Odd Lots - Henry Wang on China's Role in the New Emerging World Order

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

There is a widespread view that China is a superpower of rising status, and that a new global order is emerging with the country as an important pole in it. You see this with the growing BRICS organization. You also see this with the leaders who went to Beijing recently for the country's military parade. And of course, this comes at a time when the US is erecting trade barriers with everyone, including many of our closest friends and allies. So how does China see its role in this world? Will it play a role that's similar to what the US has played? Will it look very different? Does China want to reinvigorate legacy multi-lateral organizations like the UN? On this episode, we speak with Henry Huiyao Wang, the Founder and President of the Center for China and Globalization. Having been founded in 2008, the CCG is now China's largest independent think tank, with offices in multiple cities. We discuss China's perspective on the US, its potential role in establishing a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, its perspective on Israel and Gaza, and the type of role it could play in a new form of globalization. Read more:China’s Defense Minister Warns on Taiwan, Condemns ‘Bullying’Why Is China Stockpiling So Much Oil? Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlotsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts Radio News. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe Wisenthall. And I'm Tracy Allaway. Tracy, you know, we talk all the time about U.S. China relations, multiple times a month, it seems, for obvious reasons. We usually get it from something resembling a U.S. perspective. Not always, but I think it's a bit skewed. Yeah, there is a geographic bias at play for sure.

And a linguistic one. Yes. But you're right. There is always a lot going on with U.S.-China relations, and especially recently, right? So we're recording this on September 16th. And we have Chinese and American officials gathering in, I think it's Madrid, to talk trade, try to hammer out some sort of deal on the tariffs. By the time this episode comes out, maybe U.S.-China relations will have changed completely,

but somehow I doubt it. There's going to be some new era of peace. Everything is going to be solved. There's going to be no more anxiety about trade. a TikTok deal will have been made with the perfect algorithm that satisfies everyone, everything. No, probably unlikely. Probably we're going to be talking about some version of this for a long time. I don't want to say, you know, it's not like our perspectives are just strictly U.S.

You know, we talk to Cameron Johnson, who works in China regularly. So it's not none, but we obviously have to change the mix up. I admire your efforts at being unpartisan. Well, cross-border, you know, we have to still do it via Zoom. obviously, but isn't this a long historic trend? You try to build dialogue between multiple sides and get multiple perspectives in the hopes of achieving something bigger down the road. All I'm going to say is we need to go to Beijing.

Mostly for the food, but also for inter-U.S.-China dialogue. The dream is that in 2026, we host a live audience in Beijing. We're putting it out into the world right now in the hope that we can manifest it into existence. Yes. All right. Well, I am really excited to say. that in these efforts, we really do have the perfect guest. We're going to be speaking with Henry Wong.

He is the founder and president for the Center for China and Globalization. It's the largest independent think tank in China. Someone perfectly placed to talk about all of these topics from a Chinese perspective that we don't usually get. So, Henry, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And thank you. Yeah, my pleasure. What is the Center for China and Globalization? Why did you found it?

What is its goal? and what is this independent think tank that exists? Yes, we actually founded since 2002-08, actually, right after the Beijing Olympic. You know, at that time, you know, when we watched the Beijing Olympic, the slogan for the Olympics then was one word, one dream. So we thought that actually, it's a globalization,

and China actually embarked a globalization era because I think Olympic, Beijing Olympics in 2008 was something that China was starting to read looking globally. And so that's where we start to fund this think tank. At first, I have to take a lot of savings. I was doing a lot of business before, but we really want to start this. But I really have found this thing time to combine my experience in the government, business, and academic. And also, you know, since then, it's 17, 18 years now. And we become one of the top 100 think time in the world, actually, ranked four times in the top 100 by the University of President.

Pennsylvania think tank and civil society program. So CCG, you know, abbreviation for Center for China and Global Asia, is a bridge. It's a communication platform, dialogue platform, and also it's a research platform for big issues, policy issues regarding U.S. and China, global governance, global economy, and, of course, global migration. So just to name a few. But since then, we've been doing okay. We had about over 60, 70 people, and we've been based in Beijing and Hongzhou and Guangzhou,

a few places in China. And we've been very active. We're doing a hundred events a year. We published a dozen books and multiple reports. So thank you for asking that. So you described the center as something of a bridge. And I was reading an economist article from a couple years ago where you yourself are described as something of a go between for technocratic government ministries,

Chinese entrepreneurs, and foreign embassies in Beijing. So my question is, how busy have you been lately? We are pretty busy. I just give you a few examples. For example, last week I was in Shaman attending September 8, the 25 annual China Investment and Business Forum and Expo there, and the Vice Premier Hewley-Fon, who is now in, Madrid, talking with Scott Benson, was there opening up that forum. And so I was speaking at a keynote

speaker at one of the BRICS summit conference there. But also just Friday, Santa Feudanagina holding at China's International Service Expo, you know, held in Beijing, where there's another hundred-some countries come as well. And yesterday, we had our 17th mostly VIP launching, and we have 10 ambassadors from European, from Japan, from Turkey, from many other countries, quite a number from European countries. And just yesterday, with 50 people, also IMF representative in China. We have a lot of multinational global media.

