and life depends on your own choices and values.

The key is to be at peace with yourself and to feel comfortable with your choice.

Some people are willing to put in greater effort in pursuit of higher professional achievement.

Others are uninterested in glamour, take fame and fortune lightly, and are satisfied simply to live securely and have enough to eat.

So what kind of balance you achieve, how much effort you put in and what level of achievement you pursue are ultimately things that you yourself must define and decide.

Mr. Ji Xianlin once said that in life we need to properly manage three relationships: the relationship between human beings and nature, the relationship between one person and another, and the relationship between a person and their own inner self.

When we want this, that, and everything else as well, but cannot have both the fish and the bear’s paw, we have to learn to make choices.

In the adult world, you cannot have everything.

Every person has to establish their own inner balance.

Expectations and Best Wishes

I wish all of you success in completing the transition from students to qualified professionals in the days ahead.

The core task of a student is to accumulate capabilities.

The value of a professional, by contrast, is measured by the contribution they make to the organization they belong to.

I wish all of you success in making that transition.

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A few days ago, Julian Gewirtz deftly revisited another part of the history of those days: how China’s leadership reacted to the attacks, and how that response affected a U.S.-China relationship that had been under considerable strain in the months before 9/11. He recounts how Beijing quickly condemned the attacks and expressed sympathy to the United States, and how that response helped alter the atmosphere between the two countries. Toward the end of his note, Gewirtz cites the late senior Chinese diplomat Wu Jianmin, who described Jiang Zemin’s rapid outreach as “a very brilliant diplomatic move,” adding that sometimes “a phone call is more powerful than a million soldiers.”

Wu Jianmin (1939–2016) was one of the best-known Chinese diplomats of his generation. Over a diplomatic career spanning several decades, he served as a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman and director-general of its Information Department, ambassador to the Netherlands and France, and China’s permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland. After leaving his ambassadorial post in Paris, he served from 2003 to 2008 as president of China Foreign Affairs University.

In 2007, Wu published 外交案例 (Case Studies in Diplomacy), a book developed from a course he taught at China Foreign Affairs University. Rather than offering a conventional diplomatic history, Wu organized 19 episodes around a simple structure: the background to an event, the choices facing Chinese diplomacy, what China actually did, and the lessons he drew from the experience. Among the cases was China’s response to the September 11 attacks. It is translated in full below.

I should add one qualification. In online fact-checking Wu’s account against contemporaneous Chinese and American public records, I found several details that do not appear to line up with the documentary record — most notably his repeated recollection that Jiang Zemin spoke with George W. Bush by telephone only five hours after the attacks. I have not silently corrected Wu’s text. The translation follows the Chinese original, while I have flagged the discrepancies in footnotes so readers can distinguish Wu’s own account from what the available records show.

In September 2001, China and the United States had serious disagreements and ample reasons to distrust each other. Yet when Americans were attacked and thousands of innocent people were killed, Beijing’s immediate response was not to view the tragedy simply through the prism of geopolitical rivalry. It expressed sympathy, condemned terrorism and offered cooperation.

There is something worth remembering in that today. China and the United States will continue to have profound differences, and neither country should pretend otherwise. But rivalry does not have to extinguish empathy, and strategic competition should not make it difficult to recognize the suffering of ordinary people on the other side. At some of the darkest moments in international affairs, basic humanity can itself become good diplomacy. A relationship as consequential as that between China and the United States surely needs more of it, not less.

中国对“9·11事件”的快速反应[上][下]

China’s Swift Response to 9/11

By Wu Jianmin

The September 11 attacks took place in 2001. They marked an important turning point in the international situation. What is worth noting is that only five hours after the attacks, President Jiang Zemin took the initiative to call President Bush.1 On behalf of the Chinese government and people, he condemned terrorism and expressed sympathy and condolences to the U.S. government and people. This action had an impact on the subsequent development of China-U.S. relations that should not be overlooked. Diplomatically, it was a highly successful move.

I. Background

After George W. Bush took office as U.S. president in January 2001, some new changes emerged in China-U.S. relations. Even during the presidential campaign, Bush had openly criticized the Clinton administration’s China policy, arguing that it was too soft and that a tougher element should be added. He characterized China-U.S. relations as one between “strategic competitors.”

After taking office, Bush not only abandoned the Clinton-era formulation of establishing a U.S.-China “constructive strategic partnership,” but also stopped mentioning the Clinton administration’s “Three Noes” commitment on the “Taiwan issue” — namely, no support for Taiwan independence, no support for “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan,” and no support for Taiwan’s membership in international organizations for which statehood is a requirement. Clinton’s original formulation was: “we don’t support independence for Taiwan, or two Chinas, or one Taiwan-one China. And we don’t believe that Taiwan should be a member in any organization for which statehood is a requirement.”

The Bush administration suggested that the United States would not abandon its obligation to help defend Taiwan, while suspending China-U.S. military exchanges, vigorously advancing missile-defense plans, and exploring the construction of an Asia-Pacific security system. Its tough posture cast a new shadow over the development of China-U.S. relations.

Under these circumstances, on March 19, 2001, the Chinese government sent Vice Premier Qian Qichen to visit the United States, with the aim of exchanging information, increasing mutual trust, and preserving the healthy and stable development of China-U.S. relations. Vice Premier Qian Qichen’s visit was a complete success.

After this visit, with regard to the strategic positioning of China-U.S. relations, the U.S. side abandoned the formulation of “strategic competitor” and stated: “A strategic partner China is not, but neither is China our inevitable and implacable foe. China is a competitor, a potential regional rival, but also a trading partner willing to cooperate in areas where our strategic interests overlap.” It said that developing friendly relations with China was “in our nation’s best interests,” and the U.S. side agreed to “handle bilateral relations from a strategic perspective.” President Bush himself said during Qian’s visit: “It is in our nation’s best interests that we have good relations with China.”2

On the Taiwan issue, U.S. political leaders repeatedly reaffirmed that the United States would continue to adhere to the one-China policy and abide by the three China-U.S. Joint Communiqués, and they suggested that the United States would not sell Taiwan Aegis-class destroyers or Patriot III missiles. President Bush also said that he was “particularly eager to visit China.” Tensions between China and the United States eased somewhat.

However, on April 1, 2001, a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft collided with a Chinese military aircraft over China’s exclusive economic zone east of Hainan Island, and China-U.S. relations once again became tense. On April 24, in response to a question from an ABC reporter, Bush said that if Taiwan faced an attack from the mainland, the United States would defend Taiwan at any cost. His actual words, when asked whether this meant using the full force of the U.S. military, were: “Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself.” In April, the Bush administration decided to sell advanced weapons to Taiwan, including new weaponry that China was closely watching, such as missile destroyers equipped with Aegis radar systems.3

Through the Chinese government’s struggle, conducted on justified grounds, to China’s advantage, and with restraint, the U.S. government was compelled to say that it was “very sorry,” and the incident was ultimately properly resolved.

The circumstances described above show that, right up until the September 11 attacks, China-U.S. relations remained subject to a considerable degree of uncertainty.

II. The Choices Facing the Chinese Government

After the September 11 attacks, the Chinese government at the time faced the following choices:

1. Wait and observe, without taking a position;

2. Wait and observe the reactions and moves of various parties before taking a position;

3. Condemn terrorism as quickly as possible.

The Chinese government chose the third option.

III. The Specific Process

On the evening of the September 11 attacks, President Jiang Zemin watched almost the entire course of the events unfold on television and immediately decided to convene a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee. After the meeting, at 1:47 a.m. Beijing time on September 12, President Jiang Zemin spoke by telephone with President Bush, condemned the terrorist attacks, expressed deep sympathy to the U.S. government and people, and offered condolences to the families of the victims. This was only five hours after the first terrorist attack.4

On the evening of September 12, President Jiang Zemin again spoke by telephone with U.S. President Bush at the latter’s request. President Bush first thanked President Jiang for calling him to express sympathy and condolences over the terrorist attacks. He said that he looked forward to strengthening cooperation with President Jiang and other leaders of the international community in jointly combating international terrorism. Bush hoped that the United States and China would strengthen cooperation in this regard at the United Nations Security Council. President Jiang said that China was very concerned about the progress of the rescue effort and was willing to provide the United States with all necessary support and assistance.

On September 12, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao issued a statement on behalf of the Chinese government: “We are deeply shocked by the serious attacks on a number of locations in New York and Washington, which have caused heavy casualties.” “The Chinese government has consistently condemned and opposed all acts of terrorist violence.”

After the September 11 attacks, the Chinese government’s response was swift, timely and correct. In particular, the telephone exchanges between the two heads of state had a positive and far-reaching impact on stabilizing and advancing the development of China-U.S. relations. On September 25, 2001, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer disclosed that President Bush would still attend, as originally planned, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation informal leaders’ meeting in Shanghai on October 20–21, but would postpone his visits to Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing. For the United States to make such a decision when the country had suffered an enormous disaster demonstrated the importance it attached to China and reflected an improvement in bilateral relations.

At the APEC joint ministerial press conference on October 18, 2001, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that “since the 11th of September, we have been encouraged by the response that we have had from China on support of the campaign against terrorism.” He also said that “our relationship is thriving in a number of different areas.” Although China and the United States still had differences over the handling of the aircraft collision incident, both sides should look forward.

From October 18 to 20, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush made his first trip abroad after the September 11 attacks to attend the APEC meeting in Shanghai.

During the meeting, President Jiang and Bush held three hours of talks on China-U.S. relations, Taiwan and other issues. Bush made clear that “China is a great power. And America wants a constructive relationship with China,” and that “We seek a relationship that is candid, constructive and cooperative.” The two heads of state unanimously agreed to define China-U.S. relations as one in which the two sides were committed to developing a “constructive and cooperative relationship.” This established a positive direction for the future development of bilateral relations.

The September 11 attacks marked a turning point in U.S. foreign policy. After the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the United States suddenly lost the opponent against which it had competed. Who was America’s enemy? This was a major question in U.S. strategic thinking. The September 11 attacks and China’s rapid response made the United States realize that China was not America’s enemy; terrorism was the principal threat to U.S. national security, and the United States needed China’s cooperation and support. If, before September 11, the emphasis of U.S. policy toward China had been on containing China and guarding against its becoming a future adversary of the United States, after the attacks the emphasis shifted toward seeking cooperation with China and developing the relationship.

In February 2002, President Bush again made a working visit to China. During the visit, President Jiang Zemin put forward four proposals for maintaining and developing the positive momentum in bilateral relations and enriching the constructive and cooperative relationship: strengthening dialogue, deepening cooperation, properly handling differences, and jointly safeguarding world peace. Bush expressed agreement and said that, after 30 years of development, “Our ties are mature, respectful and important to both our nations and to the world.”

In April 2002, Vice President Hu Jintao visited the United States, and the visit was successful. From October 22 to 25, 2002, President Jiang Zemin visited the United States at President Bush’s invitation and was a guest at Bush’s private ranch, the Crawford Ranch in Texas. Only one year after the September 11 attacks, the Chinese and U.S. presidents held three meetings, and relations between the two countries tended toward stability.

During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, unlike “in the past,” China-U.S. relations were no longer a focus of contention between the Democratic and Republican parties. All of this reflected the fact that China-U.S. relations had entered a period of relatively stable development.

IV. Lessons

(1) Diplomacy Must Focus on the People

Diplomacy must focus on the people. This is a principle that China’s diplomacy has consistently upheld. Premier Zhou Enlai once said: “The ultimate purpose of diplomatic work is still to influence and win over the people.” I once had an opportunity to ask President Jiang in person why he had decided to call President Bush only five hours after the September 11 attacks. President Jiang said: “The foundation of diplomatic work is the people. The Chinese and American peoples are friendly toward each other. The September 11 attacks killed so many innocent Americans. Of course we Chinese should express our sympathy and condolences. People’s hearts are made of flesh.”5

President Jiang did not say much, but his words clarified an important principle of diplomacy and provided powerful guidance. The Chinese nation is a nation with a strong sense of compassion. When others suffer danger or hardship, the Chinese nation always expresses sympathy and offers comfort. This is a tradition of the Chinese nation. The September 11 attacks brought suffering to the American people. Seeing so many people die amid the raging flames, President Jiang decided immediately to call President Bush and express sympathy and condolences to the American people, thereby also expressing the feelings of the Chinese people.

The facts proved that this action had a very good effect. In the early days after George W. Bush took office, uncertainties in China-U.S. relations increased. During the campaign, he called China “not a strategic partner of the United States, but a competitor.” At the critical moment of September 11, President Jiang Zemin’s telephone call played an important role in bringing China-U.S. relations back onto a normal track.

(2) At Critical Moments, One Must Act Decisively

The facts are quite clear: making the call five hours after the attacks and making it three days later would have had completely different effects. The basis for acting decisively was a judgment about the nature of the event. The September 11 attacks were naked acts of terrorism that resulted in the deaths of large numbers of innocent people, while opposition to terrorism had always been a consistent position of the Chinese government.

Acting decisively must also be based on ordinary human feelings. Five hours after the attacks, 7 World Trade Center in New York had not yet collapsed, and smoke was still rising from the ruins. At that moment, the American people were experiencing their deepest grief. When people are grieving, what they need most is sympathy, support and comfort. This is human nature. When someone is in the most difficult circumstances and you express sympathy and offer comfort, it is something they are unlikely to forget. “People’s hearts are made of flesh.” This is simply human nature. It can therefore be seen that diplomacy not only cannot exclude ordinary human feelings; at times, ordinary human feelings are themselves a crucial factor leading to the right diplomatic decision.

The essay below is a response to that argument.

Cui Fan, Professor of International Trade at the University of International Business and Chief Economist at the China Society for World Trade Organisation Studies, argues that the current “overcapacity” narrative rests on a selective reading of China’s economic model, industrial policy, and domestic demand.

Cui acknowledges that China still has work to do: subsidies should be better regulated, industrial policy improved, and domestic demand expanded. But he also stresses that China seeks to resolve differences through equal-footed dialogue, mutual benefit, and mutual accommodation.

China will not, he argues, seek compromise by sacrificing its own competitive strengths, still less apologise for its own development. He adds that neither yielding to U.S. pressure nor “closing its market” to China will bring the EU healthy growth or lasting stability.

Cui’s article was published on 6 September 2026 on his personal WeChat blog. He has kindly authorised and reviewed the translation.

The views are his own and are not those of his employers, or organizations he is affiliated with.

中国当然不会为“产能过剩”道歉

China Certainly Will Not Apologise for “Overcapacity”

On 3 August, The Economist published an article titled “China won’t apologise for overcapacity,” commenting on China’s Position on the So-called Excess Capacity Issue, a position paper released by China’s Ministry of Commerce a few days earlier. Its standfirst made a jarring assertion: “Its industrial policy rests on a simple principle: might makes right.”

The article opened with a rather contradictory assessment of the Commerce Ministry’s position paper, describing it as both “rigorous” and “disingenuous”. It then proceeded in three parts. The first acknowledged that many of the facts cited and arguments made in the Commerce Ministry document were sound and intellectually honest. The second took a sharp turn to what it regarded as the “disingenuous” part, claiming that Chinese companies owed their competitiveness to state intervention. In the final section, the author adopted an emotional and anxious tone, before closing with the standfirst’s accusation that “industrial might makes right”.

On 30 June, the German magazine Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft (IPG) published an interview with German sinologist Marina Rudyak, who said: “The fundamental mistake we have made in dealing with China…was not to believe them. Or perhaps, at an even more fundamental level, we never seriously engaged with what they had actually said and written.” Although she was referring mainly to China’s economic planning, her observation points to a broader reality.

The position paper issued by China’s Ministry of Commerce has a clear purpose: to reject the legality and legitimacy of discriminatory restrictions imposed on China by certain countries under the pretext of “overcapacity”. At the same time, it demonstrates China’s unwavering determination to build a modern industrial system through openness and cooperation, and expresses China’s sincere willingness to work with countries around the world to foster an open and inclusive framework for cooperation across industrial and supply chains.

Contrary to what some critics claim, the document does not shy away from problems in China’s current economic development. It refers to “expanding domestic demand” three times and says “China is committed to a higher-level supply and demand equilibrium by continuously expanding domestic demand”. China’s Position on the So-called Excess Capacity Issue is entirely consistent with China’s basic state policy of opening up, its efforts to actively expand imports and promote balanced trade, and its strategy of further expanding domestic demand.

Over the past two years, I have discussed the issue of “overcapacity” with a number of journalist friends, leaving behind several written interview records. Press interviews, however, usually quote only a few sentences, while articles commissioned by newspapers and magazines are constrained by length. I have therefore brought together several of these interview exchanges and updated them in light of recent developments to present a fuller account of my views on the issues involved.

Q: Why did China choose to release this position paper on “overcapacity” at this particular moment? What considerations do you think informed the timing?

As is well known, 2025 was a turbulent year for the international trading system. The United States explicitly advanced a “Turnberry” system based on the principle of America First, using it to undermine the multilateral trading system. Through pressure on multiple fronts, the United States concluded a series of so-called reciprocal trade agreements with most of its allies — Canada being the only one that has so far refused to give in — as well as with a number of developing countries and regions.

Under these arrangements, other economies are required to grant the United States zero or near-zero tariff treatment and commit to large-scale investment in the United States, while Washington raises tariffs on them and, at the same time, asks them to help contain its economic rivals, chiefly China. Although the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled that some tariffs imposed by the U.S. government were unlawful, Washington has continued to assemble a tiered tariff system through a range of alternative tariff measures combined with these so-called reciprocal trade agreements.

With the Turnberry system largely in place, the next step, according to the “grand encirclement” plan described by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, was to “approach China as a group”.

Seen in this context, the recent hype around “trade diversion”, the “China squeeze”, and the “Great Transshipment Scam” all fit neatly into this “grand encirclement” strategy. Taken together, they point to a clear aim: to use the overcapacity narrative, reinforced by the rhetoric of “China Shock 2.0”, to rally a broader range of countries behind discriminatory trade restrictions on China.

For a considerable period after 2010, China’s current account surplus remained at around 2 per cent of GDP, a healthy level. In 2025, the ratio rose to 3.7 per cent, but remained below the 4 per cent threshold commonly regarded internationally as a warning level.

At the same time, China has remained the world’s largest manufacturing economy for many years. It is steadily advancing new industrialisation and strengthening its position as a manufacturing powerhouse, while making major breakthroughs in new-energy industries, particularly the “new trio” — new-energy vehicles (NEVs), lithium batteries, and photovoltaic products.

Against this backdrop, talk of a so-called “China Shock 2.0” has gained ground in some countries. Those advancing this argument overlook the contribution of Chinese manufacturing to the global economy and to tackling global challenges such as climate change, using this as a pretext to roll out a series of discriminatory restrictions against China, with more already in the pipeline.

Beyond the forthcoming findings of the U.S. Section 301 investigation into so-called “structural excess capacity”, the most significant measures now under consideration are a range of restrictions being contemplated by the European Union.

Not long ago, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said that during China-EU consultations, the European side had threatened to “close its market as leverage.” Language this stark is unlikely to have been chosen without basis; it may well have originated with EU negotiators themselves.

The release of the position paper helps clarify the facts and set out China’s case. It also underscores China’s commitment to greater openness, closer international cooperation across industrial and supply chains, the basic rules of the multilateral trading system, and mutually beneficial economic and trade relations. In doing so, it helps lay the groundwork for dealing with possible new shocks to the global trading system.

Q: How should the issue of overcapacity be viewed comprehensively and objectively? What exactly does the Commerce Ministry’s position paper oppose?

Both insufficient aggregate demand at the macro level and excess supply at the micro level are common features of economic activity. Both are legitimate subjects for academic and policy debate.

Contrary to what some have suggested, the Commerce Ministry’s position paper does not simply deny the existence of overcapacity in China. Rather, it calls for “a rounded, objective, and just approach.”

The economic literature, as well as policy documents such as the U.S. Section 301 investigation into structural excess capacity, use the terms “excess capacity” and “overcapacity” interchangeably. Classical economic theories of excess capacity, however, generally examine the issue in the context of imperfect competition, focusing on the gap between equilibrium output and the scale of production that minimises long-run average cost. That differs considerably from what is meant by “overcapacity” in today’s debate, so those theories cannot simply be transplanted into the current discussion.

There is also no broad international consensus on how excess capacity should be defined. Simon Evenett and others have argued that the phrase excess capacity is “rhetorically useful, but hard to pin down, even harder to operationalise, and at the same time woefully misleading.” Excess capacity is a concept that describes a market outcome; that concept alone should not be grounds for intervention. The focus, rather, should be on policies that distort trade.

In other words, excess capacity is a concept that can be meaningfully discussed in academic terms, but it is not readily operational as a policy concept.

Indeed, Evenett, who has long studied and tracked trade policy, has offered a fairly clear assessment of the overcapacity narratives advanced by some countries today. In a recent discussion of China’s position paper, he noted: “Now, some seek to delegitimise the entire Chinese economic system by contending that it is based almost entirely upon state measures that allow excess capacity to persist in manufacturing sectors.”

This approach effectively treats China’s economic system as an original sin, turning a wholesale rejection of that system into a pretext for containing China across the board. It is precisely this ill-intentioned version of the “overcapacity” narrative that the Commerce Ministry’s position paper pushes back against.

Q: How should subsidies and industrial policy be viewed? How is China improving its industrial policy?

Criticism of China’s industrial policy is a central part of the “overcapacity” narrative directed at China.

“Allowing the market to play the decisive role in allocating resources and letting the government perform its functions better” is the basic principle China follows in managing the relationship between the market and the government. Yet the “overcapacity” narrative seeks to portray the Chinese economy as being driven primarily by state intervention, and Chinese companies’ competitiveness as resting largely on government subsidies.

The OECD, often described as a “club of developed countries”, has long been an enthusiastic architect of the Chinese “overcapacity” narrative. It recently developed a database on industrial subsidies. According to its report, the relative scale of government grants and corporate income tax concessions in China does not differ significantly from that in other economies, while China’s support through “borrowing at below-market interest rates” is comparatively high.

[Yuxuan’s note: The OECD report in fact shows that China’s overall level of industrial support is substantially higher than that of OECD economies. It also notes that firms in China receive a large proportion of their support through government grants and below-market borrowings, “with the latter proving especially large”. Its data do, however, suggest that China’s corporate income tax concessions are more comparable with those of other economies. The wording above follows the Chinese original.]

