Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

As an international student from the Global South, the U.S.-China Student Dialogue program gave me a great opportunity to better understand U.S.-China relations as someone directly affected by their global ripple effects. Our first three virtual dialogues did not disappoint. Over the course of a month, our engagements with friends from Peking University were robust, insightful, and productive.

Firstly, our dialogues coincided with the hugely consequential 2024 U.S. presidential election. This added a fascinating dimension to our discussions. One particularly interesting perspective from our Peking counterparts was that there is a certain predictability to U.S. President Donald Trump’s unpredictability. His ideological flexibility and willingness to cut deals with foreign leaders suggest a potentially less tumultuous relationship than the Joe Biden administration. I agreed with the Chinese students that while Trump may be more predictable, his administration won’t necessarily bring the United States and China closer. In fact, we had an interesting discussion about whether the next four years would push China toward closer ties with Europe, given Trump’s general distrust of long-term alliances. These nuanced perspectives offered valuable insights that could inform how I see global shifts and their effect on Africa and other developing regions.

Being in the commerce and business subgroup allowed me to explore U.S.-China relations through an economic and policy-oriented lens. This was fascinating given my interest in industrial policy and technology markets. Our discussions often touched on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its role in today’s and tomorrow’s economic infrastructure and world order. The Chinese students presented a strong argument debunking the idea of debt-trap diplomacy as a strategy China was using to indebt poorer countries that defaulted on Chinese loans. It was a good opportunity for me and one of the Peking students, who is from Egypt, to discuss the opportunities and challenges of Chinese infrastructure projects and the BRI in our regions. I hope this helped provide our Chinese and American participants with a more nuanced and well-balanced perspective on global infrastructure development and emerging players in that space.

A key goal of mine in this dialogue was to explore which areas of U.S.-China cooperation remain viable despite geopolitical tensions, both at the macro policy level and people-to-people level. Our session on climate change, which started with opening remarks from Georgetown University Professor Joanna Lewis, was fascinating, as we learned about how climate change cooperation has traditionally been a strong area of U.S.-China collaboration. In our discussion groups, it was also clear that climate change was widely recognized as an urgent global challenge that requires cooperation.

The enthusiasm and respect that the Georgetown and Peking students had for each other was energizing, and I think there is great potential to stay engaged and develop a network of motivated and passionate youth committed to sustaining cooperation and dialogue. This goodwill and patience will become even more critical as politics become less predictable and U.S.-China strategic competition continues. I look forward to the rest of our program and to using the insights and knowledge gained to enrich our study tour in Beijing and Shanghai.

Niel Swanepoel (G' 26) is a first-year graduate student in the Master of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University focusing on Science, Technology, and International Affairs.