And also, of course, last night, I attended, relevant reception. The U.S. embassy held reception welcoming the new deputy head of the mission, Mr. Gregg. And he actually made an action speech there. He said China and the U.S. relation now, rather than in the past, I mean, you know, I know that in the past we had a lot of strategic rivalry. But the new head of a new deputy head of the U.S. mission here in China and said, now we should put strategic stability. He's not talking about it. strategic rivalry, so strategic stability, you maintain a U.S.-China relation. And Secretary Rubio also said that in July. So it's very encouraging to see a thing going on.

But that also shows how busy we are, meeting all the people and talking to all the parties and business, too. I get that various people might describe an ambition for stability. It does not typically feel like it when I read the headlines, that this is a stable relationship for various reasons, particularly the headlines that come out of the Trump administration, which strike me as volatile. Setting aside what you hear from officials, whether at the embassy or the state department, does it feel like that is the trajectory? Because it certainly feels, especially over the last 10 years, that when I was younger, the relationship felt something more like stability. And that these days, it's much more about rivalry and anxiety about potential

conflict. That's right. I agree with you. I think that basically because of this deterioration since the first Trump administration in 2017, and now eight years later, the region does really go down quite a lot already. And because in the 2017, the National Security Committee of U.S. has put out a strategic report and calling China a strategic rivalry, number one, I mean, before Russia, actually. So we see that since then we had a trade war and the tariff war. But this second term, somehow I felt, well, in China, it's a bit more, you know, getting used to this kind of a tariff trade war.

And China is also better prepared than the other countries, because we already experienced in the first Trump administration. So now I think also China economy is second only to the U.S. the two countries has too much independence among each other. And so, you know, because geopolitically we are really looking very bad, and then I think the consensus on both governments is that we need to look for some stability because we can't change each other, we cannot, you know, delete each other,

we have to coexist peacefully. And that's probably the conclusion that we're getting there. And so we have to seek a common ground and coexisting, even we are having a lot of different views and ideas. So you mentioned just then the idea of the world's two biggest economies being more dependent on each other, perhaps less so nowadays. But over, I guess, the decades of the early 2000s, certainly they grew more dependent on each other because of globalization. And this is something that I wanted to ask you, which is what exactly is China's definition or understanding of globalization? And I ask this because I think in the West, it's sort of generally thought of as this process of more countries trading with each other and, again, becoming more economically dependent on each other.

But there's also this sort of social element that's also in there because I think the assumption was always that as countries trade more with each other, they're going to start sharing, you know, values, whether those are political or social. And I'm curious if globalization is thought of the same way in China. Well, I think that in China, because it was a latecomer, you know, for example, you see the globalization in the 19th century, which is, you know, Britain invented steam power. That led the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. And 20th century, American invented, you know, internet, computers and digital, and U.S. is led in the 20th century. I think 21st century China is also, you know, coming up now, for example, on green power. China is leading on the EVs, on the solar panels and all sorts of wind power and all the same. But in the globalization concept in the Chinese mind is really more referred to the economic globalization.

because that's the benefit they're getting substantially. For example, 800 million people has been lifted out of poverty since China embraced opening up, basically embrace the globalization. And then you can see China now is the largest trading nation or major trading nation with 157 countries around the world. And also, furthermore, China has since the opening up in the last 47 years, China has about almost 10 million students study the board. I mean, almost half of that in the United States. So that means globalization.

I think there's a flow of people, flow of talent, flow of goods, you know, interconnected connectivity, fast, you know, stock market exchange listed with each other. And also business is doing, you know, there are 70,000 U.S. company operating in China and generating 700 billion revenues here in China. And also, you know, Apple make 90% of its iPhone in China and Tesla make 50% of its EV cars in China. And Walmart pressures about 60% that's a surprise from China. So I think that's probably the globalizing China felt the substantial benefit probably for both Chinese and also American consumers. They are less ideological, but they're more probably on the economic sense that globalization

has really bring them a lot of good and benefit. For example, since China joined the WTO in 2011, China's GDP has gone up 13, 14 times. So that really, I think, in the minds of Chinese, when they talk about globalization, they're really talking about joint economic globalization. Rather than the global securization, they don't want to see the arcas,

they don't want to see the quad, they don't want to see Camp Davia of Korea, Japan, and all those security, or NATO moving to Asia, that kind of militarized globalization. They want to see more economic globalization. I'm a huge personal beneficiary of these students abroad, living in the East Village, where there's been an absolute explosion of amazing Chinese restaurants

