The US-China Podcast

In a conversation with fellow University of Toronto professor Sida Liu, Diana Fu discusses her new book, Mobilizing Without the Masses: Contention and Control in China. 

Dr. Diana Fu is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and an affiliate of the Munk School of Global Affairs Asian Institute. Her research examines the relationship between popular contention, state power, and civil society in contemporary China.  

In this interview with National Committee Senior Director for Educational Programs Margot Landman, Dr. Szu-chien Hsu discusses his work as the president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD). He talks about why he believes in the mission of TFD, how democratic values are being threatened worldwide, and his research findings on the political activism of Taiwan's youth.

Dr. Szu-chien Hsu is president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD), as well as an associate research fellow at the Institute of Political Science of Academia Sinica in Taipei and director of the Center for Contemporary China at National Tsinghua University in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

For more information on the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ events, visit us at https://www.ncuscr.org/events.

In this interview, professor Carl Minzner discusses his new book, End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival is Undermining its Rise with National Committee President Stephen Orlins. He talks about what inspired him to write the book, how norms established in the Reform Era are breaking down, and whether the Chinese government's actions have historical precedent in other countries.

Carl Minzner is an expert in Chinese law and governance. He has written extensively on these topics in both academic journals and the popular press, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Christian Science Monitor. Professor Minzner’s academic works include “China After the Reform Era” (Journal of Democracy, 2015), “The Rise and Fall of Chinese Legal Education” (Fordham International Law Journal, 2013), and “China’s Turn Against Law” (American Journal of Comparative Law, 2011).

For more information on the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ events, visit us at www.ncuscr.org/events.

In this interview, journalist Roseann Lake discusses her new book, Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World’s Next Superpower with National Committee Senior Director for Educational Programs Margot Landman. She talks about how she originally became interested in the topic, her research process, and the social barriers that created the “leftover women” phenomenon.

Roseann Lake is now The Economist's Cuba correspondent. She was previously based in Beijing, where she spent five years working as a television and print reporter. Her China coverage has appeared in Foreign Policy, Time, The Atlantic, Salon and Vice, among other publications. She divides her time between New York City and Havana.

For more information on the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations’ events, visit us at https://www.ncuscr.org/events.

On Sunday, February 25, 2018, the world learned that the Chinese Constitution would be amended to allow the president and vice president to stay in office beyond two terms (ten years) – the limit established in the 1982 constitutional revision. On Thursday, March 1, President Trump announced that the United States would impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports. Although the tariffs apply to products from all over the world, many assume that they are aimed at China.

The National Committee invited the Honorable Jeffrey A. Bader to discuss the implications of these and other recent developments in China and the United States, in a teleconference moderated by NCUSCR President Steve Orlins on March 6, 2018. In this brief excerpt from the teleconference, Ambassador Bader gives an overview of the impact of these events on the Sino-American relationship.

Jeffrey Bader is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center and the first director of the Center (2005-2009). From 2009 until 2011, Ambassador Bader was special assistant to the president of the United States for national security affairs at the National Security Council. In that capacity, he was the principal advisor to President Obama on Asia.

During his 30-year career with the U.S. government, Amb. Bader focused primarily on U.S.-China relations at the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Office of the United States Trade Representative. In 2001, as assistant U.S. trade representative, he led the United States delegation in completing negotiations on the accession of China and Taiwan into the World Trade Organization. As a foreign service officer, he served in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Namibia, Zambia, Congo, and the United States Mission to the United Nations. During the 1990s, he was deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia; director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council; and director of the State Department’s Office of Chinese Affairs. He served as U.S. ambassador to Namibia from 1999 to 2001.

Amb. Bader is the author of Obama and China’s Rise: An Insider’s Account of America’s Asia Strategy, published in 2012 by Brookings Institution Press. He is president and sole proprietor of Jeffrey Bader LLC, which provides assistance to companies with interests in Asia, and a member of the National Committee’s board of directors. He received his bachelor’s degree from Yale University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in European history from Columbia University.

