PBS News Hour - Full Show - What's next for the U.S. and China in a new era of confrontation

Episode Date: February 21, 2026

The U.S.-China relationship affects national security and our pocketbooks. They are the world's most advanced militaries and largest economies. Now, China's increasingly authoritarian leadership is purging officials while portraying itself as more reliable than the U.S. Compass Points moderator Nick Schifrin discusses that with Kurt Campbell, Randall Schriver, Yun Sun and Mchael Swaine.  PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

America's chief adversary. The U.S.-China relationship affects our national security and pocketbooks. The world's two most advanced militaries, largest economies, and now China's increasingly authoritarian leadership is purging its most senior military officials while portraying itself as more reliable than the U.S. What's next for Beijing and Washington? Tonight on Compass Points. Hello and welcome to Compass Points.

The U.S. and China are in a new era of confrontation, and no other relationship can help determine everything from the purpose. prices we pay, the apps we use, and the future of our alliances. Today, Xi Jinping has concentrated power to a degree not seen in China in a half century. He's more authoritarian, purging his most senior military officials as President Trump ditches talk of great power competition to emphasize a grand U.S.-China deal. So what's the future of the relationship, and how much do we really understand about Xi Jinping's decisions and motivations?

To help answer those questions, I'm joined by Kurt Campbell, the chairman and co-founder of the Asia Group and former Deputy Secretary of State. Randall Shriver is the former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security during the first Trump term and now is chairman of the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security. Yun-sun is the director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, and Michael Swain is the Senior Research Fellow

in the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Thank you very much, all of you. Welcome to Compass Points. Really appreciate your being here. Where I want to start is with something that even for China is an unprecedented announcement, and that is the firing of the equivalent of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking officer in the Chinese military.

You see him there. General Zhang Yu-Shiya was fired. It's been said there's been nothing like this purge in the People's Liberation Army since the 1970s. Kirk Campbell, how much do we know about why this might have happened? And what does this say about how Xi Jinping runs the army and the country? The truth is we know very little about the inner workings of how President Xi and the party makes decisions on really anything at the very top, but particularly military affairs. I think there have been theories of the case about why he has moved against some senior military people in the CMC, but also among the senior militarily more generally. Some have believed it is about going against corruption and efficiency, military leaders who are not prepared for really getting China fighting ready.

I think there is more a belief that this time that there may be political motivations behind it. The CMC had gained some... The chief military body that oversea. Had gained some more profile. I think there is a view that President Xi doesn't want. any personalities or groups that are larger than him. And I think there are probably some dimensions here that motivated him. And you explain that a little bit more.

What about the politics here? What about Xi Jinping's plans to run for another term? How does that play into this? Absolutely. When we look at the senior leadership in the Chinese government or in the PLA, it's very rare that people are removed for professional reasons. So professional disagreements, policy disagreements are usually not a cause. And the most important factors that has led to the purges of previous leaders that we have seen is politics.

China is looking at the 21st Party Congress in 27. And the essential questions that will be raised and answered during this party congress is whether Xi Jinping is going to stay on for a fourth term. And if he is going to which three positions or which ones of the three positions he will retain among the party, the government and the military. So we know that there have been elite oppositions or resistance to the concept that Xi Jinping will stay on for the full three positions for another five years. So thinking about the intra-party politics that are ongoing in China today, I think it raises a lot of questions as for whether this purchase related to that. Randy Shriver, this is really hard, but how could this affect Chinese military abilities, readiness planning, including. of course, possibly to be ready for to invade Taiwan. Yeah. Well, first of all, I do lean more in the direction of this is politically motivated.

And I think if you look at the broader set of purges, three defense ministers, many flag officers, this definitely looks as though it's motivated to secure Xi Jinping's position. I don't think there's any question that he stays on longer. Particularly, I think he sealed the deal with how he treated his predecessors, right? So I think he knows what would be in store for him if he gave up all his titles. So it may be some mix of titles, but there's no doubt in my mind he remains supreme leader. I think on the military, you know, it was once said you go to war with the army you have. So the PLA is certainly...

