Kissinger Institute

Fan: "In this climate of mutual suspicion, which describes fears coming from both countries, you can't help but devolve into worse case scenarios. Both countries are operating from this place of deep fear and assumption that the other will do whatever it can to undermine itself"

Fan: "If both countries do not address their internal weaknesses, it's hard to imagine how they develop in productive ways"

@KaiserKuo : "Either we think China is inscrutable, that we cannot derive what it wants, so to is this idea that it is an ideological juggernaut out to take over the world. Neither is the case"

Kuo cites a 2018 RAND report on China and multinational institutions. "It concludes squarely that there are areas in which" China seeks to alter multinational institutions, but that in most cases it was a status quo power

According to Kuo, China not interested in "foisting" developmental models on states, but trying to "head off efforts or discourse that undermine its legitimacy as an autocratic state." China is "defensive," attempts to deflect criticism, but not on "offensive"

Daly: "Is China opportunistic, or is it fully competent in its opportunism?"

Fan: "China is reactive to what the US is doing and what it has done." Notes nervousness from China in aftermath of 2016 elections, but that China's assessments of benefits of assertiveness vs what it stands to lose. Its opportunism is balanced by its pragmatism"

Kuo:"Xi has deeply alienated a lot of intelligentsia. Does that mean they are on the brink? They mostly belong to the loyal opposition that has roots in pre-Communist China," describes balance of pen and sword as driver of politics in China. Since 1989, not sure if tinder is dry

On #nCoV2019, Fan notices Chinese govt is "infantilizing" of its people, but finds that the drawing of distinction between "virtuous people and evil government," that "people are completely clueless" Is also infantilizing

Kuo on American perspectives: "We seemed to have seized on the idea that history is heading in a particular direction," but historical circumstance and specific turns and changes are not understood

Daly: "If you look back at the last 40 years, do you see any lessons that would make sense for us to consider as we develop a response to a risen China? Or is this year zero, where engagement offers no lessons?"

Fan: Goals of engagement were "modest," and were for China to open up markets and adhere to international norms, not to develop Jeffersonian-style democracy.

Kuo: "We don't talk about engaging with Merkel's Germany, Macron's France, or Trudeau's Canada. We save that term to describe countries with which we have value chasms with," believes pre-2008 engagement moved Chinese attitudes towards wanting less autocratic politics

Kuo wonders what caused illiberal turn from 2008/2009: "If you look at 2001-2008, you can't find much that roiled the waters between China and the United States" China, when it perceived to not be under threat, "was liberalizing"

On nationalism, Fan believes Trump plays into nationalism within China. "His affinity for confrontation rubs up against China's sense that the US, frightened by China's rise, is trying to contain China's growth,"put ordinary Chinese people on defensive, fueled "toxic" competition

Kuo on Chinese misconceptions of the US: "We are in a spiral of distrust, where each side is able to assume the worst of the other. Should our understanding of the whole complex society be shaped entirely" based on worst infractions?

Kuo compares tech and SARS vs nCOV: In 2003, 80 million online and today, 800 million online. "Tech has moved to the center of what we have between the United States and China. In better days, they cooperated well. There was wonderfully fruitful cross-pollination"

Will social media emancipate people from authoritarianism? Kuo: "We had the idea that it would bring down tyranny. Look at where we are now, and it's turned on its head"

Fan: "Everyone in the world, the West and the East, are thinking about how rules should be implemented on the internet. I think we are in a period of reckoning, but because there are not firmly established rules in technology, China is trying to assert itself in this new terrain"

On soft power and creative industries in China: Kuo: "The first rule of soft power is don't talk about soft power. The moment you talk about it, you've lost half the battle. China has deep reservoirs that it should draw on" but govt can't create it from the center