However, in selecting the risk-free base rate used to construct its benchmark interest rates, the OECD uses China’s Loan Prime Rate for corporate lending, as published by the People’s Bank of China, while using risk-free government bond yields or interbank offered rates for other economies. This deliberate inconsistency in methodology directly inflates the OECD’s estimate of Chinese subsidies by several times.

[Yuxuan’s note: The OECD’s June 2026 methodology note, About the OECD MAGIC database, does not specify which base rates are used for individual economies. However, earlier OECD work drawing on the MAGIC database constructs benchmark interest rates using an approach consistent with the methodology described in the Chinese original.]

In reality, industrial policy — subsidies included — is widely used around the world. A study led by Réka Juhász of the University of British Columbia, covering major economies from 2009 to 2020, found Germany, Japan, Brazil, and the United States among the most frequent users of industrial policy. China, despite being the world’s second-largest economy, ranked only eleventh.

Used appropriately and in accordance with the rules, subsidies can help correct market failures, support responses to environmental and climate challenges, encourage research and development, and promote more balanced regional development. What China opposes is the abuse of subsidies in violation of WTO rules.

Over the years, China has done extensive work to make its industrial policy more rigorous and rules-compliant.

Xu Lin, chairman of the China-U.S. Green Fund, spent many years at the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), working on industrial policy and participating in China’s WTO accession negotiations on related issues. In 2021, he published a lengthy article in Comparative Studies titled “From WTO Accession to CPTPP Accession: The Future of China’s Industrial Policy”.

The article reflects both the efforts of Chinese officials with first-hand experience of industrial policymaking to make China’s industrial policy more rigorous and rules-compliant, and Xu’s own thinking about its future direction. At the Caixin Summer Summit in June 2026, he further argued that China has developed a financing system in which industrial policy serves as a guiding baton — one that, in his view, can create significant problems. That point is worth taking seriously.

While I agree with most of Xu’s views, I believe some parts of his analysis merit further discussion.

Generally speaking, “specific subsidies” should not be treated as a category parallel to the WTO’s three categories of subsidies — prohibited, actionable, and non-actionable subsidies. Any of these three categories may include specific subsidies.

Prohibited subsidies mainly include export subsidies and import-substitution subsidies. Because they are contingent on export performance or on the use of domestic over imported goods, they are inherently specific.

For actionable subsidies, the complaining party must establish that the subsidy is specific. A subsidy is not specific if it is available to all industries and enterprises, or if eligibility is determined by economic thresholds based on “objective criteria or conditions” — for example, subsidies available to qualifying small and medium-sized enterprises. The complaining party must also demonstrate that the subsidy causes adverse effects.

Non-actionable subsidies include both non-specific subsidies and, subject to certain conditions, specific subsidies such as green, R&D and regional-development subsidies.

In effect, non-actionable subsidies are permitted. However, because negotiations over the detailed rules governing this category failed to produce agreement, the WTO provisions on non-actionable subsidies have long ceased to apply. Even so, subsidies that are not specific remain permissible under the WTO’s subsidy rules.

Given the legitimate rationale for green, R&D and regional-development subsidies, China has consistently called for the non-actionable subsidy provisions to be revived and for negotiations on the relevant disciplines to resume, so that such subsidies can be provided under clearer rules.

More broadly, every policy carries both costs and benefits, and industrial policy is no exception. One important criterion for improving industrial policy is to maximise its benefits while minimising its costs.

Direct cash subsidies and tax reductions or exemptions can both serve as instruments of industrial policy, as can financial tools. Jagdish Bhagwati’s “targeting principle” holds that a policy should address a distortion as directly as possible to minimise the costs associated with policy intervention.

Compared with direct subsidies and tax preferences, financial instruments have one distinctive feature: industrial policy is ultimately transmitted to enterprises through large numbers of professionals working in banks, securities firms, and investment funds. These financial professionals continuously assess and monitor business operations and are therefore more sensitive than government officials to changes in firms’ performance and to the practical effects of policy.

Industrial policy may serve as a guiding baton for bank lending, but at most it is only one among many. China’s Law on Commercial Banks, for example, requires commercial banks to operate according to the principles of “safety, liquidity, and efficiency”, while making their own business decisions, taking responsibility for their own risks, profits, and losses, and exercising self-restraint. Allowing industrial policy to provide guidance while still adhering to market principles can, in fact, improve the effectiveness of industrial policy.

Experts have rightly pointed out the costs of implementing industrial policy through the financial system, and these deserve close attention. At the same time, however, the costs and benefits need to be assessed comprehensively. The existence of such costs does not in itself justify dismissing the use of the financial system as an instrument of industrial policy altogether. I myself have repeatedly written research reports drawing attention to the costs associated with industrial policy.

Take local government investment guidance funds as an example. In recent years, Chinese authorities have introduced a series of measures to regulate and address problems including excessively high local reinvestment ratios [requiring government-backed funds to invest multiples of the public contribution in the sponsoring locality], the risk that such requirements may amount to investment subsidies, and the proliferation of county-level investment funds.

I have also called for deeper, practice-based research into how industrial policy is implemented and how well it works. When conditions are ripe, the State Council could consider introducing regulations on fiscal subsidies, requiring any new subsidy to go through proper justification, evaluation, and public disclosure; the form, scale, intended recipients, objectives, duration, phase-out mechanisms and effectiveness assessments of subsidies should all be established on a sound and rules-compliant basis. Further codifying the rigour and soundness of industrial policy through laws and regulations would also help lay the foundation for China’s future participation in negotiations on international subsidy rules.

Q: How should insufficient domestic demand and economic imbalances be viewed?

Another strand of the “overcapacity” narrative directed at China is the tendency to lump together China’s trade surplus, current-account surplus, relatively weak economic conditions, and supply-demand imbalances in certain industries, and label them all as “overcapacity”.

These phenomena can arise in different economies at different stages of the business cycle and of economic development. Yet the current “overcapacity” narrative is directed overwhelmingly at China.

The United States and the European Union have long run surpluses in services trade. The EU also has an agricultural trade surplus, while the United States maintained one for roughly sixty years before launching its trade war. Yet the U.S. and European “overcapacity” narrative focuses only on manufacturing — and above all on China’s fast-growing new-energy industries.

The claim by some countries that insufficient domestic demand in China has led to economic imbalances and overcapacity may sound plausible, but it does not stand up to scrutiny.

At the macro level, Germany’s current account surplus as a share of GDP has exceeded China’s every year since 2010, and in most years has also exceeded the internationally recognised warning threshold of 4 per cent. Japan and South Korea have likewise recorded higher ratios than China in the vast majority of years.

In 2025, China’s current account surplus stood at 3.7 per cent of GDP. Japan, Germany and South Korea — respectively the world’s third-, fourth- and sixth-largest manufacturing economies — recorded ratios of 4.8 per cent, 4.4 per cent and 6.6 per cent.

At the microeconomic or industry level, weaker domestic demand may, in the short term, lead to oversupply and higher exports in certain products or sectors. Over the longer term, however, the relationship between domestic demand and exports is far from straightforward.

The home-market effect in international trade theory suggests that, in industries characterised by economies of scale, a larger domestic market can strengthen export competitiveness and support greater exports. In other words, stronger domestic demand can, in such industries, go hand in hand with more exports.

In 2025, China sold 16.49 million NEVs, of which 13.875 million were sold domestically, and 2.615 million were exported. China’s new-energy vehicle industry therefore remains dependent on its domestic market. At the same time, Chinese NEVs accounted for approximately 68 per cent of global NEV exports.

For industries characterised by economies of scale and high R&D intensity, stronger domestic demand and a larger home market can enhance export competitiveness. Yet these are precisely the industries that certain countries most often cite as evidence of Chinese “overcapacity”. That sits uneasily with the claim that insufficient domestic demand in China is itself the cause of overcapacity.

Q: Given the state and evolution of the international trading system, how should China respond?

The discussion above shows that the claim that China’s economic development and industrial competitiveness are driven mainly by government subsidies does not stand up to scrutiny. Nor does the argument that insufficient domestic demand in China has caused overcapacity and global economic imbalances.

That does not mean there is nothing to improve. Fiscal subsidies should be further regulated, industrial policy made more rigorous and rules-compliant, and domestic demand should be firmly expanded. These measures will help strengthen the modern industrial system and promote high-quality development, and there is no reason not to pursue them.

However, I do not believe that these measures themselves will ease China’s frictions with certain countries.

The current round of disputes over “overcapacity” centres on the new-energy sector. In recent years, global average temperatures have begun to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and the consequences of global warming have become increasingly apparent.

Western countries were the first to raise the alarm over climate change. Yet some U.S. officials now dismiss global warming as a fabricated hoax. The European Union, meanwhile, is postponing its original timetable for phasing out petrol and diesel vehicles and considering raising its end-of-century warming threshold from 1.5–2°C to 3°C above pre-industrial levels, even as it abuses climate-related measures for trade-protectionist purposes.

Judging by the course of recent disputes, neither the United States nor the EU is likely to abandon efforts to contain China’s competitive industries, whether in recognition of the reasonableness and compliance of China’s policies or for the sake of tackling climate change.

In recent years, China has steadily strengthened the regulation of subsidies. To reduce trade frictions, it has eliminated WTO-consistent export tax rebates for products frequently involved in trade disputes, including photovoltaic products and lithium batteries. I have also seen experts call for export tax rebates on passenger vehicles to be removed as well.

Since the beginning of this year, the renminbi has appreciated by nearly 4 per cent. In my view, these measures are reasonable and demonstrate China’s efforts to maintain stable external economic and trade relations. These measures should take into account the needs of China’s trading partners, but the pace and extent of their implementation must above all be determined in light of the actual conditions of the Chinese economy.

Countries around the world can each develop comparative advantages suited to their own circumstances, and the desire of many countries to build up their manufacturing sectors is entirely understandable and legitimate. China is actively promoting closer integration of trade and investment, expanding outbound investment and international cooperation on production capacity. Through a sensible division of labour and cooperation across industrial and supply chains, more countries can participate in manufacturing and grow alongside China through mutually beneficial cooperation and fair competition.

Since the beginning of this century, in addition to China’s rapid growth, roughly two-thirds of developing countries have increased their share of the global economy. A considerable number of them have benefited from economic and trade cooperation with China. There is simply no basis for the so-called “China squeeze”. The shift from the “Great Divergence” to a “Great Convergence” is a development without precedent in recent centuries and represents genuine historical progress.

For both developing and developed countries, China’s outbound manufacturing investment should focus primarily on places with fair, stable, and open economic and trade policies and a sound business environment. Through openness and cooperation, China and its partners should work together to advance a more inclusive form of economic globalisation that benefits a broader range of countries.

Before the First Opium War, China had been the world’s largest manufacturing economy for a considerable period, and Britain did not catch up until the eve of the Second Opium War. Even today, China’s share of global manufacturing output remains slightly below its historical peak of 33.3 per cent in 1800, according to estimates by economic historian Paul Bairoch.

Manufacturing in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century China consisted largely of traditional handicraft production and developed within a relatively closed economy, making direct comparisons with manufacturing today difficult. Even so, given China’s population and the patterns of global industrial relocation, its current share of roughly 30 per cent of global manufacturing output is hardly unreasonable when set against the United States’ 44.8 per cent share in 1953 and Britain’s 22.9 per cent share in 1880.

China seeks to resolve differences through equal-footed dialogue, mutual benefit, and mutual accommodation, but it will not seek compromise by sacrificing its own competitive strengths, still less apologise for its own development. China will continue to promote a rational cross-border distribution of industrial and supply chains and international cooperation on production capacity. But if multilateral trade rules are violated and China’s interests are harmed, countermeasures should be expected.

The European Union is now the key variable in how the international economic and trade situation develops from here. If the EU insists on “closing its market” through measures that violate WTO rules, the multilateral trading system could suffer another serious blow. And if the WTO is further weakened, U.S.-EU trade relations are likely to face renewed uncertainty.

After all, the United States has never spared the European Union, targeting it in Section 301 investigations over forced-labour import restrictions and so-called structural excess capacity.

Neither surrender at Turnberry nor “closing its market” to China will secure healthy economic development or lasting stability for Europe. Upholding the multilateral trading system remains the fundamental means of safeguarding the European Union’s own trade interests.

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Yuzhe He

A Critique of the OECD MAGIC Database of Industrial Subsidies and Related Reports: Fan CUI

On June 1, 2026, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report on its MAGIC (Manufacturing Groups and Industrial Corporations) database of industrial subsidies. One of the key takeaways is that China-based industrial firms appear to receive subsidies on a scale not matched by their competitors in any other economy, …

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3 months ago · 18 likes · 1 comment · Yuzhe HE

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Pekingnology noticed Xingyu on August 16, in A useful time to complain, about how employees were beginning to use Hong Kong IPOs as leverage in labour disputes. I may have spotted the mechanism early while underestimating how explosive this case would become. Xingyu recruited well-educated fresh graduates, including holders of advanced degrees, for technical and R&D jobs. Within weeks, some said they were told those jobs were gone: accept ordinary production-line work or leave, with departure also threatening access to some opportunities reserved for fresh graduates.

The symbolism was almost designed to infuriate. China has a record 12.7 million university graduates this year, and youth employment remains difficult. A degree from a good university, even an advanced one, no longer guarantees anything resembling a good start to a career. Xingyu itself is under pressure, with first-half revenue rising only 1.9% and net profit falling 5.3%. “Hired for R&D, sent to tighten screws” was bound to resonate far beyond one factory.

What made the dispute unusual was where some graduates took it. They complained not only to domestic authorities but to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, where Xingyu is seeking another listing, and to customers including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. Volkswagen China said it had received the complaint and launched a special investigation; BMW told Chinese media it had noticed the case and communicated with the supplier. Chinese media also reported that Mercedes-Benz’s Business & People Protection Office had replied to a complainant and referred the matter for further review, although Mercedes-Benz itself had not publicly confirmed the reported investigation when Caixin checked.

It is tempting to draw a straight line: the graduates complained abroad, foreign companies intervened and Xingyu backed down. The chronology does not justify it. By September 1st, when Volkswagen and BMW spoke publicly, Changzhou’s government had already announced a special investigation on August 25th; Chinese institutional and social media were already consumed by the case, and Xingyu had already apologised and sweetened its support package on August 27th. Domestic outrage, intense media scrutiny and local-government intervention could perfectly well have made the company blink independently of anything said in Wolfsburg, Stuttgart or Munich.

But complaining abroad still mattered. Its most obvious effect may not have been in Germany or Hong Kong at all, but back home Every complaint, and especially every foreign acknowledgement, became another news hook and another source of legitimacy. An ugly HR dispute became a potential IPO-compliance and global-supply-chain problem. Foreign pressure may not have created the crisis; the act of seeking it amplified the crisis at home.

That became clearer when one lawyer-blogger tried to turn the tactic itself into a political offence. A widely circulated post, since deleted, urged the state to stamp out the supposed disorder of “complaining abroad”, arguing that workers who reported employers to foreign companies or overseas capital markets were inviting foreign “long-arm jurisdiction” under the banner of ESG and labour standards. It went so far as to call for legislation banning such cross-border complaints and for them to be brought within China’s campaign against organised crime. The proposal was promptly mauled online, with critics accusing its author of turning ordinary labour-rights claims into questions of national loyalty.

That reaction is striking. Chinese netizens can be fiercely sensitive to foreign criticism of China, and official rhetoric is hardly relaxed about “external interference”. Yet in this case many people who would normally be alert to such language seemed to see nothing objectionable in workers seeking foreign leverage over a Chinese company; nor has there been any visible official move to rebuke the graduates for doing so. My own impression from watching Chinese public opinion is that, when the two collide, a sense of social injustice can sometimes outrank nationalism.

There are structural reasons for that sympathy. China has no independent trade-union movement outside the state-sanctioned All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the only legally recognised union federation. Employers therefore face far less organised countervailing power from labour than companies do in many capitalist countries. Legal remedies exist, but an individual worker confronting a large listed company still starts from a weak position. A stock exchange or multinational customer can provide leverage that the ordinary employment relationship does not.

Foreign companies need not be charitable defenders of Chinese workers for this to matter. Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz impose labour, human-rights or sustainability requirements on suppliers because they have legal, commercial and reputational interests of their own. In China there is also an increasingly familiar perception that Western-headquartered multinationals tend to offer stronger benefits, more predictable employment practices and better labour protections than domestic private firms.

Xingyu, meanwhile, remains under an extraordinary public microscope. Even an error in its annual report that made its vice-chairman appear only seven years younger than his mother became another occasion for ridicule; the company corrected the mistake and apologised, while the Shanghai Stock Exchange sent it a regulatory work letter the same day. The mistake was trivial; the reaction was not. The original employment dispute had touched a nerve that has not stopped throbbing.

As trade and investment relations between China and Europe grow more quarrelsome, that is worth remembering. Foreign investment and global supply chains have imported more than factories, capital and technology; they have also imported complaint mechanisms, supplier codes and expectations about labour treatment that Chinese workers can sometimes use. Trade disputes can be fought on their own merits. The more awkward question is why these protections can still look like an imported product—and when Chinese workers will no longer need to export a grievance in order to import protection back home.

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This year, with the publication of Memoirs of a Confucius Institute Director, Volume 2: Global China Shaped by Local Realities, here is a second excerpt from the memoirs, with the approval by Zeng, now a professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at City University of Hong Kong.

The following excerpt focuses on the people who actually keep Confucius Institutes running.

Western political and media narratives sometimes portray Confucius Institute staff as politically vigilant operatives carrying out Beijing’s agenda abroad. Zeng’s account of Lancaster University offers a rather different — and considerably more mundane — picture: British administrators who may know little about China when they take the job; Mandarin teachers recruited from very different professional backgrounds; constant staff turnover; arguments over teaching hours; visa paperwork, budgets, event flyers, farewell cards, and the occasional accidental map of China without Taiwan.

Below is the excerpt. (And Volume 2 is open access!)

Confucius Institute Staff

The staff composition of Confucius Institutes typically includes both employees from the host university and personnel seconded from the Chinese partner institution. In Lancaster’s case, our 20–30 staff members include 5–6 full-time Lancaster University employees with various contract types, workloads, and funding sources. Some positions are funded by China, while others are supported by income generated by the institute. Some staff members hold full-time contracts, while others—like myself—have partial workloads alongside other university responsibilities. Additionally, local teachers are hired by Lancaster Univer-sity through funding from China, but their recruitment process follows the university’s standard hiring procedures, with no difference from any other employee.

Many Western political and media narratives that demonize the Confucius Institute often implicitly portray its staff as a shadowy force with heightened political vigilance, a lofty sense of political mission, and a firm ideological belief in the Chinese Communist Party. They have been accused of engaging in espionage (ABC, 2019; Francis, 2023; Jakhar, 2019; Peterson, 2020; Vanttinen, 2022), silencing voices critical of China (BBC, 2020; CPHRC, 2019; Jakhar, 2019; Peterson, 2017a, 2017b; Pong & Feng, 2017; Rogers, 2018; Roy, 2024; UKCT, 2024; Wood, 2024), and suppressing Chinese students on campus (Parliament, 2023; Roy, 2024; Tettenborn, 2023; UKCT, 2024). In some allegations, those Confucius Institutes staff members are “obliged to undermine free speech and to conduct harassment on command” (Dunning & Kwong, 2023: 3). In reality, however, they are just a diverse group of professionals dedicated to promoting cross-cultural understanding and language exchange, motivated by a genuine passion for education and international collaboration.

In Lancaster, our staff members are regular individuals who may or may not have a strong interest in politics. Within the local team at the Confucius Institute, our administrative staff are typically British nationals with experience in administration. While proficiency in Chinese is preferred, it is not always possible to attract candidates with the necessary language skills, given Lancaster’s smaller local population compared to larger cities like London.

Although they are passionate about cross-cultural understanding, not everyone may initially bring a strong grasp of Chinese language and culture to their roles—let alone the heightened political sensitivity and advanced knowledge required to navigate Chinese politics. Indeed, some administrative staff assumed their roles with very limited—if not zero—understanding of China, its language, or culture, and only developed their knowledge after taking on the position.

This occasional lack of political sensitivity can sometimes lead to interesting situations. One example involved a British administrative colleague who designed an event flyer featuring a map that did not depict Taiwan as part of China. Unaware of the potential issue, he distributed the flyer on campus. The then China director only realized the omission after-ward. Concerned that Chinese students might perceive it as the Confucius Institute taking a political stance on Taiwan’s independence, the director immediately discarded the remaining copies to prevent any controversy. However, he struggled to convey to the British staff why such details matter.

For a Confucius Institute director like me, administrative staff employed by the host university play a significant role in shaping the day-to-day operations of the Institute. They are essential for delivering the institute’s vision and managing its routine functions. Without them, a Confucius Institute simply cannot function effectively. During my tenure, the Institute was fortunate to have two full-time administrative staff members who supported the entire team. Their responsibilities range from handling visas for Chinese staff, organizing events, managing marketing and communications, preparing budgets and documentation, to coordinating external engagement activities, among many other tasks.

Due to regulatory, skill-based, and practical considerations, many of these tasks cannot be carried out by academics or staff from our Chinese partner institution. One of my greatest concerns as a local director at the time was the risk of losing administrative support during faculty restructuring. Any reduction in this support would have seriously undermined the Institute’s ability to deliver its activities and function effectively. As such, I had to advocate strongly to protect these resources.

In other Confucius Institutes with much smaller teams—typically around seven staff in total—there is often only one full-time or part-time local administrator supporting the entire operation. This means that, in practice, the functioning of the institute may hinge on just one or two individuals. For example, if that person were to fall ill, an entire conference or major event could be jeopardized.

I frequently hear from other Confucius Institutes that a less competent or less motivated administrator—or someone lacking the interpersonal skills to collaborate effectively—can cause significant disruptions and seriously undermine the institute’s overall effectiveness. Since the operation of the institute often relies heavily on one or two individuals, their personal characteristics, work abilities, and motivations vary—and so too do the practices and functioning of their respective institutes.

As the UK counterpart, the Chinese university provides a China director and teachers. Following the transition to the Chinese International Education Foundation, all are seconded under employment contracts with the Chinese partner institution. The teachers seconded from China fall into two categories: qualified Mandarin teachers on two-year contracts and voluntary Mandarin teachers on one-year contracts, who are typically master’s students completing a placement.

