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At a recent seminar hosted by APARCʼs China Program, Professor Jessica Chen Weiss, the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, presented findings from her forthcoming book, Faultlines: The Tensions Beneath China's Global Ambitions (under contract with Oxford University Press), which examines how domestic politics and regime insecurity shape China’s foreign policy ambitions, prospects for peaceful coexistence, and the future of international order. Drawing on research and fieldwork in China, Weiss argued that understanding Beijingʼs behavior on the world stage requires looking beyond ideology to the contested priorities and political calculations that drive decision-making within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Weiss proposed a framework centered on three pillars that have sustained CCP legitimacy since the late 1970s: sovereignty (nationalism), security (civility), and development. Her analysis reveals that China's objectives are not static but moving targets shaped by competing domestic interests, leadership priorities, and international pressures.

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The Sovereignty-Security-Development Paradigm
 

At the heart of Weissʼs argument is the recognition that the CCPʼs foremost concern is domestic survival. In the face of the collapse of most communist regimes, the Party has remained vigilant against what it calls “peaceful evolution” and democratic contagion.

On issues touching core sovereignty concerns – Taiwan, Hong Kong, and maritime territorial claims – China has been “hyperactive” in making demands, even when doing so invites international censure. Weiss explained that the more central an issue is to CCP domestic legitimacy, the harder it becomes to make concessions, and the more likely international pressure is to backfire.

Yet tensions exist between competing priorities. China has compromised on certain border disputes to shore up domestic security, while its evolving stance on climate change reflects a shift from viewing carbon limits as threats to growth to recognizing the greater threat environmental catastrophes present to the nation’s stability.

Beyond the Monolith: China's Internal Contestation
 

Weissʼs research demonstrates that authoritarian China is far from monolithic. Different geographic, economic, institutional, and even ideological interests shape policy debates, even if most actors lack formal veto power. Local governments can resist central directives, as evidenced during the COVID-19 outbreak, when local officials initially withheld information about human-to-human transmission from the central government to prevent panic from disrupting important political meetings.

This pattern of center-local tension extends to China's international commitments. Local officials often game environmental regulations to juice growth and secure promotions, undermining Beijingʼs pledges on carbon emissions. On issues ranging from Belt and Road investments to export controls, implementation frequently diverges from stated policy as local actors pursue their own interests.

Weiss’s framework distinguishes among issues that are both central and uncontested (such as Taiwan), those that are central but contested (like climate change and trade policy), and peripheral issues where Beijing has shown greater flexibility (such as demonstrated by many UN peacekeeping initiatives). This helps explain why international pressure succeeds in some domains but fails spectacularly in others.

"The more central an issue is domestically, the more pressure the government faces to perform, and the harder it is to defy these domestic expectations," Weiss said. As a result, international pressure on these central issues is more likely to backfire, forcing the government to be seen as defending its core interests. She underscored that "even on these central issues, there's often tension with other central priorities, and managing these trade-offs comes with a number of different risks. It also means that sometimes an issue that touches on one pillar of regime support can yield to another."

Nationalism as Constraint and Tool
 

Weiss described nationalism as both a pillar of the CCPʼs legitimacy and a potential vulnerability when the government’s response appears weak. While large-scale anti-foreign protests have become rare, nationalist sentiment remains active online and shapes diplomatic calculations.

During Speaker Nancy Pelosiʼs 2022 visit to Taiwan, Chinese social media erupted with calls for the PLA to shoot down her plane. One interlocutor told Weiss his 14-year-old son and friends had stayed up past bedtime to watch Pelosiʼs plane land, illustrating nationalismʼs penetration into Chinese society.

Survey research reveals Chinese public opinion is quite hawkish, with majorities supporting military spending and viewing the U.S. presence in Asia as a threat. The government often refrains from suppressing nationalist sentiment to avoid backlash, even when doing so creates diplomatic complications. Weissʼs public opinion survey experiments, however, reveal that tough but vague threats can provide the government with wiggle room for de-escalation, although disapproval emerges when action is not sufficiently tough.

