From rural China to global stage: Da Wei on U.S.-China relations and world challenges

Diplomacy starts with education

Good morning. Today, I want to share a recent interview of Professor Da Wei, a distinguished Chinese scholar of international relations who is well-known among many China watchers.

During my travels in the United States in February, I learned that Professor Da was also visiting, but due to a tight schedule, I was unable to meet him. I eventually caught up with him at a seminar on China-U.S. Relations at the 11th Beijing Xiangshan Forum last month. I am eager to share his insights on China-U.S. relations and other topics, as I believe they are of great value.

In August, at the historic Tsinghua University campus in Beijing, Professor Da Wei discussed the current state of global affairs, the dynamics of U.S.-China relations, and the role of education in shaping future leaders. This conversation took place in a sit-down 42-minute interview with James Chau, host of China-US Focus. Prof. Da recounts his experiences growing up in an “urban island” within rural China during the country's reform era and discusses his current role in educating the next generation of global thinkers.

You can also access the text version of this interview in the September edition of the China-US Focus Digest magazine and on the WeChat blog of the Center for International Security and Strategy (CISS) at Tsinghua University. CISS is a research institution that analyzes international security and strategy issues, including diplomacy and international relations, global security governance and artificial intelligence.

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James Chau: Da Wei, thank you for being with us here and for having us here on the campus of Tsinghua University. It's really special.

Prof. Da Wei: Thank you, James. And first of all, welcome to Tsinghua.

James Chau: Da Wei, you recently spoke about the world and you described it in terms of being very difficult. There are multiple stress points that the world is trying to navigate or trying to survive. But what are those stress points for you when you think about the world and its complexities? What comes to mind? And what does that mean?

Prof. Da Wei: I think there are several things that I really have some very heavy, very big concerns about. First, I think is a tendency that we maybe will experience every day that this word is splitting into different camps. I don't know how many, maybe two camps or different camps. So the economy become, you know, decouple to each other.

Of course, everybody says, I just want to derisk, I don't want to decouple, but I think because the lack of the trust and because of the complexity of the most advanced technology, it's really hard to limit the scope of this derisking. And it's very easy to expand into the decoupling. And then the standard of new technology, then the way you run the different countries and regions, then the global governance institutions. I think we are facing a very real challenge that this world is splitting into different camps.

If so, if that happened, if it become more, you know, serious in the coming years, I think what we have experienced since 1990s, those old good days will passed. I mean, oh, everyone will suffered from. Yeah, I say everyone will suffer. I'm not saying we are going to die, but I mean, the quality of life will decrease. We will squander. We will waste a lot of potential that the human being should have to make everyone have a better life. I think we are facing the difficult, we are facing the danger that probably because of this split, because of this block politics, we may have problems.

James Chau: You're using words like bloc and camps. And it makes me think also of the social fabric. Because around the world, of course, there is an emergence of tribalism as well in society. One example being was referred to as the work culture. In a sense, that has value because people are awakened to past injustices. And how do you redress those as well? Is there a link between that kind of block and camp to the bloc camps that you described just now?

Prof. Da Wei: What I described is mainly about, you can say, tribalism among the countries or between the different countries. And you discribe what you mentioned, like a woke culture, I think it's mainly a separation in one society or in one country. For example, in the West, I mean, different people have different identity problems now. But that kind of in place, I think, it's not so serious in terms of its economic and social technological consequences. It's more or less a social split. But what I am describing, this international split, I think it will, for example, it will reduce the economic efficiency. When we were in the globalization period, everyone, all the countries, different companies, they are interconnect to each other. But now they're split. And in the future, maybe when you come to China, you need to use another cell phone, because maybe your cell phone in other countries cannot be used here. So everybody need two or three cell phones. When you go to other country, you want to drive a car, but you found the automatic system is totally different. So that will make us suffer a lot. And in this split, in this bloc politics, different country and different people will have strong tension and probably it will also lead to conflict and war. So that's I think very serious.

