We have selected seven of the most interesting and important news stories covering US-China relations from the past few weeks. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing.
1. Biden insists US leads China as he explains decision to ‘pass the torch’
In his first major address since announcing he was ending his quest for a second term, US President Joe Biden said his country was leading China and vowed to bolster support for American allies in the Pacific. “When I came to office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably surpass the United States,” said Biden, speaking from the Oval Office. “That’s not the case any more.”
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2. China’s Xi Jinping offers sympathy to Donald Trump over rally shooting
Donald Trump was shot at a presidential campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July, in a shocking act of violence that saw a rally attendee killed and two critically wounded. China joined the chorus of international concern about the shooting, with the foreign ministry saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping had expressed his sympathies to Trump.
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3. Chinese border crossers chase the American dream, with mixed success
In many ways, Shen Jiahui had been preparing for America long before his arrival in September 2023. Shen, who renamed himself Capote after the American writer Truman Capote, spent much of his 20s and 30s living outside his home province of Zhejiang, reading Western literature and dreaming of a life outside China. Had he known about the US-Mexico border crossing route earlier, the 38-year-old said he would have come sooner.
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4. Top US officials slam China over ‘wrong direction’ helping Russia
Senior US officials warned that Beijing was going in the “wrong direction” by supplying material aid to Moscow for its Ukraine war efforts and would likely face more sanctions soon if it did not reconsider its membership on “team Russia”. “We have been prepared to tighten the screws to apply sanctions against specific entities and individuals, including in China,” said National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
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5. Asian-American community angered over erroneous report Trump shooter was Chinese
The Asian-American community reacted angrily to an early erroneous report stating that the shooter involved in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump was Chinese. The rush to judgment played out in the New York Post, a tabloid newspaper, that initially said the shooter was “identified as a Chinese man” before reporting a little over an hour later that the gunman was “identified only as a white male”.
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6. Chinese-born scientist in US tells of fear caused by Trump-era convictions
Vindicated Chinese-born scientist Franklin Tao stood in a US House of Representatives building in late July, speaking publicly for the first time after he was arrested in 2019 on charges of hiding involvement with a Chinese university. “It has been 1,786 days,” he said of the period from his arrest to a US appeal court tossing out his conviction on July 11. “Each of those days was lived with fear and desperation.”
Read the full story here.
7. For Asian-Americans, US election stirs anxiety over what is at stake
Anxiety over the US presidential election loomed large at a July conference that drew more than 500 Asian-Americans, a community long familiar with the costs of political scapegoating and discriminatory anti-immigrant policies. For many, public discourse shaped by xenophobic overtones has raised the risk that demonising China could translate into hostility towards Asian-Americans. “We are at a critical juncture in terms of our history and our democracy,” said US Trade Representative Katherine Tai. “Our democracy, it turns out, is not guaranteed.”
Read the full story here.
Also from the Post’s foreign correspondents
Kamala Harris now the focus of unprecedented shake-up in US election campaign (read more)
Maduro congratulated by China after claiming victory in contested election (read here)
With Musk all in for Trump, what might that mean for US space policy? (read more)