Regime Security Without Ideological Crusade
 

Weiss pushed back against arguments that China is bent on global domination or that ideology drives conflict with the West. While the CCP seeks a less ideologically threatening environment, it must balance this against development and market access.

This pragmatic calculus explains China's constrained support for Russiaʼs war in Ukraine — Beijing fears secondary sanctions more than it values autocratic solidarity. Rather than exporting revolution, China has worked with incumbents of all political stripes in the service of its national interests.

Chinaʼs strategy focuses on making autocracy viable at home, not on defeating democracy globally. This suggests room for coexistence if both sides can reach a détente on interference in internal affairs.

“China's activities are making autocracy more viable and, to the extent that China is succeeding, making China's example more appealing as a consequence. But its strategy doesn't hinge on defeating democracy around the world,” argued Weiss. This implies, to her view, that “there is more room for coexistence between autocracies and democracies if these different systems can find or reach a potential détente in the realm of ideas about how countries govern themselves, and importantly, they need to pull back their efforts in other societies across boundaries.”

Interdependence and Future Trajectories
 

Weiss concluded by outlining how her framework suggests different engagement strategies depending on where issues fall within the centrality-contestation matrix. On central but uncontested issues like Taiwan, pressure proves counterproductive, and reciprocal restraint may be most promising. On central but contested issues like currency, multilateral pressure can influence certain Chinese constituencies against others. On peripheral issues, such pressure is most effective unless powerful domestic constituencies subvert implementation.

Addressing questions about U.S.-China decoupling, Weiss noted that both sides recognize there are interdependencies that don’t have quick solutions. Even in a critical area like minerals, diversification will take at least a decade, and Chinese processing will still dominate globally. The goal of diversification should be to preempt coercion, not to achieve true decoupling.

Stanford University's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to invite nominations for the 2026 Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award, which carries a cash prize of US$10,000, recognizes outstanding journalists and news media outlets for excellence in covering the complexities of the Asia-Pacific region. The 2026 award will honor a Western news media outlet or a journalist whose substantial body of work has primarily appeared in Western news media. APARC welcomes award nomination submissions from news editors, publishers, scholars, news outlets, journalism organizations, and entities focused on researching and analyzing the Asia-Pacific region. Entries are due by February 15, 2026.

The award defines the Asia-Pacific region broadly as including Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and Australasia. Both individual journalists with a considerable body of work and news media outlets are eligible for the award. Nominees’ work may be in traditional forms of print or broadcast journalism and/or in new forms of multimedia journalism. The Award Selection Committee oversees the judging of nominees and is responsible for selecting honorees.

An annual tradition since 2002, the award honors the legacy of Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, APARC's benefactor, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. Throughout its history, the award has recognized world-class journalists and news media who push the boundaries of coverage of the Asia-Pacific region and champion press freedom and human rights.

Recent honorees include Netra News, Bangladesh's premier public interest journalism outlet; Chris Buckley, the New York Times' chief China correspondent; The Caravan, India’s esteemed magazine of long-form journalism; Emily Feng, then NPR's Beijing correspondent; and Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, CEO and president of the Philippines-based news organization Rappler. Visit the award page to learn more.

Award nominations are accepted electronically through Sunday, February 15, 2026, at 11:59 PM PST.  Visit the award nomination entry page for information about the nomination procedures and to submit an entry.

APARC will announce the winner by May 2026.

Please direct all inquiries to aparc-communications@stanford.edu.

This opinion piece was first published by Project Syndicate >

STANFORD/LOS ANGELES – It is tempting to frame the Sino-American economic rivalry as a clash between engineering doers and lawyerly naysayers, as the Chinese-Canadian analyst Dan Wang does in his new book Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future. But this is a false dichotomy, because law is a crucial feature of US capitalism.

