Where Trade Meets Tension: The Future of U.S.-China Economic Relations
With Chris Fenton, Eleven Canterbury Consultant and Advisor to the U.S. Select Committee on China Relations & Member of the U.S.-Asia Foreign Council, and host, Dan Martin, Eleven Canterbury Program and Relationship Manager
Summary
In this episode of Conversations with the Experts, host Dan Martin sits down with Chris Fenton—media executive, China expert, and Eleven Canterbury consultant—to unpack the complexities of the U.S.–China relationship.
They examine the delicate balance between capitalism and patriotism, the risks associated with rare earth dependencies, and China’s strategic advantage in long-term planning. Chris also examines TikTok’s geopolitical significance and the implications of strategic decoupling.
This insightful conversation dives into the cultural and commercial forces shaping U.S.–China relations—and why navigating them carefully is critical for global stability.
Transcript
Dan Martin: Welcome to Conversations with the Experts. My guest today is Chris Fenton. He’s a media executive, producer, author, and someone with a vast amount of experience in the China market. Chris serves as an advisor to the U.S. Select Committee on China Relations and is a member of the U.S.-Asia Foreign Council. He knows a lot about working with China and certainly a lot about media.
What I want to talk about today, Chris, is media. One of the things I heard you say earlier was about where people get their news here in the United States, and about both opportunities and perhaps risks associated with China.
Could you please enlighten us on that?
Chris Fenton: Well, it’s a pleasure to be on here, Dan, and it’s a great network that you guys have put together. One thing I wanted to do before we started here was talk about the fact that there is a lot of doomsday perspective when it comes to the bilateral relationship and how it’s moving forward.
I’m working on keynotes for some upcoming engagements. One of the things I really want to stress is that there are true opportunities if you create products and services that could have access to that market or do have access to that market. The key now, though, is to keep that speculation or the scrutiny of the United States government off of you so that you’re not curbed as far as what your engagement is.
One of the things I really impress upon people is to think about patriotism before capitalism. Really put national security interests and national security priorities ahead of whatever capitalistic endeavor you have in terms of that market.
Now, in terms of the way Beijing looks at what you’re doing, always think about the fact that they’re trying to keep 1.4 billion people just happy enough that they don’t revolt, and they have serious supply chain issues and serious scarcity issues there. So, what we’re providing to that market is needed, but you need to think about placating certain priorities they have, while also balancing what you have going on in the United States and those interests that you have to protect.
So, there are opportunities. I don’t want to be a doomsdayer today, but if you’re talking about where we are, moving forward, we do have a serious strategic decoupling that’s going on between the two countries. However, there are various choke points that are involved with both. We’ve talked earlier, before this interview, about TikTok being one of those, and we can address that and talk about some of those other choke points that are creating serious problems between these negotiations that Trump and Xi are trying to have.
Dan Martin: What is the issue with TikTok? You told me – remarkably, we had both houses of Congress, the executive, and the Supreme Court all on the same side of the issue. Kind of a rare event recently!
Chris Fenton: Yeah. Well, it’s unbelievable what’s going on right now because you do have the TikTok issue being almost a unanimous consensus between all branches of government that it needs to be either de-platformed here in the U.S. or exchange complete control and ownership. I worked with the select committee on that progress towards the bill that hit the house, which almost passed unanimously, both sides of the aisle. Then went to the Senate, then went to the executive branch, and then was upheld by the Supreme Court.
I also wrote an op-ed that was one of the most widely read in RealClear Politics back in January of last year, leading into that. It’s an incredible situation where we’re seeing essentially the president discount all of the approvals and all of the laws around trying to get this negotiation between China and the U.S. figured out in terms of the ownership and control of TikTok.
I think what he’s doing is using TikTok and various other ingredients to the supply chain of China, and the priorities of Beijing, in terms of trying to find some leverage in overall trade negotiations, because, quite frankly, China has the upper hand. They have the upper hand because of samarium cobalt magnets, rare earths, and various other magnets that are derived from rare earths, and the fact that they have the full choke point for, essentially, our automobile industry and our military. I mean, each of our F-35s uses 50 pounds of samarium cobalt magnets. So, he knows that we have a national security issue there, and we have a major industry issue in terms of one of the key choke points that China has, and TikTok may be a lever to help alleviate that leverage and give some leverage to the side of the US.
Dan Martin: What exactly is the risk with TikTok? I read a lot about them getting data, but I think when we talked earlier, you said that was a relatively small problem.