Although these teachers are seconded from China and formally employed by the Chinese partner institution, their selection is largely determined by the local team. At Lancaster University, for example, we conduct interviews for candidates applying to become Chinese language teachers and make final decisions regarding their selection. The interview panel typically consists of 2–3 local staff members along with the China director, and the process is administratively managed by the local team. In all these respects, the influence of the local side is unmistakably clear.

Since the institute caters to a wide range of language learners, from primary school students to university-level education, we select qualified Mandarin teachers from diverse professional backgrounds—including university lecturers, associate professors, high school teachers, primary school teachers, and even sports school instructors. Teachers with dance or martial arts skills are particularly popular among primary schools, adding an extra cultural dimension to their teaching.

Some of them become so highly sought after for various performance activities—both through the institute and independently—that they take on a cultural rock star status in the region. While this reflects their popularity and the strong demand for cultural engagement, it also occasionally raises our concerns about their resilience and whether their intensive schedules might affect their teaching responsibilities at the institute.

Unlike local employees of Lancaster University, who provide continuity and stability to the team, the high turnover of seconded teachers from China creates a constant state of flux. Every few months, we hold farewell gatherings to say goodbye to departing teachers while welcoming new arrivals. The cycle is relentless—many cheerful “Hello, nice to meet you” moments are soon followed by heartfelt “Goodbye, and best wishes for the future.” With so many farewell cards to write each year, we eventually switched to digital ones in line with the university’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

When I first joined the Institute, the then China director described this dynamic with a saying: “铁打的孔院，流水的兵”—the Confucius Institute is ironclad, but its people come and go like flowing water. At the time, I didn’t fully grasp the depth of this metaphor—but now, I do. In April 2025, I found myself among those who had to go—saying goodbye at my own farewell party, even as I welcomed many new arrivals. I had always known this moment would come, but when it finally did, it was deeply emotional.

This high turnover of staff from China has both advantages and challenges. On the positive side, it ensures a constant influx of fresh perspectives, with teachers bringing the most up-to-date knowledge and life experiences from China, enriching students’ learning experiences. Their energy and enthusiasm inject new dynamism into the institute.

However, the downside is the lack of continuity and stability within the team. A significant amount of time and effort is spent on induction training to help new teachers adjust. For them, the first year is often spent settling in—finding housing, adapting to local life, navigating a new work environment, and learning how to teach in a British educational context for the first time. Just as they become fully adjusted, they are already preparing to leave by the second year, perpetuating the cycle of constant transition.

Not surprisingly, from a local managerial perspective, locally hired teachers offer considerable advantages in addressing these challenges. As local residents, they require less time to adapt, and their employment contributes to the local job market. For our local partner schools, locally hired teachers are often the preferred choice, as they provide continuity and stability with minimal additional support required from the schools. However, Lancaster University Confucius Institute faces a unique challenge due to its geographical location, which limits the availability of eligible candidates for these roles.

For Confucius Institutes based in major cities such as London, the talent pool is larger and there are more options for recruiting candidates. At the same time, these locations often already host established Chinese language programs. In such contexts, teachers seconded from China may become direct competitors to locally employed instructors, as their positions are subsidized by Chinese funding. This can alter local demand–supply dynamics in Chinese language teaching and raise concerns about local employment opportunities and distributional benefits.

By contrast, in smaller locations such as Lancaster, where there are few—if any—pre-existing Chinese language programs, Confucius Institute funding to develop local Chinese provision tends to face less resistance and is more readily perceived as beneficial.

In addition, within the Institute, at times, tensions can arise when making staffing decisions between locally hired teachers and those seconded from China. The China director may advocate for assigning fewer teaching hours to local teachers, favoring the use of seconded teachers from China instead. This occasionally creates friction in balancing operational efficiency, financial considerations, and institutional priorities.

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Pekingnology

Jinghan Zeng's Memoirs of a Confucius Institute Director

Palgrave Macmillan has recently published Memoirs of a Confucius Institute Director, Volume 1: Challenges, Controversies, and Realities, the first insider memoir from a Confucius Institute director during a time of growing global controversy, by Michael Jinghan ZENG…

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a year ago · 22 likes · 3 comments · Zichen Wang

Pekingnology

Slogan Politics: Understanding Chinese Foreign Policy Concepts (Book excerpt)

Trust me when I say I have read enough discussion of “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), “New Type of Great Power Relations,” and “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” in both Chinese and English. So also trust me when I say the book Slogan Politics: Understanding Chinese Foreign Policy Concepts…

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4 years ago · 22 likes · 3 comments · Zichen Wang

Pekingnology

Michael Jinghan Zeng: China needs a more transactional policy towards Britain

Michael Jinghan ZENG, a professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at City University of Hong Kong, argues yesterday in a Chinese-language op-ed that political volatility in London has become a structural source of uncertainty in China-UK relations. His conclusion is that China should adopt a more transactional, risk-managed approac…

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3 months ago · 15 likes · 2 comments · Yuxuan JIA and Zichen Wang

Pekingnology

When The Times asked, “Why is Britain educating China’s scientists?” What did they really overlook? by Michael Jinghan ZENG

The Times published an opinion column on 25 February 2026, questioning why Britain is educating China’s scientists, suggesting that the growing number of Chinese STEM students—coming from a “hostile regime”—in UK universities could pose a threat to national security…

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7 months ago · 27 likes · 2 comments · Yuxuan JIA

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Xiang Ligang, a telecoms commentator with nationalist leanings, challenged Hu in turn, extending the exchange into a three-day series of responses from Hu. There is some irony in seeing Mr Hu, long portrayed abroad as a prominent voice and promoter of Chinese nationalism, now arguing against one of its more inward-looking strains.

The argument is familiar because versions of it surface every few years. Sometimes the complaint is about English’s weight in the gaokao. Sometimes it is about years spent memorising vocabulary that students may never use. Sometimes it becomes a cultural grievance: why should Chinese children work so hard at English when so few Western children learn Chinese? China’s English teaching is often inefficient, and there is nothing unreasonable about debating how much time schools should devote to it. But the regularity with which the argument returns suggests that something else is bothering people.

For much of the reform era, English was part of the price of admission to a world from which China wanted knowledge, technology, investment and opportunity. Scientists needed it to read and publish internationally; officials and scholars used it to deal with foreign counterparts; companies needed it as they moved abroad. Millions of Chinese students spent years learning a language that Americans and Britons acquired without effort. That asymmetry was real, and easier to accept when China was plainly poorer and trying to catch up.

It feels different when the country doing the learning is the world’s second-largest economy, dominates large parts of global manufacturing and increasingly speaks of civilisational confidence. The old arrangement can begin to look less like practicality and more like hierarchy. Why, some Chinese ask, should their children still spend so much effort mastering the language of countries China has already surpassed in some fields?

That is where a sensible argument about education can turn into one about national dignity. Complaining that English is badly taught is not the same as believing it should matter less. Nor is criticising exam-heavy instruction the same as treating the language itself as a residue of cultural submission. The phrase “worshipping foreign things” matters because it shifts the question from usefulness to loyalty.

Yet irritation with a linguistic hierarchy does not make it disappear. English remains useful because too much of the world already operates through it. Its position was built on Anglo-American power, but it now rests just as much on accumulated habit, institutions and network effects. China may reasonably expect its own rise to make Chinese more valuable internationally. But that process will depend on foreigners having stronger reasons to learn Chinese, not on Chinese people deciding in advance that English ought to matter less.

The domestic consequences are also more complicated than critics often admit. Reducing English in public schools would not persuade affluent families to abandon it. They would buy tutoring, international schooling, overseas programmes or better digital instruction. The children most likely to lose access would be those who depend on ordinary schools to provide it. What looks like relief from an unnecessary burden could end up turning a widely available skill into a more exclusive one.

This is one of the strongest parts of Hu’s argument. Most Chinese adults will never need much English, but that is a rather narrow test of what belongs in basic education. A country of China’s size and ambitions needs a broad base of people able to look beyond the Chinese-language world—to encounter ideas at their source, follow debates taking place elsewhere and take part in the exchange of knowledge across borders. Keeping that possibility open is not only an investment in individual opportunity. It is one way of ensuring that a society does not gradually become captive to knowledge, arguments and assumptions circulating only within its own language.

The timing of the latest quarrel is striking for another reason. China has just marked the centenary of Jiang Zemin’s birth, reviving memories of the former top leader’s enthusiasm for foreign languages. Jiang studied and used several of them and repeatedly encouraged Chinese students and officials to do the same, famously reciting the Gettysburg Address to Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes in 2000. His generation associated foreign languages with opening up, catching up and becoming more capable. Learning from abroad did not seem to require any apology for being Chinese.

That contrast says something about how national confidence can evolve. One response to greater power is to conclude that China no longer needs to look outward quite so much. Another is to become less anxious about looking outward at all. The latter is surely the more useful confidence for a country that wants not to retreat from the international system but to exert more influence within it.

English may eventually lose some of its importance. Artificial intelligence will make translation easier, and China’s own weight may steadily increase the value of Chinese abroad. If the returns to learning English fall, schools and families will adjust. But there is a difference between a language becoming less useful and wishing it were less useful because the hierarchy around it has become irritating. Confusing the two would not make the world less Anglophone. It would simply leave some Chinese less able to move through it.

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In a recent interview published at the end of July with People’s Daily, Xue Lan, a Cheung Kong Chair Distinguished Professor at Tsinghua University and dean of both Schwarzman College and the university’s Institute for AI International Governance, discussed the risks posed by AI development and China’s responsibility in shaping global AI governance.

展开聊聊·当AI对人主体性的挑战摆上台面，我们该怎么办？

Let’s Talk It Through: What Should We Do When AI’s Challenge to Human Agency Comes to the Fore?

Why Are Some Countries More Pessimistic About AI?

Yang Qiaochu
Was there anything at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference that particularly impressed you? Anything that exceeded your expectations?

Xue Lan
Yes. I found some time yesterday afternoon to visit the exhibition, and the turnout was far greater than I had expected. My students in Shanghai also said tickets were almost impossible to get.

Yang Qiaochu
How much of that enthusiasm do you think comes from AI being such a hot topic, and how much from the possibility that it is about to enter people’s everyday lives on a massive scale?

Xue Lan
People in China tend to be very curious about new things. They are interested in them and eager to try them out.

Yang Qiaochu
But in many other countries, there still seems to be considerable anxiety about AI.

Xue Lan
That is true. China is among the countries with the most positive attitudes toward AI. In Europe and the United States, attitudes are generally more negative.

Yang Qiaochu
What are their main concerns?

Xue Lan
They worry that people will use AI to create fake content, or that the technology could get out of control. It is a combination of factors.

The previous industrial revolutions took place in Europe or the United States. Those societies experienced firsthand how the introduction of new technologies could profoundly affect every aspect of life. That experience remains part of their collective memory, and the adjustments they went through were often extremely painful.

China did not have the same experience. By the time the technologies of the previous industrial revolutions reached China, they were already quite mature.

Yang Qiaochu
So would it be fair to say that China’s collective memory is shaped more by a fear of falling behind, of missing out on shifts in global industry or a new technological revolution?

Xue Lan
That concern certainly exists. But there is another dimension to this. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution, driven by artificial intelligence, China is in the leading group. That also presents an enormous challenge: China now has a responsibility to explore the way forward, just as the leading countries did during the First and Second Industrial Revolutions.

Is Global AI Governance About Preventing Problems Before They Arise?

Yang Qiaochu
Looking back at previous industrial revolutions, each gave rise to a range of social problems, including frictional unemployment. President Xi has proposed a Chinese approach to governance. Is this approach intended to respond to a problem at an early stage, or is it more about anticipating and preventing problems before they arise?

Xue Lan
It depends on the type of risk. Broadly speaking, there are three main categories.

The first is the malicious use or misuse of artificial intelligence. The second and the most concerning one is the risk of losing control. The third is systemic risk: AI’s impact on different parts of society.

The first two types of risk have already begun to emerge. The third is only starting to appear because AI has not yet been adopted throughout society on a truly large scale.

Yang Qiaochu
So from the perspective of global governance, this is largely about preparing for problems before they occur.

Xue Lan:
Yes. In this respect, advance preparation is essential. The crucial point is that new problems cannot be addressed by relying on past experience.

In the past, after a new technology was introduced, society might have had several decades or even a century to gradually absorb and adapt to it. Today, a new technology can arrive like a tsunami, having an enormous impact in a very short time.

Can Human Civilisation Continue to Advance Once AI Becomes Widespread?

Yang Qiaochu
Some people are quite pessimistic. Generative AI is extremely capable, but it is trained on data accumulated over more than 5,000 years of human history, particularly since the industrial civilisation.

Could this create a closed, self-reinforcing loop in which AI continually draws on the accumulated material of the past to generate new content? If humanity surrenders its creativity and wisdom to machines, how can human civilisation continue to advance?

Xue Lan:
I think that is an extremely important question. Much of the discussion today seems to assume that humanity is passive, with no choice but to accept whatever happens.

China, however, can take a much more proactive approach to guiding the development of AI. No other country is as proactive in this regard. When a problem emerges, China quickly introduces relevant laws and regulations to address it.

The use of AI tools may lead to what is called “cognitive offloading,” where people simply hand everything over to technology. But if people actively learn to master these tools while continuing to exercise fundamental human qualities such as curiosity and creativity, there is no reason to believe that AI will make those qualities obsolete.

I think it is a good thing that people are raising these concerns. They can help society build consensus on how to prevent such problems from arising.

What Can Cooperation with the Global South Bring China?

Yang Qiaochu
In the philosophy of technology, it is generally held that the more advanced a technology is, the greater the responsibility borne by those who use it.

Xue Lan
What is truly remarkable about President Xi’s approach is the vision and foresight he brings to this issue. China is assuming social responsibilities commensurate with its technological development. The question of what should be done going forward must be considered from the broader perspective of human development.

Yang Qiaochu
Based on what you have observed, have any countries other than China issued similarly high-level declarations or taken comparable action?

Xue Lan:
Quite a few international organisations have done so, including the United Nations and UNESCO. At the national level, however, there have not been many such initiatives.

China and the United States are the two countries at the technological forefront. I will not comment further on the United States, but there is little reason to expect more from it in this area at present. That makes China’s leadership all the more important.

Yang Qiaochu
Twenty-nine countries responded to the initiative proposed by China, most of them from the Global South. But amid the current wave of AI development, the first concern for Global South countries may simply be gaining access to AI and avoiding being left behind.

Does that mean their ability to lead or pioneer further technological advances will be limited?

Xue Lan
Not necessarily. Their role may indeed be limited when it comes to pushing forward the technological frontier. Developing the so-called large AI models has a high barrier to entry, requiring specialised talent and substantial computing power. At present, perhaps only China and the United States have the resources needed to operate at that level.

But the fact that the technology is difficult to develop does not mean other countries cannot use it. The application process itself also offers tremendous opportunities for innovation.

The first half of the process may be advancing the technology. The second half may be applying it on a large scale across a wide range of industries. Every country in the world, in both the Global South and the Global North, has potential use cases.

Yang Qiaochu
While covering the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, we interviewed a representative from Ethiopia. He said Chinese AI was particularly useful because it could support Amharic.

It suddenly occurred to me that Amharic is by no means a minor language: it has more than 100 million users. That is more than one-eightieth of the world’s population, yet these users may have been overlooked for a long time.

The three major measures China announced at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference can help more countries in the Global South gain access to AI. What, in turn, does China’s AI sector stand to gain from this process?

Xue Lan
The benefits flow both ways. In the future, Chinese companies may travel to those countries to help deploy AI systems and build the necessary infrastructure. If this is done according to market principles, it will also create valuable growth opportunities for Chinese companies.

Second, when China helps other countries adopt AI, they may develop new applications during the implementation process. Those innovations may, in turn, help Chinese companies improve how AI is applied within China.

Who Should Share in the Benefits of AI Development?

Yang Qiaochu
Some argue that data is the new oil and that large AI models are trained on data generated through the digital labour of ordinary people.

Others argue that not only should users not have to pay AI companies, but AI companies should pay users, because their technological capabilities are derived from people’s everyday use of their services.

Xue Lan
Oil is depleted as it is used: consume one tonne, and there is one tonne less. Data is different because it is non-depletable. Everyone can use the same data at the same time without using it up. In many cases, the more data is used, the more it generates, giving rise to new ideas and new possibilities.

That said, some of these concerns are legitimate and will require greater attention going forward. In particular, the wealth created through AI should not accrue exclusively to the companies behind it.

What Makes Global AI Governance So Difficult?

Yang Qiaochu
Artificial intelligence is a relatively new issue in global governance. Compared with climate change or international public health, what is distinctive about it? What makes it especially difficult to govern?

Xue Lan
The development of AI is highly uncertain. It is also advancing extremely quickly.

Large models only emerged a short time ago, yet it sometimes feels as though they have been with us for ten or twenty years. In reality, it has only been two or three years.

The greater challenge is how governance can keep pace. Whether a government is introducing a regulatory framework or passing a law, the process must be rigorous, cautious, and deliberate. Governance therefore tends to lag behind the technology, and there is a constant concern that it may not be able to keep up.

Decisions involving human judgement — especially value judgements — must never be delegated to artificial intelligence.

Yang Qiaochu
In that respect, AI is essentially the same as other technologies. Every technology must be understood in its historical and social context. It is embedded in a particular social foundation.

Xue Lan
Society cannot simply resign itself to being pushed along by companies developing large AI models, with no say in where they lead. That is not acceptable.

What Roles Can the United Nations and China Play?

Yang Qiaochu
When President Xi met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres a few days ago, he specifically spoke about reinvigorating the status and role of the United Nations.

When discussing global AI governance today, why is it still so important to emphasise the international system with the United Nations at its core and the international order based on international law?

Xue Lan
There is sometimes a misunderstanding about how the China-initiated World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization relates to the United Nations. Some may wonder whether it is intended to replace the United Nations in certain areas. That is a complete misconception.

First, it is important to understand what the United Nations is. With 193 Member States, it has convening power and legitimacy. If the United Nations adopts a measure and a country refuses to implement it, that country will face moral condemnation from the international community.

At the same time, many issues need to be translated into concrete action. The final principle of China’s Global Governance Initiative is an action-oriented approach — staying committed to real results.

The new organisation therefore complements the work currently being done by the United Nations. Hopefully, more countries will join the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization and work together to translate these ideas into concrete action.

Yang Qiaochu
What role can China play in this process? China can already be said to be setting the direction in terms of moral principles and ideas, while also providing global public goods.

Xue Lan
China is also leading through action.

Yang Qiaochu
What enables China to take the lead in action?

Xue Lan
China has the necessary capacity. It has a large number of companies developing frontier AI models, giving it a strong industrial foundation in this field. Over the past several years, China has also developed a substantial pool of talent in a wide range of relevant areas.

In these respects, China genuinely has the capacity to take action.

Yang Qiaochu
Is political will also important?

Xue Lan
Of course. In fact, political will comes first.

China has a strong sense of responsibility as a major country. When China speaks of building a community with a shared future for humanity, it is not merely using a slogan. China is putting that idea into practice.

Its responsibility as a major country is not simply to pursue its own development, but to connect China’s development with the development of the world. I believe that sense of responsibility is the essential foundation.

What Does Global AI Governance Reveal About Chinese Communists?

Yang Qiaochu
As you have just said, viewed from the outside, this reflects the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s deep concern for the world and humanity.

Looking from within, I have noticed something else. Twelve years ago in Wuzhen, President Xi addressed the rapid development of the internet and proposed a number of principles for its governance. It seems that whenever a new technology is rapidly developing and being adopted on a large scale, the CPC promptly proposes corresponding governance principles and initiatives.

Could this be understood as a proactive approach to recognising change, responding to it, and actively shaping it? Is there a consistent philosophy of governance underlying this approach?

Xue Lan
The CPC does not take a rigid approach. It continually adjusts, adapts, and leads in response to changing times. It pays close attention to advances in science and technology and to the role they play in driving economic and social development.

Yang Qiaochu
I also came across a historical account saying that Chinese Communists were already taking an interest in the theory of relativity while they were in Yan’an.

Xue Lan
That is true. The CPC was founded by a group of progressive intellectuals. Its ideas were ahead of the society of the time, and it was particularly good at learning.

It has consistently continued to learn, absorb cutting-edge knowledge from every area of human inquiry, and use that knowledge to advance society.

Will AI Development Undermine Human Agency?

Yang Qiaochu
On the way here, I came across an idea that people have been discussing over the past few days.

Suppose AI independently discovered a verifiable law of physics that human beings could not understand, but experiments showed it to be correct. Should human beings accept it? Questions like this seem to pose serious epistemological challenges for many philosophers today.

Xue Lan
The crucial question is what kind of relationship human beings will ultimately have with artificial intelligence.

People now often describe it as a partnership. This means that humans are not AI’s masters, but nor should AI ever become humanity’s master. AI may become an extraordinarily powerful partner.

Yang Qiaochu
A partnership would imply recognising AI as an agent in its own right, although humanity might still need to keep it under their control.

Xue Lan
I think that is a likely point of contention. My own view is that humanity must retain ultimate control over artificial intelligence systems.

There is also growing concern that frontier AI models may already have entered a dangerous phase. A growing number of people in the industry are asking whether it is time to hit the pause button.

Yang Qiaochu
Could such a pause actually work?

Xue Lan
One concern is that AI could enter a cycle of continuous self-improvement, carrying out the entire process on its own without any further involvement from human engineers.

If that happened, there would be no way of knowing what level of capability the model might ultimately reach.

Yang Qiaochu
Human beings would be taken out of the loop.

Xue Lan
That is a stage that must be avoided.

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Published by Springer Nature, the volume forms part of the China and Globalization book series. It is available open access and can be read and downloaded free of charge.

Read or download the full book free of charge

About this book

This open-access book presents a curated look into Dr. Henry Huiyao Wang’s latest writings concerning the changing world order, a change widely characterized as one of “world disorder”. A quarter of the way into the 21st century, the world is now witnessing the definitive end of the post-Cold War unipolar moment and the beginning of a new multipolar world order.

Together, these writings explore the key questions facing the global community: How will the world navigate this structural shift defined not by a single hegemon, but by a complex web of competing power centers? How will major powers such as the US and China coexist in an era defined by both competition and cooperation? What role can China play as a new pole of influence emerges? And how can the international system adapt to reflect shifting economic weight, geopolitical realities, and the aspirations of countries across the global south?

