The US-China Podcast

Michael Green: U.S. Strategy and Power in the Asia Pacific

American strategic engagement with the Asia Pacific has deep roots in American history, going back to the nation’s founding. Despite the difficulties of formulating and maintaining a coherent grand strategy amid democratic competition, the United States has, over more than 200 years, developed a distinctive approach to the region based on its interests and national identity. In a new book, By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783, Center for S...

Syaru Shirley Lin: Taiwan’s China Dilemma

The election of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen in January 2016 brought renewed uncertainty to cross-strait relations. Taiwan is more economically integrated with mainland China than ever before, yet the PRC continues to pose a threat to Taiwanese self-government, and has not renounced the use of force to achieve unification. Even as the core dilemma between security and economics has driven Taiwanese politics for over two decades, shifting political winds on the island have refocused attent...

Hollywood Made In China: Interview with Aynne Kokas

China’s booming film market has become an essential consideration for the production of Hollywood movies and is expected to overtake the U.S. market by 2017. In an effort to take advantage of this growth, American entertainment conglomerates are increasingly partnering with Chinese studios, and producing products for the Chinese market. So far, they have been highly successful, with four of the ten all-time highest grossing films in China produced by U.S. studios. As American entertainment c...

Analysis of China's Overseas Development: Brad Parks, AidData

Over the last decade, China has emerged as one of the largest suppliers of international development finance, with a large and growing overseas development budget. Yet China does not release detailed information about the “where, what, how, and to whom” of its development aid. This presents an obstacle for policy makers, practitioners, and analysts who seek to understand the distribution and impact of Chinese development finance.   Since 2013, AidData has led an ambitious effort to devel...

Chinese Politics in the Xi Jinping Era: Interview with Cheng Li

Since becoming general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, Xi Jinping has pursued a bold policy agenda designed to strengthen the party and enhance influence abroad, consolidating more power and authority than any Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping. Throughout this period, President Xi’s actions and pronouncements have often seemed to be contradictory. He has called for greater legal development, championed China’s think tanks, and advanced cooperation with the United States on...

Author Interview: John Pomfret, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom

Award-winning author John Pomfret discusses his newly published The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, tracing the history of Sino-American relations, in a conversation with National Committee President Stephen Orlins on January 23, 2017 in New York. Although the contemporary U.S.-China relationship has grown out of Nixon and Kissinger’s visits to China in the 1970s, the foundations of Sino-American exchange are hundreds of years old. Since the establishment of the United States, mi...

Watching the Era of Xi and Trump Part II: Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Noted China expert Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, discusses relations between China and America in the dawning era of Xi and Trump, in an interview with National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Senior Director for Education Programs, Margot Landman, on December 12, 2016. Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Chancellor's Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine, where he also holds appointments in law and literary jour...

Watching the Era of Xi and Trump Part I: Jiayang Fan

New Yorker magazine Staff Writer Jiayang Fan discusses relations between China and America in the dawning era of Xi and Trump, in an interview with National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Senior Director for Education Programs, Margot Landman, on December 12, 2016. Jiayang Fan is a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine, where she writes about China and Chinese-American politics and culture. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, and ...

Hong Kong in the Shadow of China: Richard Bush

Unresolved questions about Hong Kong’s political future, long hidden beneath the surface of the territory’s bustling commercial activity, burst to the forefront in 2014 in response to proposed electoral reforms. Since then the debate over democracy in Hong Kong has developed into a significant challenge to Beijing’s vision for the former British colony. The Umbrella Movement, the 2015 “Fishball Revolution,” and the recent LegCo oath-taking controversy, have brought attention to the issues ...

Aaron Halegua: Who Will Represent China’s Workers?

The Chinese economic miracle of the last three decades has been powered by millions of people transitioning out of agriculture and into urban industrial jobs, transforming labor relations in the process. Legal mechanisms have struggled to keep pace with the frictions and challenges that accompanied marketization and the fastest urbanization in history. Progress in legislating legal protections for workers is often hampered by problems of implementation and employer preferences for unofficial...