in my neighborhood of New York City because there's so many students there. So I'm personally very invested in this trend continuing. But let's talk a little bit more about the security angle. You've actually written somewhat recently that China could play some of the, role in the eventual hopeful end of Russia's war with Ukraine. But we don't tend to associate the Chinese government with playing an active role in global conflicts not directly near the borders,

including Israel and Gaza, which we should talk about too. But when it comes to something, you know, when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war that tends to be focused on the Europeans, the role that U.S. will play. Is there going to be a point in the near future? or is there something we're missing where China sees this conflict that is far from its direct borders and wants to play a more activist role in bringing peace? Or is this something that is only associated with the sort of American-style Western-led style of globalization? Well, I think that's probably now. The world is, I mean, I was at Munich Security Conference kickoff meeting, Berlin, early this year with the chairman of the Munich Security Conference.

The issue the report, I was discussing on that report, they called multipolarity. So we are getting into a multipolar world. I mean, China certainly become one polar of this multipolar war. And then you can see what happened in the Russian-Ukraine war there. It's getting nowhere. We had the Alaska Summit. That's why I published an op-ed at the foreign policy two days before the Alaska Summit. Basically, I suggest that if you as a defense secretary, I heard him saying at the Munich

Security Conference, that they want peacemaking troops coming from European countries and non-European countries. So what would be by non-European countries? So I think that countries could be these break countries from China, India, Brazil, you know, South Africa or Turkey, whatever, breaks countries. But basically, again, you see that when Trump actually, after the Alaska, talking to G7 at the White House, Putin actually talked to President Xi before he's Alaska and talked to. Lula, talked to Mudi, and talked to the president of South Africa after the Alaska.

So I think that I recently see Mokong proposing that let's have 26 European countries' troops placed into Ukraine. But that got a very strong reaction from Russia, that Putin said, okay, if that is the case, then we regard it as a NATO violation or something. So we see that the excuse for Putin to start the war is because the NATO troops are approaching Russian border. I mean, after three and a half years fight, you'll have NATO European troops there again. I mean, he were not probably ending that war easily.

So I think a more extra guarantee for this peacemaking, in addition to NATO, EU, and also U.S., that's got China, India, Brazil, those largest buyers of Russian energy product and what else, is really extra safekeeping for the border. And then by having Chinese peacekeeping force there, It will really, you know, make Russia difficult to violate that peace border because, you know, China has a lot of influence on Russia. Same for India, same for Brazil. So I think that we're in the risk, we're stuck in this, you know, Trump says, you know, he started sanction again. You're not going anywhere. But I think by adding the China breaks

element, we probably see a more security piece that's going to happen. What does China actually think its role in the world should be? And we talked about its role economically in the idea of globalization, but setting aside economies when it comes to geopolitical security, what exactly does China want to be? Yes. Well, thank you. I think basically China is a large country, of course,

but it's basically agriculture, culture. You know, it's basically, you have a five thousand years' history. I interrupt the civilization. It based on agriculture economy. The farmers cultivate along the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. And Confucius said if you're born alive, don't travel far away. And then you can only cultivate the land four seasons that they can grow enough vegetables and wheat and grain to feed yourself.

So it's really that kind of culture cultivated the culture of China. And they are not really a nation on horses or like Mongolia's. They're going to have expeditions or going to have colonelize any places. In the Middle East, there was a marshal called Zheng He had a big expedition trips beyond almost to Africa. Also, you know, ASEAN countries, Southeast Asia. They never stayed anywhere. They never occupied any places. They all returned seven times.

It was even early than Colombia. So you see, that is really the culture China has. Until now, for the last 40 years, China hasn't started any war, sent any soldier anywhere, or colonize any place, or invaded any other country. So I think geopolitically, we had this big parade on September 3rd to commemorate the Second World War, but I think China has produced enough deterrence so that, you know, probably if they are in any hot conflict, they have enough defenses to deterring that. So if we cannot have a nuclear or hot war to mutually assure destruction, then the only

thing remain is peaceful competition on economy, on soft power, on culture, on people-to-people exchanges. So I think China wants to really see, let's have a level playing field and let's really compete on economic. China now is having 70% of global speed railway, 60, 5G networks of the world. Out of the 10 largest container ports, seven of them in China. China also has 13 million college graduates every year, and they have a lot of things that they're doing on their own now.

And also on energy installation, now the electricity consumption is 2.5 times of U.S., three times of Europe now. And in terms of green power, China has produced 15, 16 million EV cars. Total number would be 30 million. And they have 16 million charged stations in China everywhere, you know, very convenient to charge your Yvina. So I think, you know, they want to probably compete in those areas rather than geopolitically. So I think maybe if China can maintain some peacekeeping, it would be great because China is the largest peacekeeping budget contributed to the UN. China is the largest peacekeeping sending force among the P5 member countries.