Putting Donald Rumsold there. Yeah, well, yeah. The PLA has certainly been the beneficiary of a lot of investment, better training, not to our quality yet. and certainly an operational environment with a tempo that they're getting a lot of experience. But look, when you relieve so many people, and it's so unpredictable, a military leadership that is already known for caution and not risk-taking, they're going to get even more risk-averse. So I think on the margins, this diminishes readiness. It's a hard thing to measure, but this is not a military where a leader is going to be,

or entrepreneurial on the battlefield, and we know that that's necessary to prevail in modern warfare. The U.S. intelligence community, of course, very publicly, has said that Xi Jinping has asked the People's Liberation Army of the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by next year, not necessarily to make that decision, just to be ready. Michael Swain, I want you to answer a fundamental question. Do you believe right now it is in U.S. interests

to be willing, if it comes to that, to go to war over Taiwan, even as soon as next year? No. I don't think it's ultimately in the U.S. interest to go to a war, which would be a major war, unlike anything we've seen since the Korean War with China over Taiwan. I don't think Taiwan meets the bar as a vital enough U.S. interest either strategically or in terms of overall U.S. credibility with formal American allies, which Taiwan is not, or in terms even of a moral argument. Even though the defense of a democracy with close ties to the United States is an important issue for the United States, it doesn't rise to the level of going to war, where you're

going to end up killing many, many people, many American soldiers. Randy? Well, no matter what Michael thinks or I might think, there is a law that says we must maintain the capacity to resist force. So it's actually a legal requirement to be prepared to defend Taiwan. Be prepared to defend Taiwan, not necessarily to go to war for Taiwan. That's right. But I think if Taiwan doesn't make the bar across the threshold, our seventh largest trading partner in total volume, six largest destination for agricultural products,

we all know the semiconductor story, we know the geography around other things of interest to us, like treaty allies, like the South China Sea, out to the second island chain. I mean, you pull this threat a little further, and none of our defense commitments rise to, a level of importance where we'd risk war. Nobody wants war with China, but I think given our legal obligations and our interests, we need to be prepared for the purposes of deterrence,

which is what our policy says right now. Kurt, you're shaking your head. I would agree with that. And look, the way that you ask the question is so bald and provocative, and I understand that's what you're trying to do here. But I do believe it is an American strategic interest to concentrate our diplomacy and our defense capabilities to deter conflict. and to make a broader argument and a more persuasive case for the maintenance of peace and stability. And the truth is, we have been able to do that for now 60 or 70 years in a very complex environment.

But I would just say one thing, Nick, like, US generations are incredibly complicated. It's been very difficult, but one of the greatest achievements has been the maintenance of peace and stability, even though it's been hard and probably not to China's favor. That is something that we should not just jettison quickly. I just think that the problem is that the conditions under which we first established relations with Taiwan and China back in 1970s have changed radically.

The Chinese military today has a much greater capability. There had any real capability in 1970s to be able to take Taiwan. So we could easily say we're going to build up our defense capabilities, we're going to possibly, possibly defend Taiwan. We weren't obligated to, but possibly. have got far, far better capabilities now, and they're continuing to build those capabilities. And from the analysis I've looked at in relative terms, the United States is losing in that competition. So the question really becomes, can you have enough deterrence there to really stop the Chinese

from considering using force or coercion? Plus, do you have, because military deterrence alone will not avoid a war, if our diplomatic and our political messaging and the actions and messaging of our close allies like Japan, Japan undermine the very notion of the one China policy, which is the basis of our policy towards China and Taiwan, and for China peaceful unification. I've started this debate, which we could have for hours, frankly. I want to bring in President Trump's belief on this, because he has said he's confident that Xi Jinping would not invade Taiwan while the president at least is in office. So take a listen to President Trump on 60 minutes talking about Xi Jinping, and then what Taiwan's

deputy foreign minister said to me in response. response. He has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, we would never do anything while President Trump is president because they know the consequences. President Trump has said repeatedly that Xi Jinping has promised not to invade Taiwan during Trump's term. Has the U.S. ever communicated that to Taipei formally? We don't make any speculation on that.

We don't base our defense idea concept. on any empty promise. Empty promise. Yun, is it an empty promise that Xi Jinping has made, apparently, to President Trump? If you look at the track record of what Xi Jinping has done to you as president, remember back in 2015, when he visited Washington

and he looked at President Obama in the eyes and promised China was not going to militarize the South China Sea, and he went back to China and did exactly that. So I mean, at this level, I would take his words with at least with a question mark. A very big, well, grain of salt. Just a tactical point, he did not promise to not militarize the South China Sea.

He said he had no intention, no intention of doing that, which is quite different. All right, well, let me move to the April visit, because this is what's going to get to whether there's any concessions and how far Xi Jinping goes. So I recently asked a senior U.S. official what concessions Xi Jinping will get out of President Trump, perhaps about Taiwan, and this official got mad at me and say, well, why are you asking me about the concessions they're going to get, what are the concessions we're going to get? But the question is, is Beijing willing to make any concessions on trade, which is what we believe the president will be prioritizing if the president makes any concessions on Taiwan? Kirk.