Interview: Chinese Leadership and the Tide of History: Kerry Brown

Do leaders make history or does history make leaders? At a National Committee program on November 10, 2016, in New York City, Kerry Brown tackled these perennial questions as he talked about the Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, which he edited—the first work of its kind in over a century. Brown presented Chinese biography as a uniquely useful way to understand historical events, and discussed the influence of individual Chinese leaders, in different fields, over the last four decad...

The Business Environment in China: John Frisbie, USCBC President

Heading into 2016, some expected a sharp decline in China’s economic growth. So far, China has avoided a hard landing and continues to meet its modified growth targets, but the slowdown is clearly real. As China adjusts to its “new normal,” business leaders remain anxious about the long term prospects of the world’s second largest economy. Concerned about lagging structural reforms, high corporate debt ratios, stock market volatility, and hesitant policy responses, market sentiment is soften...

China’s New NGO Management Law: Shawn Shieh

South China Sea: U.S. & Chinese Expert Perspectives

China’s Economy: Interview with Author Arthur Kroeber

On August 24, 2015, global financial markets plunged following China’s “Black Monday,” the largest sell-off in the history of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Following a burst in the stock market bubble in June 2015, trillions of dollars were erased from the stock index throughout the summer, with the largest day of losses hitting on Black Monday. The sheer scale of the stock market crash, accompanied by weak manufacturing data and an unexpected devaluation of China’s currency exacerbated long ...

Book Launch Interview: Street of Eternal Happiness - Author Rob Schmitz

Within the past few decades, China has undergone a series of profound social changes stemming from globalization and its own domestic economic reforms and political development. Cultural attitudes deeply embedded in China for centuries have changed seemingly overnight with the expansion of the Chinese middle class. Perhaps no city in China quite exemplifies this colossal transformation like Shanghai. Once a moderately sized port city, Shanghai has quickly become a sprawling global financia...

Maoism at the Grassroots: Author Interview with Matthew Johnson & Jeremy Brown

The political ideology of Mao Zedong swept China following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and still has an impact on life in contemporary China. Maoism at the Grassroots, edited by Matthew D. Johnson and Jeremy Brown, examines the first decades of the People’s Republic of China from the perspective of ordinary people. While the Mao era is often regarded as a time of Party-state dominance—achieved through massive political campaigns such as the Great Leap Forwa...

China Economy & Business Interview: Amcham Shanghai President Ken Jarrett

Kenneth Jarrett, President, American Chamber of Commerce, Shanghai, discusses China’s economy, current economic data and the business climate in China. Mr. Jarrett also remarks on what American companies can expect in navigating the Chinese market as global and internal economic factors affect the U.S. and Chinese economies, in a conversation with National Committee on U.S.-China Relations President Stephen Orlins on May 5, 2016 in New York City.   Kenneth Jarrett became president of the...

China, India and the U.S.: Interview with Author Anja Manuel

Some people argue that the global balance of power is shifting away from the North Atlantic and toward the Asia-Pacific as countries such as India and China gain economic, military, and political influence. India and China may appear to be developing new international systems – for example, through the AIIB – that could threaten the post-war order developed by the United States and Western Europe. However, long-simmering tensions between India and China make it clear that they do not form a ...

China and Russia: Interview with Dr. Maria Repnikova

With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese communist leadership established a formal alliance with the Soviet Union. The pact between the two communist giants proved to be short-lived as ideological differences between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong, coupled with the growing fear in China of Soviet encirclement, compromised the alliance. Eventually, following several border skirmishes, including a war in 1969, China’s leade...

History of China’s Foreign Relations: Author Interview - John Garver

Dr. John Garver, author of China’s Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic of China discussed his book with National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Vice President Jan Berris on April 14, 2016 in New York City. When the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, China was in a state of disarray. Decades of occupation and civil war had left the country fractured and impoverished. The nation embarked on an ambitious effort to overhaul its economic and ...

