Image

At a recent seminar hosted by APARCʼs China Program, Professor Jessica Chen Weiss, the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, presented findings from her forthcoming book, Faultlines: The Tensions Beneath China's Global Ambitions (under contract with Oxford University Press), which examines how domestic politics and regime insecurity shape China’s foreign policy ambitions, prospects for peaceful coexistence, and the future of international order. Drawing on research and fieldwork in China, Weiss argued that understanding Beijingʼs behavior on the world stage requires looking beyond ideology to the contested priorities and political calculations that drive decision-making within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Weiss proposed a framework centered on three pillars that have sustained CCP legitimacy since the late 1970s: sovereignty (nationalism), security (civility), and development. Her analysis reveals that China's objectives are not static but moving targets shaped by competing domestic interests, leadership priorities, and international pressures.

Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive our event invitations and programming highlights >

The Sovereignty-Security-Development Paradigm
 

At the heart of Weissʼs argument is the recognition that the CCPʼs foremost concern is domestic survival. In the face of the collapse of most communist regimes, the Party has remained vigilant against what it calls “peaceful evolution” and democratic contagion.

On issues touching core sovereignty concerns – Taiwan, Hong Kong, and maritime territorial claims – China has been “hyperactive” in making demands, even when doing so invites international censure. Weiss explained that the more central an issue is to CCP domestic legitimacy, the harder it becomes to make concessions, and the more likely international pressure is to backfire.

Yet tensions exist between competing priorities. China has compromised on certain border disputes to shore up domestic security, while its evolving stance on climate change reflects a shift from viewing carbon limits as threats to growth to recognizing the greater threat environmental catastrophes present to the nation’s stability.

Beyond the Monolith: China's Internal Contestation
 

Weissʼs research demonstrates that authoritarian China is far from monolithic. Different geographic, economic, institutional, and even ideological interests shape policy debates, even if most actors lack formal veto power. Local governments can resist central directives, as evidenced during the COVID-19 outbreak, when local officials initially withheld information about human-to-human transmission from the central government to prevent panic from disrupting important political meetings.

This pattern of center-local tension extends to China's international commitments. Local officials often game environmental regulations to juice growth and secure promotions, undermining Beijingʼs pledges on carbon emissions. On issues ranging from Belt and Road investments to export controls, implementation frequently diverges from stated policy as local actors pursue their own interests.

Weiss’s framework distinguishes among issues that are both central and uncontested (such as Taiwan), those that are central but contested (like climate change and trade policy), and peripheral issues where Beijing has shown greater flexibility (such as demonstrated by many UN peacekeeping initiatives). This helps explain why international pressure succeeds in some domains but fails spectacularly in others.

"The more central an issue is domestically, the more pressure the government faces to perform, and the harder it is to defy these domestic expectations," Weiss said. As a result, international pressure on these central issues is more likely to backfire, forcing the government to be seen as defending its core interests. She underscored that "even on these central issues, there's often tension with other central priorities, and managing these trade-offs comes with a number of different risks. It also means that sometimes an issue that touches on one pillar of regime support can yield to another."

Nationalism as Constraint and Tool
 

Weiss described nationalism as both a pillar of the CCPʼs legitimacy and a potential vulnerability when the government’s response appears weak. While large-scale anti-foreign protests have become rare, nationalist sentiment remains active online and shapes diplomatic calculations.

During Speaker Nancy Pelosiʼs 2022 visit to Taiwan, Chinese social media erupted with calls for the PLA to shoot down her plane. One interlocutor told Weiss his 14-year-old son and friends had stayed up past bedtime to watch Pelosiʼs plane land, illustrating nationalismʼs penetration into Chinese society.

Survey research reveals Chinese public opinion is quite hawkish, with majorities supporting military spending and viewing the U.S. presence in Asia as a threat. The government often refrains from suppressing nationalist sentiment to avoid backlash, even when doing so creates diplomatic complications. Weissʼs public opinion survey experiments, however, reveal that tough but vague threats can provide the government with wiggle room for de-escalation, although disapproval emerges when action is not sufficiently tough.

Regime Security Without Ideological Crusade
 

Weiss pushed back against arguments that China is bent on global domination or that ideology drives conflict with the West. While the CCP seeks a less ideologically threatening environment, it must balance this against development and market access.