Throughout, Dr. Wang offers forward-looking insights for policymakers, scholars, and practitioners. Equally, he highlights the indispensable role of international institutions—especially the revitalization and reform of the United Nations—in shaping a new era of globalization and multilateral systems, as the world moves toward the next global order and a new equilibrium where we must coexist, cooperate and compete at the same time.

Providing a panoramic view of today’s fragmented yet interconnected world and presenting insightful policy ideas from a Chinese perspective, this book calls on readers to reflect on how the next global order can serve all nations—large or small, North or South.

Contents

1 Introduction: A World in Transition

Part I Interaction and Exchange: Re-examining Tenuous Relations in a Transitional World

2 Reluctant Rivals I—China-US Relations under Trump, Practical Deals or More Challenges?

3 Reluctant Rivals II—China-US Relations under Biden, Containment and the Battle for Values

4 Maintaining Equilibrium—Can China and the EU Balance Global Relations?

5 Beyond the State—Innovative Forms of Exchange

6 Chinese Policy and Regional Relations

7 Perspectives on Governance

Part II Geopolitics and Multilateralism: Finding a Salient Solution to Geopolitical Tension

8 China’s Role and Contributions

9 Geopolitical Tensions and Multilateral Solutions

Part III Globalization and Economics: Tweaking the Sputtering Engine of Global Growth

10 Globalization as a Driver of Prosperity

11 China as a Driver of Global Growth

12 Exploring Solutions to Globalization Challenges

13 On the Sharing of Ideas and Power of Dialogue

14 Coming Full Circle—Forewords and Other Writings

15 Reaching the World

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CCG Update is pleased to share the publication of China and the Next Global Order: Coming Multipolar World and Great-Power Coopetition, the latest book by Henry Huiyao Wang, Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG).

Published by Springer Nature, the volume forms part of the China and Globalization book series. It is available open access and can be read and downloaded free of charge.

Read or download the full book free of charge

About this book

This open-access book presents a curated look into Dr. Henry Huiyao Wang’s latest writings concerning the changing world order, a change widely characterized as one of “world disorder”. A quarter of the way into the 21st century, the world is now witnessing the definitive end of the post-Cold War unipolar moment and the beginning of a new multipolar world order.

Together, these writings explore the key questions facing the global community: How will the world navigate this structural shift defined not by a single hegemon, but by a complex web of competing power centers? How will major powers such as the US and China coexist in an era defined by both competition and cooperation? What role can China play as a new pole of influence emerges? And how can the international system adapt to reflect shifting economic weight, geopolitical realities, and the aspirations of countries across the global south?

Throughout, Dr. Wang offers forward-looking insights for policymakers, scholars, and practitioners. Equally, he highlights the indispensable role of international institutions—especially the revitalization and reform of the United Nations—in shaping a new era of globalization and multilateral systems, as the world moves toward the next global order and a new equilibrium where we must coexist, cooperate and compete at the same time.

Providing a panoramic view of today’s fragmented yet interconnected world and presenting insightful policy ideas from a Chinese perspective, this book calls on readers to reflect on how the next global order can serve all nations—large or small, North or South.

Contents

1 Introduction: A World in Transition

Part I Interaction and Exchange: Re-examining Tenuous Relations in a Transitional World

2 Reluctant Rivals I—China-US Relations under Trump, Practical Deals or More Challenges?

3 Reluctant Rivals II—China-US Relations under Biden, Containment and the Battle for Values

4 Maintaining Equilibrium—Can China and the EU Balance Global Relations?

5 Beyond the State—Innovative Forms of Exchange

6 Chinese Policy and Regional Relations

7 Perspectives on Governance

Part II Geopolitics and Multilateralism: Finding a Salient Solution to Geopolitical Tension

8 China’s Role and Contributions

9 Geopolitical Tensions and Multilateral Solutions

Part III Globalization and Economics: Tweaking the Sputtering Engine of Global Growth

10 Globalization as a Driver of Prosperity

11 China as a Driver of Global Growth

12 Exploring Solutions to Globalization Challenges

13 On the Sharing of Ideas and Power of Dialogue

14 Coming Full Circle—Forewords and Other Writings

15 Reaching the World

Subscribe now

The drama, The Pillar (《重器》), has recently attracted wide attention in China. Produced by China Media Group, the country’s state broadcaster, together with the film and television centres of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Supreme People’s Court — China’s highest procuratorial and judicial organs — the series revisits landmark and sometimes painful episodes in the rebuilding of China’s legal system between 1979 and 1997. Its eleven stories are adapted from real cases, including cases arising from the sweeping crime of “hooliganism” and from the 1980s “Stern Blows” campaign.

Some of those scenes moved Luo Xiang, professor at the China University of Political Science and Law and director of its Institute of Criminal Law, to write the essay translated below. Luo’s online lectures, which mix criminal-law analysis with humour and moral philosophy, have made legal ideas accessible far beyond the classroom; his Bilibili account, the Chinese equivalent to a YouTube channel, alone has more than 32 million followers.

What struck Luo most was a storyline based on a real 1984 case in which defence lawyers were themselves arrested after arguing that the evidence against their client was insufficient. From that episode, he turns to a broader argument: a society’s respect for lawyers — especially lawyers defending unpopular defendants — is a test of whether it genuinely accepts that criminal justice must restrain state power as well as punish wrongdoing.

The essay was first published on August 14, 2026, in the “Utopia of the Rule of Law” opinion column of Phoenix TV, a Hong Kong-based Chinese-language broadcaster.

《重器》：为什么律师制度如此重要？

The Pillar: Why the Legal Profession Matters So Much

A legal drama called The Pillar has been drawing a great deal of attention lately. After watching a few scenes, I found myself overwhelmed by emotion. Set against China’s efforts to build the rule of law between 1979 and 1997, the series tells eleven stories adapted from real cases. Together, they trace the country’s legal evolution from the abolition of the crime of “hooliganism” to the establishment of the principle that doubt must favour the accused.

These events belong to the past, but history never stops speaking to the living. It reminds us not to confuse the authoritarianism of the ancient Legalists with the restraints that modern rule of law places on power. Modern rule of law is more than a static body of statutes and institutions, or the dynamic practice of administration according to law. It is a more comprehensive order in which law is supreme. Officials and citizens alike need, above all, to be educated in the spirit of the rule of law, not merely taught the particulars of the law.

The series also revisits the crime of “hooliganism,” which at the time functioned as a catch-all offence. In one storyline, a person faces the death penalty simply for having had too many romantic relationships. If the sole objective is to crack down on crime, such a vaguely defined offence is undeniably effective: it allows the authorities to treat almost any socially disapproved conduct as an “other hooligan act.”

But fighting crime is not the rule of law’s only purpose. If it were, there would be no point in making written laws public. Codified law necessarily limits what the state may do in the name of fighting crime. After all, as the old saying goes, “When punishments are unknown, the reach of power is impossible to gauge.”

The rule of law therefore contains an inherent paradox: it must fight crime while also restraining the state power used to do so, lest that power itself become a force that undermines social order.

That understanding of the rule of law, however, did not truly take root with the abolition of the crime of hooliganism.

Many years ago, I spoke about the abolition of the offence of hooliganism during a lecture. Afterwards, a retired president of an intermediate people’s court approached me. In his view, the offence should never have been abolished: it was simply too useful to discard. He earnestly told me that, during his time as court president, he had used it to convict many people, and that without it the judicial authorities now had their hands tied.

I did not know how to answer him; changing someone’s mind can be extraordinarily difficult. But I was still young and headstrong, and I blurted out a question: “If you and your family were judged strictly by the standards used for hooliganism back then, might you not be found guilty as well?” He flew into a rage and stormed off.

What moved me even more from the series was the story of defence lawyer Li Xiang, who was arrested after arguing for the acquittal of Qiao Zhiliang, a man charged with rape and murder.

Qiao, a village schoolteacher, is having a consensual affair with Wei Sanmei, his wife’s niece. After the affair comes to light, Wei takes her own life by overdosing on medication, and Qiao is charged with rape and murder. At a mass trial rally, Qiao himself admits the charges and accepts his punishment. His lawyer, Li Xiang, nevertheless argues that he is innocent.

Li argues that law and morality must not be conflated. In court, he lays out Wei’s love letters to Qiao and her letter of remorse to her aunt, one by one. The affair has lasted three or four years. It is adultery, not rape. Adultery is immoral, but it is fundamentally different from rape and certainly did not amount to murder.

Li’s defence infuriates the spectators, who begin hurling whatever they can at him. The courtroom descends into chaos. To the crowd, anyone morally corrupt has forfeited the right to live. Speaking through a megaphone, Li shouts above the uproar:

“Every defendant has the right to be defended by counsel. That right is conferred, recognised, and protected by the laws of this country. Every single one of you here has the same right. I am a lawyer. It is my duty to defend the accused. If any of you should ever need my defence, I will not hesitate.”

The story takes place in 1984, in the midst of the nationwide “Stern Blows” campaign, when judicial policy demands that crime be punished both severely and swiftly. Qiao Zhiliang is sentenced to death and executed immediately.

Officials react with anger as well. In their view, a lawyer who argues that a criminal was innocent is shielding the offender and placing himself in opposition to the people. In the series, Li is charged with “shielding a criminal, resisting official authority, and leaking state secrets”.

Even Hong Zhansheng, head of the legal advisory office, is arrested merely for making a few remarks in Li’s favour. Chen Yizhong, the student who later takes on Li’s defence, is also arrested after arguing with the police when he is denied access to his client at the detention centre [police-run facilities in China that hold suspects and defendants during criminal proceedings]. Fear sweeps through the area. The case becomes taboo, and no one dares mention the arrested lawyer.

Chen’s classmates eventually invite Yuan Yifang, a prominent lawyer from Beijing, to take the case. In court, Yuan says:

“The legal profession exists to prevent wrongful convictions to the greatest extent possible. What if one day someone in this courtroom has the misfortune of becoming a defendant? Every one of us is powerless before the machinery of the state.

“Li Xiang became a defendant because he defended someone else. By the prosecutor’s logic, I too should be made a defendant. A defence lawyer has only two possible courses: concede guilt and seek leniency, or argue for acquittal. If the second amounts to shielding a criminal, then every defendant has only one fate: to confess and submit to punishment, even when falsely accused.

“That is absurd. Such a chain of reasoning poses the gravest threat to the legal system. We are here today not merely to defend the legal profession, but to defend every person.

“If I am placed in the dock today for doing my duty as counsel, someone else will surely stand up and defend my innocence. If that person is then placed in the dock for defending me, another will step forward. The cycle will continue.

“But one day it will stop, because by then China will have set out on the path of the rule of law, and everyone’s most basic lawful rights and interests will receive the protection they deserve, indeed, stronger protection still...”

Those words sent a chill through me and brought me to tears. In the end, the combined efforts of many people overturn the wrongful case. Li Xiang and Chen Yizhong are acquitted and released. Justice finally prevails, though painfully late.

Art draws on life, but it does not necessarily rise above it. This storyline was based on the “Three Lawyers Shielding a Criminal Case,” which occurred in Tai’an County, Liaoning Province, in May 1984.

With the approval of Wang Baiyi, head of their legal advisory office, lawyers Wang Licheng and Wang Zhishuang lawfully undertook the defence of Xu, a suspect accused of rape and murder. They found the evidence insufficient and therefore argued for his acquittal.

Xu was nevertheless sentenced to death and executed immediately. After the execution, the local procuratorate arrested all three defence lawyers for “shielding a criminal.” They would remain wrongfully implicated for four years.

Under the supervision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the three were released on bail in 1985. Yet the local judicial authorities never fully admitted their error and arrested one of the lawyers a second time. Only after repeated intervention and coordination by the NPC Standing Committee was the case finally corrected and the lawyers exonerated.

Behind every small advance in the rule of law lies a story of immense weight.

Even today, many people still misunderstand the legal profession. They see lawyers who defend those condemned by public opinion as people who are speaking for the “bad guys.” Many remain deeply shaped by a moralistic mindset, believing that anyone who is morally corrupt should be severely punished by the criminal law.

The Qing-dynasty philosopher Dai Zhen once wrote: “Cruel officials kill people through the law; later Confucians kill people in the name of principle.” “Those who die under the law may still receive sympathy. But those condemned in the name of principle — who will mourn for them?”

The rule of law must guard against two dangers: the harshness of the ancient Legalists, who killed through strict laws and severe punishments, and the later Confucians’ use of “principle” as a weapon, imposing moral judgements to punish and destroy others.

How many of those who claim the moral high ground and clamour for punishment could themselves live by the standards they impose on others? Do not do to others what you would not want done to you. This does not mean that the rule of law severs law from morality. It means that each has its proper place.

In establishing guilt, the law must prevail and allow no room for sympathy; in finding a person not criminally liable, the law should still retain its human touch.

Law sets only the minimum moral standard for human conduct. If moral life encourages or tolerates certain behaviour, that behaviour should not be criminalised. But if everything condemned by morality were treated as a crime, even a sage might become a criminal.

Under the influence of moralistic thinking, “when in doubt, acquit” can easily give way to “when in doubt, convict on a lesser charge.” Faced with a morally flawed defendant, many judicial officers reason that even if the evidence is insufficient to support the more serious charge, a lesser offence can still serve as a fallback. After all, the defendant is not a good person, they think, so a conviction can hardly be unjust.

More than twenty years ago, I assisted in a case involving a young couple. Both treated their elders badly and were always trying to get money from relatives. Then the man’s eldest aunt was poisoned to death. The couple were accused of plotting together to kill her for financial gain.

According to the confessions presented by the prosecution, the two had spoken by phone around the time of the crime to discuss their murder plan. But I noticed that the prosecution’s own telephone records showed that the supposed call had lasted zero minutes and zero seconds.

I consulted a telecommunications employee, who explained that this meant the call had been placed but never answered. This cast doubt on the claim in the confessions that the two had discussed the murder by phone.

We later uncovered important evidence showing that the defendants had been elsewhere when the crime was committed. The head of our law firm told me that this evidence had saved both defendants’ lives. Instead of an immediate death sentence, they received a death sentence with a two-year reprieve.

I often wonder whether we won that case or lost it. If it were tried today, and if the principle that doubt must favour the accused were fully honoured, the defendants might well be acquitted.

Of course, what matters is not whether we won or lost an individual case. What matters is whether the rule of law truly advances.

In the series, Lawyer Yuan tells his students:

“The legal profession is indispensable to China’s legal system. Lawyers are not the adversaries or enemies of courts and procuratorates. Together with them, we are the people who make that system work.”

Respect for the legal profession is an essential part of building the rule of law. To respect lawyers is to respect the entire legal community. If lawyers are denied their rightful standing, no legal professional can truly retain dignity.

Jiang Ping, the beloved former president of the China University of Political Science and Law, once said: “When lawyers flourish, the rule of law flourishes; when the rule of law flourishes, the nation flourishes.” He is gone, but his words remain.

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Pekingnology

Jiang Ming'an: Caging the Leviathan is the Dream and Pursuits of Chinese Scholars of Administrative Law

On October 6th, the seminar on "The Formation and Prospects of Contemporary Chinese Administrative Law" was held, hosted by the Law School of Peking University and the Constitutional and Administrative Law Research Center of Peking University. Professor 姜明安…

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3 years ago · 15 likes · 3 comments · Yixiu Wei, Yuzhe HE, Yuxuan JIA, and Zichen Wang

Pekingnology

In Memory of Jiang Ping, "Conscience" of China's Legal Profession

China’s legal profession is mourning the loss of 江平 Jiang Ping, their collective “conscience”. The senior jurist and educator played a pioneering role in building China’s contemporary legislative system and contributing to the country’s rule of law…

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3 years ago · 13 likes · Zichen Wang

Pekingnology

He Haibo says China's online publication of judgments must NOT regress

On December 13, we shared the first part of He Haibo’s live-streamed presentation calling for attention to the sharply lower number of court judgments on China Judgments Online, the Supreme People’s Court’s official platform which at its peak shared nearly 24 million judgments made across China’s courts…

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3 years ago · 2 likes · Zichen Wang, Peiyu Li, and Yuxuan JIA

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That gap in meaning has landed Zhang Dandan 张丹丹, a professor of economics and deputy dean of Peking University’s National School of Development, in the middle of an extraordinary online storm. Appearing on 聊一波 Liao Yi Bo, a fabulous talk show founded by 王波明 Wang Boming, a veteran financial figure who helped build China’s early capital markets, Professor Zhang was asked about social protection for the country’s enormous population of flexible workers. “From the perspective of labour economics,” she replied, “flexibility itself is a form of welfare.” Regular employees, she went on, obtain pensions and other benefits partly by surrendering some freedom to a fixed working schedule; flexible workers gain greater control over their time, though at the cost of weaker social protection.

The sentence travelled much farther than the qualifications around it. Across Chinese social media, Professor Zhang was accused of being a modern incarnation of the ancient emperor who supposedly asked starving subjects why they did not eat meat. The Western equivalent is almost too neat: “Let them eat cake”, the phrase supposedly uttered by Marie Antoinette upon learning that French peasants had no bread. She almost certainly never said it; Jean Jacques Rousseau had already attributed a version of the remark—about brioche—to an unnamed “great princess” when Marie Antoinette was still a child. That hardly stopped it becoming history’s most famous shorthand for an elite oblivious to ordinary hardship.

Something similar, if vastly less dramatic, happened to Professor Zhang. Many people heard her as saying that insecure employment was itself a blessing: that workers without stable jobs, employer contributions or predictable incomes ought to appreciate the freedom bestowed upon them. Yet that is not the only plausible reading of the discussion. She was making a recognisable labour-economics point about the value workers may attach to autonomy and control over their time, while explicitly acknowledging the weaker social protection that often accompanies it. The problem may have been the proposition itself, its formulation, the setting in which it was expressed, or some combination of all three. What is much harder to infer from the exchange is indifference to the people she studies.

Indeed, the caricature of Professor Zhang as an ivory-tower economist unconcerned with ordinary Chinese workers sits awkwardly with her record. In 2023, when China’s official unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds was 19.7% in March, she estimated that the figure could reach an upper bound of 46.5% if some 16m young non-students who had stopped looking for work were treated as unemployed. The estimate was deliberately expansive and depended on a different definition of unemployment from the official one. But it was hardly the intervention of a scholar inclined to play down distress in China’s labour market.

Her more important recent contribution has been to show how far the gig economy has escaped the smartphone screen. China’s precarious workers are often imagined as the familiar armies of food-delivery riders and Didi drivers. Professor Zhang’s research suggests something much bigger. Between 2022 and 2024 her team visited nearly 30 manufacturing firms, 20 labour intermediaries and ten labour markets in Kunshan, Dongguan, Foshan and Shenzhen. Combining fieldwork with census data, she estimated that China has roughly 40 m manufacturing gig workers, or 31.12% of the sector’s workforce. In the manufacturing clusters she studied, on-demand workers averaged around one-third of the workforce, rose to two-thirds during peak seasons, and could account for as much as 80% in some giant factories.

We have followed this work for some time and covered it extensively both here and in The East is Read, our sister newsletter. Just last month, The New York Times, reporting on workers being left behind by China’s push into automation, cited her estimate in a link to The East is Read. In September 2025, The Economist, at least partly at our inspiration, devoted a leader and a substantial briefing to China’s roughly 200m flexible workers, prominently citing Professor Zhang’s research.

That record makes the fury over one sentence more revealing, not less. China has long had a wonderfully economical insult for public intellectuals: 砖家, zhuanjia, a homophone of 专家, or “expert”, with the first character replaced by the one for “brick”. The pun carries an extra sting because 拍砖, literally “to hit with a brick”, is Chinese internet slang for attacking or harshly criticising someone, especially for saying something foolish. A zhuanjia, then, is not merely an expert one distrusts, but the sort of self-important pundit whose pronouncements invite the public to start throwing metaphorical bricks. The joke has endured because suspicion of experts has endured with it. Economists, professors and other credentialled commentators are regularly accused of prescribing hardship they will never experience themselves, while enjoying secure jobs, comfortable incomes and considerable social status. In the popular imagination, the zhuanjia does not so much study ordinary life as explain to ordinary people why the difficulties they experience are either necessary or good for them.

Some of that hostility is plainly unfair. But its persistence provides the tinder on which remarks as Professor Zhang’s can land. In the face of prolonged difficult employment prospects, many Chinese are unusually sensitive to language that appears to rename hardship rather than acknowledge it. “Flexible employment” itself is an official-sounding phrase capacious enough to encompass radically different lives: the professional who genuinely enjoys choosing her hours; the courier racing an algorithm; the laid-off middle-aged worker driving passengers at night; and the migrant having a drink at 4:30 am to start their toil at a day labour market.

And there are a great many of them. The government, at the end of last year, estimated China has over 200 million “flexible workers.”That is around a quarter of the entire Chinese workforce and roughly two-fifths of its urban one. An unofficial report in June, by a Capital University of Economics and Trade-founded institute, estimates an astonishing 320 million “flexible workers” in China this year. Flexible employment is therefore no longer a peripheral feature of China’s labour market. It is one of its defining characteristics.

Some of these workers undoubtedly value precisely what Professor Zhang was heard describing. Her own research notes that younger manufacturing workers may prefer gig labour because formal factory contracts feel restrictive relative to the wages on offer. Others arrive at flexible work because better alternatives have disappeared.

That may be the most useful way to understand the controversy. Professor Zhang’s sentence did not create Chinese anxiety about precarious employment, and an angry internet did not suddenly discover the subject because a Peking University economist appeared on a talkshow. The anxiety was already there. Indeed, much of the evidence needed to understand it has been produced by Professor Zhang herself.

