 Good afternoon, and welcome to this very interesting discussion on China. We have as our guest speaker today Dennis Staunton, and I will introduce him formally shortly. Just a few housekeeping issues. The presentation will last 20 minutes and that will be followed by a question and answer session in which you, the audience, can participate by using the Q&A function on your screen. Feel free to follow us using the handle at IEEA on X. Both the presentation and the question and answer are on the record. It gives me very great pleasure to introduce Dennis Staunton, who really doesn't need any introduction. He addressed this forum one year ago almost exactly. Dennis has been the China correspondent for the Irish Times in Beijing since October 2022. Before that he was correspondent in London from 2015 and has also worked in Washington, Brussels, and in Berlin. He has served also as the foreign editor and the deputy foreign editor of the Irish Times. Dennis, over to you, and we very much appreciate your being available to us today. Thank you, Mary, and thank you to the Institute for inviting me to talk. It's very, very good to be here and it is, as Mary said, almost exactly a year ago since I last spoke to the Institute. And around that time, if we just go back to where we were, China was emerging out of COVID and the zero COVID restrictions have been dropped at the beginning of December. And during December and January, everybody got COVID and then you had Chinese New Year. And as we were coming into the spring, the question really was how was the economy going to come back and also really how was China going to reconnect with the world that had been more or less cut off from over the previous few years. And so what happened for the economy was concerned was that there was indeed a rebound, but that the rebound in a way had kind of appeared to run out of a certain amount of steam. And so what you had was that you had a bit of a surge and then the overhang of this long-running crisis in the property market started to really have a depressing effect on the economy and particularly on consumer confidence. And so what, as we moved into the later part of the year, economists and the rest of the world and indeed China itself began to be disappointed in terms of the economic performance. The economy did grow by more than 5% last year, but still given that it was coming out of a fairly low base, that wasn't quite perhaps as impressive as it might have been. They're targeting around 5% for this year. The latest economic figure suggests that they will probably get there or get close enough to it. Also at that time, the relationship between China and the United States was at a particularly low air. The spy balloon had appeared over the US. The US had shot down the spy balloon, and that had really put relations into a kind of a deep freeze. They were already very fraught because the previous August Nancy Pelosi, who was then the Speaker of the House of Representatives, had visited Taiwan. And in response to that visit, Beijing had conducted military exercises, which involved the encirclement of the island of Taiwan and also the shooting of missiles over the island. And these were pretty scary. And also, as we were in the spring of last year, it didn't really appear as if things were going to get much better. And every attempt to put the relationship between Washington and Beijing on a better footing, there was always something to set it back. And that really only changed towards the end of last year, when Xi Jinping was in San Francisco and had a meeting with Joe Biden. And since then, you have seen this quite intense contact between the two sides. You've seen a number of high-level visits to China from US officials, most recently Janet Yellen, for the second time in the year, and also Anthony Blinken and various others. And you've also importantly seen military to military contacts coming back. And that's important because US aircraft fly very close to the Chinese coast in the South China Sea. And you had, when they were talking to each other, a lot of these near misses between Chinese and US aircraft. And one of these could have led to an accident that could have had catastrophic consequences. And you haven't had any of these for the last few months. And that's because the two sides are talking to one another. The issues remain, the fundamental issues, the differences between China and the US more or less as they were. And there are a few new ones like the future of TikTok in the United States. But at the same time, at least they are talking. And there's a really, really, you can feel here the difference just because of the fact that the two sides, you have much more contact, not just at a high level, but also at lower levels, academics, think tanks, business people, there's much more going on than there had been than there was a year ago. About a year ago, too, Ursula von der Leyen made her speech about China. And this was the speech in which she introduced the idea of de-risking. And really, she was signaling a much more robust European policy towards China. The Chinese reacted badly to that speech. But over the months, one of the things that did happen, around that time, we were still dealing with a lot of the effects of what had happened during the Covid period when China was isolated from the rest of the world and was very sensitive to criticism and was still in the grip of this so-called wolf warrior diplomacy, which involved really a very strong and immediate and harsh response to any kind of slight or insult. And so there were all kinds of spats going on with the European Union, with Lithuania because of a particular Taiwan representative office that opened in Vilnius, and then also the sanctioning of a number of members of the European Parliament. And there were disputes over China's human rights record, as well as the usual economic disputes. So you had this very tense relationship going on. Since then, China has engaged in something of a charm offensive or has tried to do so. The de-risking