James Chau: When we have this conversation, I think about my 6-year-old nephew and I'm sure you think about your 15-year-old teenager. So when we think about the people who are important in our lives, amongst them your many students here at Tsinghua University. Are you confident that we have the experience, the incentive, the willingness and the skill set to address the very difficult world that you see?

Prof. Da Wei: I'm not so confident, to be honest. I think now we as adults, I think all of us are talking about maintaining the peace, avoiding a war, or maybe reinforce globalization, these kinds of things everybody talks about. But can we, particularly the policy makers and those, you know, who can have impact on this can really do something, for example, to correct the mistake that we, I mean, different country or made by ourself? Are you willing to admit to recognize that “I'm sorry, I messed it up. This is something, you know, I've done mistakenly.” And maybe China needs to do this, the U.S. needs to do that, Russia needs to do that, and different other countries. I mean, to say that we need a peaceful world is one thing. How to make it happen, I think it's another thing. It's very costly. I don't think we can do that.

James Chau: And not only peace, but lasting peace. Is a very different version of peace. You bring up the United States and China, and I think about 45 years of normalization of diplomatic ties, which is now 2024. We should be using the verbs celebrate. So we should be saying we are celebrating 45 years of U.S.-China relations in its modern era, but instead we use words like “honor” or “mark” as a more neutral approach to it. Where did that trust disappear to? And was there real trust to begin with? When you reflect on almost a half-century relations?

Prof. Da Wei: I think that trust actually grew, I think has grown in those 45 years. I'm not very confident because I was too young at that time. I was 5 years old when the two countries set up the diplomatic relations. I don't know exactly. I or in person know the mood at that time in 1979.

I was too young to remember, but my hunch is at that time, of course, we have some strategic consensus, like we need to balance the Soviet Union together. We may have that consensus. But for ordinary people, for a lot of decision makers, I think at that time we still had very strong suspicion to each other. For example, China believe we are socialist country. the U.S. is a capitalist country. Can I really rely on or trust them?

But I think in those 45 years, you know, as both countries, China and the U.S., got benefit from that process. The Cold War concluded peacefully, right? And then the two countries' economic economies grew very dramatically after the end of the Cold War. So in that process, I think because the two people benefit from that process that trust has grown, I think dramatically.

While having said that in maybe 8 to 10 years, I think this trust declined dramatically. I think for different reasons. But to be in short, I think the U.S. believe China take advantage, utilize it. It's not fair. It's not in the U.S. interest. Well, China think the U.S. policy to China is so harmful in past eight years. So this trust has been damaged dramatically. So this is a quite complicated process, I will say.

James Chau: Let's look at the Middle East today, and Russia, Ukraine and what's happening over in Yemen and other parts of Africa are really concerning. And they're not separate to the U.S. and China, both in the joint ability to meet the moment of these challenges, but also to understand that the world is not separated into regions. What one does has an impact on the other, on our neighbors, whether our neighbors be the person living next door or the person on the other side of the world in the next continent.

You said recently that what's happening in the Middle East in terms of the decision making around international policy is still being determined by a few major powers rather than by the collective multilateral systems that were establish and design to do that very thing, to provide a representative voice and inclusive voice. But we're not really seeing that with just seeing a few countries trying to moderate or intervene even. How do you change that so the world moves on from a post war architecture that was very relevant in 1945? We're not in 1945 now.

Prof. Da Wei: I think now obviously we're saying farewell to that old order of 1945 or even post-Cold War structure. I think we are gradually departing from that. How to transform it to a more, you know, more effective way to govern today's global challenges and also reflects today's international politics.

I think this is a huge challenge. Ideally major countries like China, U.S., Russia and other countries, we need to sit down together to discuss it. But obviously it won't happen. So I think we are facing a possibility that this real global governance mechanism like what we have seen after 1945, the UN system or later like WTO system, I think we're facing a danger that those global platform or mechanism work collapse, or maybe they will be there but not actually not work. I think this is a big challenge we are facing.