There is an irony in that. An economist who has spent years documenting the rise of insecure work with empathy has suddenly become famous for supposedly celebrating it. The episode is much less a verdict on one scholar than a reminder of how politically—and emotionally—loaded the vocabulary of work has become in China. When millions of people are unsure whether flexibility is something they chose or something that happened to them, even an academic distinction can strike a social nerve. The subject is tinder waiting for a spark. (Enditem)

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The East is Read

ACTUAL youth unemployment rate in China could be twice as high as official number

The following article has become a focus of public debate in China, a stinging reality check for many, and a call for action to the state. Skeptical of the official 21.3% statistic, a Peking University Associate Professor now puts the youth unemployment rate at an appalling 46.5% maximum…

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3 years ago · 7 likes · 1 comment · Siyan Nan, Jiayao Liu, and Yuxuan JIA

The East is Read

Dandan Zhang: China’s factory workers go gig

Dandan Zhang is a Professor in Economics (with tenure) and Deputy Dean (in research, internal and international cooperation) at the National School of Development (NSD), and Deputy Dean of the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development, Peking University…

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a year ago · 23 likes · Yuxuan JIA and Siqi Lin

The East is Read

Zhang Dandan: "very strong correlation" between left-behind childhood and criminality in adulthood

Hi, this is Yuxuan Jia from Beijing. Following Lu Ming's presentation, today's post focuses on a quantitative econometric study examining the causal relationship between being left behind in childhood and committing crimes in adulthood. Same as Professor Lu, this presentation was originally delivered at an April 27 online seminar organized by…

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2 years ago · 5 likes · Yuxuan JIA

The East is Read

4:30 A.M. at a day labour market in China, a drink to start a day’s toil

China’s informal labour markets are fleeting theatres of toil—unmarked spaces that spring to life before dawn and vanish by the break of day, playing out daily in nearly every major city, from Shanghai to Hefei. In Guiyang, the capital of the mountainous, landlocked province of Guizhou, one such stage comes alive at 4:30 a.m. A stretch of bare concrete …

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a year ago · 35 likes · 5 comments · Yuxuan JIA and Zhong Huiqing

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Zhao draws a broader lesson from this history: good public policy cannot simply be engineered from the top. Effective policies and institutions are often discovered through competition, experimentation and decentralised initiative. The role of higher authorities, he argues, should therefore be less to prescribe solutions than to preserve the political space in which alternative solutions can emerge.

Zhao Shukai (赵树凯; b. 1959) is a Chinese official of rural policy and governance. From 1982 to 1989, he worked at the Rural Policy Research Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s Secretariat (later reorganised as the State Council’s Rural Development Research Centre and subsequently the Research Centre of Rural Economy under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs). Starting in 1990, he served at the Development Research Centre of the State Council, China’s government cabinet, holding roles including Director General of the Rural Department’s Organisation Research Office and Director General of the Information Centre.

赵树凯：农村改革没有“设计师”

Zhao Shukai: Rural Reform Had No “Designer”

Rural reform in the 1980s unfolded through a series of groundbreaking departures from established policy. These upended conventional policymaking and marked a politically significant shift in policy direction.

The rural reforms of the 1980s represented an epoch-making policy shift. Household contracting reshaped the rural economic system, while the abolition of the people’s communes transformed governance at the grassroots. These changes paved the way for private ownership of large-scale means of production, the hiring of labour, and the freedom to leave one’s hometown for work or business, thereby laying the foundations of a market economy. No change in rural Chinese society since the founding of the People’s Republic has been more profound.

The profound significance of rural reform lay above all in the major political and ideological breakthroughs. The establishment of household contracting was not simply a change in how production was organised; it marked a far-reaching social and political turning point and the collapse of an old ideology.

In December 1958, the Sixth Plenary Session of the Eighth CPC Central Committee adopted the Resolution on Certain Questions Concerning the People’s Communes. The resolution stated that the people’s commune would “become the best form for our country’s transition from socialist to communist society” and that “in the future communist society, the people’s commune will remain the basic unit of the social structure.”1 In this sense, household contracting dismantled not only the people’s communes, but also the entire theoretical logic underpinning revolutionary development. It marked the collapse of a generation’s political ideals.

How did decisions on rural reform come about? As Du Runsheng put it: “There was no blueprint for rural reform drawn up in advance. It took shape through interactions at every level and on every front among farmers, grassroots cadres, local governments, and the central leadership.”2 By emphasising this multifaceted “interactions,” Du effectively rejected the idea that reform was driven by any single force. But this raises a further question: how exactly did these “interactions” unfold and reach fruition?

For these “interactions” to unfold, a particular political space was needed, and it was opened up by a pluralistic power structure at the centre. The rural policy process of the 1980s shows that this structure provided both a political arena for policy innovation and a political opening for reform. Reform occurred not simply because committed reformers emerged, but also because changes in the political structure created a more permissive environment — one enabled and sustained by multiple centres of power at the top. History has never lacked reformers; successful reforms, however, have been much rarer, because they depend on particular political conditions. The autonomy local governments enjoyed in policymaking within this pluralistic structure was the fundamental reason for the success of rural reform in the 1980s.

One school of thought attributes China’s reforms to guidance and planning by the country’s top leaders. Yet the course of rural reform in the 1980s shows that none of its major policy innovations originated in top-level design. Rural reform had already begun when the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CPC Central Committee was convened. More importantly, the documents adopted at that meeting explicitly prohibited household contracting. The same was true of the policy on hiring labour. When innovations and breakthroughs emerged at the grassroots level, the central leadership itself was divided over how to respond. Even among those who supported reform, some moved faster than others — a divergence later explained by saying that “understanding takes time.” Nor was there any shortage of people who opposed reform to the very end.

Another school of thought characterises decision-making in China’s reforms as “experimentation under hierarchy”: “key political goals are defined centrally; the policy instruments, however, are regularly developed and tested locally, and they are only later applied on a national scale.” Yet the pivotal breakthroughs in rural reform did not occur in this way. There was no centrally designed policy of “experimentation under hierarchy” among the top leadership. If anything resembling such experimentation did take place, it was only after reform had already achieved its decisive breakthroughs.

The decision-making process behind rural reform shows that top leaders should not hold a monopoly on policy decisions or serve as the sole source of policy. Higher levels of government should not monopolise policymaking; localities should have ample autonomy to formulate their own policies. Nor should the top-level policymaking apparatus be a closed, single-centre system. Lower levels of government and other social organisations should do more than merely supply information and offer policy recommendations: different parts of the system should have an independent voice and the right to participate.

Put differently, a power structure that allows and encourages competing policy proposals is an essential institutional safeguard for sound public policy. Such a structure must necessarily be pluralistic. Policymaking cannot depend excessively on political authority at the top. Such a political order must be reformed and a polycentric policymaking system established.

The decision-making process behind rural reform also shows that public policy cannot be scientifically engineered. Unlike in the natural sciences, mathematical models cannot be used to predict outcomes precisely and design every arrangement in advance. However capable leaders and experts may be, they cannot readily foresee which policies or institutional arrangements will prove effective.

In the case of particular rural policies, even farmers themselves often found it difficult at the time to judge what would work best for them. They needed sufficient freedom to compare alternatives and choose for themselves. Consider household contracting. Initially, some farmers in more developed rural areas did not believe it suited their circumstances and even preferred to retain the production-team system. Yet once household contracting was introduced, they had no wish to return to the old system.

Sound policymaking, therefore, depends on an open environment in which alternatives can compete. Competition is the fundamental means through which effective policies and sound institutions are discovered. In policymaking, polycentrism requires the highest decision-making authorities to redefine their role, moving away from issuing directives and towards respecting grassroots and the people.

Good policies and sound institutions can emerge only through robust and effective competition. The fundamental advantage of a pluralistic distribution of power, or a polycentric system, is that it preserves competition in the policymaking process and gives full play to the autonomy and creativity of the whole society.

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Pekingnology

Zhao Shukai: Pluralism powered China’s rural reform

Zhao Shukai (赵树凯; b. 1959) is a Chinese official of rural policy and governance. From 1982 to 1989, he worked at the Rural Policy Research Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s Secretariat (later reorganised as the State Council’s Rural Development Research Centre and subsequently the…

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10 months ago · 17 likes · 2 comments · Yuxuan JIA and WEI Lai

Pekingnology

China’s Rural Reform: A History Not Designed but Discovered

Zhao Shukai (赵树凯; b. 1959) is a Chinese official of rural policy and governance. From 1982 to 1989, he worked at the Rural Policy Research Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s Secretariat (later reorganised as the State Council’s Rural Development Research Centre and subsequently the…

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9 months ago · 31 likes · 1 comment · Yuxuan JIA and YIRUI LI

The immediate trail leads to Sinocism, the most influential China newsletter. Its publisher called him on X a “top barbarian financier handler” on the day of the announcement; three days later Sinocism used “chief barbarian financier handler.” As far back as 2015, Sinocism described him as “a very good barbarian handler”. One wonders what title remains for the next Chinese official who speaks fluent English to foreigners.

Oddly, this was already The Wire China’s second outing with the phrase this year. On February 1, it advertised an interview with Tsinghua economist David Daokui Li as “a discussion with barbarian-handler David Daokui Li”. The Wire China is a serious and useful publication, and these instances seem more like an unfortunate lapse in language than anything characteristic of its work.

Nor is it alone. In 2024, the Wall Street Journal called Vice-Premier He Lifeng the latest in a “long line” of Chinese officials occupying a role “referred to in diplomatic circles as a ‘barbarian handler’”. It did more than merely repeat the term: the article devoted two consecutive paragraphs of its first five to entrenching the conceit, describing successive Chinese officials as “barbarian handlers” and tracing the supposedly “tongue-in-cheek” expression to a centuries-old Chinese suspicion and disdain for outsiders. In doing so, it turned a piece of diplomatic slang into an established historical category.

The term is routinely presented as if it reveals something ancient and peculiar about China. Yet whenever it surfaces in contemporary usage, it is justified by some version of “referred to in diplomatic circles”—in other words, by the very Western officials, diplomats and journalists who use it. What looks like an inherited Chinese category is therefore a Western judgment dressed up as insider terminology.

There is some history behind the joke, but less than its users imply. Imperial Chinese texts certainly used yi (夷) for outsiders. Yet the supposedly straightforward equation of yi with the English “barbarian” is itself historically contested.

Dilip K. Basu challenged the entrenched rendering of yi (夷) as “barbarian”. Lydia H. Liu argued that the equivalence itself was forged in the 19th century Anglo-Chinese encounter: British translators rendered yi as “barbarian”, then used a treaty to prohibit the Chinese word while remaining free to call the Chinese barbarians themselves. That argument makes what happened in 1858 especially revealing.

Article 51 of the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin specifically prohibited Chinese official documents from applying yi (夷)/“barbarian” to Britain or its subjects. The historical irony is exquisite: their successors have dug the word back out of the archive and turned it into a joke about the Chinese people who talk to them.

In contemporary Communist Party of China and government usage, meanwhile, neither yi (夷) nor “barbarian”, or anything resembling them, figures in the vocabulary. It is the foreigners who have kept the barbarians alive.

The problem is not merely that the expression is rude. Journalism can survive rudeness. It is that the phrase is condescending and judgmental by construction. Mr Fang studied at Stanford, worked in Washington DC, and could explain Chinese financial policy in language foreign investors understood. Mr Li studied at Harvard and taught at Stanford and Michigan. Were these Americans who spoke excellent Chinese and understood Beijing, they would be praised for China expertise, cultural fluency and diplomatic skill. In Chinese hands, the same qualities become “handling”. The West gets China experts; China gets barbarian handlers.

One normally speaks with an interlocutor; one handles baggage, animals and intelligence assets. The word quietly converts communication into manipulation: fluency becomes technique, charm becomes a tactic, and explanation becomes something performed on the foreigner. It also flatters the Western observer. A visiting banker may imagine being explained IPO rules; the initiated China hand knows he is being handled. The framing reduces the foreign financier to a troublesome barbarian and the Chinese interlocutor to a functionary trained to manage him, while leaving the China watcher comfortably outside the performance, able to see how China “really works”. This is Orientalism in one of its more durable forms—not crude hostility, but knowing condescension.

It is especially distasteful today. There is now precious little incentive for Chinese officials, academics, and intellectuals to talk candidly to Western journalists, diplomats, or scholars outside official settings. That is unfortunate. But it is hardly the fault of the Chinese interlocutors who still choose to engage. If anything, those willing to speak openly are quietly pushing against, rather than embodying, the constraints that have made such exchanges more difficult. The irony is that those most willing to take risks to keep such exchanges alive are increasingly rewarded not with appreciation, but with questions about what ulterior motives they might have - from both sides.

They do it because they are curious, dislike mutual caricature, or believe that conversation across a widening geopolitical divide is worthwhile. Western interlocutors increasingly depend on precisely such people to understand a country that has become harder to penetrate. A little gratitude would not be excessive. Calling them “barbarian handlers” instead is a peculiar way of repaying the favour.

The cliché also encourages bad analysis. A Chinese official who speaks stiffly from talking points demonstrates the system’s insularity; one who is fluent, candid and cosmopolitan can be redescribed as a particularly accomplished handler. There is no way out.

A decade ago, the Financial Times repeatedly bestowed the title on Jin Liqun, including in a 2016 lunch with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank president, who “finds the term offensive” and said he was not dealing with barbarians but with people from modern civilisations. The line should have killed the joke. It did not. If Western China-watchers want more candour from within China, they might start by showing a little more respect to those willing to provide it.

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China’s unsolicited consultants

A problem has arisen at Starbucks in China. Some people sit in its cafés for hours without buying anything, sometimes bringing their own food and drinks. Paying customers complain that they cannot find a seat…

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a month ago · 12 likes · 2 comments · Zichen Wang

Zhu was a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 14th and 15th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China (CPC). He was vice premier from 1991 to 1998 and premier from 1998 to 2003 of the State Council, China’s government cabinet.

Below is a translation of his remarks at a discussion with the 焦点访谈 Focus Report production team of China Central Television (CCTV), the state broadcaster, on October 7, 1998.

At the time, Focus Report was a prime-time TV program on China’s flagship news channel, widely celebrated for exposing lower-level official corruption, bureaucratic abuse, and local administrative wrongdoings. Zhu was the Premier.

The remarks were recorded in《朱镕基讲话实录》第三卷 Selected Speeches of Zhu Rongji, Vol. III, People’s Publishing House, 2011, pp. 130–136.

和焦点访谈节目组座谈时的讲话

Remarks at a Discussion with the Focus Report Production Team

October 7, 1998

On October 7, 1998, Comrade Zhu Rongji visited China Central Television (CCTV) and held a discussion with leading officials of CCTV as well as editors and reporters from the production team of Focus Report (Jiaodian Fangtan). The following is the main part of Comrade Zhu Rongji’s remarks at the discussion.

Since Focus Report first went on air, I would not dare say that I have been its most enthusiastic viewer, but I have certainly been a very enthusiastic one. I have also been an active supporter and a volunteer publicist for the program. I often promote Focus Report on various occasions. Many ministers used to watch the program, but when they come to meetings that I chair, they worry that I might ask whether they watched Focus Report the night before. So they make sure to watch it the evening before the meeting.

Focus Report has been getting better and better and is increasingly popular with the general public. Those who are exposed by the program naturally do not feel very comfortable after watching it. So when you produce and broadcast the program, it is understandable that you encounter all kinds of resistance and unpleasant experiences. But the broad masses of the people support you. To show my support, I have long wanted to come to CCTV to visit you and thank you for the tremendous amount of work you have done to publicize the policies of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. You have overcome many difficulties. It has not been easy, and you deserve our thanks. I would also like to offer a few hopes for your future work.

I have not come to CCTV today just to talk about Focus Report. The work of the entire radio and television sector has been improving at an ever faster pace. In particular, during the recent struggle against the floods and in emergency relief, the publicity front played an enormous role, raising the cohesion of the Chinese people to an unprecedented level: millions united as one, their hearts joined together. The facts have shown that the breadth of influence of public opinion has also been unprecedented. The central leadership fully affirmed this at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Reporters wore life jackets and worked amid the floodwaters, putting genuine emotion into their work. Soldiers and civilians on the flood-fighting front all liked the reporters very much. So I should also thank all comrades on the publicity front for their strong support for the work of the State Council.

In the past, we often said that publicity work should “give priority to positive reporting and to publicizing achievements.” That is the correct principle, but this way of thinking has also constrained us. What does it mean to give priority to positive reporting? Does it mean that 99 percent of reports should be positive? Would 98 percent or 80 percent not do? I think even 51 percent would do. If most programs focus on publicizing achievements, while one or two programs point out the problems we encounter in the course of moving forward and mobilize the strength of the entire Party to resolve them, the effect is much better than simply publicizing achievements. Without programs like this, the voices of the people cannot be heard. In that case, what democracy is there? What oversight is there?

Through its own record and practical results, Focus Report has now demonstrated that people across the country accept the program. The fact that it carries criticism and reports problems does not leave everyone demoralized. Instead, people accept criticism through it, improve their work, see hope and prospects, and become more determined. That is the role Focus Report has played. The “Focus Report phenomenon” is now becoming increasingly widespread. It is no longer just CCTV that has a Focus Report; many radio and television stations now have similar programs.

I watched an episode of Economic Half Hour about the logging of virgin forests somewhere in Sichuan. It seemed to have been influenced by Focus Report, and its approach was quite similar. That report had a very good effect. I ordered Sichuan Province to completely halt the logging of natural forests and to turn logging teams into tree-planting teams. The provincial Party and government leadership took the matter very seriously and showed great determination. Logging was stopped in many areas. But it was still continuing in the Meishan area. Reporters discovered this and reported on it. At first, the provincial authorities said it was a World Bank-supported project and could not be stopped. Later, it became clear that this was not the case. The project had indeed been supported by the World Bank in the 1980s, but its main purpose was to help the local area establish plantations, not to cut down forests. Once this information was relayed back to the province, they immediately convened a meeting and decided to halt the logging. The government showed a very firm attitude toward accepting supervision. I would say that program was a “near-Focus Report,” and in some respects even “beyond Focus Report.” Its impact was enormous.

Beijing Television also has a similar program. This is a very good phenomenon: bringing the hardships of ordinary people to light, exposing problems in government, and then correcting them immediately. Correcting mistakes when mistakes are made—that is the attitude Communists should have. It is enormously encouraging to the people. Otherwise, if all people ever hear about is corruption, the more they hear, the more hopeless they will feel. But if problems are exposed and then corrected, that gives the people tremendous hope, genuinely brings them together, and gives them confidence. I am pleased by the “Focus Report phenomenon” now spreading across the country. It gives television and radio journalists a broad arena in which to exercise their talents and to play a greater role in promoting national reform and development and in advancing socialist democracy and the rule of law.

Everyone should get used to this kind of criticism. If one day you discover something wrong with me and come to interview me, I will certainly accept the criticism and correct my mistakes. We make many decisions. All major decisions of the State Council pass through me, so inevitably there may be flaws in some of them. Find them, point them out, and we will correct them.

I have four phrases for Focus Report: “舆论监督，群众喉舌，政府镜鉴，改革尖兵” “media oversight, the voice of the people, a mirror for the government, and a vanguard of reform.” That is my assessment of your work.

First, media oversight. Focus Report has fully performed the role of media oversight. Its subject matter is broad and covers almost every aspect of State Council policy. Practically every area I am working on now falls within the subjects you cover. Your reporting is very helpful to our work.

This morning, the State Council held an executive meeting to study the issue of “replacing fees with taxes.” At present, fees exceed taxes, and public resentment is boiling over. The first thing we need to reform is the system of road charges. This, too, was inspired by your program. The episode of Focus Report that impressed me most was “Penalties Must Be Imposed According to Law.” In replacing fees with taxes, we cannot proceed arbitrarily; we have to begin with road charges. So the State Council drafted proposals on replacing road fees with taxes and recommended amending the Highway Law. Before this morning’s meeting, I gathered together the relevant Focus Report reports and screened them for the ministers. After everyone had watched them, it became much easier to adopt the document.

I cannot say that all the reforms I am now working on were inspired by Focus Report, but I have certainly obtained many ideas from it. Take, for example, reform of the grain purchasing and marketing system. We have devoted great effort to this over the past several years, because agriculture is the foundation. The favorable situation we have today exists because grain output has been growing steadily: “With grain in hand, there is no need to panic.” Prices are now experiencing negative growth precisely because there is so much grain. When there is plenty of grain, it becomes difficult for the prices of other goods to rise.

But at the same time, the state has borne a very heavy burden. Last year, the central government provided 50 billion yuan in subsidies to grain enterprises, but the money did not reach the farmers. Much of it ended up in the pockets of lawbreakers. What could 50 billion yuan do? It would be enough to raise the salaries of all civil servants nationwide by three grades. Some grain administration departments are extremely corrupt. They buy grain cheaply from farmers, sell it at higher prices, and still receive state subsidies. The most typical example was Cao Hong’s report, “Grain Purchases Must Not Go into Private Warehouses.” While the program was still being broadcast, the Party secretary and governor of Hebei Province could no longer sit still. The very next day they sent a telegram saying they had held an overnight meeting, explaining the work they had done in the past and how they would strengthen and improve it in the future. After I saw it, I forwarded it with comments to Comrade Hu Jintao and Comrade Ding Guangen and asked them to take a look as well.

This shows how influential that episode was. Its impact was greater than that of one of my speeches. It made a major contribution to reforming the grain purchasing and marketing system. It was not only the leaders of Hebei Province who watched it. The entire national grain system, as well as provincial Party secretaries and governors around the country, drew lessons from it. The program’s presentation was also very good. It interviewed many people and let the facts speak for themselves. Television journalists used journalistic techniques to let the facts speak and let the people directly involved speak. They moved from the concrete to the general, and in a very short report managed to incorporate the state’s grain purchasing and marketing policies. It was highly policy-oriented and very compelling.

A few months ago, at a meeting attended by provincial and municipal leaders, I had them watch Focus Report while the meeting was underway. It was more vivid, more powerful, and more persuasive through facts than our own speeches. The 1996 program “Illegal Logging Threatens a Major Lifeline” portrayed a situation that was genuinely heartbreaking. Thinking about the recent floods, of course the floods were a natural disaster, but we cannot deny that too many trees had been cut down and sediment had silted up the rivers. Our policies on soil and water conservation, improving the ecological environment, and protecting forests had never been properly implemented. This time we saw how serious the consequences were. In Hubei, people were still encroaching on lakes. What was especially infuriating was that some cadres even argued self-righteously that there was nothing wrong with building houses there.

Your media oversight has covered many areas and consistently seized on the priorities of current policy. Rural electricity prices are another problem. In some places there is no power grid, so electricity cannot be delivered even when it is available. And even in rural areas that do have grids, electricity prices are exorbitant. When there is no electricity, people long for it; when there is electricity, they are afraid to use it. Farmers buy washing machines and refrigerators, only to leave them sitting there as decorations. The rural grids are in terrible condition, even using iron wire in place of proper power lines. Transmission losses are too high, making electricity extremely expensive.

