Can the U.S. See the Truth About China? - The New York Times - 0 views
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“We’re in an incredibly dangerous world right now,” says Jin, who was born in Beijing and earned her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard and whose father, Jin Liqun, served as a vice minister of finance for China. “Without more effort made to understand each other’s perspectives, peaceful coexistence may not be possible.”
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China’s current economic challenge is to overcome its middle-income trap,11 The term for when wages rise in a country but then stall as a result of higher costs and declining competitiveness. something that the United States might not relate to. It’s not all about displacing the United States as global hegemon, which would come with a huge amount of burdens and responsibilities. And I don’t think China is ready or willing to do that. To see China solely as trying to displace the United States is only going to stoke more fears
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That’s not to say that the economic means justify the unfortunate circumstances. But China is a country that has done the most economically for the most number of people in the shortest amount of time. If you look at the new generation, they are open-minded on a whole range of issues, so much more than their parents. They care about animal rights, worker rights, social inequity. That shift gives us hope that China will progress.
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What specific things, besides stopping industrial espionage, could China do to increase trust? Giving American companies, financial institutions, more opportunities to make money, opening up its various sectors more aggressively — that will allow more dialogue, more cooperation
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That’s one thing. Second, it’s understandable for the United States to push back on some of the industrial espionage.
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What are the biggest blind spots the Chinese leadership has when it comes to understanding American policies toward the country? I think the Chinese leaders have this notion that the United States is doing everything it can to try to stop China from growing. Or they believe that whatever China does is not going to elicit more trust.
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the leadership is convinced that there’s no way out of this. I’m not sure that is the case. And then also, the United States thinks that China wants to displace it.
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That “despite” is doing a lot of work. It reminds me of that line, “Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” I was trying to say that those are all things that we believe to be essential for sustained economic growth. I was saying that despite all that, China still performed well.
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you also write about in the book: “Despite the limits China imposes on free-market forces, the absence of a free press, independent judicial system and the individual right to vote, we see there are other mechanisms in place to respond to the needs of its citizens and to address the threats posed by inequality.”