The latest Chinese Communist Party congress kicked off in Beijing on Sunday with leader Xi Jinping delivering a much-watched speech on topics ranging from Marx to covid-19. How have U. S. companies evaluated the collection of the politically difficult ones so far?
Sean Stein, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, said that, overall, business leaders who ended the country’s strict zero-covid policies have likely been disappointed so far. Stein said in a Zoom interview from Shanghai the day before. Stein is also a senior advisor at global law firm Covington. Prior to joining Covington last year, Stein served as U. S. Consul General. Below are edited excerpts from the interview.
Flannery: How does the congress compare the foreign business network so far?
Stein: The China-based business network understands that this is a component of the Chinese political calendar and has modest expectations of what it would possibly mean for them.
The most important thing for corporations and investors is a sign that zero covid may relax, or that there may be a turn away from it. Very few people expected this to happen, but there is hope that it could be a sign in President Xi’s speech. From what we’ve noticed so far, it looks like there will be zero covid for the foreseeable future.
The time when corporations were looking for a signal of the direction of China’s economic policy. Once again, the business network received what it expected: continuity on the economic policy front with China. There was no sign of significant replacement in China’s economic policy or policies toward foreign corporations.
I think that’s why the reaction was so muted. So disappointing at zero-Covid, everything went according to plan.
Flannery: What do other people think about new tech industry policies on the U. S. side, like CHIPS and new restrictions on semiconductor shipments?
Stein: The new limitations on semiconductors are attractive because Array USA is not very important. UU. se has focused export controls on a small subset of issues, such as global nonproliferation, to limit the export of dual-use technologies or, as in the case of Huawei, (limitations) have been used to punish corporations deemed to violate U. S. laws. U. S. officials being bad industry actors or violating export controls. The list of entities, for example, has focused on these problems.
What we see in the new regulation is the Biden administration’s festival strategy that is focused. The new regulations not only limit China’s ability to buy high-performance PC chips and artificial intelligence chips, but also limit its ability to buy gadgets and software and even save. you, the American citizens, run where those technologies are developed or manufactured in mainland China.
People recognize that this is a new phase in the festival between the U. S. and the U. S. It’s more about economic security, technological leadership, and tech festival than the classic purpose of export controls, which was national security, nonproliferation, and law enforcement.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-U. S. Vice President Xi JinpingU. S. Secretary of State Joe Biden walks the red carpet of the Array.
Flannery: What is the likelihood of final outcomes of the APEC summit in November for US-China relations?
Stein: Companies are watching very conscientiously and are very hopeful that an assembly (between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping) will be taken position. If there is no assembly between the two presidents, it is a missed opportunity for either country to try to find out. If there is something the two can work on in combination or a way to stabilize the relationship. There is high hope that this will happen.
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