We have heard the lawyers-versus-engineers argument before. Forty years ago, Japan’s economic rise induced similar anxieties, most famously articulated in the American sociologist Ezra Vogel’s book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America. Commentators fretted that America was mired in lawsuits while Japan’s best minds were solving problems and driving their country’s meteoric growth. Yet over the ensuing decades, the United States, with its mammoth legal industry, outperformed Japan by a wide margin.

Today’s panic about an Asian economic challenger is equally unwarranted and counterproductive. Invoking national security and the competition with China, Donald Trump’s administration is pursuing increasingly anti-capitalist and legally dubious interventions into private industry, with potentially high costs for American dynamism.

Continue reading at Project Syndicate >

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to invite applications for a suite of fellowships in contemporary Asia studies to begin in fall quarter 2026.

The Center offers postdoctoral fellowships that promote multidisciplinary research on Asia health policy, contemporary Japan, and contemporary Asia broadly defined, as well as postdoctoral fellowships and visiting scholar positions with the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab and a visiting fellow position on contemporary Taiwan. Learn more about each opportunity and its specific application requirements:

2026-27 Asia Health Policy Program Postdoctoral Fellowship

Hosted by the Asia Health Policy Program at APARC, the fellowship is awarded to one recent PhD recipient undertaking original research on contemporary health or healthcare policy of high relevance to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially developing countries. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2026. The application deadline is December 1, 2025.

2026-27 Japan Program Postdoctoral Fellowship

Hosted by the Japan Program at APARC, the fellowship supports research on contemporary Japan in a broad range of disciplines, including political science, economics, sociology, law, policy studies, and international relations. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2026. The application deadline is December 1, 2025.  

2026-27 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia

APARC offers two postdoctoral fellowship positions to junior scholars for research and writing on contemporary Asia. The primary research areas focus on political, economic, or social change in the Asia-Pacific region (including Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia), or international relations and international political economy in the region. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2026. The application deadline is December 1, 2025. 
 

2026-27 Taiwan Program Visiting Fellowship

Hosted by the Taiwan Program at APARC, the fellowship is awarded to one mid-career to senior-level expert with extensive experience studying contemporary Taiwan. The fellowship research focus is on issues related to how Taiwan can meet the challenges and opportunities of economic, social, technological, environmental, and institutional adaptation in the coming decades, using a variety of disciplines, including the social sciences, public policy, and business. The application deadline is March 1, 2026.  
 

Mounting hidden local government debt is one of China’s pressing challenges. Held by local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) and estimated between US$8-10 trillion, this off-the-books debt originates from a long-running tug-of-war over tax revenue between China’s central government and the localities. In the years before COVID-19, LGFVs controlled their debt by drawing on steady non-tax revenues. In summer 2020, however, approximately six months after the pandemic broke out in Wuhan, the hidden debt held by LGFVs began rising dramatically. Today, many of them are nearing default, and local governments are increasingly going broke.

​​Why did hidden LGFV debt rise so much during COVID?

A recent study, published in The China Journal, sheds light on this question. The study’s co-authors – including Jean Oi, the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and director of the China Program at APARC – use quantitative data to show how China’s central government’s regulatory crackdowns on income tied to the real estate sector during the pandemic disrupted the revenue sources LGFVs and their local governments relied on to service their debts. These policy changes “interacted with the zero-COVID policy to create a perfect storm, pushing hidden local government debt to new highs,” they write. 

Their study draws on a wide array of quantitative data, tracking information on factors ranging from COVID shocks (including confirmed cases and deaths) to, among others, government medical responses, special treasury bonds and their allocation, local debt, land purchases, and business activities. Using these sources, the co-authors built a province-level dataset covering all 31 of China’s provincial units from 2018 to 2022, allowing comparative analyses before and after China’s COVID shocks. They organized the data into three categories: (1) the impact of COVID on small and medium enterprises; (2) government fiscal responses and COVID expenditures during the pandemic; and (3) local government finances and debts.