This pragmatic calculus explains China's constrained support for Russiaʼs war in Ukraine — Beijing fears secondary sanctions more than it values autocratic solidarity. Rather than exporting revolution, China has worked with incumbents of all political stripes in the service of its national interests.

Chinaʼs strategy focuses on making autocracy viable at home, not on defeating democracy globally. This suggests room for coexistence if both sides can reach a détente on interference in internal affairs.

“China's activities are making autocracy more viable and, to the extent that China is succeeding, making China's example more appealing as a consequence. But its strategy doesn't hinge on defeating democracy around the world,” argued Weiss. This implies, to her view, that “there is more room for coexistence between autocracies and democracies if these different systems can find or reach a potential détente in the realm of ideas about how countries govern themselves, and importantly, they need to pull back their efforts in other societies across boundaries.”

Interdependence and Future Trajectories
 

Weiss concluded by outlining how her framework suggests different engagement strategies depending on where issues fall within the centrality-contestation matrix. On central but uncontested issues like Taiwan, pressure proves counterproductive, and reciprocal restraint may be most promising. On central but contested issues like currency, multilateral pressure can influence certain Chinese constituencies against others. On peripheral issues, such pressure is most effective unless powerful domestic constituencies subvert implementation.

Addressing questions about U.S.-China decoupling, Weiss noted that both sides recognize there are interdependencies that don’t have quick solutions. Even in a critical area like minerals, diversification will take at least a decade, and Chinese processing will still dominate globally. The goal of diversification should be to preempt coercion, not to achieve true decoupling.

This article was written by Dr. David Grossman, founding Director of BAYCEP and SPICE, and draws on a conference paper that he presented in 1978. The updated excerpt and photos (taken in 1974 in the People's Republic of China) were reprinted with permission from Dr. Grossman. Dr. Grossman was the Director of SPICE from 1976 to 1988. This is the first of several articles—focusing on the 50-year history of SPICE—that will be posted this year. 

Prior to World War II, the systematic study of Asia in American schools was rare. Studies of school textbooks found that the few references to Asia were marked by paternalism and stereotypes at best, and by racism and imperialist assumptions at worst. Following U.S. involvement in World War II and the Korean War, there was a notable increase in Asian studies at the collegiate level. At the pre-collegiate level, however, this growing attention to Asia was largely reflected in the addition of a Cold War dimension to the civics curriculum. In this context, China was typically studied as a geopolitical adversary, portrayed even more negatively than the Soviet Union.

In February 1972, a dramatic shift occurred in the tone of U.S.–China relations as a result of President Richard Nixon’s surprise visit to China. This watershed moment generated a surge in public demand for more current and reliable information about China and created new opportunities for reconsidering how China might be taught in American schools.

Image

While the roots of the Bay Area China Education Project (BAYCEP) can be traced to earlier initiatives, the pivotal moment in its development was the June 1972 Wingspread Conference, “China in the Schools: Directions and Priorities.” Previous meetings addressing China education had been convened by professional organizations such as the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), but what distinguished the Wingspread Conference was its timeliness. The three sponsoring organizations—the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations, the Center for War/Peace Studies, and the Johnson Foundation—shared a widely held belief that the moment was ripe for a focused effort to improve education about China in American schools.

One of the central themes of the Wingspread discussions was a critique of prevailing models of scholar–teacher interaction, particularly the assumption that scholars should serve merely as visiting lecturers. Conference participants urged China scholars to become more attentive to the needs of teachers and school systems and to conceive of their work as part of a reciprocal, two-way process. In perhaps the most influential proposal to emerge from the conference, Yale historian Jonathan Spence called for the development of a cohort of “scholar consultants” who would be both substantively knowledgeable and pedagogically sensitive. This idea would become a cornerstone of BAYCEP.

Ultimately, BAYCEP was the only program to emerge directly from the Wingspread Conference. As early as August 1972, Stanford professor John Lewis convened a meeting of San Francisco Bay Area educators and scholars focused on “Teaching China in the Schools.” This group subsequently submitted a proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities under the auspices of the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations. The proposal was successfully funded and outlined a pilot project designed to strengthen humanities teaching in Bay Area schools by creating new mechanisms of cooperation between university scholars and pre-collegiate educators. It emphasized the educational value of Chinese history, society, and culture for enhancing multicultural education and sought to organize locally available resources on China through consultancy relationships, training programs, and curriculum materials that could later be adapted for use in other communities and fields of study.