The Greening of Asia: Author Interview - Mark Clifford

In the months leading up to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, China began making a series of pledges to overhaul its environmental and energy policies. To curb emissions, it announced the creation of a cap-and-trade program, restrictions on domestic coal production, and investment in renewable energy. At the Paris conference, China’s top climate negotiator expressed confidence in the measures and policies China was putting into place. However, questions remain whether China’s new approache...

Occupational Hazards: Sex, Business and HIV in China – Author Interview: Elanah Uretsky

In this podcast, Dr. Elanah Uretsky discusses her recent book, Occupational Hazards:  Sex, Business, and HIV in Post-Mao China, with National Committee Program Officer Maura Cunningham. The book follows a group of Chinese businessmen and government officials as they conduct business in Beijing and western Yunnan Province, uncovering informal networks that result in political favors for the businessmen. The networks are built on liquor, cigarettes, food, and sex; risky behaviors turn into occ...

China's One Child Policy & Women's Issues: Author Mei Fong

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Human Rights Press Award, author Mei Fong discusses China’s one child policy, women’s issues and child adoptions in a candid discussion of her recent book, One Child: The Story of China’s Most Radical Experiment, with National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman. Despite its implementation at a time of global concern about over-population, China’s one-child policy developed into one of the most controversial social policies of the...

“Will Africa Feed China?” Interview: Author Deborah Brautigam

Given its experience of colonialism, Africans have long been suspicious of Chinese intentions on the continent. Recent allegations of unprecedented Chinese state-sponsored acquisitions of African farmland have alarmed many who now fear that Africa, with its large tracts of untouched arable land, will enter a new colonial era. In her book, Will Africa Feed China?, leading expert and National Committee director Deborah Bräutigam analyzes the nature of Chinese agricultural investment in Africa...

John Birch: A Life - Discussion with author Terry Lautz

Born to American missionaries in northern India, John Birch went to China in 1940 as an Independent Baptist missionary. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Birch volunteered for the U.S. Army to fight the Japanese in China and was recruited by Claire Chennault, leader of the Flying Tigers and the U.S. 14th Air Force, as a field intelligence officer. John Birch is better known today for what happened after he was shot and killed by Chinese Communist forces in the days immediately follo...

Confucius and the World He Created: Author Michael Schuman

Confucianism, with its emphasis on virtue and social harmony, served as the foundation of Chinese civilization for over two thousand years. The teachings of the famous Chinese sage had an impact on every aspect of Chinese life and social structure and ultimately spread and flourished throughout East Asia. Confucianism’s prominence in Chinese culture was shattered during the twentieth century as reformers and revolutionaries labeled the ancient sage an outdated relic preventing China from bec...

China, Internet and Social Media: Jeremy Goldkorn of Sinica

Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of Danwei research firm and co-host of the Sinica podcast discusses developments in China’s internet and social media culture, the founding of Danwei and  his long-time interest in China in an interview with National Committee Program Officer Maura Cunningham on December 14, 2015 in New York City. The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations is the leading nonprofit nonpartisan organization that encourages understanding of China and the United States among citizen...

Author Interview: Simon Winchester, “PACIFIC”

Simon Winchester discusses his new book, In PACIFIC: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World’s Superpowers.  Politicians and scholars alike have dubbed the twenty-first century “The Pacific Century” to reflect the profound shift in global power toward the Asia-Pacific.  Even though it is the largest body of water on the planet, through which the majority of global trade passes, the history of the Pacif...

Author Interview: Thomas J. Christensen, “The China Challenge”

China’s growing economic and political influence has raised concerns among some in the United States that China’s regained status as a major power represents a strategic threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. In The China Challenge:  Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power, Thomas Christensen seeks to counter this zero-sum narrative by offering a new paradigm in which the real challenge for the United States lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country...

