Several of my publications and presentations are listed below.
Publications
Let’s Negotiate an Investment Treaty with China
Apple's first retail store in China, located in Beijing. A bilateral investment treaty would give U.S.-based companies like Apple greater rights in China, while attracting more Chinese investment into the United States.
Date: 8 April 2011.
Publication: The Huffington Post.
Author: Daniel Michaeli.
In recent years, Beijing has asked repeatedly for a treaty that would give U.S. investors in China greater and more enforceable rights. It is high time for the Obama administration to respond seriously — by concluding its open-ended review of bilateral investment treaties and working one out with China. The U.S. and China should work aggressively over the next several weeks to prepare to announce a timeline for negotiations at the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington next month.
American firms have nearly $50 billion invested in China, and a recent survey of companies investing in China indicates that most intend to increase their investments substantially this year. The performance of these investments is crucial to the U.S. economy: they enable American companies to access China’s huge domestic market and catalyze American exports — U.S. multinationals send half of their total exports from the United States to their own foreign affiliates. American corporations, when successful overseas, bring jobs and investment back to the United States. Recent data indicates that U.S.-based multinational corporations locate more than half of their employees in the United States, where they have 70 percent of their operations and spend 87 percent of their research and development budget.
Tags: Bilateral Investment Treaties, China, Competitiveness, Foreign Direct Investment, Intellectual Property Rights, U.S. China Policy, United States
Obama in India: Testing a New World Order, Starting with the Security Council
Image courtesy of Flickr's tomdz
Date: 8 November 2010.
Publication: The Huffington Post.
Author: Daniel Michaeli.
The future of American global influence will be decided in Asia, and India’s success could be a prerequisite for America’s long-term position in the region. So President Obama just made a substantial step towards securing U.S. interests in Asia by endorsing India’s aspiration to greater global and regional influence. He declared today in New Delhi, “I look forward to a reformed U.N. Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.” Indians have been waiting for this for a long time.
Successive U.S. administrations have avoided taking a position on India’s Security Council aspirations. Diplomatic non-answers denied New Delhi a clear path to U.S. backing, a source of exasperation for many Indians. And the U.S. approach also obscured legitimate American concerns about the limits of U.S.-Indian cooperation on some foreign policy issues of great importance to the United States.
The only problem is that when Obama endorsed India’s membership “look[ing] forward,” he actually ignored these legitimate concerns, too.
Tags: Asian Security, Barack Obama, India, Iran, Obama's Asia Trip, U.S.-India Relationship, UN Security Council, United Nations, United States
Don’t Let Iran Hijack the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue
Date: 24 May 2010.
Publication: The Huffington Post.
Authors: Daniel Michaeli and Joel Backaler.
Monday’s Strategic and Economic Dialogue between the United States and China provides the Obama administration with an opportunity to forge agreements in a number of areas of crucial significance for both U.S. economic competitiveness and strategic stability in Asia–but only if U.S. negotiators are willing to give non-headline topics the attention they deserve.
At this time of economic uncertainty, the future of the American economy is firmly linked to the ability of U.S. companies to compete for marketshare in China, the world’s fastest-growing market. So U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner’s agenda should not overstress the revaluation of China’s currency. Despite the degree of media attention paid to the issue, nearly 80% of U.S. firms in China don’t expect a revaluation to increase their profits, according to a recent American Chamber of Commerce in China survey. Rather, across a host of industries, Chinese commercial rules give domestic firms an unfair leg up over American ones, and this is the more significant reason U.S. companies have been unsuccessful in cracking the Chinese market.
Tags: Asian Security, China, Daniel Michaeli, Foreign Ownership Rules, Government Procurement Agreement, Hillary Clinton, Joel Backaler, Market Access, Nuclear Arms Control, Renminbi, Timothy Geithner, Trade Policy, U.S. China Policy, U.S.-China Commercial Relationship, U.S.-China Military Relations, U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, United States
How Westerners in China Can Fight Back
Date: 24 March 2010.
Publication: BusinessWeek.
Author: Daniel Michaeli.
The best strategy for dealing with Beijing’s chilly new business climate is not to copy Google’s example
No matter how tense commercial relations between the U.S. and China become, American corporations cannot afford to mimic Google’s (GOOG) mistake and give up huge growth opportunities in the world’s largest market. That’s why business leaders need to adjust their strategies quickly to stem the damage.
First, they must cultivate untapped sources of support within China, beginning with independent executives who also chafe at Beijing’s market-unfriendly policies. Coordinating a message with these leaders would change the narrative, removing the perception that greater economic openness means giving in to foreign pressure.
Some are already willing to join U.S. companies in public support of better Chinese economic policies. On Mar. 24, for instance, Bloomberg reported that Chinese executives including Yang Yuanqing, CEO of Lenovo (LNVGY), have gone public with their support of the currency realignment U.S. exporters need to be more competitive in China.
Tags: China, Chinese Politics, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Daniel Michaeli, Google, Intellectual Property Rights, Liu Jieyin, Trade Policy, U.S. China Policy, U.S.-China Commercial Relationship, United States, Yang Yuanqing
The China-India Relationship and the Asian Century
Date: 14 October 2009.
Author: Daniel Michaeli
Presentation to the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy grand strategy and South Asia discussion groups at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC.
Tags: Asian Security, Border Disputes, China, Daniel Michaeli, India, India-China Relationship, Look East Policy, Strategy, Trade Policy
Why China Doesn’t Want a Nuclear North Korea
Date: 9 January 2008.
Publication: Far Eastern Economic Review.
Author: Daniel Michaeli.
North Korea’s nuclear program is a danger not only to the United States, but also to China. A proliferation crisis, particularly in the Middle East, would carry consequences compromising the delicately balanced domestic economic and social stability that China’s leaders strive to maintain. In order to preserve its own interests, China must prevent such a crisis from occurring.
Tags: China, Daniel Michaeli, Kim Jong Il, North Korea, Nuclear Proliferation, U.S. China Policy, United States
“China and the Future of the World” Conference
Dates: 28-29 April 2006.
Keynotes: Christopher R. Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Peter W. Rodman, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; and Wang Guangya, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations.
Panels: Politics and Society in China; China, the United States, and the World; U.S. Business and Government – Responding to the China Challenge; and China’s Future in the Age of Globalization.
Tags: Alexander Graham, Anil Kashyap, Bruce Cumings, Cheng Li, China, Chinese Foreign Policy, Chinese Politics, Chinese Society, Christopher R. Hill, Dali Yang, Daniel Michaeli, James R. Lilley, John J. Mearsheimer, Lei Guang, Mark S. Kirk, Merle Goldman, Peter W. Rodman, Prasenjit Duara, Ted Fishman, Theodore W. Schaffner, Tony Lorusso, U.S. China Policy, United States, Wang Guangya, Wang Hui, Wang Ping, Wu Jianmin, Zhang Jun
The University Must Adapt to China’s Rise
Date: 10 April 2006.
Publication: The Chicago Maroon.
Author: Daniel Michaeli.
Remember this year’s protests against Japan? “China will go to war with Japan within the next two decades,” a young Chinese graphic designer told me confidently over dinner in Beijing this summer. “China is rising–and soon we will become as powerful as the United States.” This comment provoked a great deal of discussion and disagreement among that evening’s guests; whether Chinas rise will be peaceful remains a hotly disputed topic not only in the United States but in China as well. Yet no one at the table even thought to dispute Chinas status as a rising power.
Tags: China, Daniel Michaeli, U.S. China Policy, University of Chicago