So if you look at how this is shaping up, what we're seeing from the United States, President Trump's interested in some very short-term things, wants major increases in agricultural purchases. Maybe bowling, engines. But those states are very important with respect to upcoming elections. He'd like possibly to sell more Boeing planes. I think that would be good. There's a big debate inside the administration about accepting Chinese investment in the

United States. I think the president is more inclined to go in that direction. And I give him credit for this. He's very focused on trying to end fentanyl coming into the United States. A series of administrations has been focused on that. China wants, I think, in exchange, they'd like, they're going to say, hey, look, if we're going to buy all this stuff, you've got to lift some of these tariffs. We can't operate like that.

Second, they're going to say, look, all these technology restrictions put in place in the Biden administration. You've lifted many of them, but you've got to lift all of them. And I think we have indications many people on the technology side around President Trump are probably inclined to go in that direction. Third, I think the Chinese are going to say we'd like some adjustments on your Taiwan policy. And that might be with respect how the president talks about Taiwan, what our views about independence are.

We would go from not supporting to opposing. I think if you look at the balance of that, what's on offer and what the Chinese would ask, I don't think that's a particularly good deal. Randy, how do you rate the president's trade policies, tariffs? been such a focus of his combined national economic security. You dealt with this during the first Trump administration. The bottom line, have the tariffs been effective at getting China to lower trade barriers? Well, I guess I'm a bit of a throwback Republican. I prefer more free trade and less

industrial policy, less tariffs. But I do think we've landed at a spot where what they're calling a trade truce from the Busan meeting between President Xi and President Trump where we've got a temporary landing spot for tariffs. We've agreed not to impose the additional tariffs on fentanyl. We've agreed to halt the correcting measures that were associated with a 301 investigation on Chinese ship. They'll be- 301 U.S. trade representative investigation.

Yes. So we're sort of at this truce part. So really the important thing is where we go forward from here. And I think Kurt is right in terms of laying out what the Chinese want. They'll go in with a maximalist position on a lot of these things. as they often do. But the playbook is generally, we'll get from them some agreement to buy things.

Some agreement on process. Yeah, we'll create a dialogue on fentanyl or whatever it may be. And then we go into a period of dashed expectations. The Chinese rarely live up to these things. And so the hope is that the meeting itself provides some ballast and gives us a little bit of space and brings tensions down. But I think we're in a period of long-term strategic competition defined by the fundamentals and the structural issues associated with our relationship.

And it's going to require deft management well beyond this meeting. Yeah, but Nick, one thing I would just simply say, if you ask right now who is the dominant sort of action officer for China policy inside the US government, it's President Trump. He's the China desk officer. And if you ask who are his key advisors that really understand China or Asia, there are There are no Randy Shriver in this administration. They really do not have a very deep reservoir of people that they consult. So you've rarely seen this much confidence in the ability to manage a relationship matched

with not as much experience. Although regardless of the experience, I would argue that the policy making apparatus that we've been used to for decades has obviously moved much toward a policymaker apparatus with President Trump not only on China, but much of the world. Sorry, Michael. Well, I was just going to say, I think the... I think the interesting question really is whether, and I agree with what Randy and Kurt have been saying, whether or not Taiwan really does come up in this meeting.

I think Trump would rather just not even talk about it, more or less. But in Busan, they never talked about it. But in this meeting, I think it's possible that Xi Jinping could very well say, okay, all kinds of things we're willing to do. We'd like you to do some things too on trade. But, you know, there's a few small things here that are really important to us because of what's going on Taiwan, because it's so destabilizing,

because it's undermining our interest and your interests. So you need to say something that's much more clear to the TPP, to the split-us on Taiwan, as it's the current government. Head of the current government, Democratic-Korges-a-Party. Correct. Like, you need to oppose Taiwan independence, which is not the position of the United States.

You need to really push back on the DPP. We know how... I was going to say their goal is to return to some form of co-management. They want the U.S. at the highest levels locked into a process where China and the United States are co-managing Taiwan. And I've heard some troubling things from a senior official, who I won't name, has said, do not support independence, oppose independence? It's the same thing. Right, exactly.

Well, it's not the same thing. The hard thing that we don't really talk about very much is that it is absolutely clear. President Trump has an unusual attraction to authoritarian. The leaders that animate him are President Trump, Kim Jong-un, and President Xi. And to the extent he has a global philosophy, he's indicated that really big powers should have a little bit more sway over their immediate neighbors. You see that playing out a little bit in Ukraine. And so I do think the Chinese are going to try to pressure him to indicate, look, you've got to

change the, just U.S. policy. And I think it may go even beyond what Michael's indicating here. One of the main friction points has been over technology and chips. Randy, during your administration, during the first Trump administration, there was the creation of these what we call export controls, believing that American technology was being funneled into the Chinese military in order to make the Chinese military better. Kurt, as you know, you continued that effort.