In this podcast interview with National Committee President Stephen Orlins, Professor David Denoon discusses Chinese and American interests in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and South America, adding another dimension to the study of the bilateral relationship. 

Much has been written about the dynamics that have traditionally defined U.S.-China relations. But as China adopts a more activist foreign policy and increasingly seeks investment opportunities around the world, new theatres of cooperation and contention are coming into play. In a series of three edited volumes, David Denoon explores the interests and policies of the United States and China in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and South America respectively. In this trilogy, Professor Denoon examines points of both mutual and competing interests in the U.S. and China’s economic and security relations with each region.

On February 20, 2018, the National Committee held a discussion with Dr. Denoon that touched on all three volumes in the series, with Dr. Denoon comparing and contrasting the ways in which Sino-American strategic competition is unfolding in each region, as well as their implications for the broader U.S.-China relationship. 

David Denoon is a professor of politics and economics at New York University and director of the NYU Center on U.S.-China Relations. He has served in the federal government in three positions: program economist for USAID in Jakarta, vice president of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, and deputy assistant secretary of defense.

Professor Denoon is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the U.S. Committee on Security Cooperation in Asia and the Pacific (USSCAP), the Asia Society, the Korea Society, the U.S.-Indonesia Society, and is chairman of the New York University Asia Policy Seminar. He is also chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board of Great Decisions.

He is the author and editor of ten books, including Real Reciprocity - Balancing U.S. Economic and Security Policy in the Pacific Basin, and The Economic and Strategic Rise of China and India.

Professor Denoon holds a B.A. from Harvard University, an M.P.A. from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Between ballooning debt to GDP ratios, overinvestment in the property market, and industrial overcapacity, the uneven structure of China’s economic growth provides plenty of reasons for concern. Yet so far, China’s unique blend of state-led and laissez-faire capitalism has proved remarkably strong, defying numerous predictions of imminent economic catastrophe. In a new book, Will China’s Economy Collapse? New York University Adjunct Professor Ann Lee addresses key questions that China watchers and economists have been asking about the longevity of China’s unprecedented economic development and its future prospects.

In her book, Professor Lee examines why China’s economy might be more resilient than commonly presumed, and provides a careful analysis of its strengths and weaknesses. She also addresses the implications for other capitalist societies around the world and offers advice to policy makers about what changes must occur to ensure continued global stability and prosperity. Professor Lee discussed her book, China’s economic outlook, and the future of global capitalism in New York on February 7, 2018, with National Committee President Stephen Orlins.

 Ann Lee is an internationally recognized authority on China’s economic relations and the CEO of Coterie, a new technology investment consortium. She is also a former visiting professor at Peking University and currently an adjunct professor at New York University where she teaches macroeconomics and financial derivatives. She consults with policymakers from Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the U.S. about U.S.-China relations, international finance and trade, and China’s political economy.

In addition to numerous television and radio appearances, Dr. Lee’s op-eds have appeared in major publications in the United States and Asia.

 A former investment banker in high yield bonds and technology stocks, as well as a partner and credit derivatives trader in two multi-billion dollar hedge fund firms, she is also the author of the book What the U.S. Can Learn from China, an award winning international bestseller. She is an active member of the Authors Guild and the Pen America Society.

Dr. Lee attended U.C. Berkeley, Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs, and Harvard Business School.

On May 12, 2008, a massive earthquake rocked central Sichuan, killing 87,000 people and leaving five million homeless in the second worst natural disaster in China’s modern history (the first was the Tangshan earthquake of 1976). As news of the event spread, hundreds of thousands of volunteers poured into Sichuan from all over China to help wherever they were needed. Many cooked, cleaned, and cared for survivors, but the sudden explosion of civic engagement also led to more politically oriented activities, as the magnitude of the tragedy forced an emotional confrontation with the deeper causes of the destruction beyond the violence of the quake itself.