conversation has continued to happen in Europe, but Olaf Scholz was here in China this week, and it was notable that he really hardly mentioned de-risking, and that in a way the conversation appears to have moved, shifted slightly over to a more traditional kind of dialogue between China and the European Union, which is about trade and competition. And the European Union, suggesting that China is subsidizing its industries in such a way that creates unfair competition, and China then complaining about being unfairly picked on. But these are in a way, this is territory that both China and the European Union are quite comfortable on. And so it remains to be seen just exactly how this de-risking debate goes. But it appears for now that the national security element of that dialogue appears to be diminishing, and the straightforward trade element appears to be more in the forefront, as we're talking now, that obviously could change. What was very much on the agenda, both last year and also this weekend, Olaf Scholz was here, was the war in Ukraine. And Europe, once again, asking China to use its influence on Vladimir Putin to ask him essentially to end the war, to withdraw from Ukraine. And China, there's been a bit of a shift in a way, in the way China speaks about this. China is officially neutral on the war, but it has given throughout diplomatic and economic support to Russia. It hasn't delivered any weapons to Russia, but the Ukraine's allies are concerned about what they view as dual-use technology, which is being sent from China to Russia, or the way that it might be. And last year, about again this time last year, China proposed a 12-point peace proposal. And the Western powers weren't very interested in hearing about it, and they basically dismissed it, and they dismissed other peace proposals as well from the African Union. Now that the West is quite interested in China coming into the picture where peace plans and peace proposals are concerned, if you speak to Chinese officials now about this issue, they're more inclined to say, well, this is really not exactly our conflict. The Russians would like us to be more involved in their side, you'd like us to be more involved in your side, but really it's for the parties themselves to deal with this. And so there's been a kind of a, you know, something of a shift. And again, when Schultz met Xi Jinping yesterday, they, you know, Schultz was kind of speaking about, with a certain sense of urgency, whereas Xi Jinping was saying, well, you know, in due course, there will be an international conference, we hope that will involve both parties. And so there's a difference in tone there. You did have last year around this time, at the same time as you had the, you know, the economy appearing not to come back from, you know, not to recover in the same way as we might have hoped. You also had, almost exactly a year ago, the Shanghai Auto Show. And at the Shanghai Auto Show, a lot of companies from the West, car companies, they went to Shanghai for the first time in a number of years. And they were astonished not to see that the Chinese were producing electric vehicles, but they were producing them so well. And one person from a German car company who was there last year told me afterwards that going from one of the German companies showrooms into one of the Chinese companies showrooms was like going from a string quartet into a nightclub. And that it was just, you know, the dynamism of the Chinese manufacturers was something which appeared to take everybody by surprise. But in fact, obviously, China's success in the electric vehicles in that production, which has now become the world's leading producer and exporter of these products, is the result of an industrial policy in China, which involved state decisions to roll out infrastructure, to support companies, and to focus efforts on a number of technologies. And this is what is now called here in China new productive forces. And this is all really about the idea that China's economic future depends on moving its economic model of shifting from investment into, you know, in things like construction, property, infrastructure into high tech manufacturing. And we're talking about things like green energy technology, solar panels, electric vehicles, various other things, also life sciences, artificial intelligence and semiconductors. And this is all fine, as far as China is concerned, but of course, it creates a conflict with China's trading partners, notably in the European Union. And the European Union and the US are haunted by the memory of what happened some years ago, the so called China shock, when what you had was this flood of Chinese, cheap Chinese imports, which helped to reduce inflation in those Western countries. But it also basically wiped out a number of industries in rather crucial parts of the US, and also in parts of Europe. And many people in the West believe that that experience helped to fuel the rise of Donald Trump, right wing populists in Europe as well. They don't want to see that happening at Janet Yellen very explicitly last week said, we're not going to allow it to happen. And so now you see this conflict between China and the West about the West accusing China of over capacity in manufacturing and basically worry that subsidized goods are going to come flooding onto the market in Europe and in the United States. So that's where the conflict is going to be seen. Where Taiwan is concerned, they had elections, presidential elections in January. And the result of that was a result that nobody really wanted. China wanted anybody but William Lai, who was the candidate of the Taiwan Progressive Party, they wanted anybody but him to win. He wanted to win, which he did win. But unfortunately for him, he won with 40 percent of the vote. The opposition was divided. So 60 percent of the people voted for candidates who oppose the current Taiwanese government's approach to cross-strait relations. So the other two candidates who got 60 percent, they wanted a more emollient approach