So China can do more peacekeeping. And also economically, you know, China launched the management. initiative, Belt and Roe Initiative, China just did the S.O. Summit in Tianjin, where they established a bank. They have a BRICS bank, a new development bank. So they're doing all this kind of economic stuff. I think that's how they view the world should be intertwined more economically, business-wise, rather than we are really divided according to the ideological, divided according to democracy versus autocracy and divided by, you know, this east or west. So there's many things I think China is thinking a little differently. You mentioned the United Nations and there's sort of

this question about the relevance or the vitality of a lot of these Western developed multilateral organizations, WTO being among them, but UN specifically. In your vision, maybe it's China's vision, or maybe there's distinct, is it important to breathe new life into these organizations, or is there a new set of organizations, including some of the ones that China has set up itself, whether it's the BRI, whether we're talking about the bricks, whether we're talking about some of these others, is the future more, okay, if we're going to have this sort of new style of globalization, we actually genuinely need new organizations rather than the husks of the organizations that were sort of built out of the Western liberal order?

Absolutely. I think that's quite true. I have recently wrote a book about my dialogue with Graham Allison, the founding dean of Harvard Kennedy School, which has become a very good sell in China now, also English-wise. Basically, we find that in our dialogue, we talk about U.S.-China relations as conjoint twins. You know, we cannot separate each other.

You know, if we want to separate each other, we end up damage ourselves. So that's a given. So we should avoid this heedishida's trap that Grand Medicine famously defined. But also on the other hand, we should also avoid the Kinderberger trap, which means that while a new rising power starting to catching up an existing number one power, there's a vacuum in the global public goods. Like when the U.S. was taking place in the UK, there's a lot of missing linking points.

You know, we got big recession in the 13. 1930s and things like that. So China actually is, the U.S. is now put a bit back on its policy. Now it's become a mega, you know, make me first, make me great again. And rather than there's no country really is looking at the global public goods. So that's what China is now. China has not backed on climate change agreement. China strongly support that. And China has developed a very climate-friendly environment now. And we reach carbon neutral and carbon peak ahead of time. But just to be clear, these legacy organizations specifically, like the UN, does China feel like these are their bets that China is intends to make that these are going to be

important institutions, or are they fading like many legacy institutions and that the sort of new more stable order that you may envision doesn't have to be with a fresh set of multilateral international organizations? No, I think China is a strong support of existing, UN system. And as President Xi just recently proposed the global governance initiative. I mean, on five points, two or three points, he was emphasized the UN, principle of human, charter of UN, and also we can help to enhance, improve it, and make it better, but but we should not rest not.

But on the other hand, we see UN also getting quite a marginalized, and there's a bewakening and, for example, China become a second-largest donor to the UN budget now, close to to US almost no difference now. And also when US pulling out of WHO, China committed the $500 million US dollars to WHO. And when WTO is marginalized, China is working with Europeans to do that. But furthermore, I think China is still the only public big country, one of the largest economy is still proposing economic cooperation, like a Belt and Road initiative for the last 12, 13 years China invest over $1 trillion dollars for $3,000,000, and also for a large economy,

And also, furthermore, China has started China, Africa, Economic Summit, China, Latin American Economic Summit, China, ASEAN Economic Summit, and China, Central Asia, China Arab economic service. So it's all economic-related. And furthermore, while President Trump is raised in 100-some country tariff, China announced they're going to reduce the tariff of 53-developing country, tariff, zero for coming to China. So you can see the contrast there. So I think China is really providing enough public goods to fill some vacuum.

The U.S. is backing off on development, on the global south, and on the U.S. system. You know, when U.S. are pulling out of unicycle, China is also big support of unicycle, and so on and so forth. So I think China is doing a lot of that kind of activities now. When it comes to U.S.-China relations, you know, you mentioned that your book was selling well in China. I'm really curious. What is the biggest misunderstanding or the biggest concern that you hear from Chinese people on the ground when it comes to U.S. policy?

And I realize it's a little bit unfair we're treating you as a spokesman for an entire country and China. We really don't intend to do that. We don't intend to do that. But I'd be curious, like, what sort of questions do you get on a daily basis from the average Chinese person about America and what it's doing? Well, I think the biggest throwing point, basically, that bothers the ordinary Chinese, that we see the U.S. Navy is coming to Chinese Taiwan Street or South China Sea. Quite often we see, you know, airplane patrol in this part of the world. We never see Chinese aircraft or Navy go to Hawaii or go to Caribbean.