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The Pre-COVID Era: The Grand Bargain That Failed

China’s local debt problem traces back to the 1994 fiscal reforms, which recentralized tax revenues in Beijing and left local governments with chronic budget shortfalls. To bridge the gap, the central government struck a “grand bargain”: while claiming a larger share of tax income, localities could generate new non-tax revenues through special-purpose vehicles, namely, local government financing vehicles. These LGFVs were set up as state-owned enterprises to incur and hold debt off-the-books, yet not illegally, on behalf of local governments.

The workaround fueled rapid development for years but laid the groundwork for today’s mounting hidden debt crisis.

“The success of LGFVs hinged largely on revenue generated through land finance,” explain Oi and her co-authors. “Local governments provided LGFVs with cheap land as collateral for bank loans and bonds. Further revenue was generated from preparing and selling land to real estate developers.”

Thus, LGFVs powered over a decade of rapid growth in China, driving infrastructure booms and urbanization that made the real estate sector a cornerstone of the economy. The model appeared mutually beneficial: the central government gained more tax revenue as the economy grew, while local governments used land sales and debt to fund development. But this growth depended on a continuous flow of non-tax income, making the system increasingly fragile.

After the 2008 global financial crisis, Beijing launched a sustained push to rein in local government hidden debt, focusing heavily on LGFVs. By 2017, officials labeled the risk a “gray rhino.” Yet this drive for fiscal discipline ground to a halt with the onset of COVID.

A Perfect Storm of Policy and Pandemic

The pandemic’s impact was swift and severe. Small and medium-sized businesses, especially in the hardest-hit regions like Hubei Province, saw their incomes collapse by up to 90%. In response, Beijing provided a massive fiscal support package to localities, including one trillion yuan in special COVID bonds to offset the costs from the initial onslaught of the pandemic. Crucial for LGFVs, these bonds cushioned the impact of the pandemic on land sales.

By summer 2020, however, as China was still locked away from the rest of the world and COVID was under control, Beijing resumed its policy agenda to enforce fiscal discipline and curb local government debt. The central government’s most consequential measure was the “three red lines” policy, which dealt a major blow to China’s real estate sector by sharply restricting developers’ ability to borrow once debt thresholds were crossed. The policy, expanded from 12 pilot firms in 2020 to cover the entire sector by 2021, disrupted the “borrow-to-grow” model and triggered a liquidity crisis. Evergrande, China’s second-biggest property developer, was among the first groups affected.

As borrowing dried up, firms struggled to repay debt, halted construction, and stopped buying land, slashing local government revenues. Land sales plummeted across provinces, with national revenue growth from land transfers plunging into negative territory by 2022. The crisis deepened when unfinished housing projects led to mortgage boycotts by frustrated home buyers, prompting more state intervention.

For local governments, the shift came at a steep cost. They were ordered to step in, using LGFVs to purchase land and inject cash into public budgets. As a result, even wealthier provinces like Shanghai and Guangdong saw sharp increases in LGFV debt.

“The call for LGFVs to buy land to create revenue for local governments made matters worse, turning land from a key source of revenue into a source of new debt and forcing LGFVs further to increase borrowing, all of which caused soaring increases in LGFV debt, without any alternative revenue source to service or pay that debt,” explain Oi and her co-authors.

A Fiscal Reform Imperative

The study shows how China’s shifts in central government policies during the pandemic – especially the three red lines and the directive for LGFVs to buy up unwanted land — exacerbated long-standing vulnerabilities in local public finance. What had been a delicate balancing act quickly became unsustainable.

“At the root of China’s continuing crisis of LGFVs' debt is China’s flawed fiscal system,” the co-authors emphasize. Before the pandemic, the system masked deficits by relying on LGFVs to generate off-the-books revenues, primarily through land sales fueled by a booming real estate market. This arrangement allowed Beijing to capture the bulk of tax revenue while localities chased growth. But when COVID struck and the property sector collapsed, the facade crumbled.