Lyle Goldstein on Defusing U.S.-China Rivalry

Despite worrying signs of intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing, few observers have offered paths away from disaster. In Meeting China Halfway: How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry, author Lyle J. Goldstein focuses on American and Chinese perceptions of where their interests clash and proposes ways to ease bilateral tensions through compromise. In a conversation with NCUSCR President Stephen Orlins, Dr. Goldstein outlines key strategic concerns between the United States...

Zhu Feng: Maritime Issues in the South China Sea

Zhu Feng, director of China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, discusses maritime issues involving China, including China’s island construction in the South China Sea, Chinese engagement in international boundary dispute mechanisms, and the effect of China’s relative size as a factor in maritime discussions.   Zhu Feng, who is also a senior researcher at the China Center for Peace and Development and a professor at Peking University’s School of In...

Interview with Author Michael Meyer: In Manchuria

Michael Meyer, author of In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China discussed the genesis of his new book, the village called Wasteland (set in the beautiful landscape of Jilin Province), his research process and life in the village in an interview with National Committee Program Officer Maura Elizabeth Cunningham on April 2, 2015.  As the author of the acclaimed The Last Days of Old Beijing (2008), Mr. Meyer received a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonficti...

China’s Bid to Host the 2022 Winter Olympics: Susan Brownell

China formally announced its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in January 2015. Dr. Susan Brownell, Renowned authority of Chinese sports and the Olympics, discusses China’s Olympic aspirations, prospects for the 2022 bid and her experiences participating in and studying Chinese sports. Dr. Brownell is a professor of anthropology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and currently a visiting professor at the Institute of Sinology, Heidelberg University (Germany), is an internationally ...

Eric Liu: Chinese-Americans’ Evolving Identity

Author Eric Liu (A Chinaman’s Chance), discusses the evolving identity of Chinese-Americans in light of their growing role in American society in the midst of America’s engagement with a more prosperous China. Liu discusses the personal experiences reflected in the book’s themes and the unique history and development of Chinese-American identity. Interviewed on February 20, 2015 by Jonathan Lowet, NCUSCR’s Senior Director, Leadership Initiatives. Eric Liu is an author, educator, and civic e...

China’s Changing Economy: Dr. Nicholas Lardy

Dr. Nicholas Lardy, a leading expert on China’s economy and  the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, discusses key points of his most recent book “Markets Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China” in an interview with National Committee President Stephen Orlins. Dr. Lardy addresses the misperception that state-owned entities are the driving force of the Chinese economy and how this influences U.S. policies towards China. Topics of t...

Leading Economist Huang Yiping: China's Economic Prospects

One of China’s most influential economists, Huang Yiping, deputy dean and professor at Peking University’s National School of Development, discusses his views of current downward pressures on the Chinese economy and whether reforms will improve growth by 2020. In a conversation with Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Dr. Huang explains current efforts in China to re-allocate capital and liberalize interest rates with respect to their effects on stat...

Richard Bernstein: China 1945

In China 1945 Richard Bernstein tells the incredible story of that year’s sea change, analyzing its many components, from ferocious infighting among U.S. diplomats, military leaders, and opinion makers to the complex relations between Mao and his patron, Stalin. Bernstein examines the first time that American power and good intentions came face-to-face with a powerful Asian revolutionary movement, and challenges familiar assumptions about the origins of modern Sino-American relations. Rich...

Cities and Stability: China's Urbanization with Author Jeremy Wallace

China's management of urbanization is an under-appreciated factor in the regime's longevity. The Chinese Communist Party fears the emergence of unequal megacities with their attendant slums and social unrest, as has occurred in many cities around the world, because such cities might threaten the survival of the regime. To combat the threat, many regimes, including China's, adopt policies that favor cities. Cities and Stability shows this "urban bias" to be a Faustian bargain: cities may be s...

