Aaron Friedberg: On the Rise of China and the Strategic Threat to the United States

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2019

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is China already a serious strategic threat to the United States? If so, how should the United States respond to its rise as a regional and global power? In this Conversation with Bill Kristol, Aaron Friedberg, professor of political science and international affairs at Princeton University, argues that a rising China is now the most significant foreign policy challenge facing the United States. Reviewing recent history, Friedberg notes that America since the end of the Cold War has pursued a policy of greater engagement with China, believing that the country would ultimately liberalize politically. As Friedberg explains, this has not happened. Rather, the Chinese Communist Party has increasingly attempted to shape the world system in ways favorable to China and detrimental both to the security and economic well-being of the United States. Friedberg calls for economic, technological, and diplomatic efforts by the U.S. to meet the challenge from China.

Transcript

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0:00.0	And the Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome to Conversations. I'm joined today by an old friend, Aaron
0:20.6	Friedman. More important to China expert, a distinguished professor of politics
0:26.2	and international affairs at Princeton.
0:28.5	You worked in government for a couple of years in the Bush administration, George W Bush
0:32.4	administration, and you've done a lot of work with the
0:35.4	Defense Department, CIA and others.
0:37.4	I'm sure you'll tell us about all that classified.
0:40.0	Just joking.
0:41.0	Don't take back us any time at you any time, right?
0:44.0	Now, you've been very familiar with the practical world of policymaking as well as the
0:48.8	more academic stuff.
0:49.8	So we want to talk about China, which is really a big issue now, right? Not just in the public
0:54.5	press so to speak and in, you know, president's rhetoric, but genuinely for
0:59.0	serious foreign policy experts, the biggest issue? I think so. Really? Yes, yeah absolutely. And it's
1:06.0	interesting to see you came to China I mean I remember you were a little after
1:10.4	me in grad school and you were a student of international relations and
1:14.0	you out of excellent PhD thesis which became an excellent book.
1:18.1	I didn't read the thesis but the book version of it on the British sort of the last with the end of the British
1:25.2	not quite right but the beginning of the end of the British empire period of
1:29.2	decline at around the turn of the 20th century. Did you have the US?
1:32.8	Was that somehow supposed to teach us lessons
1:34.5	about the US at the time?
	...

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