The fallout exposed how deeply local governments had come to depend on land finance – an unstable, non-institutionalized revenue stream. With the real estate sector once accounting for over 20 percent of GDP, its collapse left localities and their financing vehicles adrift. “In the context of a crisis such as COVID, the weakness of the fiscal system and LGFVs was exposed as policy instability added to the volatility of the economic situation,” Oi and her co-authors note.

The local government debt problem might not trigger a financial crisis in China, “but LGFVs and their local governments remain in dire straits,” they write. More worrying, the economy has not rebounded in the post-COVID years as hoped, and “as long as the real estate sector remains depressed, land finance will not be able to make local government budgets whole as it once did. The grand bargain can’t work.”

Rather than assume the debt, Beijing is extending lifelines: urging banks to offer LGFVs 25-year loans with temporary interest relief, approving debt swaps into longer maturity municipal bonds, and allowing new issuances of special-purpose bonds. But these are stopgaps, not solutions.

Hidden debt will keep resurfacing unless China overhauls the fiscal system born out of the 1994 reforms, Oi and her co-authors conclude. Institutionalized, dependable, alternative revenue streams for local governments are needed, or the crisis will persist. “It may be time for Chinese leadership to stop kicking the can down the road and undertake institutional reforms of the fiscal system. This may be painful, but there is no other sustainable solution.”

Three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the joint declaration of a "friendship without limits" by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the two leaders reaffirmed their partnership during a phone call, pledging continued coordination on foreign policy, security, and trade. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s controversial Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration's vitriolic foreign policy rhetoric have raised concerns that Washington may no longer be the reliable partner it once was. Moreover, amid ongoing U.S.-imposed tariffs, India is bracing for the fallout from Trump’s trade war, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s February visit to the White House, which did not yield the concessions and Trump support New Delhi had hoped for.

The 2025 Oksenberg Symposium, titled China’s Strategic Relationships, brought together experts to discuss these evolving strategic relationships between China, the United States, Russia, and India, and to consider their perspectives and strategic adjustments in response to shifting internal and external political, economic, and social dynamics. The discussion, moderated by APARC’s China Program Director Jean Oi, featured panelists Da Wei of Tsinghua University, Alex Gabuev of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sumit Ganguly of the Huntington Program on Strengthening U.S.-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, and FSI Director Michael McFaul.

This convening followed Chatham House rules to encourage candor, so the following summary does not attribute comments to individual panelists.

A Partnership Without Limits

The panelists first focused on the increasingly complex relationships between Russia, China, and the United States. On the one hand, a growing China-Russia alignment across military, economic, and political domains has been well documented. On the other hand, Russia’s increasing dependence on China — especially after the war in Ukraine — has raised questions about the asymmetry of their partnership.

Even so, the relationship between the two nations remains strong, partly due to their shared distrust of the West. Although China has been cautious about fully endorsing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has refrained from condemning the war, understanding the risks of destabilizing Russia or fostering a Western-aligned regime.

The View from New Delhi

India’s relationships with the United States and China are marked by a delicate balancing act. The U.S.-India partnership has strengthened over the years, driven by shared concerns about China’s growing assertiveness. Still, despite bipartisan support for this relationship, India’s historical experiences, particularly during the Cold War, have left a lingering distrust toward U.S. intentions. That wariness is now increasing under the uncertainties of the Trump administration.

India's relationship with China is complicated by military and economic disparities and by China’s strategic partnerships in South Asia, particularly with Pakistan. India's policy remains cautious, aiming to maintain a non-aligned stance while strengthening defense and trade ties with the United States and managing tensions with China, especially over border disputes.

