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

The opportunity to explore the dynamics of U.S.-China relations with students from Peking University (PKU) has been fascinating during my participation thus far in the U.S.-China Student Dialogue. One recurring theme I have noticed is the importance of perspective. With PKU students hailing from mainland China, Taiwan, Mongolia, and other countries in Eastern Asia, and Georgetown students of different backgrounds and academic disciplines, certain words and phrases mean more to some than others.

The focus of my group and its presentation is “global governance.” When I think of the topic, my immediate focus trends toward international organizations and how the United States and China operate on the global stage—whether that be as members of the UN Security Council, the United States as the de facto leader of NATO, or in relation to the World Bank and IMF. When I hear global governance, I think of great power politics, of which the United States and China dominate the modern notion, and the influence of those states at the bilateral and multilateral levels.

However, some members of my group were quick to jump into the world of technology and science, including the roles that the United States and China play in the development and regulation of artificial intelligence. I know relatively less on the topic but was super interested to learn from my peers at both PKU and Georgetown. We discussed the importance of first- and second-track academic and scientific exchanges in terms of this collaborative exchange and the university-level disputes related to Confucius Institutes in the United States. It will be interesting to reconnect on this topic in our final discussion given the explosion of DeepSeek and RedNote and the potential demise of TikTok.

Another aspect of global governance we talked about was the influence of both countries worldwide—the United States as a leader of NATO and China through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While I would not typically categorize the BRI as a form of global governance, its importance worldwide cannot be understated, especially in the developing world. As China deepens its relations with the Global South (through BRICS as well) and the United States grows closer to Europe (at least under U.S. President Joe Biden), this era of diplomacy seems to be partially defined by individual endeavors of global governance.

Of course, since our last full cohort meeting, there has been a change of leadership in the United States, which has already and is bound to further disturb what had been a relatively more stable relationship with China. Given President Donald Trump’s personal animosity toward China and an already escalating trade war (beginning with aluminum and steel tariffs), U.S-China dynamics are bound to shift— albeit expectedly—again. In addition, as Trump looks to end the war in Ukraine without offering Ukraine a place at the negotiating table, worries over appeasement and what that could mean for Taiwan will be renewed at the congressional level.

Daniel Greilsheimer (SFS '26) is a student at Georgetown University majoring in Regional and Comparative Studies with a minor in Journalism.