U.S. and Chinese flags wave at Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou, China, on Feb. 2, 2022. Kiichiro Sato/AP hide caption
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Kiichiro Sato/AP
A Chinese scholar who studies the United States has some opinions about the early moves of the second Trump administration.
Da Wei spoke with NPR last year. He told us then that his decades of studying China's rival gave him some idea of what made America strong, including a "mature political system," stable institutions and immigration, among other things.
Now the U.S. has a new president, so we asked to meet Da Wei again to hear what he's thinking now.
Da, who's a professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, lives in a country where expression is limited, especially on sensitive topics. But American specialists in China have found him a useful interlocutor, offering a window into the thinking inside the United States' great geopolitical rival.
Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, sits for an interview with NPR on March 24 at Linxi Tea House in Beijing. He says China stands to gain from some of the Trump administration's foreign policy actions. Reena Advani/NPR hide caption
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Reena Advani/NPR
He met us in a Beijing tea shop. We drank dragon well tea, which is said to be freshest at this time of year — and several points emerged. Here's what he had to say about shifting U.S. foreign policy approaches and how changes may benefit China.
He says he's witnessing "something big"
Da has followed the Trump administration's firing of many U.S. federal workers and its dismantling of some agencies. As a past visitor to Washington, he knows people who have been fired.
"Having said that," he added, "I don't want to be too critical to the Trump administration just from this personal level. As a scholar, I try to be neutral. I think there is something big happening in the U.S. It could be bad. It could be good."
He says modern forms of government rose with the Industrial Revolution. Now technology is changing, and the government may change too.
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He says some American friends compare it to China's Cultural Revolution
The Chinese scholar mostly dismisses the comparison, but not entirely. From 1966 to 1976, Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung led an assault on suspected capitalist sympathizers, closing universities, sending professors and intellectuals to work in the fields, purging government workers and encouraging his supporters to harass or attack their elders. It was "the most chaotic period of modern China," the professor says.
"What is happening in the U.S. is still far from the Cultural Revolution. It's maybe 1 or 2 percent. But you can sense that smell. The populist sentiments … [that] common sense is good [and] sophisticated thoughts are something bad."
He learned English listening to Voice of America
"It was so sad," he said, when news spread that the administration planned to shutter Voice of America (VOA), the U.S.-funded broadcaster that delivers news and cultural programming in countries where access to news is limited or isn't available. He said he learned some of his English in college while listening to VOA broadcasts and also learned news that wasn't reported in the Chinese media.
Da acknowledges that in recent years, VOA was less important as the internet spread. But he says another agency mattered more: the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
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He says the "majority view" in China sees some of Trump's moves as an own goal
Da asserts that most Chinese people he talks with viewed USAID, the foreign aid agency, as one of America's strengths, improving its image and influence in the developing world. Virtually eliminating the agency was "in China's interest."
With that said, China itself does not distribute foreign aid in the way that USAID did, and analysts do not expect it to start doing so.
He sees U.S. alliances as a strength
"The alliances of the U.S. we believe [are] an important source, probably one of the most important sources of the U.S. strength," he said.
He spoke of Europe's widespread feeling that it has lost American protection, and he also spoke of events in South Korea and Japan.
China has long tried to improve its relations with the U.S. allies near its borders. The Chinese scholar said his country might soon be able to do that "with smaller resistance."
The radio version of this story was edited by Reena Advani and produced by Milton Guevara.
