To commemorate the 5th anniversary of the China in the World podcast, Paul Haenle is interviewing five of the most respected Chinese international affairs scholars to discuss U.S.-China relations at an important inflection point. For the first episode in this series, Haenle spoke with Cui Liru, former president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. During the episode, Haenle and Cui discussed lessons from the past 40 years of the bilateral relationship, central areas of cooperation and competition, and a future framework that will allow the U.S. and China to avoid conflict. Cui asserted that U.S. and Chinese interests are not fundamentally incompatible, but that the relationship is in a fragile transition period that will require each country to work harder to better understand the other side’s common and diverging interests.