The transition from this broad mission statement to a fully functioning program was not linear. Stakeholders debated the project’s target audience, the selection of appropriate content, and staff qualifications. Acceptance of a China-focused initiative in schools was by no means assured; at one point, a district superintendent rejected participation on the grounds that the project constituted “Communist propaganda.” The underlying challenge was to design a China-focused program that was both curriculum-relevant and pedagogically sound.

In this regard, BAYCEP’s most innovative component was the development of an associate, or “scholar intern,” program intended to strengthen links between universities and schools. Graduate students and recent graduates in Chinese studies or related education programs were appointed as project associates. These associates underwent intensive training and mentoring to familiarize them with effective pre-collegiate teaching methods and available instructional resources, which were notably scarce at the time. They then worked directly with teachers through professional development workshops, helping translate scholarly knowledge into classroom practice.

Although BAYCEP was not initially conceived as solely a curriculum development project, the need for instructional materials soon became apparent. In collaboration with university scholars and classroom teachers, the project first produced guides to recommended resources on China. As these guides proved necessary but insufficient, BAYCEP later developed instructional units on topics such as the Chinese language, family life, education, sports, and stereotyping. As with the professional development workshops, careful attention was given to both substantive content and pedagogical effectiveness.

True to its original mission, BAYCEP emerged as a model for linking university scholarship with pre-collegiate education. In subsequent years, parallel projects focusing on Japan, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern and Western Europe were initiated. Together with BAYCEP, these initiatives were brought under a common umbrella in 1976, enabling collaboration and cross-fertilization across area studies. This umbrella program—the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE)—continues to operate to this day.

Beyond its immediate contributions to China education, BAYCEP’s enduring legacy lies in its redefinition of the relationship between universities and pre-collegiate schools. By institutionalizing the role of the scholar consultant and embedding graduate students and recent graduates within K–12 professional development, BAYCEP moved beyond episodic outreach toward a sustained, collaborative model of knowledge exchange. Its emphasis on pedagogical relevance, mutual learning, and curriculum integration anticipated later approaches to public scholarship and teacher professionalization in area studies. The success of BAYCEP also demonstrated that international and cross-cultural education could be both academically rigorous and responsive to local educational contexts, even amid political uncertainty. As the foundational program within what became SPICE, BAYCEP served not only as a prototype for subsequent regional initiatives but also as a durable model for translating university-based scholarship into meaningful educational practice—an approach that continues to shape international education well beyond its original historical moment.

To stay informed of SPICE news, join our email list and follow us on Facebook, X, and Instagram.

The January 3, 2026, U.S. “Operation Absolute Resolve” in Venezuela to capture and remove President Nicolás Maduro has raised urgent questions about its repercussions for the U.S.-China competition, Taiwan Strait security, American strategic priorities in the Indo-Pacific region, and U.S. allies and partners.

In two new episodes of the APARC Briefing series, Stanford scholars Larry Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and APARC faculty affiliate Oriana Skylar Mastro, a center fellow at FSI, join host Kiyoteru Tsutsui, the director of APARC, to unravel what happened in Venezuela and the implications of the U.S. actions in Latin America for Taiwan, security and alliances in the Indo-Pacific, and U.S. relations with stakeholders in the region.

Both scholars agree that the U.S. mission in Venezuela is a precedent that likely emboldens rather than deters China in its Taiwan calculus, warning that the shift it represents in U.S. national security policy might detract from American capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region at a crucial moment. They also provide sobering advice for U.S. allies struggling to adjust to rapidly shifting geopolitical realities under the second Trump administration.

A Shocking Action in World Affairs

There is no dispute that the Maduro government has been deeply authoritarian, deeply corrupt, and deeply illegitimate, says Diamond, author of Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency. Yet the United States “has probably violated international law to intervene forcibly in the internal affairs of Venezuela and remove its political leader," creating enormous implications for the international community. If it does not pursue a strategy of systemic democratic change in Venezuela, “all of this will have been for naught, and it will have paid a tragic price in terms of international precedent and international legitimacy,” Diamond argues.

