XI JINPING: I fired a guy for taking bribes THE ATLANTIC: it's a complete mystery why Xi fired this guy. We'll probably never know. Anyway it makes me think of a TV show I saw once

.@AngelicaOung: “A unilateral announcement of non-defense would put Taiwan in a bad bargaining position vis a vis the mainland. Even those who would wish to see…‘one country two systems’…would not wish for Taiwan to go to the bargaining table so naked.” taipology.substack.com/p/ret…

We will just have to wait. Does this mean the trade negotiations will continue into the weekend?

I’m usually not attacked for being naive on China. But I believe strongly in sending students, with appropriate protections, to China. I was one of these students. I cannot see why our piece should be controversial, but realize there are some who believe all exchanges should be halted. I am not among them. Here is our argument: -Longstanding federal programs that encourage US students to learn about China — like Fulbright, CLS, and Boren — should be funded by the US government. We had similar exchanges with the Soviets, and of course with China, in the past. - Given growing risks to students in China, those participating in these programs must be protected from harassment or threats of arbitrary detention, which are growing, and which are why these programs were difficult to renew in the past. - But there is a way out. Summits provide an opportunity to achieve commitments that protect these programs and their students. Trump should (1) elevate these programs into leader-level deliverables, and (2) reach formal (or, more likely, informal) agreements to insulate them from politics. The former sends a signal not to touch these programs and the latter sustains it. - As part of this effort, Min Zin and other scholars and students arbitrarily detained or exit banned by China must be released. - We did not write this in the piece, but obviously these efforts should be accompanied by proper orientation and training for students before they visit China. That was also the case for these programs in the past. It is more criticism now. We have done all this before. It has worked before too. Leader-level recognition of certain programs in China can provide protection. The US desperately needs China expertise. After a surge among millennials, what expertise we did have faces a cliff as students lose interest in and opportunities for studying China and Chinese. That is a problem.

Jackie is a colleague so this was all in the spirit of good faith debate. One clarification: I am not a China hawk. Maybe an owl? The hawks attacked what we did in the last admin, and the doves did too, so there must be some space in the middle a a good number of us inhabit.

It’s a bit sad that the China hawks are picking each other’s eyes out. The problem with the singular stand “China needs to be stopped” is that everything else moves to the backseat and every hawk needs to be seen as the most aggressive one. Very unproductive strategic style.

We got Rush Doshi role playing as Yung Wing pleading with conservative Qing officials not to terminate the Burlingame education mission... and the Qing officials are treating him like he's Jessica Weiss. Incredible.

Xi's talking points in Washington are almost identical to his “new type of major-country relations” in 2013 -- with one important exception: he now embraces competition. “We do not need to avoid mentioning competition, but our competition should be a healthy one and should be kept within bounds.” english.www.gov.cn/news/2026…

Please note: the people advocating for sending students to China are the same people who would be welcomed in China. There is a reason for that. Think it through

My two cents: 1. Understanding China is undeniably important, but taking on heightened risks of arbitrary detention makes little sense today. 2. Even if Washington could negotiate protections against outright detention, could it ever secure an exemption for students who speak their minds? Academic exchange requires reciprocity; without free expression, it devolves into one-way political indoctrination. 3. If the priority is learning and engaging with the Chinese-speaking world, free and open societies like Taiwan or Singapore offer far better, safer environments. Sentimentality about past exchanges is natural, but as the idiom warns, carving a notch on the hull after the sword has fallen into the river is futile. Worse still, reaching into dark waters today is far more likely to yield a snakebite than a recovered blade.

I’m usually not attacked for being naive on China. But I believe strongly in sending students, with appropriate protections, to China. I was one of these students. I cannot see why our piece should be controversial, but realize there are some who believe all exchanges should be halted. I am not among them. Here is our argument: -Longstanding federal programs that encourage US students to learn about China — like Fulbright, CLS, and Boren — should be funded by the US government. We had similar exchanges with the Soviets, and of course with China, in the past. - Given growing risks to students in China, those participating in these programs must be protected from harassment or threats of arbitrary detention, which are growing, and which are why these programs were difficult to renew in the past. - But there is a way out. Summits provide an opportunity to achieve commitments that protect these programs and their students. Trump should (1) elevate these programs into leader-level deliverables, and (2) reach formal (or, more likely, informal) agreements to insulate them from politics. The former sends a signal not to touch these programs and the latter sustains it. - As part of this effort, Min Zin and other scholars and students arbitrarily detained or exit banned by China must be released. - We did not write this in the piece, but obviously these efforts should be accompanied by proper orientation and training for students before they visit China. That was also the case for these programs in the past. It is more criticism now. We have done all this before. It has worked before too. Leader-level recognition of certain programs in China can provide protection. The US desperately needs China expertise. After a surge among millennials, what expertise we did have faces a cliff as students lose interest in and opportunities for studying China and Chinese. That is a problem.