Your programs gave me ideas on this as well. The central government has now made up its mind to renovate rural power grids, reform rural electricity prices, and institute equal prices on the same grid. Urban residents now pay 0.47 yuan per kilowatt-hour; rural residents should pay the same. The state will invest 140 billion yuan and complete the renovation of rural power grids within three years, allowing farmers to use affordable electricity. Once they have electricity, washing machines and refrigerators can be sold. Once products can be sold, factory machinery can run faster. Once factories are operating at higher capacity, state-owned enterprises can turn losses into profits. So renovating rural power grids and introducing equal prices on the same grid are of enormous significance. When I put forward this proposal, the State Power Corporation was delighted, localities were delighted, and the farmers were even more delighted.

In short, Focus Report has played an extremely important role in media oversight.

Second, the voice of the people. What is said on your program is what ordinary people themselves are saying. That is why the program is popular. Nowadays, when villagers deal with cadres, there is a common saying: “Are you going to listen or not? If not, we’ll see you on Focus Report.” This shows the influence Focus Report has among farmers. Farmers feel that they now have somewhere to speak, that someone will speak for them, and that once they speak, cadres cannot simply refuse to listen. The program has authority. For Focus Report to have achieved this is remarkable. You have made a major contribution to national reform and development and have played a very positive role.

Third, a mirror for the government. We really do learn from Focus Report about situations we otherwise could not learn about. It is like a mirror, showing us whether our policies are actually being implemented properly. When we go on inspection tours, we often cannot learn the true situation. Everything has been prepared in advance. They take you wherever they have arranged for you to inspect. Then you sit down and listen to reports. Who is going to tell you what they really think? On Focus Report, I can see many real situations. I believe that governments at all levels, if they genuinely want to serve the people and implement the principles and policies of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, can learn a great deal from this program. I hope editors and reporters will go precisely to the places where the work is most difficult. The material obtained under such circumstances is the most valuable and the most authentic.

Fourth, a vanguard of reform. Most Focus Report programs now deal with difficulties encountered by the Party and government in carrying out reforms and implementing policies, including cases where policies cannot be put into effect. You go out in front, identify the various problems in policy implementation, and press governments at all levels to carry the policies through to the end.

We are now implementing reform of the grain purchasing and marketing system. It sounds easy, but in practice it is extremely difficult. Today the State Council adopted another document on the subject. The CPC Central Committee and the State Council had already issued a document in April. After six months of implementation, there has been some progress. The reports submitted by localities all say that the State Council’s policy is absolutely correct, but the reality is that it has not truly taken effect. I hope Focus Report will continue to play the role of a vanguard of reform and serve as a good assistant to the Party and government.

In addition, I think there are many good features in Focus Report’s journalistic presentation that are worth summarizing. Above all, it lets facts speak and lets the people directly involved speak. This makes the program very vivid.

Of course, we should also treat people with goodwill. The overwhelming majority of cadres are good. We should reason with them, appeal to their feelings, and hold them to the law. When dealing with those who are unreasonable, who have done something wrong but still refuse to admit it, you must argue the case clearly. Reporters should prepare in advance so that, with one or two sentences, they can counter such arguments. Then appeal to reason and feeling. Get them to think about how much loss their actions have caused the state, how much additional burden they have placed on farmers, and how much damage they have done to the natural environment.

Finally, hold them to the law. If they have done something wrong, it must be corrected. Everything must be handled according to law, and you must pursue the matter to the end. I suggest that you strengthen your follow-up work. Everything you have reported should have an outcome. You need to see whether the problem has actually been corrected. Only in this way can you establish credibility. Of course, follow-up reports do not necessarily have to be broadcast on Focus Report itself; they can be carried in other news programs. This will also help strengthen the confidence of the people.

Does Focus Report have any shortcomings? I really have not seen any major ones. There was only one report, concerning a lawsuit between China Unicom in Tianjin and the posts and telecommunications authorities. There was nothing wrong with reporting the matter, but these issues are extremely complicated. We should not too readily believe only one side of the story, nor should we reach conclusions too early. The presenter of that episode seemed to be acting like a referee, having already decided in advance that the posts and telecommunications authorities were wrong and China Unicom was right. That may not necessarily have been the case.

Many matters are intricate and complicated. When drawing conclusions, one must be careful and develop a comprehensive understanding of their origins, historical entanglements, and current circumstances. It is best to invite someone who understands the situation well and is also responsible and reliable to draw the conclusion—to serve as the referee. The program presenter should not act as the referee, because if the presenter does so, it will be difficult to convince people.

Finally, on behalf of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, I would once again like to express my heartfelt thanks to all the staff of China Central Television. You have done excellent work. Thank you.

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Another English translation should be available in “A Talk with the Producers of Topics in Focus” in Zhu Rongji on the Record: The Road to Reform: 1998-2003 available in the United States via Brookings Institution Press

Qiushi (求是)/Seek Truth, the flagship journal of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has in recent years devoted growing attention to what such autonomy should mean in specific fields. In 2025 alone, the journal carried a run of articles on building autonomous Chinese knowledge in disciplines including Marxist theory, political science, international relations, and history, illustrating an effort to translate the broad political and intellectual agenda into concrete programs of theory-building within individual disciplines.

The following article, “Building an Autonomous Chinese Theory of International Relations,” appeared in the October 1, 2025 issue of Qiushi and is one contribution to that broader effort.

Its author, Ren Xiao, is a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University’s Academy of Regional and Global Governance whose research covers international political theory, East Asian international relations, and Chinese foreign affairs. He has also taught at Fudan University and previously served as a senior scholar and head of research divisions at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

In this essay, Ren argues that “international relations theory” should not be treated as synonymous with Western international relations theory. He surveys several bodies of theory developed by Chinese scholars, including relational theory, moral realism, Tianxia theory, and symbiosis theory, before setting out what he sees as the next steps toward greater intellectual autonomy. These include drawing more systematically on traditional Chinese thought, turning the theory and practice of China’s contemporary diplomacy—including Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy—into academic concepts and theoretical frameworks, and resisting the use of publication in English-language journals as the overriding benchmark of scholarly quality. For Ren, the objective is not intellectual isolation from the outside world, but a Chinese international-relations discipline that engages global scholarship while retaining greater theoretical independence and judging its work, in his phrase, “with ourselves as the principal point of reference” (以我为主).

Ren has reviewed the translation before publication.

构建中国自主的国际关系理论

Building an Autonomous Chinese Theory of International Relations

In recent years, the construction of an autonomous knowledge system has become an important issue in the Chinese social sciences and has attracted widespread academic attention. Building an autonomous Chinese knowledge system in the study of international relations is naturally part of this broader undertaking.

Since the beginning of reform and opening up, every field of the Chinese social sciences has gone through a process of opening up, catching up, learning from others, and importing knowledge. This was a necessary and indispensable stage. Through this process, the Chinese social sciences made substantial progress and achieved considerable development. But the purpose of learning from others is to enrich and develop our own knowledge system. More than forty years after the beginning of reform and opening up, it is now necessary to recognise more clearly the importance and urgency of developing autonomous theoretical thought. More Chinese theories should now take their place in the field of international relations theory.

An Inequality

With regard to international relations theory, I believe there is an important inequality: International Relations Theory ≠ Western International Relations Theory.

For several centuries, Western countries have occupied powerful positions in world politics, economics, military affairs, and other domains. Western academia has consequently also enjoyed a dominant position in intellectual life. As a result, when people hear the term “International Relations theory,” they instinctively think of Western international relations theory. This reflects the weakness — and in some cases the absence — of theory-building in the non-Western world.

A related phenomenon is that when Western international relations theory is mentioned, people immediately think of realism, liberalism, constructivism, or their various derivatives. Realism places power and material capabilities at its core and regards relations among states as fundamentally struggles for power. Liberalism places international institutions at the centre and emphasises their role in regulating state behaviour and facilitating cooperation. Constructivism focuses on ideas and on how changes in ideas shape international relations.

There is nothing inherently wrong with classifying the principal schools of Western international relations theory in terms of these “three isms.” The problem arises when some researchers treat them as canonical, as though international relations theory consisted of nothing more than these schools. This easily leads to intellectual rigidity and causes researchers to overlook other important perspectives in theoretical inquiry.

As changes unseen in a century accelerate, Western international relations theory has increasingly struggled to explain many phenomena in contemporary international affairs, and its limitations have become more widely recognised.

Take realism as an example. One of its major branches, neorealism — also known as structural realism — argues that the structural characteristics of the international system are the key determinants of state foreign behaviour and the direction of international relations. But this theory excessively magnifies the stability and constraining power of systemic structure. “Structure” comes to appear almost immutable, with the result that changes occurring at the unit level — that is, at the level of individual states — are neglected.

According to neorealist logic, a bipolar system is highly stable, and the end of the Cold War should therefore have resulted from changes in the structure of the international system, particularly shifts in the balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union. In reality, however, the Cold War did not end because one side acquired an absolute advantage over the other. It ended through the interaction of policy adjustments at the state level, ideological change, domestic political and economic conditions, and other factors. Neorealism therefore neither predicted the end of the Cold War nor provided a convincing explanation for it, exposing important limitations in its explanatory power.

Realism should, in principle, have responded by improving its theory. Yet instead, it moved in a more extreme direction, producing what came to be known as offensive realism, whose representative work is John Mearsheimer’s The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. This theory holds that the international system is fundamentally anarchic, resembling a brutal arena in which great powers are compelled, in the interests of their own security, to maximise their power at virtually any cost. It emphasises the zero-sum character of security competition and the offensive nature of military power. Mearsheimer then applied this theoretical framework to China. Without examining China’s foreign policy or its actual behaviour, he hastily concluded that China’s rise would necessarily be an “unpeaceful rise.” Such a theory and such assertions are mistaken and misleading.

These limitations demonstrate that Western international relations theories are not universally valid truths. We need to move beyond the constraints of Western theoretical frameworks and examine and construct international relations theory from more open and pluralistic perspectives, so that we can better understand and respond to an increasingly complex and changing international environment.

A Growing “Chinese School”

As early as the beginning of this century, Chinese scholars explicitly called for the development of a “Chinese School” of international relations, with the aim of developing original Chinese theories of international relations. In recent years, substantial progress has been made in China in building original scholarship, and a number of distinct theoretical approaches have emerged. These include, principally, relational theory of world politics, moral realism, Tianxia theory, and symbiosis theory, although other Chinese theories may still be in the process of formation and development.

Relational theory introduces “relations/guanxi,” an important concept in Chinese social and cultural thought, into international relations theory. In contrast with Western societies’ emphasis on individual “rationality,” it advances the concept of “relationality” and constructs an ontological framework centred on relations. It argues that the identities and behaviour of international actors are not determined solely by their internal rationality, but are shaped by the relationships among actors. These relationships are dynamic rather than static, processes of becoming rather than fixed conditions, and complex social relations rather than linear causal relationships. This theory breaks with the traditional Western focus on the individual state and extends analysis from individual states to interactions among states, among non-state actors, and among actors operating across different levels. It therefore provides a new way of understanding interaction and changing relationships in international politics.

Moral realism incorporates a moral-ethical dimension into the traditional realist framework. It examines in depth how rising powers acquire the status of leading powers in the international system and argues that a rising state must possess not only substantial material capabilities but also broad recognition and support at the moral level. It emphasises political leadership as a crucial component of national power — one that determines shifts in the balance of power among major states and changes in international norms — and regards morality as an important source of political leadership. In this way, moral realism moves beyond traditional realism’s narrow emphasis on material power and offers a new analytical framework for understanding power transitions in international politics.

Tianxia theory is a framework for understanding what the international political order ought to become, built upon ancient Chinese political ideals and historical experience. The concept of Tianxia implies a world system in which the world itself becomes a political subject and a coexisting order in which the world as a whole constitutes the basic political unit. One branch of Tianxia theory, sometimes described as “New Tianxiaism,” places particular emphasis on critically transforming the traditional Tianxia idea. It advocates a decentralised, non-hierarchical international order characterised by equality and sharing. To understand the world through Tianxia is to take the entire world as the unit of thought and analysis. In doing so, it transcends the narrow nation-state-centred perspective of Western international relations theory and offers a more inclusive and holistic way of thinking about international politics.

Symbiosis theory takes the diversity of existence as a fundamental reality. It recognises that differences are widespread but does not treat difference as a source of conflict. Instead, it regards difference as a source of growth and development. The theory argues that plurality and diversity are not accidental but fundamental, even essential, forms of existence. Homogeneous forms of plurality can coexist symbiotically, but heterogeneous forms can do so as well. It places particular emphasis on open forms of heterogeneous symbiosis, arguing that differences should be approached with tolerance and a willingness to coexist, and that one should go further by appreciating the characteristics and strengths of others and even absorbing and incorporating them. The theory does not deny the existence of individual interests. On the contrary, it begins by recognising such interests and then seeks ways of achieving symbiosis on that basis. It thereby offers approaches and pathways for resolving conflicts and achieving common development in international society.

These major original Chinese approaches to international relations theory have already attracted attention in the global academic community and generated a degree of influence. They demonstrate that the proposal to establish and develop a “Chinese School” of international relations theory has produced results and has gained increasing recognition and support.

Different opinions have naturally arisen in this process. Some scholars, for example, oppose the idea of a “Chinese School” on the grounds that the various international relations theories developed by Chinese scholars differ — and sometimes directly conflict — in their ontologies, epistemologies, and theoretical assumptions. Such debates are entirely normal. Indeed, they demonstrate the emergence of a flourishing and pluralistic intellectual environment.

From “Heteroautonomy” to “Autonomy”

The contemporary world is undergoing a period of profound turbulence and transformation. Different forces are confronting and interacting with one another, while a new world order is in the process of being reshaped.

In such an era, the Chinese social sciences should — and can — make substantial contributions. The construction of an autonomous Chinese theory of international relations can move considerably further on the foundations already established. The key is to transcend “heteroautonomy” (他主) through “autonomy” (自主).

“Heterotonomy” refers to a habitual mode of thinking in which one constantly invokes the West and consciously or unconsciously follows others. It assumes that an advanced and ideal model already exists and needs only to be imported. The first instinct is therefore always to search for an existing model and then follow its path or repeat its language. In social science research, this manifests itself in the uncritical adoption of Western theories, which are treated almost as sacred scriptures. Western theories are rarely questioned. Instead, researchers ask whether events in the real world “ought” to have occurred in accordance with those theories. This obviously reverses ends and means and amounts to cutting one’s feet to fit the shoes.

“Autonomy,” by contrast, means forming an independent judgement on a problem, developing one’s own views and propositions, and adhering to one’s own path of development. In academic research, autonomy means maintaining theoretical subjectivity and independence while continuing to interact and exchange with the outside world. When Chinese academia engages with the West, it should neither look up to it nor look down upon it, but look at it on equal terms. Chinese scholars should engage in dialogue, mutual learning, and mutual exchange with the global social-science community, including the West, in a spirit of equality and autonomy, with each side undertaking genuinely original work. That would represent a healthy intellectual condition.

China is a major country with a long history and distinctive culture. Its practice of international relations has its own clear characteristics, providing a deep foundation for constructing an autonomous theory of international relations. The key is to pursue creative transformation and innovative development. This requires us to explore deeply the wisdom concerning international relations contained within the finest elements of traditional Chinese culture, combine it with the realities of contemporary international relations, give it new contemporary meaning and modern forms of expression, and thereby revitalise it. In this way, our theories can become “water with a source” and “trees with roots.” The idea of “all under heaven as one family” (天下一家), for example, needs to be connected with modern social science and placed in dialogue with comparable ideas from other civilisations, so that it can be transformed into a theoretical formulation that is readily understandable and acceptable to both Chinese and international audiences.

The construction of an autonomous Chinese theory of international relations should also strengthen scholarly research and interpretation of the theoretical and practical innovations associated with great power diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has developed a profound understanding of the major trends shaping China and the world in the new era and has introduced a series of major theoretical and practical innovations in foreign affairs, giving rise to Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy. From the proposal to build a community with a shared future for humanity and jointly pursue the Belt and Road Initiative, to the advocacy of the common values of humanity, and subsequently the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilisation Initiative, and Global Governance Initiative, Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy has continued to develop and expand. It has guided major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in achieving historic and pioneering accomplishments.

The theoretical and practical innovations of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics possess significant theoretical and contemporary value and provide rich material for constructing an autonomous Chinese theory of international relations. We should more effectively distill the substance and value of these theoretical propositions and successful experiences and transform them into concepts and logical frameworks grounded in academic reasoning. In doing so, we can develop a system of international relations theory that possesses both Chinese characteristics and general explanatory power and further move China from being a recipient and follower of international relations theory towards becoming a creator and contributor.

Moreover, efforts to develop an autonomous Chinese theory of international relations should be evaluated on our own terms. In recent years, there has been a growing tendency to treat publication in English-language journals as the primary measure of the quality of social science research. Of course, it is highly necessary for Chinese social scientists to “go global,” and there should be more articles and voices from Chinese scholars in international English-language journals. But it must also be recognised that English-language journals possess their own standards and “rules of the game,” and these standards inevitably contain ideological inclinations, methodological preferences, and academic orientations. Publishing in these journals therefore often requires accommodating their preferences, positions, and viewpoints. If publication in English-language journals becomes the supreme criterion of academic merit, then Chinese scholars effectively allow others to determine what is right and wrong, and Chinese scholarship may lose its own identity.

Over the years, the quality and academic standards of Chinese social-science journals, including several international relations journals, have improved significantly. We should therefore have confidence in ourselves when evaluating academic work. English-language publication should be encouraged, but it should not become the standard to which everything else is subordinated. Evaluation should instead continue to be conducted with ourselves as the principal point of reference.

One characteristic of the social sciences is that progress is usually not explosive. It requires sustained effort and accumulation over long periods. We therefore have reason to believe that persistent and serious theoretical and scholarly exploration will ultimately bear fruit. The prospects for building an autonomous Chinese theory of international relations are highly promising.

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Pekingnology

Yan Xuetong: an autonomous knowledge system needs more than Chinese characteristics

China’s push to build an “autonomous knowledge system” dates to 2016, when President Xi Jinping called for the development of philosophy and the social sciences with Chinese characteristics. In 2022, he stated the goal more explicitly, saying that the effort ultimately came down to building China’s own knowledge system…

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2 months ago · 17 likes · 3 comments · Yuxuan JIA and Yiyang Xu

Pekingnology

After the Illusory Carnival

When The Economist published its July 2024 Chaguan column “The Nationalism of Ideas,” it offered a familiar interpretation of China’s latest intellectual movement: Xi Jinping calls for an “independent Chinese system of knowledge,” and a disciplined academic world promptly begins to theorize it. The piece was written in the magazine’s well-known register…

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a year ago · 21 likes · 6 comments · Zichen Wang and Yuxuan JIA

The clearest example is Xiaohongshu 小红书, the Shanghai-based social-media platform known overseas as RedNote. As we first reported in English last month, Chen Hao, a former employee, widely publicized his complaints to HKEX and Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission. His more relevant point is not an employment dispute he had won, but that in his labour litigation, Xiaohongshu had argued that its Chinese operating company, which had hired Mr Chen, was distinct from the offshore entity that issued his options. This sits uneasily with the control Xiaohongshu must demonstrate when it places domestic operations beneath an offshore listing vehicle in the variable-interest-entity, or VIE, structure: no connection when an employee claims, close connection when investors pay. Reuters followed suit in a report a week later, where Xiaohongshu denied it had confidentially filed for a Hong Kong listing, or that Chen’s suits hindered its IPO process.

A newer case concerns Xingyu Automotive Lighting 星宇股份, a leading Chinese maker of vehicle lamps that is already listed in Shanghai and is seeking a Hong Kong flotation. After it submitted a fresh application in July, Chinese media reported this week that newly hired graduates from China’s top universities had been told to leave or accept transfers to production-line jobs. Some complained to labour authorities; some reportedly sent material to HKEX. Employees have suggested that Xingyu’s downgrade of new employees coincided with cuts to the existing workforce, which had already fallen by 27% between 2024 and 2025, and were connected with the listing effort. That remains an allegation. Their decision to involve the exchange is the more notable development.

The choice is not entirely fanciful. HKEX is both a market operator and the frontline gatekeeper for Hong Kong flotations. Its IPO Vetting Department reviews new applications, while the exchange maintains a formal channel for complaints concerning listing applicants. HKEX also lists a “material complaint” among the developments that may prompt additional correspondence during an application.

Whatever view HKEX takes of employee disputes in any particular flotation, mainland commentary has increasingly treated labour-related controversies as another possible complication for companies approaching the capital markets.

Lalamove, the Chinese-founded on-demand freight platform, has repeatedly sought a Hong Kong listing. Chinese financial media have discussed its long-running listing effort alongside regulatory disputes over driver fees, platform rules and the treatment of drivers. There is no public evidence that these issues caused earlier applications to lapse, but they have become part of the discussion surrounding the company’s IPO prospects.

GoGoX, another intra-city freight platform, faced similar scrutiny before listing in Hong Kong in 2022. Chinese reporting on its prospectus partly focused on its classification of drivers as non-employees and the possibility that future rules might require social-insurance contributions, increasing costs and potentially changing its business model.

Mixue, the hugely popular chain selling inexpensive ice cream and tea, disclosed shortfalls in social-insurance and housing-fund contributions before its Hong Kong IPO. Chinese media covered the issue during the listing process. Mixue nevertheless listed successfully in March 2025. Its experience is a useful reminder that the significance of labour-related compliance problems can vary greatly.

There is also a mainland precedent for treating complaints as part of the listing process. China’s securities regulator explicitly includes the verification of complaints and tip-offs 投诉举报核查 among the tools it uses to police entry to the domestic IPO market. For Chinese companies and their employees, the notion that a dispute might acquire additional importance when one side is awaiting approval to list is therefore not entirely new.

The appeal of this tactic is easier to understand in the context of Chinese employment relations. Absent independent labour unions, employees are generally in a weaker bargaining position than employers, particularly the sizeable companies capable of mounting an IPO. Labour arbitration or litigation may produce compensation in an individual case—as it did for Mr Chen in Xiaohongshu—but the sums at stake can be modest relative to the company, the process lengthy and the resulting pressure limited.

Some aggrieved employees also believe that the imbalance extends beyond the workplace. Large companies have public-relations operations, relationships with media and online platforms and much greater access to official channels. Critical posts can disappear, discussions can be restricted and a dispute that matters enormously to one employee can attract little sustained public attention. Whether or not every such perception is justified, it helps explain why an employee who feels that the ordinary avenues have been exhausted might look for a point at which the employer is unusually exposed.

