China-US cooperation

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to China was generally positive, and paves the way for future exchanges. However, while Yellen described the meetings with Chinese officials as “direct, substantive and productive”, it remains to be seen how far they will go in improving relations between the US and China.

Zaobao correspondent Yang Danxu notes that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s China visit achieved intangible but important small steps in steering the US-China relationship out of high-escalation waters and bringing it back to the improved situation after US President Joe Biden and Chinese President’s Xi Jinping’s meeting in Bali last year.

China is known for its “panda diplomacy”, where its giant pandas were first gifted and later leased overseas as a sign of important bilateral relations and goodwill. Lianhe Zaobao correspondent Wong Siew Fong looks into how the system has evolved since the 1950s, and whether panda diplomacy still works today.

Historical photo collector Hsu Chung-mao recounts the details of the Doolittle Raid, named after US Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle, which saw US and Chinese soldiers fighting together against the Japanese in their first and biggest joint action in WWII.

For over a century, China and the US have been in a tug-of-war of sorts, involving economics, geopolitics, culture and values. Historical photo collector Hsu Chung-mao sums up 100 years of friendship and rivalry between arguably the two most powerful countries in the world at the moment.

In a preliminary agreement, US officials will get their long-sought access to vet accounting companies based in mainland China and Hong Kong and review audit documents related to Chinese businesses. Will this stem the tide of Chinese companies being delisted from US stock exchanges?

Researcher Ding Ke believes that the Chinese government is making efforts in using innovation to drive further development of the country and avoid the middle-income trap. But this would prove difficult amid heightened China-US tensions and the trend of economic decoupling.

China-US cooperation in the finance sector is making headway after the announcement of the recent signing of an audit oversight cooperation agreement. While the general public opinion in China bears optimism for this development, some are still wary of the risks to national security. Zaobao correspondent Yu Zeyuan looks into the implications of the agreement.

Chinese academic Sun Peisong notes that renowned financier George Soros has always been critical of China’s social system. While "the man who broke the Bank of England" has a keen eye for finance, Sun feels that Soros’s criticism of China’s “closed society” sheds light on his penchant for globalisation and dated means of making the wealthy wealthier.