HWS News
10 November 2023 Zhou on Biden-Xi Meeting and U.S.-China Relations
Will U.S.-China relations get back on track? Associate Professor of Asian Studies Jinghao Zhou explores the complexities in several recent articles.
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference (APEC) in San Francisco this month. Since the Biden-Xi summit in Bali last November, U.S.-China relations have further slipped into a trajectory of conflict. Tit-for-tat confrontations in the South China Sea and the wars between Ukraine and Russia and Israel and Hamas are fueling the strained relationship.
An article by Associate Professor of Asian Studies Jinghao Zhou, “Biden-Xi Meeting Won’t Prevent Competition,” is featured in the international relations magazine The National Interest, discussing the Biden-Xi meeting in the context of Chinese and American domestic politics and the global power competition.
Zhou argues that the Biden-Xi meeting is a temporary solution to serve the domestic politics of both countries. He notes that under the current circumstances, China sees the stalemate in the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Hamas war as an opportunity to gain more during the meeting. Therefore, a Biden-Xi meeting at APEC won’t reset the trajectory of U.S.-China relations, “only hit a temporary pause to prevent escalation of conflict at this inopportune time. Fierce competition between the two nations over the Taiwan issue and others lies ahead.”
In recent months, Zhou has published other articles discussing timely topics of U.S.-China relations in The National Interest (“Deterrence Won’t Stop China’s Unification with Taiwan”), as well as The American Spectator (“Is a Cold War Coming?”; “Biden Makes U-turn on China's Taiwan Invasion Risk”; and “Can Biden’s ‘Having Both’ Strategy Succeed in the U.S. Competition With China?”), The Diplomat (“China’s Economy Might Be Down, But Don’t Expect Regime Collapse” and “Why Beijing Isn’t Interested in Setting Guardrails for China-U.S. Competition”) and The Federalist (“Why Taiwan Getting Caught In A Proxy War Would Be An U.S. Epic Failure”).
Zhou earned his Ph.D. from Baylor University, M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary, M.A. from Wuhan University, and B.A. from Nanjing University. He teaches courses in Asian Studies including China-the U.S., Chinese Women, Contemporary China, and Chinese Cinema.
His research focuses on Chinese ideology, politics, religion and U.S.-China relations. He has published dozens of journal articles and six books. His latest book is Great Power Competition as the New Normal of China-U.S. Relations (2023).