I’m usually not attacked for being naive on China. But I believe strongly in sending students, with appropriate protections, to China. I was one of these students. I cannot see why our piece should be controversial, but realize there are some who believe all exchanges should be halted. I am not among them. Here is our argument: -Longstanding federal programs that encourage US students to learn about China — like Fulbright, CLS, and Boren — should be funded by the US government. We had similar exchanges with the Soviets, and of course with China, in the past. - Given growing risks to students in China, those participating in these programs must be protected from harassment or threats of arbitrary detention, which are growing, and which are why these programs were difficult to renew in the past. - But there is a way out. Summits provide an opportunity to achieve commitments that protect these programs and their students. Trump should (1) elevate these programs into leader-level deliverables, and (2) reach formal (or, more likely, informal) agreements to insulate them from politics. The former sends a signal not to touch these programs and the latter sustains it. - As part of this effort, Min Zin and other scholars and students arbitrarily detained or exit banned by China must be released. - We did not write this in the piece, but obviously these efforts should be accompanied by proper orientation and training for students before they visit China. That was also the case for these programs in the past. It is more criticism now. We have done all this before. It has worked before too. Leader-level recognition of certain programs in China can provide protection. The US desperately needs China expertise. After a surge among millennials, what expertise we did have faces a cliff as students lose interest in and opportunities for studying China and Chinese. That is a problem.

New newsletter: WHY WE'RE WRONG ABOUT CHINA AND AI America's frontier AI policy seems to hinge on China. But when you talk to people at or near the frontier, it's astonishing how little we seem to know about how China thinks about AI. So, I talked to several experts—@jordanschneider, @kyleichan, @mattsheehan88, @RushDoshi, @ChorzempaMartin, @pstAsiatech and more—and pooled their most interesting comments under 7 big questions, inc: - What don't the frontier labs understand about China? - What would actually scare the CCP into taking AI safety as seriously as, say, Anthropic? - Does China think our AI safety concerns are legitimate, or a conspiracy to keep them down? - What should we actually do now? derekthompson.org/p/how-chin…

This new @CFR_org "Expert Take" on student exchanges with China is so flawed I had to read it twice to find something nice to say. Here goes: At least the authors acknowledge that American students who travel to China need protection, and that the CCP should immediately release detained academics such as Min Zin and Youlin Chen. Small mercies. Beyond these pro forma nods to reality, the piece's omission of China-side context speaks volumes: --The authors effectively support the CCP's "50,000 in 5 years" drive to recruit US students without once mentioning it. Announced by Xi Jinping in 2023, this initiative has reportedly already reached its target but continues because its architects believe it provides such upside to the CCP. --Similarly, in 1,100-plus words, the authors manage not a single mention of the united front apparatus, which plays a critical role fronting for Chinese intelligence and conducting political warfare on the PRC side of educational exchanges. They do not mention the CCP emphasis on leveraging foreign students to advance propaganda and economic goals, including attracting other countries' capital and technology while encouraging their governments' complacency. --Finally, they find no occasion to mention the CCP's surveillance and transnational repression of Chinese students inside the United States, a growing threat not only to these students but also to US sovereignty. In fairness, the authors have to leave out these inconvenient details so they can advance their completely backward proposal. At a time when the CCP is energetically recruiting (or luring) American students in order to strengthen its position vis-a-vis the United States, the authors do NOT suggest cutting off these flows. Rather, they argue that President Trump should negotiate with General Secretary Xi to secure "implicit assurances" not to detain or surveil US students in China so that we can send even more students. As if today's CCP intelligence state, which is all too active even on US soil, might be willing to "insulate from competitive dynamics" programs on their own soil that allow them to surveil and shape some of the Americans they're most interested in surveilling and shaping. This is as shrewd as telling the car salesman that there's no other car for you than the one you test drove, the only thing it's missing is an extended warranty, and you feel like you've known him forever. Just astonishingly counter-strategic from a US perspective - but helpful to the CCP. Sadly, it's typical of the arguments that have gotten the United States to the place where we find ourselves, having ceded so many of our advantages to the CCP through compliant engagement over decades. In this case, compliant engagement includes hand-waving about "understanding" (citing the example of a scholar who visited, and left, China before the CCP took over as evidence for the need to be on the ground in 2026) and regurgitating CCP slogans such as "people-to-people diplomacy." All while avoiding the aforementioned grubby and impolite - but stubborn! - facts essential to even a basic understanding of the situation. It's not as if the authors don't know any better. One of them moderated a CFR event last year where the speaker said: "And then there’s research in China by Americans. It’s very difficult. First of all, we only have 900 American students in the whole country right now. Being a student in China is not easy. Being a scholar trying to do research, the kind I’ve had to do, I’ve been a resident fellow in six different Chinese Academy of Social Sciences institutes in my career—six, more than any other foreigner I’m aware of. Well, that’s not possible today. You can’t go be a resident fellow in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, or any other place. And much less do interviews, archival research, libraries, field work. Just basic scholarly research. Can’t do it. That’s what I mean. Xi Jinping has securitized scholarship, amongst other things..." The other co-author - unsurprisingly - runs a non-profit that has for many years worked directly with CCP united front bodies, and lists a united front official as an advisor on its website. So... I will stand by for the inevitable exasperated sighs and ad feminam insults that seem to substitute for intelligent debate on this subject by defenders of the status quo. Cheers!