美中全球议题对话项目

注：中英文网站上发表的学生日志均为英文。

During the fall 2024 semester, as part of the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues Student-to-Student Dialogue program I had the opportunity to meet online with peers from University of California, San Diego, Peking University, and Fudan University over Zoom for three online sessions and talk about broad topics in U.S.-China relations, including the two countries’ responsibilities in helping the Global South, climate change, sustainable development, and economic decoupling. All my peers seemed to be particularly passionate about the various issues surrounding contemporary U.S.-China relations, which many scholars have considered to be the single most important international relationship in the twenty-first century. 

Having experienced both the tightly controlled information environment in China and the somewhat American-centric rhetoric on the Georgetown University campus, I am surprised and glad to find out that most of the participants in the discussion, regardless of where they study and where they come from, had a relatively unbiased understanding of the dynamics between the two countries and were willing to engage in constructive conversations with one another. All of them agreed that the two countries should put aside their strategic competition on certain issues concerning the welfare of the world population and demonstrate their responsibilities as great powers. Their open minds and this welcoming setting of dialogues made me more convinced that more knowledge and exposure to each other’s countries, ranging from political issues to society and culture, do have the power to alter our perceptions of international affairs and create tangible changes at the people-to-people exchange level.

However, when I delve deeper into our conversations and think deeply about the content being discussed, I cannot help but start to have some pessimism about the future of U.S.-China relations. Although I appreciate the goodwill of all my peers, everyone appeared to be a bit constrained when expressing their views when it came to real contentious issues. As a result, after a while, the discussion seemed to have evolved into a deadlock, when everyone was just more or less repeating the prevalent opinions and policy views given by government officials and prominent scholars on their side. When this happens, it is important to create an occasion to break down the formality and convey one’s honest opinions, even when it is controversial or goes against the mainstream ideas.

For example, in the second session, everyone expressed the idea of “compete where we need to compete and cooperate where we can cooperate,” a guideline adopted by many U.S. and European policymakers about China. However, everyone’s confidence in this notion started to break down when I asked my peers whether they really believed in altruist U.S.-China cooperation for the sake of the Global South, with no strings attached. It turned out that everyone believed that the best achievable outcome under current political configurations when it comes to the duty of the United States and China for the Global South is a responsible handling of the strategic competition and politicization of aid in the Global South to prevent major instabilities in the international system.

In my opinion, this anecdote, along with other similar episodes across the three online sessions, points to two sad conclusions. First, most of us are so used to the conventional understanding of the so-called “great power competition” that we do not want to risk thinking outside the box. Second, I could sense a general feeling of futility, as many of the discussants were disillusioned by the two governments’ inabilities to bring fundamental changes to the constantly worsening U.S.-China relations. Nevertheless, to end the blog on a positive note, all this in turn highlights the importance of engaging in more intense dialogue efforts in an attempt to put more conflicting ideas on the table. I look forward to seeing what a new semester of dialogues will bring us.

Julio Wang (SFS'25) is a junior majoring in international politics with a concentration in international security and a certificate in European studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service.