But recently, in the last year, President Trump has allowed some of the more advanced NVIDIA chips, the more advanced semiconductors, to be sent to China, not the most advanced, but still, again, he has removed the language of great power competition,

and this is a real shift. So, You know, is President Trump, you think, more interested in selling chips to China or trade with China than he is holding the line, as they did in both administrations,

on national security? I think President Trump has made his agenda very clear, is to address, trade imbalance with China. And if you want to address the trade in balance with China, a key question is what the U.S. is willing to sell to China that can boost our export to China, right? And I'm afraid if that is our priority, then selling some semiconductor chips to China will be inevitable.

Because we're more advanced on semi-tranexia. That's our comparative advantage. That's what we can sell because, well, it will require a lot of soybeans to make up a fraction of the trade in balance that we currently have with China. So as long as trading imbalance is going to be the national priority, I'm afraid that this door is going to be pushed open. Michael, is this concern you, these sales? Yes, it concerns me because I don't think there's a good enough yet definition, certainly within this administration, of what constitutes a national security-related high-tech product to sell to China and what doesn't. And I think the absence of that means that you get

all kinds of vagaries about selling this chip, selling that chip. And you, you know, you're you just really don't know where you are ultimately. And if you have a broad-based, you know, like restriction, well, there's two sides. If you have a broad-based restriction on chips, then it looks like you're trying to contain China's development. It's nothing to do with the military of the Chinese seat as containment. But then if you have something that's very, very selective, you can influence, I think, China's military development, but only temporarily. Most people that I know, I'm not an expert in the tech area, but most of the guys I talk to and the ladies who are involved in that, say, Anything we do is a delay issue.

It's not a reversal or it's not a stop. Look, I respect, Michael. I tend to disagree. I think there are clear areas, certain kinds of AI chips, certain kinds of lithography for semiconductor design, that there is bipartisan agreement that these are areas of strategic advantage. I think what is missing here, though, Nick,

is a theory of people in the Trump administration about why to sell these chips. Their idea, if you can sell them, then you can addict the Chinese to our technology stack. Get them in the stack. But that is a fundamental misunderstanding of where Xi Jinping is. When he came to power, he made clear tech supremacy is his ultimate goal. And so the idea that we're somehow going to get China to just buy US chips for the next 20 years, that's a mistaken understanding of Chinese strategy.

I also want to make a comment on just slowing or thwarting. them, there are particular areas of convergence, for example, quantum with AI, that if China gets first mover advantage, it is extremely consequential. So even if it's just slowing them, I would take that. Let me save the biggest proverbial explosion for last, and that is nuclear weapons. And I'm going to bring up a bar graph. I'm not afraid of bar graphs on television, even though it's pretty rare, to show the number of nuclear warheads by country.

Russia, 5,459, the United States, over 5,200. China, 600. Now, that alone is actually a lot higher than they used to be just a few years ago. China has long maintained what it calls the minimal deterrent. But the Department of Defense says they're accelerating. They're going to have over 1,000 by 2030, and they're racing to parity, especially 1550. That's what the U.S. and Russia deploy. And what we saw recently from Christopher U., the Assistant Secretary of State,

We recently described China's nuclear growth as, quote, beyond breathtaking. We have not seen an expansion like this in many decades ever since the beginning of the Cold War. Randy Shriver, to you first, is there any sign that China is willing to negotiate its number of nuclear weapons as the U.S. wants it to today? We haven't seen any sign of that. And I think the ending of the new start combined with some testing, you know, we haven't tested since the early 90s, since the test ban treaty.

But our Under Secretary of State for Security has revealed publicly that China has conducted some low threshold, low yield tests. The combination of all these things, and you could bring in India into this equation, you could bring in powers that are contemplating weapon system. I think the popularity now in South Korea is over 70 percent wanted to be. The worry of proliferation is here. So we're really entering into a stage of, of, both horizontal proliferation as a potential, but really the great powers who are already nuclear powers, really accelerating things.

And the Chinese have expressed no interest, just the opposite. They've continued to cling to this position that it's between the great powers. No interest? Well, I think the Chinese calculation or their calculus, their formula about their minimum deterrence, is based on not just the size of the nuclear arsenal, but also the missile defense capability of other great states, right? Great powers. when they calculate how many they need, they're not only looking at how big the American arsenal is,

they're also looking at the US Missile Defense capability. Because for them to have a credible second strike capability, what they want to achieve, which is the mutual vulnerability, as they have stated many, many times in track one, and track two dialogues, I think until they see that they have credible second strike capability, they are not going to negotiate. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, we're out of time, Kurt. Sorry, Eun-son, Michael Swain. Kurt Campbell and Randy Shriver. Thanks so much, very much. And thank you for joining us. That's all the time we have. I'm Nick Schiffran. We'll see you here again next week on Compass Points.