Recent searches
Search options
Administered by:
Da Wei, a Chinese scholar who studies the #UnitedStates shares opinions about how the early moves of the second #Trump admin help #China.
Da Wei spoke w/NPR last year. He told us then that his decades of studying China's rival gave him some idea of what made America strong, including a "mature political system," stable institutions & immigration, among other things.
Now the US has a new president, so we asked to meet Da Wei again.
#geopolitics #USpol
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/25/nx-s1-5338532/trump-china-foreign-policy-alliance-usaid
Da, who's a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, lives in a country where expression is limited, especially on sensitive topics. But American specialists in #China have found him a useful interlocutor, offering a window into the thinking inside the #UnitedStates' great geopolitical rival.
Here's what he had to say about shifting #US #ForeignPolicy approaches & how changes may benefit China.
He says he's witnessing "something big"
Da has followed the #Trump admin's firing of many US #FederalWorkers & its dismantling of #FederalAgencies. As a past visitor to Washington, he knows people who have been fired.
"Having said that," he added, "I don't want to be too critical to the Trump administration just from this personal level. As a scholar, I try to be neutral. I think there is something big happening in the #US. It could be bad. It could be good."
Da says modern forms of govt rose w/the Industrial Revolution.Now #tech is changing, & the govt may too.
He says some friends compare it to China's Cultural Revolution
…1966–1976, Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung led an assault on suspected capitalist sympathizers,closing #universities, sending #professors & #intellectuals to work in fields, #purging govt workers & encouraging supporters to harass or attack their elders. It was "the most chaotic period of modern #China," the professor says.
"What is happening in the #US is still far from the Cultural Revolution. It's maybe 1 or 2%. But you can sense that smell. The populist sentiments … [that] common sense is good [&] sophisticated thoughts are something bad."
He learned English listening to #VoiceOfAmerica
"It was so sad," he said, when news spread that the administration planned to shutter#VOA, the US-funded broadcaster that delivers #news & #cultural programming in countries where access to news is limited or isn't available.
Da said he learned some of his English in college while listening to #VOA broadcasts & also learned news that wasn't reported in the Chinese media.
Da acknowledges that in recent years, VOA was less important as the internet spread. But he says another agency mattered more: the U.S. Agency for International Development (#USAID).
The "majority view" in #China sees some of #Trump's moves as an "own goal"
Da asserts that most Chinese people he talks w/viewed #USAID, the #ForeignAid agency, as one of America's strengths, improving its image & influence in the developing world. Virtually eliminating the agency was "in #China's interest."
Da sees #US #alliances as a strength
"The alliances of the US we believe [are] an important source, probably one of the most important sources of the US strength," he said.
He spoke of #Europe's widespread feeling that it has lost American protection, & he also spoke of events in #SouthKorea & #Japan.
#China has long tried to improve its relations w/the US allies near its borders. The Chinese scholar said his country might soon be able to do that "with smaller resistance."