Trump Embraces Foreign Aid to Counter China’s Global Influence
Glenn Thrush
New York Times, October 14

“President Trump, seeking to counter China’s growing geopolitical influence, is embracing a major expansion of foreign aid that will bankroll infrastructure projects in Africa, Asia and the Americas — throwing his support behind an initiative he once sought to scuttle.”

China’s War On Waste
Al Jazeera, October 11

“China was once the dumping ground for half the world’s rubbish. But with 1.4 billion citizens, they are now struggling to cope with their own. With vast leaky landfills and hazardous backyard recycling centres. Beijing wants to modernise how it takes out the trash.”

“Chinese consumers are being told to sort their own rubbish for recycling. Proposals are in place to restrict single-use packaging and the government wants big city incinerators to burn most household waste by 2020.”

Under Trump, U.S. enters a new ‘Cold War’ with China
Ishaan Tharoor
Washington Post, October 11

“The Trump administration is throwing down the gauntlet in front of China. It has already launched the first major salvos of a trade war. It approved a $330 million arms sale to Taiwan last month. And now its top officials are taking part in a rhetorical offensive against Beijing that shows few signs of abating.”

Is China or Russia America’s Defining Rival?
Reihan Salam
The Atlantic, October 9

“Late last week, as most of America’s political class was transfixed by the denouement of the Kavanaugh confirmation battle, Vice President Mike Pence gave a wide-ranging address on the U.S. relationship with China, and why the Trump administration is committed to opposing its expansionist designs. For the most part, it was a familiar litany of complaints about China’s efforts to coerce its neighbors in the western Pacific, its trade abuses, its hostility to religious freedom, and its support of unsavory regimes around the world. Yet halfway through his remarks, the vice president shifted his emphasis, turning from all the various ways the Chinese party-state was acting in the world outside America’s borders to how it was seeking to influence political and cultural life inside them.”

Trump Reaches for Checkbook Diplomacy to Counter China
Keith Johnson
Foreign Policy, October 8

“In a stark reversal, the ‘America First’ administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has ramped up Washington’s ability to compete with China in financing development around the world, pushing back against what administration officials have called Beijing’s ‘debt trap diplomacy.”

Will China Hack the U.S. Midterms?
Adam Segal
New York Times, October 5

“President Trump recently accused the Chinese of interfering in American politics ahead of the midterm elections. “They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president to ever challenge China on trade,” he said, addressing the United Nations Security Council. He provided no evidence, and appeared to be complaining mostly about retaliatory tariffs by the Chinese government, which may hurt constituencies that support him, and an advertorial touting U.S.-China trade in an Iowa newspaper.”

Dealing with China, America goes for Confucian honesty
The Economist, October 4

“It takes nerve for a White House official to pick a fight with China’s government and claim that Confucius gave him the idea. Matt Pottinger, senior director for Asia at the National Security Council, did just that with a speech at the Chinese embassy in Washington on September 29th. Citing Confucian strictures on the dangers of hypocrisy, Mr Pottinger urged his audience to take seriously the Trump administration’s decision to brand America and China as competitors. To ignore such an evolution in relations was to invite miscalculations, he added, dropping into Mandarin to recite the Confucian counsel: “If names cannot be correct, then language is not in accordance with the truth of things; and if language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.” It was quite a moment. Read between the lines. A Trump aide was declaring an end to years of warm words about welcoming China’s rise.”

“Confucian scholars call this doctrine the “rectification of names”. As trade tensions deepen between China and America, both powers are being careful with their name-calling. Chinese officials avoid stoking the fires of nationalism. They have not rebuked Mr Trump personally, instead chiding America for “trade hegemonism” and other abstruse offences that are hard to chant at protest rallies.”

Pentagon Accuses China of Dumping Products to Undermine U.S. Security
Lara Seligman
Foreign Policy, October 2

“A U.S. Defense Department-led review ordered by President Donald Trump concludes that the Chinese government is deliberately leveraging its monopoly on certain key natural resources to undermine the U.S. defense industrial base, sources told Foreign Policy ahead of the study’s release.”

“The study accuses Beijing of flooding world markets with certain materials critical to the manufacture of fuel used in U.S. missiles and rockets and components of U.S. military jets, among other items. It concludes that China is carrying out this policy as a way of forcing U.S. suppliers out of business, said one administration official.”