On July 3rd, 5 principals published a Scholars’ and Experts’ letter (Letter) in the Washington Post (WP) entitled ‘China is not an enemy’. Taylor Fravel, J. Stapleton Roy, Michael D Swaine, Ezra Vogel and Susan Thornton were the five who shepherded the letter to publication in the Opinion section of the WP. The Letter raised a fair degree of notice as it pushed back against those in the Community and in the U.S. Administration, who urged support for the Trump China policy including support for the current U.S.-China Trade War. This podcast with Susan was designed to understand how the principals came to consensus over the content of the Letter, the objectives of the Letter - its 7 propositions and what might be a better U.S. policy toward China.

Susan is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center. Thornton was a career diplomat who worked at the United States State Department. She served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian Affairs from 2016 to 2018 and before that she worked as the Deputy Chief of Mission to the United States Embassy in Turkmenistan.

In leadership roles in Washington, Thornton worked on China and Korea policy, including stabilizing relations with Taiwan, the U.S.-China Cyber Agreement, the Paris Climate Accord and led a successful negotiation in Pyongyang for monitoring of the Agreed Framework on denuclearization