Beijing is already using the operation as a "discourse power win," depicting the United States as crushing sovereignty and international law, Mastro notes. Moreover, in addition to Venezuela, President Trump continues to make statements about Greenland, reiterating its importance for U.S. national security and his interest in acquiring the territory, which has alarmed European partners and exacerbated strains with NATO.

“For the first time since WWII, some European countries have declared the United States to be a security threat,” Mastro says. “So I am curious to see if the Chinese try to bring along the Venezuela case as well, to convince U.S. allies and partners to distance themselves from the United States, which would have significant repercussions for the global order and for the United States' role in it.”

A Risky Strategic Reorientation

By unilaterally bypassing international norms to wield power in its own "backyard," the United States may have set a precedent that China can now exploit to justify its own ambitions in Taiwan as a legitimate exercise of regional dominance.

Diamond remarks on this line of thought: “If the United States, as a hegemon, can just do what it wants to arrest and remove a leader, in its kind of declared sphere of influence, what's to stop Xi Jinping from doing the same in his sphere of influence, and with a democratic system in Taiwan, whose sovereignty he does not recognize?” 

On the other hand, many commentators have argued that Operation Absolute Resolve serves as a deterrent to Chinese aggression. Granted, there is no doubt that the operation was a remarkably successful military attack showcasing the capabilities of U.S. special forces, notes Mastro, who, alongside her academic career, also serves in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she currently works at the Pentagon as deputy director of research for Global China Strategy. Nevertheless, she emphasizes that the United States cannot carry out a similar attack in Asia.

“There is no situation in which we ‘neutralize’ Chinese air defenses and then somehow do some sort of infiltration,” says Mastro, author of Upstart: How China Became a Great Power. The U.S. intervention in Venezuela, therefore, “does not tell us a lot, operationally, about what the United States is capable of in a contingency via China.”

More troubling, Mastro identifies the Venezuela operation as demonstrating a fundamental shift in U.S. strategic priorities, with the raid conducted just weeks after the Trump administration released its 2025 National Security Strategy, which prioritizes restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.” Mastro characterizes it as “the one region where U.S. dominance faces no serious challenge.” Thus, Venezuela suggests “the Trump administration means business about the renewed focus on the Western Hemisphere, and, unfortunately, that makes me concerned that there might be strategic neglect of the Indo-Pacific moving forward,” she points out.

Diamond stresses that, virtually throughout the entire presidency of Xi Jinping, dating back to 2012, China has been rapidly building up its military capabilities, prioritizing those specifically suited for coercing, isolating, or potentially seizing Taiwan. Against this backdrop, “I am much more fearful about the future of Taiwan in the week following U.S. military action on January 3 in Venezuela than I was before that action.” 

Mastro agrees with this assessment about the ripple effects of the operation in Venezuela. “I would say that it probably emboldens China.”

Frank Advice for U.S. Allies

For U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific, including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia, as well as allies and partners in Europe, both scholars offer pragmatic counsel for coping with the Trump administration.

Diamond urges U.S. allies to manage Trump diplomatically while staying focused on core interests, namely, prioritizing the preservation of the alliances and strengthening autonomous defense capabilities to demonstrate commitment and hedge against potential U.S. retrenchment.

“It takes constant, energetic, proactive, imaginative, relentless, and in some ways deferential working of the relationship, including the personal relationship between these leaders and Donald Trump [...] The future will be better if the leaders of these countries internalize that fundamental lesson about Trump.”

Mastro is equally direct about the limited alternatives ahead of U.S. allies: "You don't really have an option. That Chinese military – if it gives the United States problems, it definitely gives you problems. There's no hope for a country like Taiwan without the United States. There's no hope for Australia without the United States."

Counterintuitively, U.S. assertiveness may indicate its insecurity about the balance of power with China. “It seems to me that the United States also needs to be reassured that our allies and partners support us [...] And if we had that confidence, maybe the United States would be less aggressive in its use of military force.”

Watch the two APARC Briefing episodes:

🔸 What the U.S. Raid in Venezuela Means for Taiwan and Asia - with Larry Diamond >

🔸 Does Venezuela Provide China a Roadmap for Taiwan? – with Oriana Skylar Mastro >