An IPO provides just such a moment. Management wants an orderly process. Sponsors have to investigate new information. Lawyers worry about incomplete disclosure. Regulators may have to consider whether an allegation is material. A claim that would ordinarily be an ordinary employment dispute can therefore become inconvenient when a company is asking investors to entrust it with large sums of money.

The publicity surrounding a complaint may itself provide leverage. Saying that a dispute has been “reported to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange” gives it a different status in the mainland information environment. Whatever one makes of Stephen Roach’s claim that “Hong Kong is over”, its institutions still, at least in the eyes of many mainland Chinese, carry more professional and legal authority than at home. A complaint sent to HKEX therefore sounds more consequential than an ordinary workplace grievance. The exchange may ultimately take no action, but the filing can still circulate on social media and attract financial-press coverage. For some employees like Mr Chen, that may be leverage enough.

None of this means that HKEX should become an alternative labour tribunal, nor that every employment dispute belongs in an IPO file. The more interesting possibility is almost the reverse. Capital markets impose disciplines that ordinary employment relations sometimes do not. A company seeking access to international investors is expected to explain material liabilities, disclose regulatory risks and satisfy outside gatekeepers that its business is run with a reasonable degree of compliance.

If Hong Kong’s listing regime occasionally forces mainland companies to take employee grievances more seriously, disclose labour problems more fully or clean up employment practices before entering the market, that would be a modest but worthwhile consequence of the IPO process. Capital markets are usually discussed in terms of what companies gain from them. In these cases, the more interesting question may be what the disciplines of a maturer market economy can, indirectly, give back to workers.(Enditem)

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The East is Read

A Key Pentagon Claim Behind WuXi AppTec’s Chinese Military Listing Was Based on a Retail Mutual Fund

When a U.S. federal judge on Friday blocked the Pentagon from enforcing its designation of WuXi AppTec as a “Chinese military company,” he identified a remarkably basic error…

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a month ago · 19 likes · 1 comment · Zichen Wang

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In both cases, the existing political order was portrayed as a natural outgrowth of China’s enduring national conditions, rooted in its culture, history, demography, and other distinctive circumstances. History, however, proved far less fixed. Within a generation, intellectuals were challenging the authority of the classics; decades later, market reforms would transform China.

In the follwing essay, Zhao Shukai argues that no set of national conditions lasts forever, because the people who shape those conditions do not stand still. He calls for an enlightenment aimed not at teaching citizens, especially farmers, to comply with government directives and obey the Party and political leaders, but at enabling them to think independently, understand their rights, participate in public affairs, and hold those in power accountable.

Zhao Shukai (赵树凯; b. 1959) is a Chinese official of rural policy and governance. From 1982 to 1989, he worked at the Rural Policy Research Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s Secretariat (later reorganised as the State Council’s Rural Development Research Centre and subsequently the Research Centre of Rural Economy under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs). Starting in 1990, he served at the Development Research Centre of the State Council, China’s government cabinet, holding roles including Director General of the Rural Department’s Organisation Research Office and Director General of the Information Centre.

This article originally appeared in Zhao Shukai’s Chinese book 农民的鼎革 Regeneration of Peasants, revised edition (The Commercial Press, August 2018). It is also available on the WeChat blog No. 9 Courtyard Moment (九号院时刻).

— Yuxuan Jia

赵树凯：没有千年不变的国情

Zhao Shukai: National Conditions Never Last Forever

When discussing public issues, people often argue that a particular idea is or is not suited to a country’s “national conditions.” This may sound perfectly reasonable, but viewed over the long sweep of history, no set of national conditions remains unchanged forever.

Political reform concerns people from all walks of life. Yet whenever it comes up, some immediately invoke China’s “national conditions” and insist that reform must conform to them. The problem is that these conditions are constantly changing. Have any remained unchanged for a thousand years? There was a time when education meant studying nothing but the Four Books and Five Classics — the foundational texts of the Confucian canon — when women bound their feet and men wore queues. These, too, were once considered part of China’s “national conditions.” But could they reasonably have been used to justify resisting change?

National conditions are shaped by history; they do not last forever. Just over a century ago, people could scarcely imagine a country without an emperor. Yet as times and public attitudes changed, they came to demand his overthrow. Enlightenment changes a country’s conditions — or rather, change in the people is the most important change of all.

Only a little over two decades ago, some leaders were still saying that China could not adopt a market economy and even warning that doing so would plunge the country into chaos. As for the path China should follow and the reform of its political system, I believe that such a path must be forged through practice rather than designed in advance. China’s political reform should continue to expand democracy, strengthen the rule of law, improve governance, and consolidate and develop the patriotic united front, among other things. This, too, is an important task of enlightenment.

Traditional Chinese political culture promotes the ideal of “inner sage and outer king,” with rulers presenting themselves as exceptionally capable, virtuous, and morally upright. American political culture, by contrast, does not assume that government officials are morally noble or accept the premise that they are wholly devoted to serving the people. Instead, it assumes that governments have interests of their own, that officials may not possess particularly high moral standards, that human nature has a darker side, and even that an official may simply be a bad person.

Given these assumptions, the starting point for designing a political system is distrust of officials, and the emphasis is therefore on using institutions to constrain them. Different assumptions have led to different institutional arrangements. Because officials are assumed to be susceptible to corruption — or, more precisely, capable of becoming corrupt — the system is designed with stringent safeguards and rests on the principle that the public should hold the government accountable.

How, then, can citizens become an effective force? I believe political enlightenment is particularly important in China today. From a global perspective, this was precisely the kind of question addressed by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment as a specific historical movement ended long ago, but enlightenment in its broader sense remains an ongoing process even today.

In China, society has been likewise engaged in a process of enlightenment since the New Culture Movement. About a century ago, Lu Xun and Guo Moruo abandoned medicine for literature, reflecting their generation’s awareness of and commitment to enlightenment. Literature can play an enormously important role in this process. Examples include Lu Xun’s writings in China, those of Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet Union, and those of Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia.

Scholars may analyse a country’s political reform and transformation with considerable depth and rigour, but their influence often remains confined to academia. To reach and influence a wider public, they must present their ideas clearly, accessibly, and engagingly. Academic and literary writing are, of course, different modes of thought. Reasoned argument and storytelling affect society in different ways and place different demands on their readers.

Generally speaking, argumentative writing has greater logical force than literary writing and is more likely to persuade through reason. Literary writing, however, reaches a larger audience. It is better able to move and inspire people, more likely to have a powerful emotional impact, and more capable of exerting a broad influence on society. Therefore, the role of accessible forms of cultural expression deserves particular attention in discussion of enlightenment.

The New Culture Movement, epitomised by the May Fourth Movement, is often said to have played an important role in China’s enlightenment — and rightly so. In reality, however, China’s enlightenment remains far from complete. It has not only remained unfinished but also taken many detours. For a considerable period, ultra-leftist influence gave rise to new forms of intellectual repression and indoctrination designed to keep the public ignorant. All too often, “obscurantism” was practised in the name of “enlightenment”. The lingering effects of feudal and ultra-leftist thinking have yet to be fully eliminated. The historical task of enlightenment therefore remains formidable.

Enlightenment of farmers does not simply mean educating or instructing them. There has been no shortage of research on Chinese farmers in recent decades. Judging by the volume of published work, there is a great deal of material on rural areas and farmers. In terms of content, however, it falls mainly into two categories.

The first seeks to instruct farmers by explaining government policies and requirements, laws, and regulations. Its direct purpose is to make farmers obedient — to have them follow the Party, the government, and political leaders. The second describes farmers’ lives, focusing primarily on their economic and social circumstances, such as employment, income, and consumption. What has been relatively lacking is research into farmers’ political activities, especially their political enlightenment.

In the past, the government often said that “The serious problem is the education of the peasantry.” In fact, the serious problem is not the education of the peasantry but of the government — particularly government leaders. Moreover, education alone is far from sufficient when it comes to government. Government must also be regulated, supervised, and constrained.

Who, then, should educate and constrain the government? The people — the citizens — of course, rather than the government’s own “leaders higher up.” How can citizens constrain the government? The crucial condition is the development of farmers’ civic capacity. Where does that capacity come from? It arises from the development of social life itself. In particular, the accelerating processes of globalisation and the spread of information are helping to shape a new generation of farmers. When farmers watch television, for example, they see elections in the United States as well as conditions in countries such as North Korea. Naturally, they form their own judgements about different political systems.

The process of reform and opening up is itself a process of cultivating and educating a new generation of farmers, and is one of the most powerful forms of enlightenment. Accelerating political reform, however, also requires more deliberate efforts at enlightenment. This is the role of political enlightenment itself: it includes both education at the level of ideas and political awareness, and practical training in organisational skills and the capacity for action. Enlightenment therefore deserves greater attention.

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China’s rural reform is commonly recounted as a series of policy breakthroughs, above all the shift from collective to household farming. Zhao Shukai, however, argues that the political changes that preceded — and made possible — policy shifts should not be overlooked. A less monolithic distribution of power at the top, together with growing disagreemen…

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Zhao Shukai: the policy failures that enabled China's rural reform

In the following essay, Zhao Shukai (赵树凯; b. 1959) argues that rural reform was not the result of far-sighted planning or the guidance of some enlightened “thought” or “theory”, but was driven largely by farmers’ own innovations, which policymakers gradually accepted after failing to suppress them…

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The move has quickly made international financial headlines, from the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times to Bloomberg and CNBC. Most of the coverage has fairly noted both the long-standing use of offshore trusts by wealthy Chinese to reduce or defer their tax liabilities and Beijing’s growing incentive, amid mounting fiscal pressures, to raise revenue.

A week after the new rules were announced, David Daokui Li, Professor of Finance at Tsinghua University and Dean of its Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking (ACCEPT), addressed them in the short video transcribed and translated below.

Li welcomed the rules as a long-overdue step toward tax fairness. “This new rule has no real impact for ordinary people,” he said, for the rather straightforward reason that “we ordinary people don’t have any offshore trusts.”

He then turned the fairness argument in another direction. China’s tax rate on capital income currently tops out at 20%, he noted, while the top marginal rate on labour income reaches 45%. “That’s clearly unfair,” Li said, before proposing that the top rate on all forms of personal income be capped at 20%.

The video was published on Li’s personal Bilibili channel on 1 August 2026 and on his personal WeChat short-video channel the following day.

李稻葵：海外避税时代终结，离岸信托个税新规出台，信托避税通道被堵死【清华大学李稻葵】

Li Daokui: The End of Offshore Tax Evasion: New Individual Income Tax Rules Seal the Offshore Trust Loophole

Friends, there’s been talks going all around the internet, saying the state has crashed down on the rich and that wealthy people across the country are going to lose sleep. The reason is that the government suddenly issued new individual income tax rules for offshore trusts, completely sealing off the tax evasion channel that the wealthy had used for many years.

This news certainly has a really significant impact. The industry estimates domestic offshore trust assets at approximately 2.3 trillion to 2.7 trillion RMB. But to say that the wealthy are screwed is a bit of an exaggeration because the new rule targets something very specific:

It’s not aimed at a specific group of people, and it’s not banning offshore trusts either. What it targets is the practice of using offshore trusts to evade tax.

I’ll explain to you folks what an offshore trust is very quickly. To put it simply, it’s when some people put domestic equity, real estate, or funds and place them into a trust set up in places like the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands, jurisdictions where there is virtually zero tax burden. Once the assets go in, legally speaking, they change hands and no longer belong to the individual who originally owned them.

Doing this gives them two benefits. First, asset segregation. If you rack up debt or go through a divorce, your assets in the trust are protected and no one can touch them. Second, tax evasion. As long as you don’t transfer the money you earned back to the county, the tax authorities can’t touch your money; so in theory, you go on never paying tax on the money you earn indefinitely.

This new rule targets precisely the latter. Going forward, offshore trust can still be used for asset segregation, and their legal function in wealth succession remains completely intact and unchanged, but using it to evade taxes no longer works.

Put simply, what should be protected is still protected and any taxes owed will be paid, down to the penny.

So how exactly did this new rule shut down this tax-evasion channel? It’s about taxing at every stage that could potentially be used to avoid paying taxes and taxing every asset or an entity on a look-through basis.

The moment you put assets like equity or real estate into an offshore trust, the government now treats it as though you’ve sold those assets, and you have to pay a 20% transfer tax upfront. And while the trust is active, you still have to pay a 20% tax on any dividends, interest, or other gains each year, whether or not the money ever lands in your own pocket.

Now, this is where the new rules really pack a punch. Previously, the biggest selling point of having an offshore trust was tax deferrals. Once you earn some money, you put it into an offshore trust, and as long as you don’t spend it, in theory you would never have to pay taxes on it. Essentially, you are putting your wealth into a safe that only ever goes up in value, never down. Now the government has slapped tax forms on these safes. When the trust is terminated, all the gains from liquidating all the assets will get taxed at 20% one more time.

Some people have asked: what if I switch my nationality or put the assets under someone else’s name and stay out of the picture, or what if I don’t distribute the gains directly and instead have the trust give me an interest-free loan to pay for an expense?

Well, sorry, but those routes have been completely closed off too. That’s the most ruthless part of the new rule, called the look-through approach. No matter how many shell entities are stacked underneath the trust, the tax authorities will identify who actually owns the trust. As long as your primary source of income comes from the Chinese mainland, you will need to pay taxes just like everyone else. The tax authorities will also look back over the previous three years. So if you transferred money out between 2023 and 2025, you still have to pay back taxes on it, and you’re only given a 90-day grace period.

Some of you might think this is the government ambushing the wealthy, but this is actually a misunderstanding. In fact, when the Individual Income Tax Law was first introduced, it clearly stated that Chinese residents are obligated to pay taxes on their income, whether it was earned in or outside of China. It’s just that for a very long time, this provision wasn’t properly enforced because information wasn’t transparent enough.

In 2014, China committed through the G20 process to implementing the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and exchanging financial account information with other jurisdictions. In 2018, China completed the first exchange of information. The Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Singapore — all the offshore havens that Chinese residents love to cluster in — are now part of that network. Whether you have an account overseas, how much is in it, what transactions have gone through it — that data gets synced back and fed straight into China’s tax authorities on a regular basis.

In 2024, the full nationwide rollout of the Golden Tax System Phase IV in China has connected the data across tax, banking, foreign exchange, and industry and commerce. If a person’s domestic income clearly doesn’t match the scale of their overseas assets, the system will automatically trigger a red flag.

But having the information isn’t enough. There also needs to be a clear set of rules for taxing it. This new rule provides the final piece of the puzzle.

Globally, greater tax transparency and look-through regulation have long been the prevailing trend. As early as 2010, the United States enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA. It requires foreign financial institutions to report information on overseas accounts held by U.S. taxpayers. The European Union has also adopted the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD). It also requires profits earned by entities that residents establish in low-tax jurisdictions to be attributed back to the residents’ home countries for tax purposes.

China’s move now is not a sudden escalation. It is simply taking a long-overdue step in line with the broader global trend.

One last thing I want to say. This new rule has no real impact for ordinary people, because we ordinary people don’t have any offshore trusts. But its significance is still worth everyone paying attention to, because it’s about tax fairness. If there is a group of people whose wealth sits permanently outside the reach of taxation, then the rest of us — the low- and middle-income wage earners — are, in essence, footing the bill for that unfairness with every bit of tax we pay. Making wealth transparent is the first step toward fairness.

Speaking of fairness, this brings me to something I’ve talked about for a long time: right now, the tax on capital income tops out at just 20%, and there are plenty of loopholes in it that haven’t been closed. Meanwhile, labour income gets hit with a top rate that jumps all the way up to 45%. That’s clearly unfair.

My suggestion is to apply the same 20% ceiling to all types of personal income. Lower-income earners would pay lower rates, starting at zero and rising gradually to no more than 20%. Wouldn’t that be fairer?

If we did that, I don’t think as many people would even bother racking their brains over how to evade taxes. The nation’s tax base would grow, and tax revenue as a share of total government income would also increase. This should be the overall direction of reform.

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These arguments are usually presented today as solutions to an economic problem: China consumes too little, household incomes account for too small a share of national income, and strengthening the purchasing power and social security of rural and migrant populations would help rebalance the economy.

But there is another way to understand the same debate. It is also about an old bill that has never been fully settled.

The disadvantages faced by China’s rural migrants are often discussed today in terms of the household-registration system, unequal access to schools, healthcare and other urban public services, children left behind in the countryside, or the social discrimination migrant workers still encounter. These are important. But they can obscure how much harsher the institutional divide was only a generation ago.

For much of the 1990s and into the early 2000s, the unequal treatment of rural migrants was not merely the indirect consequence of an uneven welfare system. It was written directly into government rules. Rural residents could be required to obtain official permission before leaving home to work. Cities restricted the occupations they were allowed to enter. Employers needed approval to hire them and sometimes had to pay special fees for doing so. People found in cities without the required identity, residence and employment papers could be detained and forcibly sent back to their hometowns. In practice, many were confined, stripped of their belongings and compelled to labour briefly before being released.

These restrictions have ince disappeared. For younger Chinese today, the ability to leave one’s hometown, take a job hundreds or thousands of kilometres away and move through a city without carrying a special employment permit is so ordinary that the opposite can be difficult to imagine. Yet the most abusive elements of this system were dismantled only in the early 2000s, and discriminatory employment restrictions persisted for several years after that.

The essay translated below is therefore more than a history of an obsolete policy. It is a record of one particularly heavy chapter in China’s treatment of its rural population — and part of the historical background to why some of the country’s most prominent economists now speak, quite literally, of a debt that remains to be repaid.

Its author, Zhao Shukai (赵树凯; b. 1959) is a Chinese official of rural policy and governance. From 1982 to 1989, he worked at the Rural Policy Research Office of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee’s Secretariat. Starting in 1990, he served at the Development Research Center of the State Council, holding roles including the Director General of its Information Center.

The essay originally appeared in the revised edition of Zhao Shukai’s 农民的新命 The New Fate of Chinese Farmers, published by the Commercial Press in August 2018. It is also available on the WeChat blog 九号院时刻 (No. 9 Courtyard Moment).

— Yuxuan Jia

赵树凯：民工潮中的“苛政”

Zhao Shukai: Oppressive Policies in China’s Migrant-Worker Wave

China’s “migrant-worker wave” first broke in the spring of 1989. After the Spring Festival that year, people suddenly began to notice rural migrants in vast numbers at railway stations, ferry terminals, on city streets, and elsewhere. The media, caught off guard, reported on the phenomenon extensively. Senior officials were equally surprised and somewhat unsure how to respond.

Why did the wave appear so suddenly? The usual explanation is that after 1987, the government adopted macroeconomic measures to cool an overheating economy and launched a programme of retrenchment and consolidation. As a result, many of the township and village enterprises that had sprung up over the previous four or five years were closed down or went bankrupt. Deprived of jobs close to home, large numbers of rural residents left in search of opportunities elsewhere.

What economic and social consequences would this sudden influx bring? Did it carry the risk of social crisis—or even political crisis? At the extreme, some compared these migrant workers to the displaced and itinerant populations of imperial times, arguing that they might directly threaten the stability of the regime, as bands of uprooted peasants had done in rebellions throughout Chinese history.

From 1995 to 2003, the central thrust of government policy was to restrict the movement of rural migrant workers.

In November 1994, the Ministry of Labour issued the Interim Provisions on the Administration of Interprovincial Employment of Rural Labour (Ministry of Labor Document [1994] No. 458). The rules first curtailed employers’ freedom to hire: “Employers shall not, as a general rule, directly recruit rural workers from other provinces at the place of employment.” Employers could recruit across provincial boundaries only when the local labour supply was insufficient. Even then, they had either to send staff to recruit workers where they lived or to entrust recruitment to an employment agency — for example, one run by the labour authorities in the workers’ place of household registration. When recruiting, employers also had to submit required documents to the labour and employment service agency in the workers’ home area and operate under the supervision of the labour authorities there.

More importantly, the rules directly restricted rural residents’ freedom to leave home in search of work:

“Before leaving home, rural workers recruited across provincial boundaries must present their identity cards and other necessary documents, register with the labour and employment service agency in the place of their household registration, and obtain an Employment Registration Card for Persons Leaving Home to Work. On arrival at the employing organisation, they must use their Employment Registration Card to obtain an Employment Permit for Nonlocal Workers from the local labour authorities. The permit and the card are valid only when presented together. Collectively known as the Migrant Employment Permit, they constitute valid documentation for employment away from one’s place of residence.”

On this basis, governments in a number of economically developed regions, especially major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, introduced restrictions on the industries and occupations open to migrant workers. The guiding principle was that local firms could hire rural migrants only for dirty, unpleasant, undesirable, or dangerous work, not for jobs considered even modestly respectable. Star-rated hotels, for example, were generally prohibited from hiring rural migrants, even as waiters or other service staff. The finance and insurance industries were barred from employing them altogether. In some places, rural migrants could not even work as security guards.

Employers wishing to hire migrant workers needed administrative approval, faced restrictions on the kinds of jobs they could offer, and had to pay special charges for employing rural workers from elsewhere. Put simply, rural people coming to the cities were confined to jobs that urban residents did not want, while urban businesses had to pay a special management fee for hiring them.

Had these employment restrictions remained ordinary economic policy, they might not have caused rural people such serious harm. A system requiring every employer to seek government approval before hiring and every rural resident to obtain government documents before leaving home to work was simply too cumbersome to function in practice. An unreasonable policy does relatively little damage when it cannot be enforced.

The real danger was that the agencies responsible for enforcement revived the State Council’s 1982 Measures for Internment and Deportation of Urban Vagrants and Beggars and applied them broadly to rural migrant workers. The measures had originally targeted “beggars and other destitute people sleeping on the streets,” but were now extended to migrant workers. In 1991, the State Council issued its Opinions on Reforming Urban Deportation, expanding the system to cover members of the migrant population who lacked any of the “three documents”: an identity card, a temporary residence permit, and a work permit. What had begun as restrictions on rural labour mobility evolved into a coercive enforcement apparatus, led by the public security authorities and supported by the civil affairs and labour departments, whose purpose was to suppress the movement of rural people.

Fees and fines supplied the main impetus behind this enforcement system. The compulsory internment and deportation of migrant workers became an important source of revenue for public security, civil affairs, and labour departments. At a time when government administration was poorly regulated and public financial systems were underdeveloped, this income helped government agencies buy vehicles, construct offices, and provide staff benefits. It also became a means for many officials to enrich themselves.