You know, we never see that. But we see the U.S. military presence very strong. We had the 40,000 U.S. military personnel in South Korea just neighboring China. And another, I don't know how many, you know, it's quite 30, 40,000 in probably in Japan. And we have now in Philippine, and then they have also missiles, mid-range missiles, placed there. And also, they are going to place new missiles in Japan now and South Korea. So those things actually bought because China felt, you know, Taiwan is part of China, and certainly the people in the USA, oh, China is a democracy, we have to defend that.

But China has a Chinese style democracy, meritocracy. It also works perfect, you know, not perfect, but at least work well for this most populous country in the world. So I think, you know, we all have a different governing style, but just because our governing style is with you, and then that's why you need to, because Taiwan, because the reason for the protection, Taiwan is a democracy that we have. to protect that. But I think, you know, China can also absorbing that, and, you know, China promised that Taiwan, you know, no tax to be given to federal government, a lot of autonomy, and China announced that Taiwan, Taiwanese will be free to work in the mainland, no visa needed, no anything needed. We are already two million Taiwan is working in the mainland, and there's half a million husband-wife married across the street. And then before Taiwan, you know, former

president of Taiwan, you know, there's six million mainland flooded Taiwan with tourism, sending the money, spending, restaurant, hotels, you know, there was almost integrated already, if not for the foreign interference. So I think the Chinese say, okay, please maybe just let us peacefully unified, like Germany, you had the East Germany, West Germany unified, and let's also hope North Korea or South Korea unified. So basically, they were really looking for less interference on that. And so I think that would be greatly improving the region because in the communicate that the established three communique

China and U.S. have. It stands very clear. U.S. will not maintain, you know, we just maintain normal time, no official ties. But then we see U.S. officials, Parliament, Nancy Pelosi, keep visiting Taiwan. Or Taiwanese leaders coming to the visiting U.S. So those things probably bother a bit of ordinary Chinese.

But of course, again, We understand, of course, U.S. was a world policeman for a long time. But now we see many countries also that the governing model is not working perfectly. We have all the domestic issues. U.S. has it. European has it. All the countries has that. But China, on the other hand, seems to maintain a pretty good status.

And that's also keep lifting people out of poverty. So I think they should give China some credit for doing that, rather than, okay, is always shown in front of China's doorsteps, and you have a U.S. parade of military muscles all the time. So that's a little bothering for the Chinese, basically. When you think about China's relationship with the other BRICS countries, with African countries, with the global south countries, so to speak, have you seen substantive changes in those relationships specifically since the wake of October?

October 23 and the start of the war on Gaza and countries sort of rethinking, you know, has this prompted a concrete rethinking about, you know, you said the U.S. was the global policeman, and a lot of people have perceived that. In the wake of this ongoing war, has there been a substantive change in the way countries want to have a relationship with China? Well, absolutely. You can, you know, this year, for the first time, you see China-ASEAN summit at the GCC. You know, Gulf countries all came to ASEAN.

So you had the first China-ASEAN GCC summit. And then you can see also the BRICS countries expanding that you had, you know, UAE was there. And there's a lot of, you know, Middle East countries are really coming to China. You have a, you also have the S-Shanghai Corporation Summit recently. You had the Turkey. You had the Iranian. President, you have a lot of people from that region.

So I think China's role does play because China, for example, a few years ago, China clinched the deal between Saudis and Iranians. Rather than, you know, we're seeing the current chaos going on. China also, of course, in the 14 different fractions of Palestinian group, had a Beijing-Palestinian declaration. And China could probably do more in making a peace, promoting peace between Israel and the Palestinian. China also maintained good religion in the past with Israel. So I think that sooner or later, probably those countries will realize that we cannot really let just what happened, the Gaza, the humanitarian crisis, the deaths of thousands of tens of thousands of people, what happened in your living on a daily basis?

I mean, where is the, you know, children are dying and all those things? So that kind of justice, where is the justice now? So, of course, there's always problems to start with, but I think we cannot because. A two-run doesn't make a right. I really think that we should continue to have this international moral power that a United Nations Security Council should really exercise rather than being vetoed all the time. So I'm thinking China probably could play more role in the future.

But that's solve this Ukraine crisis if the breaks country peacemaking can happen, left by China. And I'm sure that model could be applied to other conflicts in other regions. China also trying to – you can see. seen Prime Minister Moody and the Prime Minister of Pakistan was at the same table a few months after fighting in China. We said Armenia and Azerbaijan president coming to SLO Summit in Tianjin as well. So probably China is building up its mediating power and peacekeeping power as time goes on.

Just going back to globalization for a second, I think everyone agrees, and you've already talked about this, that China has been a huge beneficiary from global. over time. But I get the sense that there is still a feeling within China that some aspects of the global economic order or trade agreements are unfair to China. How do you sort of square that tension and where do you think the concern or the worries over unfairness actually comes from? And by the way, I could ask this question to American officials as well, like the U.S. is a massive beneficiary of the global economic order. And yet the Trump administration clearly feels very grieved about America's place in the world.

