Welcome to the President's Inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Mary and David Boy's Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This is the fifth episode in a special 2024 U.S. election series here on the President's inbox.

From now until Election Day, I will be sitting down with experts to unpack some of the most pressing challenges in the next President's foreign policy inbox.

This week's topic is the Taiwan Challenge.

With me to discuss U.S. policy on Taiwan, in light of talk that China might seek to compel

the island's reunification with the mainland, are Oriana Skylar Mastro and David Sachs.

Oriana is center fellow at the Freeman Spoli Institute for International Studies and courtesy

assistant professor of political science at Stanford University.

She is also a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy.

She has published widely, including Foreign Affairs, International Security, and The New York Times.

Her most recent book, Upstart,

How China Became a Great Power,

was published earlier this year.

Last fall, she wrote a piece titled,

This is What America is Getting Wrong about China in Taiwan for the New York Times.

David is a fellow for Asia Studies here at the Council. His work focuses on U.S. relations with China and Taiwan,

and on cross-Taiwan straight politics. David co-directed the Council's 2021 Independent Task Force

on China's Belt and Road initiative, and he was the project director for the Council's

2023 Independent Task Force Report on U.S.-Taiwan relations. David previously worked on

political military affairs at the American Institute of Taiwan, which acts as the de facto embassy

for the United States in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic recognition.

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