Live in Berkeley: Jessica Chen Weiss and Ryan Hass on the U.S. and China in 2025

This week, a special episode taped live at the University of California, Berkeley — my alma mater — on March 6 and featuring Jessica Chen Weiss of Johns Hopkins SAIS and Ryan Hass of the Brookings Institution, both well-known to people who follow U.S.-China relations. This episode was made possible by the Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley's Institute for Asian Studies, and will be available on video as well — I'll update with the link. 5:32 – Looking back on the Biden administration’s approach to China 12:28 – Attempting to outline the new Trump administration’s approach to China 20:34 – The view from Beijing of Trump 2.0 26:54 – The Kindleberger Trap (and other "traps") 29:35 – China, the U.S., and the Russo-Ukrainian war, and the idea of a “reverse Kissinger”  34:23 – The problem with framing objectionable Trump policy moves as ceding victories to China  36:51 – How countries in the Western Pacific region are responding to the new administration  38:48 – Taiwan’s concerns for Trump’s shift on Ukraine 41:45 – Predictions for how the Trump administration will handle technology competition with China, and the apparent abandonment of industrial policy  48:14 – What the affirmative vision for U.S.-China policy should look like  Paying It Forward: Ryan: Patricia Kim and Jon Czin at Brookings Jessica: Jeffrey Ding at George Washington University and Jonas Nahm at Johns Hopkins SAIS  Recommendations: Jessica: The movie Conclave (2024) Ryan: Derek Thompson’s piece in The Atlantic, “The Anti-Social Century,” and Robert Cooper’s The Ambassadors: Thinking about Diplomacy from Machiavelli to Modern Times   Kaiser: The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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A weekly discussion of current affairs in China with journalists, writers, academics, policymakers, business people and anyone with something compelling to say about the country that's reshaping the world. Hosted by Kaiser Kuo.