The US-China Podcast

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 held concerns by some economists that China’s economic development was unstable. In his new book, China’s Economy: What Everyone Needs to Know, Arthur Kroeberargues that many of these fears are exaggerated.

To understand the context of the current economic situation, Dr. Kroeber describes how the Chinese economy has evolved since 1979 and the initial reforms of the Deng Xiaoping era. The Communist Party of China has effectively managed the transformation of the economy. The Chinese leadership was able to learn from the examples of other East Asian “development states.” While there are considerable similarities, Dr. Kroeber notes that there are also profound differences between China’s development model and those of Japan and South Korea; the similarities and the differences have a profound impact on the prospects for China’s economy.

As Western economies continue to struggle to rebound from the global financial crisis of 2008, worldwide economic progress has been dependent on China’s unprecedented economic successes. Some analysts fear that systemic flaws in China’s economy will undermine China’s economic potential. Join us as Arthur R. Kroeber discusses the Chinese economy as it moves in a consumer-driven direction amid demographic and environmental challenges, with the National Committee on May 18, in New York City.

Arthur R. Kroeber is head of research at Gavekal, a financial-services firm based in Hong Kong, founder of the China-focused Gavekal Dragonomics research service, and editor of China Economic Quarterly. He divides his time between Beijing and New York. Before founding Dragonomics in 2002, he spent fifteen years as a financial and economic journalist in China and South Asia.

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.

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 financial and cultural center rivaling New York and London. The economic promise of Shanghai has attracted millions of Chinese and foreigners alike seeking to partake in the seeming torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. One of these dreamers is Rob Schmitz, who traveled to Shanghai as a correspondent for Marketplace. While immersing himself in his neighborhood, Mr. Schmitz encountered a web of individuals whose life stories together portray the mosaic of contemporary China. In his new book, Street of Eternal Happiness, Schmitz narrates the experiences of these everyday people, and the hardships many have endured in their struggle to adapt to an ever-changing China. As he became more involved in their lives, Schmitz made surprising discoveries that reveal a family’s – and country’s - dark past, and an abandoned neighborhood where fates have been violently altered by unchecked power and greed.

A tale of 21st century China, Street of Eternal Happiness profiles China’s distinct generations through individuals whose lives illuminate an enlightening, humorous, and at times heartrending journey along the winding road to the Chinese Dream. Each story adds another layer of humanity and texture to modern China. The result is an intimate and surprising portrait that dispenses with the tired stereotypes of a country we think we know, presenting us instead with the vivid stories of the people who make up one of the world’s most captivating cities. Join us as Rob Schmitz launches his book with the National Committee on May 17, in New York City.

Rob Schmitz is the China correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace, the largest business news program in the U.S. with more than 12 million listeners a week. Mr. Schmitz has won several awards for his reporting on China, including two national Edward R. Murrow awards and an Education Writers Association award. His work was also a finalist for the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His reporting in Japan — from the hardest-hit areas near the failing Fukushima nuclear power plant following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami — was included in the publication “100 Great Stories,” celebrating the centennial of Columbia University’s Journalism School. In 2012, Rob exposed the fabrications in Mike Daisey’s account of Apple’s supply chain on This American Life. His report was featured in the show’s “Retraction” episode, the most downloaded episode in the program’s 16-year history.

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.

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 Forward and the Cultural Revolution—the authors in this volume marshal new research to reveal a wide array of individual viewpoints and local experiences during China’s years of high socialism.

Focusing on the period from the mid-1950s to 1980, the authors provide insights into the everyday lives of citizens across social strata, ethnicities, and regions. They explore how ordinary men and women risked persecution and imprisonment to assert personal beliefs and identities. Many displayed a shrewd knack for negotiating the complicated power structures of everyday Maoism, appropriating regime ideology in their daily lives while finding ways to express discontent and challenge the state’s pervasive control. Men had gay relationships in factory dormitories, teenagers wrote searing complaints in diaries, farmers formed secret societies and worshipped forbidden spirits. These diverse undercurrents were as representative of ordinary people’s lives as the ideals depicted in state propaganda.

Bringing together contributions from scholars in China, Europe, North America, and Taiwan, Maoism at the Grassroots offers fresh insights into the day-to-day realities of life under Mao. Matthew Johnson and Jeremy Brown reevaluated the history of Maoism and its impact on Chinese society with the National Committee on May 10, 2016 in New York City.

