Lawfare Daily: Michael Beckley and Arne Westad on the U.S.-China Relationship
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 July 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
On today’s episode, Matt Gluck, Research Fellow at Lawfare, spoke with Michael Beckley, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts, and Arne Westad, the Elihu Professor of History at Yale.
They discussed Beckley’s and Westad’s articles in Foreign Affairs on the best path forward for the U.S.-China strategic relationship—in the economic and military contexts. Beckley argues that in the short term, the U.S. should focus on winning its security competition with China, rather than significant engagement, to prevent conflict. Westad compares the current moment to the period preceding World War I. He cautions that the U.S. and China should maintain strategic communication and avoid an overly narrow focus on competition to stave off large-scale conflict.
They broke down the authors’ arguments and where they agree and disagree. Does U.S. engagement lower the temperature in the relationship? Will entrenched economic interests move the countries closer to conflict? How can the U.S. credibly deter China from invading Taiwan without provoking Beijing?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | What I see much more of in terms of how the world is developing overall in a much more complex direction |
| 0:38.0 | is the kind of situation that we had in the late 19th and early 20th century. |
| 0:42.0 | And if that ends up the way it ended up back then |
| 0:45.6 | and ended up again in the mid-20th century, |
| 0:47.4 | not in a cold, but in a hot war |
| 0:49.7 | among great powers, then we are in real trouble. It's the Lawfair Podcast. I'm Matt Gluck, |
| 0:55.0 | Research Fellow at Lawfair, with Michael Beckley, |
| 0:58.0 | Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts, |
| 1:01.0 | and Arnie Westad, the Elllehoo Professor of History at Yale. |
| 1:06.0 | The American president has said no less than four times that if China attacks Taiwan, the |
| 1:11.1 | United States will respond militarily. |
| 1:13.7 | The Taiwan Relations Act makes it American law |
| 1:16.6 | that the US is supposed to help to fend off threats. |
| 1:19.0 | It doesn't say the US has to directly respond, |
| 1:20.8 | but it has to maintain the capacity to help Taiwan resist any threat to its way of life. |
| 1:27.0 | Today, we're talking about coordination and competition in the U.S. China relationship. |
| 1:33.0 | Arnie, you explain in your foreign affairs piece that the U.S. is trying to maintain some cooperation |
| 1:41.3 | while it competes with China, but that the opportunity for |
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