But when it comes to China, like, where does the sense of unfairness actually come from? Well, there's quite a few. Actually, you see one of the things that US was treating the pure deficit, that's the only reason they started a tariff wall. I was giving a talk just last April a few months ago at the UN Security Council, where they called a special arena meeting in New York. countries represented the UN participated. Where I gave a speech there, I was saying that, for example,

U.S. only looking at the goods deficit, you know, merchandise capacity. But out of that deficit was maybe, you know, 30, 40, 50 percent was produced by multinational, 30 percent by U.S. For example, out of the 400 billion deficit, Trump is a levy on China, 300-some billion deficit, he immediately waived 100 billion because a lot of the companies are made, goods in China. Apple has to source their iPhone from India, but it's not enough. So they have to lift that sanctions on those deficits. Anyway, and there's a lot of intertwine. But also, US has enjoyed one trillion dollar trade surplus on the service trade. They are not counting that.

And also the calculation about China's export. For example, every phone we made in China, iPhone made here, China probably made a labor cost. You know, 80% was made by multinationals, EV cars, the same. So while you're just purely looking at the trade deficit numbers, a lot of money was not made in China, was made by international, multinational companies, and they're not sending back to the country. So that's why I agree with President Trump to have more investment back to the U.S. because multinational made a lot of money in China and elsewhere, but they should really investment back rather than putting the tax havens. So that's why the global minimum tax proposed by OECD has agreed by over 100 some countries,

but it's not practiced yet on that now. So that's one aspect. The other aspect I could say is, for example, U.S. is starting these sanctions on China. For example, forbidden the use selling the trips to China. So that is really a built, and also they called in the Trump administration, you know, high fence, small yard and all those things.

And there is 1,500 Chinese companies on the U.S. entity list. I mean, maybe China has a dozen. or two dozen of the U.S. company, but compared with magnitude of the U.S. is too much, too many over the use of the security raises to really restrict all the Chinese companies on that. So that's really become a problem. And so that's why China started to say, okay, if chips can be the do-use goods, right, you can say, okay, can be useful security or military. Same is true for rare earth, right? Right. Right earth can be making it for airplanes, tanks, everything. So when China started a little bit,

on that, then US starting to relax on the sale of the chips now quite a bit. So you can see, you know, morally, it's the same reason. If the U.S. doing things, in the first term, China didn't respond like that, but now China starting to respond like that. So I think that's why we see quite a few agreement made between U.S. and Chinese officials, because China is much resilient now, much stronger. And also, U.S. has realized if they really sanction so hard on China, The Christmas shopping season we're coming up. Their shelves will be empty. You know, American consumer will suffer, and they're not going to hurt Trump space.

That's why we keep extending. They seem more – they talk to each other more friendly than talk to Indian, Brazil, and others. So I think they probably realize that too large economy, they can really agonize each other. They have to fund a real collaboration. The Christmas shopping season is my personal Super Bowl. Yes. Earlier this year, actually, not that long ago, Bloomberg, reported. So therefore, it's absolutely true. It says, quote, officials in Beijing verbally encouraged

regulatory agencies and local governments to curb technology transfers and equipment exports to India in Southeast Asia. And there were some stories about Foxcon engineers, for example, who may have been part of some sort of moving the supply chain of those Apple iPhones. The Umen, part of the final assembly, perhaps, to India. And this report that Chinese officials may have been pushing back against it. I get, like, rhetorically, the existing system where American companies do a lot of manufacturing or in China has been incredibly beneficial. Is China totally comfortable with the fact that as part of this globalization, some of this manufacturing may end up leaving or as, you know, U.S. seeks to diversify its sources. Is China comfortable with this?

China's, I think, it's pretty comfortable now. That's why China is more confident. For example, 2019, when before COVID, U.S.'s largest trading partner of China. And now U.S. falling into the third place or even fourth place now, because ASEAN become the largest place, the trading partner of China, since the ASEP, regional comprehensive partnership agreement. And then that is actually happening because, you know, Vietnam become China fourth largest trading partner now. And Indonesia, Malaysia, and now expanded to Latin American,

And most Latin American countries, China is their largest trading partner. And also with Africa, now China lifted all the terror from African countries' products to come to China. You see a flood of African products coming to China. So I think, you know, that probably China doesn't mind. There's a low, maybe a little bit labor-intensive because the average labor workforce migrant workers age is 43 years old. It's getting old, China.

