Dear Everyone,
How to respond to the growing political divide between China and the West marked by partial decoupling, security alliances, and the risk of sanctions, amongst other things, continues to be a major topic of discussion among China’s intellectual elite. As already evidenced in previous editions of this newsletter, opinions vary considerably. Those presented here so far have ranged from Da Wei (达巍) stressing the importance of preserving if not strengthening ties with the West and Shen Wei (沈伟) arguing in favour of reforming the WTO and building up a network of free trade agreements to Ye Hailin (叶海林) emphasising the need for China to demonstrate its military might to demobilise US allies and Lu Feng (路风) calling for self-reliance and greater assertiveness in the field of tech. A certain amount of overlap certainly exists among these perspectives but the differences are nonetheless striking.
Today’s edition of Sinification looks at a speech made last month by Yang Ping (杨平),