Is the U.S.-China “AI race” really a race? Damien Ma (@damienics) of (@CarnegieChina) says it’s a long-term competition. In 2022, 46% of top AI talent worked in the United States and 27% in China. By 2025: 34% in the United States, 41% in China. Why does that shift matter? ▶️ Watch: ncuscr.org/video/ai-talent-r… #AI #USChina

For Foreign Affairs, #PIPFellow Carl Minzner examines how China’s accelerating population decline is colliding with a political system increasingly centered on Xi Jinping, and what the same pressures could mean closer to home. Read: foreignaffairs.com/china/chi…

How did China achieve rapid economic growth despite insecure property rights? @SusanHWhiting (University of Washington) argues that the answer lies in the legal system itself. In her book Illiberal Law and Development: Property Rights and Conflict Over Land in China, she researches how China’s legal system reassigns land to higher value uses, channels the disputes that follow, and reinforces the state’s legitimacy. In this program, Susan joins Arunabh Ghosh @guo_xuguang (Harvard University) to discuss her findings and how China’s experience compares with that of post-Glorious Revolution England and contemporary India. Watch the full conversation: bit.ly/4jpbufT

Beijing sets the goals. Provinces, cities, and counties decide how to carry them out. #PIPFellow Samantha Vortherms (@UCIrvine) and Xiao Ma (@PKU1898) explain how local governments bargain over high-speed rail, EVs, and population policy, why some localities move faster than others, and who pays when officials rotate out and leave debts and unfinished projects behind. ▶️ Watch: ncuscr.org/video/china-cente…

🤖 How is AI changing everyday life in China? 🇨🇳 Silvia Lindtner (@UMich) and Selina Xu (@selinaxu_) join Louise Matsakis (@lmatsakis) (@wired) to discuss how AI is shaping daily life in China and what its rapid development means for society. ▶️ Watch: ncuscr.org/video/ai-in-china…

In July 2026, a bipartisan delegation of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) traveled to China for the first time since 2019, meeting with Chinese officials, American business leaders, and U.S. diplomats. Established by Congress in 2000, the USCC examines the economic and security dimensions of the U.S.-China relationship and provides recommendations for legislative and administrative action. USCC Chair Randall Schriver and Vice Chair Mike Kuiken join NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins to discuss their takeaways from the trip, including China’s emergence as an innovator in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, as well as the policy questions this raises for the United States. ▶️ Watch the full interview: ncuscr.org/video/uscc-2026-t…

🔬🧪 Why are clinical trials moving faster in China? Amy Abernethy (Cofounder, Highlander Health) and Ruby Wang (@rcjwang) (Director, @LINTRISHealth) discuss differences between U.S. and Chinese approaches to clinical trials, what each country can learn from the other, and opportunities for cooperation. ▶️ Watch: ncuscr.org/video/clinical-tr…

🇯🇵🇨🇳 What does the Japan-China rift mean for the U.S.? @AdamPLiff (@IndianaUniv) and Kristin Vekasi (@umontana) join Evan Medeiros (@Georgetown) to discuss rising tensions between Japan and China, Beijing’s economic pressure campaign, and the implications for the United States. ▶️ Watch: bit.ly/3U4A3nY

NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins told the BBC that sustained high-level engagement between Trump and Xi reduces the risk of a "confrontational relationship," as Xi arrives in Washington this week for his first U.S. state visit since 2015: bbc.com/news/articles/c6n9w4…

In 1999, a junior high social studies teacher from Plum Borough, PA taught English in Luoyang, China through the U.S.-China Teachers Exchange Program — and helped raise $5,000 for a desert farmer, Yin Yuzhen, to plant trees in Inner Mongolia. 26 years and 50,000 trees later, they reunited. Hear Ron Sakolsky's story on our newest podcast: ncuscr.org/podcast/50000-tre… #USChinaRelations

Ahead of next week's Trump-Xi summit, NPR looked at how "Track Two" dialogues are keeping expert-level U.S.-China conversations going even as official trust on AI stays thin. Incoming National Committee President Sarah Beran spoke with NPR about what's at stake: n.pr/4yLTIYA