James Chau: I'll touch on the UN in just a moment, but before that, some Americans, including one of the speakers at your conference, say that the United States is aware that this system is beginning to withdraw, but that Americans are not ready to let go of that yet. What's your take?

Prof. Da Wei: I think there is a strong mood in the United States that asks, why should the U.S. take the responsibility to take care of that system? Why should the U.S. pay the price, the cost for that?

I think in the U.S. there is a sense, a sentiment of this isolationism. It's rising in the United States. I think ordinary people don't want to spend money on that or don't want their soldier die for that. So the U.S. is, I think, the reason of this global governance mechanism, the reason of its collapse partly can be attribute to the U.S. unwillingness to maintain it. I respect that sentiments, that mood because this is a choice of American people. And if the U.S. dominate everything other countries don't like, but I mean, as the U.S. is withdrawing from that, who can fill that vacuum? I don't think any country can fill that vacuum.

James Chau: I'm going to be a little provocative over here and ask you: Should we not have empathy and gratitude for the United States given what [Japanese] Prime Minister Kashida said of Washington a few weeks ago, where he said America is taken on this burden. Now, some people will say that was a choice. That was a volunteered choice to take on that burden. But should we also thank the United States for ultimately taking on something which exerts a lot of pressure on itself with its own voters?

Prof. Da Wei: Of course, to be honest, I think we should thank the U.S. In the world there has to be some country playing a bigger role to maintain the system. I think the U.S. played that role and pay the price. And actually, in that order, I think a lot of country benefit, like including China, probably has been the biggest beneficiary from that system, particularly after end of the Cold War. So the U.S. played a basically a constructive role to maintain that order. But of course, at the same time, we have also need to admit that U.S. made many mistakes when the U.S. try to maintain that responsibility. These are two separate things.

James Chau: With Americans then feel that China has benefited, even exhausted the benefits of that system. So it's now convenient for China to move on and construct a new system that will then ensure that it continues to benefit going forward in other ways.

Prof. Da Wei: I think what China want is not constructing a totally brand new system. Actually, I think China has been for a very long time argue that we want to maintain current system. We want to maybe make more contributions to this system. And China also want to, of course, reform some element of that. But the problem is for different reasons, like the U.S. believe China is a illiberal country. It asks are you really qualified to make a bigger contribution to this system or to reform while only liberal countries can play that role in this liberal international order. So I think both China and the U.S. maybe miss some opportunity to all, I would say maybe the U.S. miss some opportunity to work with China to together, you know, try to share the burden and also make the system better. But the U.S. more or less view China as a revisionist when China says, I want to make some contribution or reform, then the U.S. believe that China want to overturn the whole order, the whole system. I think that's wrong. That's a misperception but that's so widely accepted perception in the west. It's very unfortunate I think.

James Chau: Let's apply some of these discussions to the United Nations. China has contributed richly to that system, to that existing system, being in the form of the largest contributor, peacekeeping forces, and also as a major thunder to the outcomes or the Sustainable Development Goals, so that countries in the Global South have a shot or a better shot at achieving those goals nationally.

The UN reform discussion has continued for some time. A number of countries really want to get on to that Security Council, whose gatekeepers, in effect have been five countries and possibly in some discussions for six, being the P5 plus one, Germany. These are largely the P5, the victors of the Second World War. You've got Germany as a sixth in some ways, as a major global economy, I think No. 4 in the world. But I have a concern that you reform and bring on more voices, which I'm in favor of. But that it doesn't become a checklist for affirmative action, that it needs to be set up with the guarantees, so that those new members, those new countries that will benefit from reforms, will also be allowed to take part in the decision making process and have their imprints on the results that come out of those decision making processes. What's your take on reform?

Prof. Da Wei: I think that's a too difficult topic to address the reform the UN. The UN is a product of the World War II. So at that time, it's relatively easy to create a new like organization like UN and decide who should be the P5. Because those P5 are what the countries won the World War II. So it's quite easy. And the war decided the outcome.