In a new book The Politics of Compassion: The Sichuan Earthquake and Civic Engagement in China, sociologist and China expert Bin Xu examines the ways in which civic engagement unfolded in the aftermath of the earthquake, and what these developments reveal about China’s evolving civil society.

Drawing on extensive interviews and documentary research, Dr. Xu challenges many of the popular narratives about the national outpouring of compassion, and illustrates the tension between volunteering and activism. Dr. Xu joined the National Committee on January 31, 2018, for a discussion of his book and China’s civil society with NCUSCR Vice President Jan Berris.

 Bin Xu is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Emory University. His research interests lie at the intersection of politics and culture. He is currently writing a book on the collective memory of China’s “educated youth” (zhiqing) generation—the 17 million Chinese youth sent down to the countryside in the 1960s and 1970s. His research has appeared in leading sociology and China studies journals, including Theory & Society, Sociological Theory, Social Problems, Social Psychology Quarterly, China Quarterly, and The China Journal.  Dr. Xu is a fellow in the National Committee’s Public Intellectuals Program.

After the United States and China established diplomatic relations in 1979, those who had left China around 1949 were able to visit family members who had remained in China. Three decades of separation gave rise to many unanswered questions on both sides. One such question inspired young journalist Jennifer Lin: “Do you have any idea what happened to us?” she was asked at a family reunion in Shanghai in 1979. She then embarked on a 30-year quest to uncover her family history. The daughter of a Chinese father and a Catholic, Italian-American mother, Ms. Lin explored her family’s Anglican past in Shanghai, and its experiences as Chinese Christians under communist rule. The resulting book, Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Forgiveness in a Chinese Christian Family, is an account of China’s chaotic modern history through the eyes of a single family whose western education, charismatic leadership, and Christian faith made it targets during the Cultural Revolution. Ms. Lin joined the National Committee on January 24, 2018 in New York, for a discussion of her book, her family, and the recent history of Christianity in China with National Committee Senior Director for Education Programs Margot Landman.

Jennifer Lin is an award-winning journalist and former reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer; she served as the paper’s New York financial correspondent, Washington foreign affairs reporter, and Asia bureau chief in Beijing.

The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations is the leading nonprofit nonpartisan organization that encourages understanding of China and the United States among citizens of both countries.

China’s rapid economic growth that has accompanied its “Reform and Opening” over the last four decades is the subject of millions of pages of discussion and analysis. Yet it is rarely contextualized within the long arc of China’s quest for modernity stretching back at least to the mid-19th century. Long before Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, enterprising Chinese engaged the outside world through trade, education, and other mediums, laying the foundation for China’s modernization. From this perspective, the Mao era appears as an interlude rather than a new beginning. In his book, A Village with My Name: A Family History of China’s Opening to the World, journalist Scott Tong explores continuities in China’s development through an investigation of his own family history.

Beginning at the end of his stay in Shanghai for the radio program “Marketplace,” and over the next few years, Mr. Tong travelled around China to uncover his family’s past and reconnect with family members who stayed behind when some of his grandparents and his parents fled the mainland. The result is a long form journalistic account of his family’s story, China’s tumultuous modern history, and the roots of the country’s present ascendancy. Mr. Tong joined the National Committee on December 18, 2017 in New York for a discussion of his book as well as his three and a half year journey to discover China’s past along with his own. The conversation was moderated by Professor James Carter, Director of Asian Studies at Saint Joseph’s University. 

Scott Tong has reported from more than a dozen countries as a correspondent for Marketplace, from refugee camps in east Africa to shoe factories in eastern China. Currently he serves on Marketplace’s sustainability desk, focusing on energy, the environment, natural resources and the global economy. Mr. Tong joined Marketplace in 2004, and opened its first bureau in Shanghai, as bureau chief, in 2006. Before joining Marketplace, he worked as a producer and off-air reporter for the PBS NewsHour, where he produced a series of mini-documentaries from Iraq following the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations is the leading nonprofit nonpartisan organization that encourages understanding of China and the United States among citizens of both countries.