Everything You Need To Know About The US & China: The Biggest Realignment Since Nixon, Feat. Graham Webster

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 806 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2020

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The U.S.-China relationship has an outsized impact on global economics and politics. As that relationship comes even more into focus in the wake of COVID-19 and a return of trade tensions, this episode provides a historical primer. Graham Webster is editor-in-chief of the Stanford–New America DigiChina Project at the Stanford University Cyber Policy Center. He’s also a China digital economy fellow at the New America think tank. In this episode, Webster explains: Why the relationship with the U.S. has been at the forefront of Chinese policy since the People’s Republic of China was formed, but has flitted in and out of America’s focus. Why the first most significant period in the U.S.-China relationship came between the late 1960s and 1970s, as the U.S.-China relationship normalized. How Tiananmen Square undermined but didn’t destroy the relationship. Why George W. Bush came into office with an intention to focus on China but got distracted in the wake of 9/11. Why China has spent the last decade becoming increasingly illiberal. How the rise of social media contributed to the shift. Why China and U.S. policy is as much a reflection of domestic self-identity in both countries as it is a bilateral political question. Why China’s human rights abuses present such a challenge. How COVID-19 changes the relationship. Find our guest online: Twitter: gwbstr Website: DigiChina

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the breakdown, an everyday analysis breaking down the most important stories in Bitcoin, crypto, and beyond.
0:13.0	This episode is sponsored by BitStamp and Cipher Trace. The breakdown is produced and distributed by Coindesk.
0:22.6	And now here's your host, NLW.
0:27.9	Welcome back to the Breakdown.
0:30.1	It is Friday, June 5th, and today we are talking about the U.S.-China relationship.
0:36.7	It is undeniable that the relationship between these two
0:39.9	powers is one of the most significant drivers of global geopolitics as well as global economies.
0:46.5	We have experienced acutely the connection and interdependence and reliance in ways that we may
0:52.8	not have even thought about in the context of the
0:55.8	COVID-19 pandemic, both in terms of the health implications of a globalized society where
1:01.9	virus once released will find its way everywhere, but also in terms of how we were or weren't
1:07.2	able to respond because of our reliance on supply chains that weren't available or
1:11.6	easily accessible around things like protective equipment for medical professionals.
1:16.4	This is creating, or perhaps I should better say, accelerating a set of discussions around
1:21.7	what the proper relationship between the U.S. and China is.
1:25.2	And you have, on the one side, folks who believe strongly in the
1:30.3	1990s vision of a globalized world economy who still rely or want to rely on the benefits of
1:38.1	just-in-time supply chains, who are basically saying globalization needs an update, but it's still
1:43.9	the right model.
1:45.0	On the other hand, you have a completely different type of actor who believes that China is the
1:49.5	biggest threat to the U.S. and the world in the 21st century, who is calling for and already
1:54.9	saying that we are in a second Cold War in some ways. In the middle, you have a ton of people
	...

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