Research & Analysis

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen landed in New York Thursday, where she will be stopping briefly on her way to visit Central American allies. She plans to stop in Los Angeles on her way back to Taiwan next week. While little is known about Tsai’s itinerary while in the United States, the stopovers have drawn sharp criticism from Beijing, particularly, the prospect that she will meet with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) during the second leg of her trip.

The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) plans to establish itself as a major influencer in debates on US-China relations on Capitol Hill. The committee has no legislative authority, meaning it will have to rely on other standing committees of jurisdiction to actually move bills.

At the National People’s Congress (NPC) meetings in early March, China unveiled a flurry of reforms to its financial system intended to increase financial stability amid growing debt risks. According to a report from National Institution for Finance and Development, China’s debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 273.2 in 2022, rising nearly 10 points from the previous year.

On Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing to question TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew on concerns that the app is too close to the CCP. The hearing comes on the heels of reports that after years of negotiations with TikTok’s parent company Bytedance, the Biden administration is demanding that ByteDance divest the app to a US owner or face a ban on operating in the United States.

On March 16, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the State Council issued the Party and State Institutional Reform Plan. The plan rehashes the government restructuring announced earlier during China’s legislative meetings and creates five new party bodies to more directly oversee government work.

The US International Trade Commission (USITC) released a congressionally-mandated report on the efficacy of Section 232 and 301 tariffs. It concluded that despite claims from the Trump administration, it is US importers, not Chinese, who have paid nearly the full cost of the tariffs.

On March 7, during the annual Two Sessions conferences, the Chinese government released its budget report, entitled Report on the Execution of the Central and Local Budgets for 2022 and on the Draft Central and Local Budgets for 2023.

Over the past five years, the short-form video-sharing app TikTok has risen in popularity, garnering scrutiny from the US government along the way.

In recent months, China and Hong Kong have strengthened financial ties in the Greater Bay Area (GBA), a region the Chinese government has been nurturing in its economic planning for many years. The GBA includes the municipalities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Huizhou, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, and Zhaoqing, as well as the special administrative regions of Macao and Hong Kong.

On March 13, the final day of the National People’s Congress (NPC) meetings, the legislative body officially approved China’s senior State Council leadership. There were not many surprises since many of the government personnel shifts were anticipated (or already announced) following the 20th Party Congress when senior officials took new positions in the Chinese Communist Party.