But now fortunately, we are in a peaceful transitional period of the order. Then we want to reform something peacefully. I think that's then that mean it's very difficult. Like you are eating your lunch and suddenly I said I need to reform the food in your plate and give some food to others and add some food to your plate. So everybody have very complicated calculation here.

I agree with you that I think the UN, particularly the Security Council, need a better representation of other countries. But where is the boundary? Which country is more qualified than others? Last week I was in Europe, we also touch upon these questions and then one of the participants asked the other European participants, Do you think we can reduce our representation in UN to one vote as Europe? And the other interlocutor immediately said no, because now they have France and UK in the council. So then you bring in Germany, then you have three votes. I think that's very difficult. And bringing in new members also means maybe lower efficiency.

I think this is already a problem of UN and other multilateral organization. So I don't know that's too difficult. I think we need a very long process. We need to be very patient. But most importantly here, I think the China, U.S., Russia, Europe, those players need some consensus first. We cannot do anything without the consensus among those major players. Because those country's relations now are so bad, they don't talk to each other and they use sometimes un become arena for great powers to compete. I think that under that circumstances, how can we expect them to work together to reform it? I'm very pessimistic about that.

James Chau: You know, I've moderated and shared many discussions at the United Nations, both in New York and in Geneva in my UN role. And you find all these representatives of member states coming to the table and reading their set pieces that were passed to them by their capitals. And it's frustrating in the sense that you use the opportunity of being in the same room together to simply come with what you were told to come with, but not reflecting what you're hearing in the room and finding common cross points that could actually build to consensus.

Let's leave the UN as you said, it's a complex subject and one that would require a much longer exploration in the future. I want to ask you: You're about 5 years old in 1979, so probably not too many memories of Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and President Jimmy Carter, up on the White House lawn. But what was your first exposure to the United States, your first memory of the idea of America?

Prof. Da Wei: The first time of the U.S., I think I watched a TV advertisement on TV at that time. My parents bought a TV set. So black-and-white one, Hitachi, a Japanese one. There was a Procter & Gamble ad on TV. That was the first TV ad I'd seen. I think that's a very interesting ad. I will say it's basically it was at a US American house. Very nice house, and the housewife was washing dishes in the kitchen. And then the camera turn away to the tool alone and a kid, a Chinese kid playing the baseball there. And then there is a song said Xiao Hua, the Chinese name, went to the U.S. and learn to play baseball. And his mother now love to use product of PNG. So that's the first America image in my memory. So it's a kind of typical American Dream thing.

James Chau: So the mother and son in that commercial were Chinese ethnicity?

Prof. Da Wei: The ethnic Chinese. Obviously they move to the U.S. maybe immigrated into the U.S., so it's a kind of blue sky, green lawn, beautiful house and nice house utility. So basically that's the image of the U.S. in the early 1980s.

James Chau: Did it shock you that, you know, you were living in China, which was still mired in the problems of poverty in the 1980s? Were you shocked by what you saw on screen that people could have houses and gardens? And you know, the son would have time to go and play basketball, did that shock you?

Prof. Da Wei: Of course. At that time, I think there was a big gap between the living standard of the two countries. So for at that time, you know, you cannot imagine some people live in the such a beautiful single house. At that time, we don't have that in China. So it's a totally different lifestyle. So that's in the early 1980s, so 40 years ago.

James Chau: I mean, your parents were really better off. They were professionals. They were educated at university. But also you could afford a television set that was made in Japan. It's funny how when you talk about Chinese people of the 80s or even 70s, it always comes down to television sets.

In a conversation with Ambassador Cui Tiankai who of course serve eight years as China's top diplomatic envoy in Washington, he said in 1979, his memory as a graduate student in Shanghai was seeing the two leaders waving from the balcony of the White House over the lawn, and he watched it on a neighbor's television set. There was like one family that had a small television set in a compound, and everybody crowd around it and watched it. Your story is as much as it speaks to the idea the American dream was also the idea of globalization. Watching an American consumer commercial in 1980s on a Japanese made and design television set, it seems sweet and innocent and a lovely era to go back to.

