Claire Zhao
Associate, Business Advisory Services
Washington, DC
Claire Zhao is a business advisory services associate at the US-China Business Council. Prior to joining the Council, she interned at the energy security and climate change program with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She also served as a student consultant for the Bureau of Energy Resources, focusing on critical mineral supply chains and clean energy technology issues. Claire holds a master’s degree in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a dual bachelor’s degree in Quantitative Economics and Global Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles. She is proficient in Mandarin Chinese.
7 Posts
Member Exclusive
One-Year Warning: Navigating China’s REE Export Control Suspension
The United States and China have pulled back from a full-blown export control crisis after a presidential summit on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit last month. According to both sides’ readouts, they agreed to a one-year, reciprocal truce: the United States will suspend its “50% Rule,” which extended export restrictions to over 20,000 Chinese entities, and in exchange, China will suspend the rare earth element (REE) export control measures announced by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) on October 9.
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Sector Stabilization Plans Offer Sneak Peek Into China’s 15th Five-Year Plan
China’s factories are busy but not necessarily profitable. In the first eight months of 2025, industrial value-added rose 6.2% year-on-year, yet profits edged up just 0.9%. The wide gap between output and profitability reveals structural inefficiencies across China’s industrial sector, including persistent deflationary pressure, chronic oversupply, and stagnant productivity masked by volume growth. This misalignment threatens the sustainability of industrial recovery and undermines Beijing’s broader growth targets.
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Rethinking Revenue: China Looks To Ease Fiscal Strain With Targeted Tax Reforms
China’s economy has grown faster than expected this year, but growth in tax receipts has fallen behind. In response, Beijing is turning to tax reform as a cornerstone of fiscal stabilization, combining short-term measures to raise revenue from existing sources with longer-term efforts to standardize its tax regime.
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Beijing’s New Retaliation Playbook Is Reshaping Corporate Risk
For companies, this marks a shift from episodic policy shocks to institutionalized legal pressure, including conflicting compliance burdens, more discretionary enforcement, and increased uncertainty. Beijing, in turn, can use US firms’ regulatory exposure as a strategic lever to influence trade negotiations, shape corporate behavior, and advance longer-term industrial policy goals.
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China Launches Anti-Involution Campaign with New Compliance Tools
Amid rising deflation and falling profits across industries, Beijing is intensifying efforts to rein in “involution-style” competition, or cutthroat price wars that sacrifice product quality and distort market order. At a July 1 Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission meeting, President Xi Jinping emphasized the need to curb disorderly price competition, improve product quality, and phase out outdated production capacity.
