On Thursday, April 15, 2021, more than 100 attendees gathered over livestream for the webinar, “Between Cooperation and Conflict: Charting a Durable Path for the Future of U.S.-China Relations.” Ryan Hass, author of Stronger: Adapting America’s China Strategy in an Age of Competitive Interdependence, discussed the future of the U.S.-China relationship and the importance of the two powers finding a way forward.
Hass began by outlining the tensions in the current moment for U.S.-China relations. China has emerged as a near peer competitor to the U.S., as China has made gains to catch up with the United States in terms of military, economic, and international power in recent years. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping has imprinted his personality on policy at home and abroad.
Economically, Beijing is reducing its dependence on external supply, while internationally, China is seeking to assert its leadership and dominance. Furthermore, China’s rise has coincided with a period of severe disruption in the U.S., with workforce and demographic transitions, divisive politics, and a series of global setbacks and the retreat of America from its traditional leadership role on the world stage. These factors have created a perfect storm of events at the same time that China has been surging forward.
Several popular explanations for China’s rise have emerged, each presenting China as being on an inexorable rise and posing a risk to the U.S. However, Hass argues that these explanations point U.S. policy in a counterproductive direction. Rather than reacting defensively, Hass argues that the United States should remember that it is the stronger power and project confidence on the world stage. Hass concluded by asserting that America can best strengthen its own competitiveness by investing at home, saying, “I firmly believe that our security and prosperity will be determined foremost by our own decisions, by our own actions, and not by Beijing.”
An engaging Q&A session with questions from the audience followed. The discussion ranged from how the U.S. should respond to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, to the future of Taiwan, to the role of higher education in the U.S.-China relationship.
About the Speaker
Ryan Hass is a senior fellow and the Michael H. Armacost Chair in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, where he holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. He is also the Interim Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies. He was part of the inaugural class of David M. Rubenstein fellows at Brookings, and is a nonresident affiliated fellow in the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School. Hass focuses his research and analysis on enhancing policy development on the pressing political, economic, and security challenges facing the United States in East Asia.