Tell me about your childhood. You were born in Xi'an, historic city, a former ancient capital, the home to the terror Cotter warriors. What was life like? And tell me a bit about how you were raised and what the experiences were at home, in school.

Prof. Da Wei: I grew up there because my parents work there. Both my parents work for the defense industry in China. They were from Shanghai, actually eastern part of China, but they had opportunity to went to college in early 1960s. And after graduation, before the Cultural Revolution at that time, China's external environment was already very serious. At that time, China had a very bad relations with both Soviet Union and the United States at that time. So China moved a lot of factories and research institutes into the inner land. So as I said, my father work for the defense industry. So their institutes, actually their institutes was moved to Xi'an and inner out of the inner land northwest of China in 1950s. So after graduation, my father went there. It's quite hard to imagine now because for my father, he's from Shanghai, the most modern city in China. He grew up there. So actually when he went to Xi'an, he told me the living standard there was really low at that time. So because he was from Shanghai, for example, they have rice every day, but when you go to the northern part of China, they don't have rice. So they had mantou, actually, the steamed buns. So for them, that's very hard. My mother work in the factory. When she went there, nothing there. It's just a ground. So they started to construct the factory. That was a hard life in 1960s.

I was born in early 1970s, so I almost have no memory of the Culture Revolution. But when I have memory, I still remember those hard time. At that time, I mean my parents, they are the middle class at that time, but the middle class still not very comparing with today. You know, the life is very hard. But of course, I'm very fortunate that they can bring me very good education because I grew up in that institute. It's a big institute. It's a island in the rural area because I said I grew up in Xi'an, but actually that's a suburb Xi'an, because it's in the defense industry institution. So we were an island in that sea of rural area. So thousands of the colleagues of my parents were the graduates from different universities in China in 1960s and 70s. So all of us, when I was a kid, I don't speak the local dialect because everybody speaks Mandarin. And at that time, I even thought everybody should have a college degree because all my parents's colleagues have the college degree.

But when I grew up later, I found it's something quite unique. I grew up in that urban island, speaking Mandarin, good education. But that's a good time because China already starts reform and repeat reopening up. I start my career, my education in 1979, the year that the two countries set up the diplomatic relations and China started its reform and opening up. So basically, I'm the kid, I think I'm a representative. I can represent that generation that grew up and in the era of the opening up and reform. So we've got benefits from that.

James Chau: What does that rural area look like today? Is it still that urban island that you describe or?

Prof. Da Wei: It's disappeared. I mean, now it's part of the city. So the village disappeared. Some of my classmates at that time, they were from the rural area. So there is a village outside our outside our island. When I return to my parent's home now there's no village at all. It's a city, part of the city. So the village disappeared, demolished.

James Chau: Including the factory that your mother helped to build and envision?

Prof. Da Wei: Yes, the factory now is bankrupt. And I brought my mother back. My mother worked there till 1979. She worked in the factory for 10 years then she moved to the institute that my father works. About five or six years ago, I drove my parents back to the factory that my mother worked. It's bankrupt. Some businessmen maybe from Guangdong, from southern China purchased. It's privatized and all the old workers laid off. So it's kind of like a corner lag behind the booming China. I feel very sad about that.

James Chau: Is life in China good today?

Prof. Da Wei: I think so, particularly for people like me. Of course, different people have different story, but for me, I think I have the life, but I have never expected when I was in the 1980s. When I was a kid, I still remember in Xi'an, in the city that I live, we have the first five star hotel run by a Hong Kong businessman. So some of teenagers in our island found a job there. So at that time in 1980s, they could earn 200 yuan per month. At that time, I thought, wow, that's a wonderful job.

James Chau: 200 yuan, which is about 30 U.S. dollars a month?

Prof. Da Wei: Yeah, I mean, 200 yuan at that time is already much higher than my parent's salary of about 100 yuan at that time.

James Chau: And what could you buy with 200 yuan?