to relations with Beijing. And so in a sense, this was a result that nobody wanted but actually that everybody could live with. And what you've seen since then, there was a lot of concern before the election that if William Lai won, that Beijing might respond with some kind of saber-rattling like the military exercises that we saw last year. But in fact, there hasn't been anything like that. And instead, it's all been pretty calm. We'll see what happens when William Lai is inaugurated next month and what he says and what China says in response. But for now, it appears that both sides are keeping the temperature down. And so that what's happened there in a way has worked out rather better than we might have hoped for. What's happened nearby in the South China Sea is much more worrying. And so what you've seen now is a flashpoint with the Philippines. And this is a dispute over what is a kind of a rock in the middle of the South China Sea called the Second Thomas Shoal. And on this rock is grounded a World War II naval vessel called the Sierra Madre. And this vessel has been kind of decomposing over the years. But it's important to the Philippines because they believe that by having this thing there that reinforces their claim to this particular spot. It's not exactly an island, but it's something in the middle of the South China Sea. China claims practically the whole of the South China Sea is its territorial waters. It has this what it calls the Nine Dash Line. An international court in 2016 said that Chinese claims are groundless, that what it calls islands and not actually islands. But nonetheless, what's been happening is that the Philippines have been sending troops over there. And they've been kind of trying to shore up this vessel. And the troops need to be resupplied. And as they're being resupplied, the Chinese Coast Guard has been attacking them with a high powered water cannon. And this has all become now a very flawed matter. It's been complicated in the last few days by a revelation that the previous Philippines president, Duterte, gave a private assurance to the Chinese that they wouldn't change the status quo. And so they wouldn't try to rebuild this vessel or to kind of build a more solid structure on this rock. And so that's kind of confused matters. But nonetheless, this is a dangerous conflict that's worrying all of China's neighbors and neighbors in that whole area, many of whom also have claims of the South China Sea. And that also has become a flashpoint between the US and China. Finally, I wanted to mention Hong Kong. And in Hong Kong, as you will recall after the pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019, China, Beijing imposed a national security law, which is a draconian law on Hong Kong. And this saw hundreds of people arrested. The law has a presumption against bail. And so if you're arrested, you will immediately go to jail. The trials take a long time. And there's 100% conviction rate so far. And so what was not quite clear in 2020 was where China and the Hong Kong authorities were going to go because there was certain vagueness really about what the red lines were. What became clear very quickly was that all political dissent was going to be snuffed out, any kind of formal opposition. But there were various moments where things could have gone either way. And unfortunately, at each of those moments, things have gone in the harsher way. So for example, in December of last year, there were elections to the local councils in Hong Kong. These are functions which have very, very little political power. They're really very, very local. And a small number of the former pro-democracy politicians wanted to run for election there. And the authorities barred every one of them from doing so. And so you've also then more recently had the introduction of a new local national security law under Article 23 of the Basic Law, which is the quasi-constitution that has governed Hong Kong since 1997. And it's returned to China. And this bill was rushed through the legislature. And it is harsher than was hoped for or than was expected with new powers. And so that again, I think has surprised, shall we say, on the downside. And then also Hong Kong has an independent judiciary. It operates under a common law system. And once again, although the judges have shown some signs of life and time to time in opposing the authorities, generally speaking, they have gone along and imposed harsh sentences and found almost in every case against the opposition. And so what's happening there is something which I think, given that there was some leeway, it's disappointing. But I think it's important to say that Hong Kong remains different from mainland China. It's not just that they have independent financial institutions and regulators. But it's also the life there is different. You can, you know, there is no great firewall. You can go on the internet freely. You can walk down the street and buy the Financial Times and the New York Times of the Economist. There is also an independent media. It's a very small, very poorly funded. These people have practically no money. They're also very careful about what they do. They don't criticize the authorities. There's no political criticism in there. And they're very careful about the stories they do. But they do things like court reports, justices conducted in public in Hong Kong. And they do things like their report on planning. They do things that are part of, that keep going, part of the sort of the civic life of Hong Kong. And that area of difference between Hong Kong and mainland China is an area of difference, which many people in Hong Kong who are obviously mourning the loss of a lot of their freedoms over the last few years, they believe that that's something that is worth preserving. And I think this I will end with those people like those journalists there, they're very realistic about what the limits are, but they are not despairing. And if they're not despairing, I don't think we should either. With that, I take your questions.