Jeremy Brown is an associate professor of history at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. He is the author of City Versus Countryside in Mao’s China: Negotiating the Divide, and editor of Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism (co-edited with Matthew D. Johnson) and Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People’s Republic of China (co-edited with Paul G. Pickowicz).  His recent research on the social history of accidents in the People's Republic of China has been supported by a Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship and by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.  He is also writing a new history of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.  

Matthew Johnson is an associate professor of East Asian history and chair of the East Asian Studies concentration at Grinnell College. As a Fulbright scholar he carried out an archive- and interview-based history of China's Mao-era film industry, and he is the author and editor of numerous academic publications on Chinese media, culture, and society. He is also a founder of the PRC History Group (prchistory.org) and an editor of the H-PRC listserv and open-access journal The PRC History Review.

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.

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 American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai in September 2013.  Prior to that he was the Greater China chairman for APCO Worldwide, a public affairs consultancy (2008-2013), and before that a U.S. diplomat (1982-2008).  During his 26-year diplomatic career, Mr. Jarrett’s postings included consul general in Shanghai, deputy consul general in Hong Kong, and director of Asian Affairs at the White House National Security Council.  He also served in Beijing, Chengdu, and Singapore, and had several assignments in Washington, DC.  Mr. Jarrett has degrees from Cornell University, Yale University and the National War College. He is the recipient of the Magnolia Award (Silver) from the Shanghai government and is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

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.

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 united bloc, and present an opportunity for the United States to play a role in re-shaping the balance of power throughout the world. 

Given the considerable differences arising between New Delhi and Beijing, and the fact that each country confronts enormous domestic issues including poverty, corruption, and environmental degradation on a huge scale, how can the United States manage its relationships with the two rising Asian powers?  For the third installment of our 50th Anniversary series, China and the World, Ms. Anja Manuel, author of This Brave New World: India, China and the United States, described the Sino-Indian relationship and the role the United States may play in creating a new balance of power with both India and China. Moderated by National Committee President Stephen Orlins, the program was held on May 9, 2016 in New York City.

 Anja Manuel is co-founder and partner, along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, of RiceHadleyGates LLC, a strategic consulting firm.

Anja Manuel is also a lecturer in the International Policy Studies Program at Stanford University where she designed and teaches a course on U.S. foreign policy in Asia.

From 2005 to 2007, Anja Manuel served as special assistant to Under-Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns at the U.S. Department of State. In this role, Ms. Manuel was responsible for South Asia policy, Congressional outreach and legal matters. She was part of the negotiating team for the U.S.-India civilian nuclear accord, helped to secure passage of the accord in the U.S. Congress, and was deeply involved in developing U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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 leaders feared a Soviet invasion. To counter this, Mao sought rapprochement with the United States, a move that would define Sino-Soviet relations until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

For the second installment of our 50th Anniversary series, China and the World, Dr. Maria Repnikova, expert on Sino-Russian relations, described the latest developments in the relationship with National Committee President Stephen Orlins on April 18, 2016 in New York City.    

Dr. Maria Repnikova is a scholar of comparative Chinese and Russian media politics and Sino-Russian relations. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, where she is completing a book on critical journalists in China.

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 political systems. While its domestic agenda was the priority for the Communist Party of China, China had to develop a foreign policy, particularly to deal with the world’s capitalist countries in the midst of the Cold War.

With memories of the “century of humiliation” fresh in Chinese people’s minds, countering inroads of Western bourgeois liberalism was at the top of the international agenda during the early years of the PRC. As the Cold War evolved, however, so, too, did China’s foreign policy concerns.  Following Stalin’s death, China’s leadership grew increasingly skeptical of the Soviet Union and the intentions of its new Premier, Nikita Khrushchev. The Sino-Soviet split exposed what author and scholar John W. Garver considers the real force shaping the PRC’s foreign policy: regime survival. While many political scientists have analyzed China’s approach to the split through a realist lens, focusing on national interest, Dr. Garver argues that de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union threatened the ideological foundation of the Chinese communist regime. 

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.

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 approaches will be sufficient to curb global climate change. Despite being the world’s largest investor in green energy, China is still the world’s largest producer of greenhouses gases. Furthermore, recent allegations that China has been underreporting carbon emissions have cast doubt on China’s ability to meet its international environmental commitments.

On April 5, 2016 at the National Committee’s New York offices, Mark L. Clifford, author of The Greening of Asia: The Business Case for Solving Asia’s Environmental Emergency, discussed his latest research with National Committee President Stephen Orlins.

Mark L. Clifford is the Hong Kong-based executive director of the Asia Business Council. Previously he was editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Standard, and the Asia regional editor for BusinessWeek. 

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.