How are Japan, China, and the United States managing tensions in the East China Sea? Sheila Smith (@CFR_org) joins us to share how this moment fits into a broader picture of territorial disputes, roughly 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan, joint China-Russia military activity near Japanese territory, and Japan's own expanding defense capabilities. Why are open channels of communication between Japan, China, and the United States so important for managing escalation? ▶️ Watch full interview: ncuscr.org/video/east-china-… #USChinaRelations #EastChinaSea #Japan

#PIPFellow @LelandLazarus examines how China is expanding its presence in Latin America and the Caribbean, through ports, digital infrastructure, and security partnerships, in his new book, Dragon in the Americas, out now from @routledgebooks. bit.ly/4rdgdDq

🇪🇺🇨🇳 Trade between the EU and China makes up almost 30% of global trade and 35% of global GDP — but the relationship has changed fast. As China's exports move up the value chain, they're now competing directly with European-made goods instead of complementing them. Agatha Kratz (@rhodium_group) breaks down where EU-China trade tension is headed — and how U.S.-China friction factors in. ▶️ Watch: ncuscr.org/video/eu-china-tr…

Do the U.S. and China still share a policy on North Korea? President Trump has scaled back military exercises with Seoul and extended an olive branch to Pyongyang — while North Korea deepens military ties with Russia and abandons its goal of reunification with the South. @VictorDCha (CSIS) and @suea_thornton (Yale, NCUSCR Director) join @JCorrado1953 of @koreasociety to discuss who manages the next crisis on the Korean Peninsula if Washington and Beijing's approaches diverge. Watch: bit.ly/3VcIbTv #NorthKorea #USChinaRelations

China had twice as many college students as the United States by 2025, four times as many STEM graduates, and double the number of STEM Ph.D.'s — but Beijing still sees a system in need of reform. Gerard Postiglione (@gerrypost79) joins the National Committee to break down the three structural challenges facing China's higher education system as it works toward a 2035 world-class goal: graduate employment, access, and governance. Watch: ncuscr.org/video/higher-educ…

Beijing isn't creating the wave of Chinese pop culture reaching U.S. audiences — it's amplifying one already underway. That's the argument from Shaoyu Yuan (@shaoyu_yuan), who describes a "state amplification model": China's government builds the infrastructure, but the trends themselves, TikTok, EVs, and C-dramas among them, come from companies, creators, and platform algorithms. Yuan is careful to note that liking Chinese apps or admiring Chinese tech isn't the same as political trust, a distinction that matters for how policymakers read this shift. Journalist Rebecca Fannin (@rfannin) joins Yuan and moderator Michael Berry (@Bairuiwen) to unpack it. ncuscr.org/video/a-cool-cute…

Beijing's rare-earth dominance is often described as the fulfillment of a decades-old master plan, first foretold when Deng Xiaoping declared in the early 1990s that "the Middle East has oil, China has rare-earth elements." NCUSCR #PIPFellow @jessicacweiss and co-author Gloria Xiong (Colby College) push back on that story for @ForeignAffairs. They trace how China's rare-earth industry actually developed: through messy price wars, environmentally destructive overproduction, and years of resistance from local governments that Beijing struggled to rein in. Beijing didn't start treating rare earths as geopolitical leverage until a 2010 dispute with Japan, and even then, it moved cautiously for years afterward. The authors argue the current standoff is less a long-planned Chinese strategy than an escalating action-reaction spiral that neither side fully controls. Looking forward, they call for Washington to pair continued deterrence with reciprocal de-escalation, alongside sustained investment in American competitiveness, innovation, and workforce development, rather than relying on economic pressure alone. Read the full piece: foreignaffairs.com/china/how…

🇺🇸🇨🇳 China dominates much of the global critical mineral supply chain. Cory Combs (@triviumchina) joins us to discuss what the United States is doing about it. ▶️ Watch: ncuscr.org/video/chinese-cri…

Do more people around the world now trust China than the U.S.? Pew Research's Dr. Laura Silver breaks down a new 37-country survey showing rising confidence in Xi Jinping, falling confidence in the U.S. president, and a possible turning point in global opinion — watch: ncuscr.org/video/chinas-glob…