Prof. Da Wei: You don't have much to buy at that time. The problem is we didn't have a car to buy at that time. I mean 200 is quite high income at that time. My parents both college educated, each of them can earn maybe 120 at that time.

James Chau: Is the hotel still there?

Prof. Da Wei: I think so. But obviously it's not a very good hotel now. But I mean, at that time, I thought, if one day when I grow up, if I can work in that hotel, that will be my dream life.

James Chau: So working in that hotel with a salary almost double that of your parents who were professional, highly qualified figures in defense and engineering, the hotel itself was what you were aiming for at the time. I want to finish with where we are and in some ways, circle back to where we began in this conversation. We're on the extraordinary grounds of Tsinghua University, a world leading university which was established in 1911 at a moment of absolute transformation here in China, which went from many dynasties of imperial rule to republic and to the People's Republic to follow that. This here in itself is the site of a former imperial garden. This university was set up with some reference to United States and China, the relationship to follow. But what are your students being taught and what are they learning? And to go back to our first question, is that sufficient to meet the needs of a world that is in constant flux?

Prof. Da Wei: I think Tsinghua University and Peking University are regarded in China as a two top universities. So probably this is one of the best university in China and or maybe in Asia. The students here, particularly the undergraduate students, they went through the extremely competitive "gaokao" system which is the entrance examination for the university in China, very competitive. So they are all very talented top university students here. So what they have been teaching here, I think the basically just like American University or European students, basically the same. For example, I teach in the department of International Relations. So my students, they learn like the courses like international relations theory, research methodology, mathematics, and yeah, they learn of course foreign languages and they also learn a lot of courses like China-U.S. relations, history, this kind of thing.

I think it's quite good. We have quite good education here and students working very hard. And I think, for example, the theory they are learning here basically the same as the American universities. The reading material we gave them, I think most of them are also English. So some courses are taught in English. So basically what they are providing here, I think is quite similar to what you can imagine in American university. But to your question, is that adequate? Is that good enough? I don't think so. I think beyond what you can learn from the classroom, I think there are still a lot of thing to do.

I think the students today here, particularly in those so called elite universities, the task of them is not only to learn some knowledge, but to be the future leadership of a country or maybe world, global leadership or industry or company, a society, community. So they need to understand the this changing, dramatically changing globe as we discussed early. I think the students here still, I always encourage them to pay more attention to what is happening in the world. For example, in the Middle East, I always want them to debate the pros and cons of the two sides, I mean, the Palestinian people and Israeli people. What is wrong? What is correct? As a Chinese student, what is your position? Or you can have a debate like Russia and Ukraine issue, right? What are the rationale behind the two sides? Why Russian did that? Why Ukrainian do that? I think the students need to pay more attention to what is happening now or like a new technology, AI, this kind of thing. They need to understand what is happening now.

Secondly, they need to think about why those people, like Palestinian people , are really different. People have different rationale for why they have different values, Why they have different policies? I mean, the logic behind that, I want them to step further.

So in that regard, I think our students still have a long way to go. I think our university need to provide them more opportunity to think about, to reflect. That's the reason every summer vacation, I always bring my students to the United States to talk to American government official, university professors, and of course their peers, the university students in the U.S., to understand why these two country, why these two great nations have such different policies and also we have so many this tension now. So I want them to understand this. And then when they return to the country, they can know the world better. So I think this is a task that the university need to provide to the students need to achieve, accomplished in the university and the university need to provide them more opportunity to understand the world.

James Chau: Unfortunately, I'm not your students. I wish I were. But we did start off the year in America in three different points, in Atlanta and then Stanford and Palo Alto and of course in Washington DC, so it means so much to me that as we reach the midpoint of this year, we're finally speaking at your home in Tsinghua here in Beijing.

Prof. Da Wei: Thank you, James, for coming to Tsinghua. And I hope you can visit more often and we can continue this discussion, no matter in Beijing, Hong Kong or somewhere in the U.S.. Thank you so much.

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