So there's a lot of shoe-making or, you know, low-income. labor costs jobs went to Vietnam, went to ASEAN, China really doesn't mind. China now is focused on the high end now. For example, China's focused on the green power transition. So there's no curbs, like there's no curbs as far as, like from your perspective, there's no impulse of the government to curb moving some of these more advanced things. Again, talking about iPhones and such to a country like India. Not really.

I think China still encourage the investment. For example, B-Y-D or, you know, CATL, and I know quite a few companies still very bullish investing overseas. There may be sensitive military or rare stuff that China may be questioned a little bit. But on the general, I think things are still quite open. Is there an argument to be made that China should perhaps open its own economy further if, you know, it actually desires more economic integration with the rest of the world? because we're talking about globalization still, but China still has capital controls, still has currency controls, still has some restrictions on investment and things like that. Should it be more open?

Absolutely. I agree with you. I think China should be more open. And that's why we've been, that's our think time role to promote that. For example, we propose people promoting the visa. Now China has issued unilaterally issued a visa for 40-some countries, no European countries, Australia, Japan, South Korea, I urge also you recommend China to policymakers to open visa for U.S. citizens, for Canadian citizens coming to China free. But also on the trade policy,

I think there should be more liberalization continuously. I know that the government is looking at that, and the 15th five years plan will probably be even more open. Of course, there's always rooms to improve. I totally agree. And they have opened a financial sector quite a long time ago, And as you say, maybe currency, they should be more convertible. And also on the investment in the culture, in other areas, pharmaceutical. And now China also welcome four universities come to China to open their branches and doing. I'm on the board of Duke, Kunzstan University in China, which is John Vang between Duke University and Wuhan University. You know, we have so many international students there, and NYU Shanghai is operating very well.

So we hope to have more global exchanges. I agree with you. You know, there are still more rooms. That's why I think this kind of talk between China and the U.S. Now we see TikTok is maybe have a deal there, and it's great. So this is the style we should continuously talk and engage and reach agreement and open up further to accommodate each other. First comes diplomacy through dance videos, Joe, and then comes an easing of currency restrictions. Well, podcast recordings have to be.

Just to be clear, you know, obviously we don't expect you to be the representative of the entire Chinese perspective. Tracy and I need to establish that we do not represent the entire United States and the questions that we have. You mentioned the goods trade deficit. And, of course, one of the things is, you know, obviously China has gotten much richer, thanks to the booming industrial sector. the U.S. has benefited from a lot of less expensive, more sophisticated goods that it buys. But there is this source of concern, and I say this in a couple of weeks after that military parade, there is a source of concern that without a robust American manufacturing capacity, that we can no longer be a powerful military country as well.

And I know I do not believe it is China's role to sort of help the U.S. figure out its industrial capacity questions. nonetheless, from the perspective, does the U.S. concern make sense to you? Perhaps there are things that seem unfair. Certain technology transfer restrictions seem counter to the spirit of globalization, etc. But is the U.S. fundamentally wrong to be concerned that there's more and more of the world's share, however you want to measure it, of manufacturing of advanced goods, somehow become centered around China, that that long term weakens the national security

position of the United States? Well, I think we are now more intertwined world now. There's quite a bit of a competitive advantage, like David McConaugh mentioned many years ago. So what I think U.S. is still leading. The U.S. is very good at inventing innovation. You see Silicon Valley, you see AI. You know, by the way, Jason Huang said half of the AI talents coming from China, you

You know, U.S. is a big harvest of Chinese talent, too. And that's why I'm saying several million Chinese students and went to the United States. I mean, probably half of them in return still have remained. That greatly benefited the U.S. economy. So what I think that is really, U.S. is good at doing zero to one, maybe China is good at one to one hundred. So all the world 100 universities, top 50 is still in the United States. The reason China did all those manufacturing, because as I mentioned,

has 70% of a global speed railway, 60% of a global 5G networks, 10 largest container port, 7 of China. They have the infrastructure to them. So this is a value chain, supply chain for the world, not for China. So made in China is made for the world. I think the US only worry about if they can make, you cannot make big ships or aircraft. Now they go to South Korea to do that now. So they still find a way to do that. But I don't think that you have to depend totally on the manufacturing. So if we are living in the pre-trade war era, you know, we buy so much chips from U.S. 70% of China energy depends on import. China spent more money buying the chips than China importing energy. So now they're not selling

to China. Then the U.S. company losing a big profit center and then they really reduce their R&D budget. And China is forced to do reinvented will and results. lot of waste there. So we see this separation is really no good, all on secure reasons. We should not over-secure lies, and we should really display each other's competitive advantage. I want to ask one more question about security philosophy. Obviously, when Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed all kinds of sanctions on Russia and tried to constrain its ability to trade it all or make any money. Going back to Israel's war in Gaza, and you expressed the horror that you see from that and the sort of response to that. But China still trades with Israel as the U.S.

