Susan Thornton, former senior U.S. diplomat, returns to the Sinica Podcast this week. This conversation was recorded during the Princeton U.S.-China Coalition virtual event on August 1, 2020. Kaiser and Susan discuss the value of American diplomacy with China and if such engagement can help salvage what remains of a deeply strained bilateral relationship between China and the United States.
9:27: Swapping diplomacy for machismo at the State Department
23:06: The sharp falloff in candidates entering the U.S. Foreign Service
28:29: Fatalism and China
34:08: Distrust and vilify, Washington’s new China policy
Recommendations:
Susan: Mr. X and the Pacific: George F. Kennan and American Policy in East Asia, by Paul J. Heer.
Kaiser: The TV show Better Call Saul, available on Netflix.
China's space program, with NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao
China and the American "great power opportunity," with Ali Wyne
Another Taiwan Straits Crisis? CIA veteran John Culver weighs in
The Sinica Network presents the Café & Seda (Coffee & Silk) Podcast
Prototype Nation: Silvia Lindtner on what drives Chinese tech innovation, and how tech drives Chinese statecraft
Semiconductors and the unspoken U.S. tech policy on China, with Paul Triolo
Historian Andrew Liu on COVID origins: Orientalism and the "Asiatic racial form"
Yale's Jing Tsu on the characters who modernized Chinese characters
Taiwan: Saber rattling, salami slicing, and strategic ambiguity, with Shelley Rigger and Simona Grano
A Comprehensive Mirror: James Carter's "This Week in China's History" column marks two years
Mental health under lockdown: A clinical psychologist in Shanghai
Covering the U.S.-China relations beat with the FT's Demetri Sevastopulo
Too much of a good thing? Connectivity and the age of "unpeace," with the ECFR's Mark Leonard
The rise and fall of U.S.-China scientific collaboration, with Deborah Seligsohn
Chinese public opinion on the Russo-Ukrainian War, with Yawei Liu and Danielle Goldfarb
China and India share a contested border and an uncomfortable neutrality in the Ukraine War — but not much else
China, Europe, and the Russo-Ukrainian War, with Marina Rudyak
Inside the Shanghai lockdown, with SupChina's own Chang Che
After the War: Scenarios China faces when the Russo-Ukrainian War eventually ends
Susan Thornton on the urgent need for diplomacy with China over the Russo-Ukraine War
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