In those years, vast numbers of rural migrants were forcibly detained and sent home. In practice, detainees were treated much like prisoners. Their money and belongings were often confiscated. They were then confined in deportation centres much like detention centres — police-run facilities in China that hold suspects and defendants during criminal proceedings — and forced to work for two or three weeks, sometimes longer. In return for this forced labour, they received a ticket back to their hometown.

For more than a decade, the system of internment and deportation operated alongside restrictions on rural labour mobility. The total number of migrant workers detained and forcibly sent home nationwide was never disclosed. Surveys conducted by my research team found that Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou each detained and deported more than 100,000 people a year. Shanghai crossed that threshold as early as 1993, while Beijing detained more than 150,000 people in 1999. The scale was greater still in the Pearl River and Yangtze River deltas.

The detainees included not only people who lacked one or more of the “three documents,” but also many who had all three. Nor was detention confined to people officially classified as “peasants”. University graduates, technical professionals, and government officials were also swept up. During my fieldwork, I even met a division-level official from a central government agency who had been detained as a migrant worker.

The detention process was brutal and arbitrary. Those taken into custody were usually forbidden to make a telephone call or contact anyone outside. After arriving at a deportation centre, they had two or three days to reach someone who could pay the fine and secure their release. If no one paid, they were sent away to perform forced labour. In this policy environment, the public security, labour, civil affairs, and other enforcement agencies had powerful incentives — both institutional and individual — to perpetuate the system. For several years, its abuses ran rampant. Then, in the spring of 2003, the death of Sun Zhigang became a major turning point.

Sun Zhigang was a twenty-seven-year-old university graduate employed in a technical position at a company in Guangzhou. On 17 March, 2003, he was detained while out on an errand. He was taken first to a police station, then to the Guangzhou Internment and Deportation Transit Centre, and finally to a medical station for detainees. He was beaten repeatedly in custody and died three days later. When the media exposed what had happened, the case provoked a public outcry. It drew intense attention within the government and across society, especially among intellectuals.

Some legal scholars argued that the discriminatory restrictions imposed on migrant workers were not merely unjust but unconstitutional. Their central criticism was that under the Legislation Law, coercive measures restricting citizens’ personal liberty could be established only by laws formally enacted by the legislature. Administrative bodies had no authority to create such restrictions through administrative regulations. In effect, the internment-and-deportation system violated citizens’ personal liberty by presuming them guilty. A number of intellectuals petitioned the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to conduct a constitutional review of the system. Three months after Sun Zhigang’s death, amid this mounting pressure, Premier Wen Jiabao signed State Council Decree No. 381, repealing the Measures for Internment and Deportation of Urban Vagrants and Beggars.

From the early 1990s onward, there had been fierce debate within the government over the policies and administrative methods applied to migrant workers, especially the restrictions on rural workers seeking urban employment introduced by the Ministry of Labour in 1994. Senior leaders themselves disagreed. Yet discriminatory restrictions ultimately became the dominant approach.

The competing positions on rural policy fell into two clear camps: one oriented toward the countryside, the other toward the cities. On employment, for example, those in the urban camp argued that jobs for city residents could not be protected unless rural people were kept out. This view gained particular force in the mid-to-late 1990s, after large numbers of state-owned enterprise workers were laid off or lost their jobs.

For a time, those of us who studied rural affairs devoted considerable effort to examining the relationship between rural migration and urban employment. We concluded that rural migration did not, in a fundamental sense, cause urban unemployment. On the contrary, it helped urban economies flourish and increased their capacity to create jobs. Even where rural and urban workers did compete for certain positions, there was no justification for using policy and institutions to discriminate against rural people or restrict their entry into the cities — much less to violate their personal liberty.

At the time, some government departments tried to elevate restrictions on rural residents seeking urban employment, such as the requirement that migrants obtain employment permits and registration cards, into State Council policy. This led to open disagreement between policy research bodies and administrative agencies.

In March 1994, I wrote a report for State Council leaders in which I sharply criticised the Ministry of Labour’s employment permit and registration card system. We knew at the time that the ministry’s policy had the backing of certain State Council leaders. Our position, however, found support at the People’s Daily. On 9 July 1995, the newspaper devoted more than half a page to my research report, “Rural Migration and Government Administration.” I had not submitted the piece for publication; the head of the newspaper’s Rural Affairs Department had seen my report and arranged to run it. Reports of this kind were usually submitted to the State Council, with copies sent to the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, and other organisations.

An official at the People’s Daily later told me: “We agree with you and oppose the Ministry of Labour’s approach. But the ministry’s position was approved by State Council leaders, so we softened some of your sharper language before publication and made the criticism less forceful.”

After the Ministry of Labour introduced its restrictions on migrant workers in late 1994, I conducted field research in Shanghai, southern Jiangsu, Guangdong, and elsewhere. In Beijing, I accompanied migrant workers to a provincial liaison office to obtain migrant employment cards. The cards were about the size of a business card and cost eighty yuan apiece: you handed over the money and were given a card.

In mid-January 1995, after returning from fieldwork in Xiayi County, Henan Province, I telephoned the office of Jiang Chunyun, then the Politburo member responsible for agriculture and soon to be appointed vice-premier, to ask for an opportunity to brief him. A few evenings later, Jiang received me and spoke with me for an hour. I strongly criticised the Ministry of Labour’s rules, arguing that they seriously discriminated against rural people and had created widespread social conflict. Jiang oversaw agricultural affairs; the Ministry of Labour came under the authority of another vice-premier.

The year 2003 saw not only the nationwide rollout of agricultural tax reform, but also a fundamental reversal in policy towards migrant workers. The defining moment came in January with Document No. 1 of the General Office of the State Council (State Council General Office Document [2003] No. 1). Technically, this was only a document issued by the State Council’s General Office, rather than by the State Council itself or the Party Central Committee. Yet in its historical significance and its role in signalling a major change in policy, it stands comparison with the Party Central Committee’s No. 1 documents of the 1980s.

Entitled the “Notice on Strengthening the Management and Services for the Employment of Rural Migrant Workers”, the document centred on removing unreasonable restrictions on rural people seeking urban employment. It required:

“All regions and relevant departments should abolish administrative approval requirements for enterprises hiring migrant workers, eliminate restrictions on the occupations in which rural migrants may work in cities, and refrain from interfering with enterprises’ lawful autonomy in hiring migrant workers. Procedures governing rural migrants’ employment in cities should be rigorously reviewed and streamlined.

“Registration requirements created specifically for migrant workers must be abolished, and a system of administration based on a single temporary residence permit should gradually be introduced. Technical qualifications, health standards, and other requirements imposed by various industries and occupations, especially specialised ones, must apply equally to migrant workers and urban residents.

“When processing the paperwork for rural migrants seeking employment in cities or for enterprises hiring workers, no fees may be charged other than the cost of producing documents, as authorised under relevant State Council regulations. It is strictly forbidden to introduce administrative or institutional charges targeting migrant workers without proper authority, or to raise existing charges. Price-control and finance departments at every level must carry out rigorous inspections and ensure compliance, so that arbitrary charges against migrant workers do not continue in disguised form.

“The Measures for Internment and Deportation of Urban Vagrants and Beggars must be strictly observed. Migrant workers must not be added to the categories of people subject to deportation, and under no circumstances may they be forcibly repatriated or arbitrarily detained for investigation.”

This document marked a fundamental change in the direction of policy towards migrant workers, but the reality was not so simple. Both internment and deportation and the migrant employment permit system were bound up with deep and complex bureaucratic interests. While the abuses of internment and deportation occurred mainly in cities and other migrant destinations, the permit-and-card system, by contrast, reached into both city and countryside, and involved developed and less-developed regions alike. Resistance to dismantling it was therefore even stronger.

Once the document had been issued, the Ministry of Labour’s restrictive rules were on the defensive in policy and in the court of public opinion. In practice, however, they continued to be enforced. It was not until after 2006 that these discriminatory restrictions were largely abolished.

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Zhao Shukai (赵树凯; b. 1959) is a Chinese official of rural policy and governance. From 1982 to 1989, he worked at the Rural Policy Research Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee’s Secretariat (later reorganised as the State Council’s Rural Development Research Centre and subsequently the…

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In May 2026, Xue joined a Capitol Hill discussion convened by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on the risks and governance of advanced AI.

Speaking at Tsinghua University’s 2026 Academic Conference on Digital Economy Development and Governance, Xue argued that AI’s economic and social impact will depend not only on technological capabilities, but also on the sociotechnical systems, institutions, culture, and governance structures built around it. He also highlighted China’s generally positive public attitude toward AI as an advantage in its adoption and development.

Xue’s speech was published on the official WeChat blog of the Institute for Service Economy and Digital Governance, Tsinghua University, on 30 July. He kindly reviewed and revised the following translation.

人工智能技术的社会应用——治理挑战

The Social Application of Artificial Intelligence:
Governance Challenges

I. Introduction

It is a great pleasure to join today’s conference. Today, I would like to discuss how artificial intelligence can be more effectively applied in society. AI has advanced very rapidly in recent years. Following large language models, we have seen the emergence of embodied AI, and many are calling this the inaugural year of embodied intelligence. From a technical perspective, AI has developed at a breathtaking pace over the past two years.

By comparison, the development of the sociotechnical systems has been much slower. It’s fair to say that AI has entered its second half of development, making it increasingly urgent to build the sociotechnical systems required for its application in society. That is the issue I will discuss today.

II. The Development of Artificial Intelligence: Does Technology Determine Everything?

Much of the current discussion about artificial intelligence focuses on large language models. Their capabilities have improved extraordinarily quickly: from ChatGPT to Gemini to Mythos, each generation has been more powerful than the last. Intentionally or otherwise, this trend has fostered the belief that the continuous optimization of algorithms, iteration of models, and expansion of computing power will naturally drive industrial upgrading, organizational transformation, and social progress.

Some now predict that artificial general intelligence (AGI) could be achieved within the next two or three years, making trillions of dollars in economic growth inevitable. The implicit assumption behind these claims is that technology determines everything: as long as frontier models continue to advance, their social value will inevitably grow in tandem.

Yet a closer examination of AI’s actual impact across industries reveals a very different picture. Outside a selected number of sectors, there has been much anticipation but little tangible progress. Successful large-scale adoption remains the exception. Analyses from consulting firms tell the same story: many companies have invested heavily in AI applications, only to see returns fall far short of expectations.

The reasons behind this are complex. Take healthcare for example. Several years ago, reports already suggested that AI systems could interpret medical images more accurately than physicians. But when human lives are at stake, taking ultimate responsibility remains a difficult question.

Autonomous driving is another example. A few years ago, during a research trip to the United States on AI governance, we spoke with the California Public Utilities Commission. Its representatives said that autonomous driving was technically ready for real-world deployment and particularly well suited to long-haul highway trucking, since routes and road conditions are relatively straightforward. Driver fatigue is also common in long-haul transport, so autonomous driving could significantly reduce traffic accidents. Even so, they did not expect the technology to be adopted quickly, because truck drivers’ unions strongly opposed its entry into the long-haul freight industry.

These examples reveal a substantial gap between expectations for technological development and its actual application in society, posing a major challenge to technological determinism. If the main task in the first half of AI development was technological advancement, then the second half is about its application. Technological progress is no longer the only core issue.

For society to use AI more effectively, the key task is to create a new sociotechnical system: an ecosystem in which technology and society are deeply integrated.

From the perspective of technological determinism, technological progress follows a relatively independent path, while social organizations, institutional arrangements, and cultural beliefs have to passively accommodate and adapt to it. Wherever technology goes, society follows; the logic of technology is the fundamental determining force.

Although this remains an important school of thought in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS), a growing number of scholars recognize that technological innovation and social change do not have such a simple, linear causal relationship. This is especially true of a technology as far-reaching as AI. Its development must be understood within a broader social context and examined in relation to organizations, institutions, culture, and other social factors.

III. Research in the STS and the Classical Case of the Automobile Society

STS has long offered critical reflections on technological determinism, recognizing the limitations of viewing technology’s influence on society as one-directional. Newer theories, including the social construction of technology, large technical systems theory, and actor-network theory, emphasize that technology is a sociotechnical phenomenon embedded in complex social relations. More recently, scholars have advanced the concept of coevolution, arguing that technology and society shape and adapt to each other. This reciprocal relationship has been studied extensively at the micro, meso, and macro levels.

At the micro level, for example, the focus can be placed on how technology transforms organizations and reshapes their structures. In turn, organizational change determines whether technology can truly fulfil its potential; organizations also shape technology. When AI is applied in specific sectors, companies in different fields steer its development in different directions. Google, for instance, may focus heavily on information retrieval, while financial institutions place particular emphasis on risk management. Each type of company bears the imprint of its own field, including its specific organizational needs, and therefore exerts selective pressure on the direction of technological development.

At the macro level, institutions and culture are also crucial in redefining the boundaries of technology. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets strict external limits on data availability and use, and the regulation itself reflects the EU’s particular cultural and social environment.

Taken as a whole, the evolution of the automobile in human society provides perhaps the best comprehensive example of interaction between technology and society. The automobile went from a mechanical invention to a driving force that reshaped society as a whole in the 20^th century, but the path between those two points was far from straightforward.

The first phase spanned the first one or two decades following Karl Benz’s development of his prototype internal-combustion automobile. During this period, the technology essentially developed in isolation rather than functioning as a transportation system in any social sense. Cars primarily served as status symbols for a small number of wealthy people, for whom driving was a novel and entertaining experience. They were not yet adopted by the public, and horse-drawn carriages remained the dominant means of transportation. The social systems required to support automotive technology had not yet fully developed.

The second phase, roughly from 1910 to 1945, was when a sociotechnical system for the automobile took shape and cars truly entered society. Many factors contributed to this process. First, Ford introduced the Model T in 1913 and reduced the price of a car from $850 to $300. Cars thus became affordable for many ordinary middle-class families, greatly expanding car ownership.

Second, supporting social institutions began to emerge, starting with the road system. Existing roads had been built for horse-drawn carriages and were unsuitable for automobiles. To support the widespread adoption of automobiles, governments began systematically developing road infrastructure. In 1916, the United States began developing highways and establishing a modern road transportation system. Cars could then travel much farther, creating demand for refueling on long-distance journeys. Networks of gas stations and related services emerged in response.

As these supporting systems improved, they stimulated further demand for cars. Many families could not afford to buy a car outright and needed financing, so financial and insurance services followed. A road transportation system could not be sustained if drivers lacked the necessary skills and accidents occurred constantly. A traffic management system therefore emerged, including driver’s licenses, traffic lights, traffic laws, and other institutional arrangements. During this phase, interaction between automotive technology and the social system promoted the adoption and diffusion of cars while also improving the associated physical and institutional infrastructure.

The third phase marked a period of social restructuring, during which the automobile profoundly reshaped the spatial organization of society. The United States provides a particularly clear example. After World War II, car ownership became widespread among American households, facilitating suburbanization. Large numbers of families moved to the suburbs and commuted by car to jobs in city centers. Commercial patterns were transformed as well, with integrated shopping malls and large supermarket chains emerging in suburban areas. This urban-suburban spatial structure was largely shaped by widespread household car ownership.

Because automobiles require large quantities of fuel, many countries have to import oil from resource-rich nations, giving rise to a global geopolitical order shaped by the production, transportation, and consumption of petroleum. By this third phase, the automobile had profoundly influenced not only the spatial organization of society but also the international political order.

This analysis shows that the automobile’s development was not simply a case of technological progress driving social change. Rather, the automobile became closely connected to, and interacted deeply with, social culture, industrial networks, national spatial patterns, and the international political landscape. Together, these relationships formed a sociotechnical system centered on the automobile.

IV. Building a Sociotechnical System Centered on Artificial Intelligence

By comparison, the key challenge today is how to build a new sociotechnical system centered around AI. Relative to the automobile era, AI is still at an early stage of development. Today’s large language models may be comparable to the engines of the early automobile era. The question facing AI is not only whether the technology itself is mature, but, more importantly, whether a complete supporting sociotechnical system has been established, just as automobiles required roads, traffic rules, a driving culture, and other forms of physical and institutional infrastructure.

Drawing on a range of perspectives, a sociotechnical system capable of supporting AI development requires three interlocking forms of physical and institutional infrastructure: physical infrastructure; institutions and governance structures; and organizational and cultural systems.

Some scholars call this new type of system an “intelligent sociotechnical system” (iSTS), distinguishing it from traditional sociotechnical systems. In the age of intelligence, intelligent machine agents are no longer merely auxiliary tools but collaborative members of human-machine teams. Systems must cope with dynamic technological environments and uncertainty in both their internal and external ecosystems. The design objective has likewise shifted from controlling change to responding to it with agility and resilience.

The physical infrastructure of the AI era is comparable to the highway network of the automobile era. Countries currently place the greatest emphasis on computing infrastructure. Both the United States and China, among others, are investing heavily in this area and building intelligent computing centers. At the industry level, AI infrastructure now comprises a multilayered market encompassing chips, servers, data centers, and more.

At the bottom of this technology stack are semiconductor chips: accelerators such as GPUs, CPUs, NPUs, and TPUs serve as AI’s computational engines. Companies including Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA, as well as Chinese firms such as Huawei and Cambricon, compete at this layer.

Above the chip layer are AI servers and data centers. Hyperscale data centers have become the main sites for training large models and must support high-density rack configurations, advanced cooling systems, and ultra-high-speed interconnection networks.

Data storage centers are another essential component. They are no longer merely data warehouses, but core engines and data hubs that drive AI’s evolution. The quality of AI training and inference depends heavily on the quality, representativeness, and reliability of the underlying data. Sources include the open internet, proprietary corporate databases, licensed content repositories, scientific datasets, public records, and artificially generated synthetic data.

Network infrastructure is also indispensable to AI development. AI workloads rely on high-speed network architectures to connect computing and storage resources, while low-latency, high-throughput fiber-optic and mobile communication networks are critical to deploying real-time AI applications.

Energy supply is equally important. Data center locations increasingly depend on reliable access to electricity, and some hyperscale providers have begun investing directly in new generation capacity to ensure that their computing infrastructure can operate.

Institutional infrastructure includes the various systems needed for AI development and application. These cover data circulation and ownership, liability when systems fail (as in healthcare or autonomous driving), and safety arrangements such as AI auditing and certification, regulatory sandboxes, and dynamic governance mechanisms. Together, these institutions form a framework for governing social responsibility. They embed social responsibility throughout the system’s lifecycle, from design requirements and runtime monitoring to institutional oversight, so that values such as fairness, transparency, and explainability become measurable and enforceable technical requirements rather than slogans that exist only at the level of principle.

In policy practice, China has formally incorporated AI into its national cybersecurity legal framework through the newly revised Cybersecurity Law. It has also introduced dedicated regulations addressing specific risks associated with deep synthesis and generative AI, and issued standards defining ethical and security boundaries for AI. Meanwhile, the international community is exploring new approaches such as classified and tiered management and risk-based, agile governance.

Some infrastructure combines physical and institutional elements. Standards for invoking AI models, for example, are analogous to traffic rules and signaling systems because they can ensure coordination among different models. The middle layer of the technology stack, including machine learning operations (MLOps) platforms, model as a service (MaaS), and API management, is precisely where the physical and institutional dimensions come together. This layer supports interoperability standards and invocation protocols across models.

Finally, there are organizational and sociocultural systems. AI technology has a fundamental impact on how organizations operate. If AI is simply inserted into existing workflows, its effects will be very limited. It can realize its transformative potential only when it is embedded in organizational change and drives the redesign of entire workflows.

Within the framework of intelligent sociotechnical systems, humans and intelligent systems must be redesigned as an entirely new work system. Functions and tasks should be allocated according to the complementary strengths of people and AI, while ensuring that humans retain ultimate decision-making authority and control. Anthropologist Alan McFarlane has observed that earlier technological changes primarily affected manual workers, whereas AI may replace certain forms of professional work, fundamentally altering the definition and structure of occupations. Some studies predict that organizations will move away from traditional pyramid-shaped bureaucracies toward more flexible, project-based, and team-based forms.

Sociocultural systems encompass many areas, including mechanisms of social trust, patterns of risk perception, and systems of education and skills. One favorable condition for the adoption of AI in China is the broadly positive and receptive attitude of Chinese society towards modern technology and AI. Comparative international surveys have found that countries such as China, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore tend to view AI relatively positively.

Data from the 14th Survey on the Scientific Literacy of Chinese Citizens, for example, show that Chinese citizens are broadly positive about AI and that the foundation of trust is strong. However, clear differences exist among groups in their level of understanding, frequency of use, and confidence in AI’s development. People with higher levels of education and those working in more highly digitalized occupations tend to know more about AI and view it more positively. Younger people are more engaged with the technology and more open to it, while older people tend to have less familiarity with it but remain optimistic. The public has high expectations that AI will solve practical problems in areas such as transportation, health, education, and training.

An important part of building the broader sociocultural system will be to capitalize on this positive attitude while confronting the challenges created by differences among social groups and developing an inclusive system of AI literacy education for the entire population.

V. Conclusion

In summary, the dynamic and intertwined evolution of technology and society is a fundamental pattern of technological development, and AI is no exception. Historical experience from major technological revolutions, from the steam engine and electricity to the automobile and the internet, shows that their ultimate social impacts were never determined solely by technological capabilities alone. Rather, it depended on whether technology, institutions, organizations, and culture could develop a positive and mutually reinforcing relationship.

Moving beyond technological determinism towards a coevolutionary perspective requires abandoning the view of AI development as a linear process in which technological advances precede and drive social adaptation. Instead, social structures, values, and governance capacity must be recognized as forces that shape the trajectory and application of technology.

Technological capabilities are essential, but institutional, organizational, and cultural factors are equally important. These elements are interlocking and mutually dependent; the absence of any one of them would make sustainable competitiveness difficult to achieve.

As some scholars have noted, the next stage of AI competition may not simply be a contest over technological capabilities, but competition among broader industrial ecosystems and sociotechnical systems. Those that succeed in building a coordinated and efficient system across four dimensions — computing infrastructure, data governance institutions, organizational capacity for change, and a culture of social trust — will gain a genuine advantage in this long-term competition. Building a comprehensive sociotechnical system suited to AI development is therefore the central task in the second half of AI’s evolution and a strategic foundation for China’s transition from a technology follower to a shaper of global technological development.

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