Chris Fenton: TikTok has been talked about a lot in terms of the way data is stored. So, there’s been talk about this Texas plan to get the data from Americans stored there that is derived from the use of TikTok’s platform.
But the fact is, the data is really a minor issue in the way I look at it, and the way the select committee looked at it, and the way various intelligence agencies look at it. The real problem is propaganda. What we showed with the select committee to the various entities that needed to sign off on that bill was this massive amplification of things that divide the country, and this massive throttling of things that unite us or talk about certain narratives that Beijing wants to hide or disguise in terms of a global message.
So when you look at the fact that people under 35, almost 40% of them get all of their news and information from TikTok, and the fact that those people under 35 in five years are going to be 40, and then in five years after that are going to be 45, you’re realizing that the news and information that they’re digesting and making policy decisions on someday or even making every day consumer or citizen decisions on or elective decisions on, are going to be completely controlled by Beijing and the Ministry of Propaganda inside of Beijing’s arsenal.
Dan Martin: They are, in your opinion, far more of a risk than our own social media platforms?
Chris Fenton: Well, our own social media platforms aren’t owned and controlled by one of our four adversaries, right?
There are four adversaries as designated by Washington, DC, and our U.S. government. Those are Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China. Imagine if TikTok were a North Korean platform, or a Russian platform, or an Iranian platform. Would we allow it to have access to people under 35 here, the way we allow China to have access to people under 35? Also, think about this: Beijing itself does not allow its own 1.4 billion people to have access to the TikTok that we digest here on a daily basis.
They have their own platform called Douyin, and Douyin actually promotes and amplifies things that benefit society in China and benefit the system that Beijing has created there. There’s nothing nefarious, pernicious, wacky, or showing stunts that are against the system or against the law or any of the other things that influence our kids, influencing kids in China, because they simply don’t have access to the same TikTok platform we do here.
Dan Martin: That’s remarkable. On the one hand, we have this risk or challenge; on the other hand, you talked about the rare earths and cobalt magnets. Don’t we have rare earths here? How did we get into this situation where we’re solely dependent, or so massively dependent, on China in that area?
Chris Fenton: Well, it’s interesting. I think Beijing played a really good game of chess, and we played a good game of checkers. They outsmarted us when it came to understanding the importance of rare earths and the rare earth derivatives, such as the magnets the auto and military industrial complexes need.
They were smart, and we knew we had an issue with this dating back to 2010, yet we did nothing about it, mainly because of pressures coming from Beijing and where they were trying to put our emphasis and priorities when it came to getting access to their market. So, in a best-case scenario, we might be able to near-shore refining of rare earths that we might be able to get here or in allied countries by around 2028 or 2029.
But in the meantime, China has the upper hand. They have that chokehold. And if you combine that with the fact that we’re depleting our resources when it comes to both the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the Israeli-Iranian conflict, and the fact that we need to replenish those resources with supply chain materials that we don’t have access to, you start to see a real opportunity for Beijing to possibly, as they call reunification, that activity happened in terms of Taiwan and there might be nothing that we can do about that.
Dan Martin: It seems like there is a combination of risk and opportunity. And it seems to me that they’ve been playing the game and we haven’t quite known that there’s actually conflict going on. What you’re suggesting is a way for us to plan with the things that we do well and realize what their actual agenda is.
Chris Fenton: Yeah, the superpower that Beijing has is the ability to plan on say, 10, 25, 50, and hundred year horizons.
They’re not beholden to shareholder disputes or problems with investors or, say, 24 hour news cycles, or every two years election cycles, or things that move and disrupt different markets or industries, et cetera. They’re really planning for the future and they have these long-term plans.
We plan essentially day to day, hour to hour. So, we have a real problem and a weakness when it comes to that strategy. But what I will say is that the glue that will keep us from kinetic conflict is culture and commerce. It’s not national security, it’s not politics, it’s not human rights. It’s culture and commerce.
They like our culture. They want to digest it. They like our products, they believe they’re premium. We just need to think smarter about how we contain and keep national interests as a priority here in the US, while we still try to maintain a very healthy and long-term beneficial trade policy with that country, because it is that trade that’s going to keep us away from war.
Dan Martin: This has been a very interesting conversation, Chris. I think, as you said, thinking long term is going to be a challenge for us, but I think that trade, communications, and the culture are what we should concentrate on. Thank you very much for this discussion. I’ve really learned a lot. Thank you.
Chris Fenton: Thanks for having me, Dan.
