U.S.-China diplomatic reset faces unresolved 'contradictions,' expert warns

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]so to talk about China's perspective and what Xi Jinping was after today. I talked to Orville Schell, a longtime China watcher, author, and he runs the Asia Society Center for U.S.China Relations.

[00:00:13]Xi Jinping used a phrase that seems to me to be very important today, Ding Wei. What does that mean and why it's important? When he used that term, he was suggesting that we should have and and may be able to now confect a new position, a new posture towards each other, closer trade relations and, and, and a more amicable form of, of interacting so that competition isn't so intense, but isn't that the bargain that China has been asking for for a while. I think they do want collaboration economically at the same time they are, I think irremediably going to go towards greater autarchy. So Xi Jinping's game plan is this. become as independent as we can in everything from critical minerals, rare earths to the EVs and battery technology, but get Europe and the United States and Japan, etc. more dependent on our supply chains. So we have the livers, levers in our hand. They don't have so many in their hands, but as Beijing also asking the US to ignore US concerns about Taiwan and technology and trade and tariffs and all of that that has really been at the heart of US policy over the last few years. It's interesting that one of the first things that got lofted in before the summit actually began to start in interactive way between the leaders was that Xi Jinping said Taiwan is the most important issue. We heard Xi Jinping say that Taiwan is his red line is the most important issue, but that was in the readout, the Chinese readout. We did not see him say that on camera. Why is that significant? I think it may be a tactical move. They said to themselves, let's say it early, make it clear, but not let it bollocks up the rest of what we're doing. This is a little like Nixon and Kissinger. They had to tie one question too.

[00:02:14]They pushed it aside until the very end, when they had to come to grips with it. It seems to me that the US policy on economics has been to bring factories back in the US diversifying supply chain, rely less on China, but the message today has been, we want to be in China. We want to be investing in China. Is there a way to square that circle? I think there's a contradiction here. Uh, I mean, I think we're bound to find some offers of Chinese investment in in areas that aren't of national security interests for the United States.

[00:02:49]The only rub is we know what the pattern is, how, how, how this game gets played out. The industry goes in China learns how to do it.

[00:02:57]They do it better and the foreign industry gets shut out and China has a ascendant, uh, share of that market and undersells everybody else everywhere else beyond President Trump is the US system is Congress, or US laws open to some kind of new way with China that is less focused on national security and more focus back on economic cooperation.

[00:03:24]I think it's possible. Now, I don't know if Trump has that kind of adeptness. to sort of make a reach an inflection point and really change the terms of the game, but we've had an expression here in this last day of a willingness on both sides to try.

[00:03:42]but now we have to put this Mao Zedongs always said theory into practice, and that's not easy, and there remains a lot of contradictions that are unresolved. Orville Shell, thank you very much.