Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome back to Conversations where I'm very pleased to be joined again on my friend Aaron Friedberg for Professor of Politics at Princeton.

We've had this is our fifth conversation amazingly on China US US China relations, but we're broadly on China and world politics.

And I've got to say I look through the transcripts and they stand up very well.

We had one right after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, discussed the implications of that.

What lessons the Chinese might be learning and then what about a little under a year ago after the Russian innovation of Ukraine and talked about how that might play out with respect to China.

And I should say both stand up well. Aaron is the author of several important books, most recently in 2022 getting China wrong, which is not a confessional autobiography, but rather a account of his colleagues.

And the China watching business and a very fair account, I would say, of how people attempted to get tried wrong. So Aaron, thanks for joining me again.

Thanks very much for having me back.

So let's get right into it and let's maybe let's begin with Ukraine is such a dominant story in the world. I think maybe the most important event in international politics of stand of the gold war.

I was just back from Europe and so we felt that way there, but let's talk about China with respect to that because it's a little more distant from China and China has played a bit of a role, but how have they behaved?

Have you been surprised by their behavior or what lessons do you think they're learning, but what is the effect of the war you create on on China itself, and then we can get to US China policy and so forth.

Well, I think the Chinese have, have sought to kind of walk a line between the support for Russia, which in the end is, is not going to change. They're not going to abandon Putin despite the hopes of some people in the West when the war began that somehow we could peel the Chinese away and appeal to their better angels and persuade them that they should be on our side and opposed to this kind of aggression.

And that's, that's not going to work. Russia is essential as an ally to China and they're not going to let Russia or Putin go at the same time, at least to now, to this point, the CCP leadership has been careful about not appearing to do things that might justify further harsh measures from the United States or allies secondary sanctions.

If, if China was to overtly supply Russia with military equipment, for example, I should say, and maybe we can talk about this, there is now some discussion about whether that may be about to change the US has let it be known that we have some information that suggests that possibly the Chinese leaders are thinking about providing Russia with military equipment, which would be a major and from our perspective, escalatory step that we're trying to deter, but it hasn't happened yet.

But even short of that, the Chinese have found ways to help keep Russia afloat, they've increased their imports, particularly of energy from Russia, and they've also increased exports of a variety of goods, including so-called dual use items like semiconductors that can be used in military equipment, maybe some so-called non lethal kinds of assistance navigation equipment and so on.

So they've walked the line, they've been careful. I guess the other thing to say.

And what are the considerations on each side for them? Because I guess on the one hand, you look at what was the Putin-G meeting, which was the Olympics, what just about a couple of weeks before the invasion, I guess.

And they were all, I think it's some phrase, I can't remember, they were all in together, right?

Right, right. It was an unlimited partnership like that.

Yeah, they haven't really quite behaved that way, I think, on the one hand. And you sort of think, so I guess why not? Are they worried at the price they would pay here or Europe or generally?

And then on the flip side, I guess, is why not go all the way in curry favor with the West and just leave Putin alone? It's not there war.

They don't like Putin, it's only that much, so say a little bit about that.

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