China's Second Continent with Howard French

Prizewinning foreign correspondent Howard French tells the story of China in Africa in China’s Second Continent. Through meticulous on-the-ground reporting, conducted in Mandarin, French, and Portuguese, among other languages, French creates a multi-leveled picture through discussion not only with policy-shaping leaders and diplomats, but also with the ordinary men and women navigating the street-level realities of cooperation, prejudice, corruption, and opportunity forged by this important ...

Can China Lead? with William Kirby

William C. Kirby is T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. A historian of modern China, Professor Kirby's work examines China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. Can China Lead?: Reaching the Limits of Power and Growth asserts that while China has experienced remarkable economic growth in recent decades, it now faces major challenges--tests t...

Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations with Jessica Chen Weiss

Join National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman as she interviews Jessica Chen Weiss, assistant professor of political science at Yale, about her book, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations. Dr. Weiss discusses Chinese government management of nationalist, anti-foreign protests and their diplomatic consequences from 1985 to 2012. She argues that official response ranges from repression to tolerance to facilitation of such protests- ...

Interview with Leta Hong Fincher on 'Leftover' Women

Join National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman as she interviews Leta Hong Fincher, a former journalist who just completed her doctorate in sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing, about her book, 'Leftover' Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China.  Dr. Hong Fincher reflects on the campaign in place since 2007 to persuade young urban, educated Chinese women to marry by the age of 25 - or 27 or 30 at the latest - or risk being "leftover," and thu...

Mutual Misperceptions of China and the United States with Zha Daojiong

Join National Committee President Stephen Orlins as he explores the perils of misperception between China and the United States with Zha Daojiong, professor of international political economy at the School of International Studies of Peking University and Arthur Ross Fellow at the Asia Society in New York for the summer of 2014.

Age of Ambition with Evan Osnos

Evan Osnos, a correspondent based in Beijing for eight years, discusses his views on China’s rise and his new book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, with National Committee President Stephen Orlins. 

The Role of American NGOs in China’s Modernization with Norton Wheeler

Norton Wheeler, associate professor at Missouri Southern State University, is interviewed by National Committee Vice President Jan Berris about his new book, The Role of American NGOs in China’s Modernization:  Invited Influence.  Dr. Wheeler explores the impact of American NGOs on education, environment, fiscal policy, and civil society in China, using three case studies:  the Hopkins-Nanjing Center,  the 1990 Institute, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth Century Monk

Join National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman as she interviews James Carter, professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, about his book, Heart of Buddha, Heart of China.  Dr. Carter reflects on renowned monk Tanxu as an individual, a Buddhist, and a nationalist whose life spanned the tremendous upheavals in China from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century.

Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge with Andrew Mertha

Join Andrew Mertha (associate professor of Government at Cornell) as he discusses his new book, Brothers in Arms:  Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge 1975-79.    When the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia in 1975, they inherited a war-ravaged and internationally isolated country. Pol Pot's government espoused of self-reliance, but Democratic Kampuchea depended on Chinese foreign aid and technical assistance. In a markedly asymmetrical relationship between a modernizing, nuclear power and a v...

Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping with David Lampton

Join National Committee President Stephen Orlins as he interviews David M. Lampton, George and Sadie Hyman Professor and Director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, as they discuss Lampton’s new book, Following the Leader:  Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping.  Dr. Lampton shares his insights on the Chinese leadership, the influence of Chinese leaders after their retirements, political reform in China, and other topics.  

Striving for Rule of Law in China with He Weifang

Professor He Weifang, preeminent legal scholar on the rule of law and judicial independence at Beijing University, discusses the status of the rule of law in China and provides his insights into the challenging path of legal reform over the last three decades.  He points out the existing problems with the current Chinese legal system and recommends constructive measures to reform the system by loosening the Party’s control of the judiciary.  Despite the many obstacles he outlines, he remains...