Avoiding the China Trap (Robert Wright & Jessica Chen Weiss)
Robert Wright's Nonzero
Nonzero
4.7 • 618 Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2022
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1:31 What does America not understand about China – and vice versa? 6:14 Signs of Chinese discontent with Xi Jinping 9:41 How the focus on “beating China” distracts the US from other priorities 17:01 Is the US making conflict over Taiwan more likely? 29:01 Jessica: The threat to American democracy comes from within, not from China 41:48 The roots of China’s growing assertiveness on the world stage 53:00 What US and Chinese foreign policy (unfortunately) have in common
Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Jessica Chen Weiss (Cornell University). Recorded September 28, 2022.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero Podcast. |
| 0:07.6 | Hi, Jessica. |
| 0:09.3 | Hi, Bob. |
| 0:10.4 | How you doing? |
| 0:11.6 | Doing well, thanks. |
| 0:12.5 | How about you? |
| 0:13.5 | I can't complain. |
| 0:14.6 | Let me introduce this. |
| 0:15.3 | I'm Robert Wright, publisher, Non-Zero newsletter. |
| 0:17.7 | This is the Non-Zero podcast. |
| 0:19.3 | You are Jessica Chen Weiss. |
| 0:22.8 | The Michael J. Zach, I believe, Professor of China and Asia Pacific Studies at Cornell. You pretty recently |
| 0:29.7 | finished a stint on the policy planning staff at the Department of State where I think they do |
| 0:36.5 | long range, like visionary thinking, right? |
| 0:39.6 | Right. I was a Council on Foreign Relations fellow on sabbatical from Cornell and spent my stint there. |
| 0:45.6 | Okay. And speaking of the Council on Foreign Relations, they published the August journal, Foreign Affairs, |
| 0:52.1 | where you recently had an article that Just Lee was widely discussed, called, |
| 0:58.8 | well, let me first, I'm going to mention your book, because it's relevant, powerful patriots, |
| 1:03.4 | nationalist protest and China's foreign relations, published by Oxford University Press. |
| 1:08.5 | But the journal piece was called the China Trap, |
| 1:14.4 | U.S. foreign policy and the perilous logic of zero-sum competition. |
| 1:18.1 | We're going to talk about that and about, broadly speaking, |
... |
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