East West Institute - November 2019

In late November, I travelled to Beijing with the East West Institute to meet with a series of senior Chinese officials. The East West Institute is a unique international NGO, a truly non-partisan organization focussed on conflict prevention and resolution through a variety of means, including Track Two diplomacy.  Our delegation was made up of former government officials from both Republican and Democrat Administrations, as well as leading international businessmen and women.  Our goal was to share with the Chinese officials our perspective of the major issues between our two countries.

We discussed a range of issues with the Chinese government and party officials, including President Trump’s America First policy.  Our delegates discussed how in the last three years the national consensus has come around to Trump’s way of thinking. There is now broad-based bipartisan support for a serious recalibration of the Chinese-US trade relationship, as well as far more rigorous protection of American intellectual property.  I said the American people don't want a trade war, or a cold war, or a hot war.   But we do want a new, more equitable and balanced relationship, and there is widespread national support for President Trump’s policies toward China.

The need to reset the US-Chinese relationship is something I have emphasized in my own writing and media appearances in the last several years, and was a focus of my work in the early months of the Trump Administration.  It is also a major theme in my new book, REVOLUTION: Trump, Washington and “We the People”.