does in the future, in a sort of different global world order, would it ever be part of China's diplomatic arsenal to take a more heavy hand in some of these conflicts and say, oh, we're not going to trade you. We're not going to sell you advanced technology that you need to run your economy or run your military, et cetera. Because so far, despite the sort of concerns or the response, there hasn't been any change in the trading relationship. Could it ever get to that point where China views its sort of diplomatic commercial power that way in conflicts that it's not directly involved in? Well, I think China certainly would like to do more, you know, like what are you happening on the WHO? China has already fulfilled its obligations too. I think the keys, really, we need to restore the U.N.

authority and principle, particularly U.S. Security Council, maybe we should also reform that, too. Maybe we should add G20 members, other 16 G20 members as an associate permanent member of UN, and we should really not let the unilateral single veto be abused. For example, since the founding of UN, Russia over abused, used the veto 100-some times, 20-40 times, U.S. 100 times, China 20 times. We need to really control that. So I think we'll reform UN to reflect this multipolar world. And in the future, if there's any problem happen, let's send the UN peacekeeping force to do that. And so if the old security member have a big majority and General Assembly have a big majority, we should make that happen. So I think reform

this multipolar world, we also need to reform UN to reflect that because the world no longer fits the superstructure does not fit the reality today now. All right. Henry Wong, founder and president for Center for China Globalization, so fantastic to have you on the show. Can we do a live odd lots in Beijing with you at some point? Yeah, yeah, please. We welcome that. All right. We are going to, as soon as we get off this call, we are going to begin the preparations to figure out how we're going to make this happen. So great chatting with you. Thank you for staying up late in your time to talk with us, and I hope to talk to you again soon.

Thank you. Thank you so much, both of you. Thank you so much. Tracy, I really enjoyed that conversation. It was interesting thinking about, you know, this idea that rhetorically, there are a lot of people on both sides of the aisle who say things like, oh, we need to get out of this sort of competition framework, et cetera. It doesn't really feel like anything is actually happening on that front.

Yes. One thing that struck me from the conversation was, I guess, how economically oriented it feels. like all of Chinese policy actually is. And I suppose maybe that gets back to this idea. This is an old idea now, but that social contract idea about the CCP. So as long as people feel that their lives are getting better, then the CCP has strong support.

I think the economic focus really came through in that conversation. I think, you know, obviously from the U.S. perspective, there is this view that, you know, Henry used the word global policeman. And a lot of people would say, yes, absolutely, and that a big role of the U.S. Navy specifically is enforcing the fact or freeing the world for trade, right? That part of the reason that the world can trade freely. That that's like a public good provided by the U.S. And Adam Pozance has talked about this.

And others have talked about this idea that these things go hand in hand. And it's interesting because so Henry talked about this impulse for. continuation of global trade, including with the U.S., etc., there clearly, to my mind, seems to be less of an appetite from China to like, or it's not obvious that there is a... To fill the gap, basically. Yeah, or that, you know, and I guess there's a question, like, does the world need such muscle to trade, right? Could you have a world of trade where there is not one entity that has a truly global military

footprint? I think these are really interesting questions. Henry, of course, talked about, especially in that last answer, re-strengthening the UN, et cetera. Restructuring. Restructuring the UN, exactly. It's not entirely obvious to me that these institutions, as they're constructed, can really be revived even with lots of Chinese money going into them. I think that's still kind of TBD. Well, I think this is it, right?

Even if you restructured the Security Council so that, you know, you wouldn't have one powerful member vetoing. stuff all the time. Even if people agreed to do things, what is the UN actually going to do, right? Right. What is the UN actually going to do? I don't know, we didn't get into it that much, but like the idea of a sort of more, I don't know, bricks composed peacekeeping force. I bet there are a people in the US who would love that. They're like, yeah, let's have peace. Let's have a ceasefire. Someone else take care of the peace. Yeah, let's have a ceasefire in Russia and Ukraine. And also, let's not have it be particularly dominated by Western peacekeepers, shouldering that burden. I bet a lot of people in the U.S. would love that.

I would, you know, have more time. I would love to really explore, like, what the constraints on that actually happening are there. But I thought that was a very useful sort of overview of some of these questions from the Chinese perspective. Absolutely. Don't explore the constraints, Joe. Just take credit for solving U.S.-China tensions on the podcast in less than an hour. Shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there.

This has been another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway. And I'm Joe Wisenthall. You can follow me at the stalwart. Follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez, at Carmen Armand, Dashobennett at Dashbot, and Kail Brooks at Kail Brooks. For more oddlots content, go to Bloomberg.com slash oddlots. We have the daily newsletter and all of our episodes. And you can chat about all of these topics 24-7 in our Discord. Discord.g.g. And if you enjoy Oddlots, if you want us to go to Beijing and talk to more people on the ground, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast.

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