Beijing’s Patience

U.S.-China relations took center stage at this year’s symposium. China’s rise as a global power has posed a complex challenge for U.S. foreign policy. Under the first Trump administration, China was portrayed as a revisionist power with expansionist ambitions. Trump’s rhetoric framed China as a strategic adversary, drawing comparisons to the Soviet Union under Stalin. This characterization contributed to the perception of a new Cold War and an accelerated decoupling of the two economies. In the second administration, tariffs and a looming trade war define the relationship.

From China’s perspective, the past decade has seen an overemphasis on its relationship with the United States., which at times strained its ties with Russia and India. China’s growing partnership with Russia, motivated by shared concerns over Western policies, has been key in countering perceived threats, particularly NATO’s expansion. However, China has remained cautious about fully endorsing Russia’s actions, such as the invasion of Ukraine, while acknowledging the risks of a collapsing Russian regime.

China’s relations with India have been challenged by border issues, as well as India’s shift away from non-alignment and its growing ties with the United States. These changes have complicated China’s strategic calculations in South Asia, though recent stabilization in Sino-Indian relations shows potential for improvement.

Challenges for Global Stability

The panelists noted that the increasing competition between the four countries is reshaping the international order, creating a more multipolar world where countries are single-handedly pursuing their national interests. This fragmentation of global power poses challenges for international cooperation but also provides China with opportunities to pursue more flexible diplomatic strategies, potentially easing tensions with Russia and India.

The U.S. response to these changes, particularly under Trump, was heavily scrutinized. In both Trump's first and second terms, the administration’s foreign policy marked a radical departure from past practices, blending radical isolationism, unilateralism, and realism. Panelists noted that the erosion of democratic ideals in U.S. foreign policy contrasts with its role in the Cold War era as a champion of democracy and human rights, particularly in opposition to Soviet authoritarianism. This shift has been especially evident in its approach to Taiwan, where there has been limited emphasis on supporting its democratic values amid growing pressure from China.

This new isolationist stance, driven largely by domestic concerns and a belief that the United States has been exploited in global trade, has led to a strategic pivot away from multilateralism. During Trump’s first term, the administration withdrew from key international agreements such as the Paris Climate Accords, the Iran nuclear deal, and the World Health Organization, favoring "America First" policies over collective global action. The continued shift toward isolationism and unilateralism marks a radical departure from previous administrations' commitment to liberal internationalism.

A Rough Road Ahead

Panelists expressed concern that this dramatic shift could leave Washington isolated, undermining its ability to address global challenges like climate change, international security, and the rise of authoritarian regimes. The erosion of key alliances could also diminish U.S. influence, making it harder to counter the growing power of China and Russia.

One panelist observed that while Trump initially framed China as a strategic adversary, his second term saw more conciliatory rhetoric, though his policies — especially the trade war — could ultimately harm U.S. interests. This approach could erode U.S. global influence by weakening international alliances and multilateral institutions that have long underpinned U.S. power. The panelists agreed that Trump’s foreign policy would fundamentally reshape U.S. relationships with key global players.

The symposium underscored the complexity of balancing strategic interests in a rapidly changing world, where traditional alliances are being tested and new dynamics continually emerge. The challenge for China, the United States., Russia, and India is to navigate these relationships in ways that secure their national interests while contributing to broader global stability.

This post was originally published by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance.

TikTok’s travails under the Trump and Biden Administrations are typically portrayed as a clash between national security interests and First Amendment protections. This tension is the focus of TikTok’s suit against the U.S. Government over a 2024 law that subjects the video platform to a ban in the United States unless it is divested from Chinese control by January 19, 2025.

But TikTok’s problems in the United States expose another serious tension: between longstanding legal doctrines of corporate identity and separate personality, on one hand, and increasing concerns over Beijing’s use of erstwhile private commercial firms as instruments of state influence, on the other. The divest-or-ban legislation illustrates that corporate law’s answers to the question of corporate identity and separateness are not definitive in a de-globalizing world.

Continue reading the post here.