This is John Batchel, a conversation with Professor Michael McFal of Stanford University,

the Hoover Institution, his new book, Autocrats v. Democrats, is the story of just two nations.

Russia and China. There could have been many more. Michael has it all available to him,

as he explains here. They had to cut the book down. You take on so much at a time for one

volume. But Michael introduces the thinking from the late 20th century, why the U.S. endorsed

the growth of China, now a hostile power. But then, great promise. Here's Michael McFaul,

much more of this later and again tomorrow.

Two-hour conversation with Michael McFal, his book, Autocrats v. Democrats.

Again, it's a complicated, great question.

And, John, you really know your history.

I am deeply impressed.

The many of the references you're making are not in my book, just so everybody knows.

My original book, by the way, was 1,200 pages long. Yes, I know, I know, Michael. Because I had to, my editor made me get it down to 500. I know, and I often felt, well, let's keep going here, Michael. Yeah, maybe another, another time, another book. You did speak of Tiananmen, though. You gave me an open. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

Tiananmen's in the book. But you're asking one of the most fundamental questions about the nature of our relationship with China and Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did make those concessions,

and he did open up the Chinese economy to the West, including the United States.

And let's be clear, American companies made billions and billions and billions of dollars

and continued to do so because of that opening. And that was good for American capitalism

and it was good for Chinese economic growth, four decades of growth, unprecedented in world

history. There was a theory, and I don't know if people really believed it. I hesitate, right,

because I was not around working in the government, but most certainly our leaders were saying

economic growth and economic modernization will eventually create the permissive conditions for democratization.