Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America
Odd Lots
Bloomberg
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zichen Wang is the writer of the Pekingnology newsletter, which translates important speeches and articles from China into English, and contextualizes them for Western readers. Over the past year, he's been a master's degree student at Princeton University, although he's recently returned home to resume his career at a think tank in China. His stint in the US obviously came at a very interesting time, both due to the rising US-China tensions, and also the growing restrictions on Chinese students in the US. So before making his trip back home he joined us for another episode of Odd Lots. We discussed his experience here in America, his assessment of the state of US-China relations, and what his message will be upon his return to China.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:06.7 | Bloomberg Audio Studios. |
| 0:09.3 | Podcasts, Radio News. |
| 0:25.5 | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. |
| 0:26.9 | I'm Joe Wisenth. |
| 0:28.1 | And I'm Tracy Allaway. |
| 0:30.5 | Tracy, we're recording this June 5th. |
| 0:33.3 | President Xi Jinping and President Trump just held a phone call. |
| 0:36.0 | Wouldn't you like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation? |
| 0:37.0 | I would. |
| 0:41.5 | I don't know what that means. Markets moved on it. I'm always surprised how hard it is to set a phone. |
| 0:45.5 | Just pick up the phone. But I'm always little surprised that these are like bigger news. |
| 0:51.5 | It should be noted that this was reported first by the Shinwa News Agency out of China. |
| 0:57.0 | And there was a headline that the news agency specified that the phone call was at Trump's request. They made a point of saying that. I still have this image of Trump sitting |
| 1:01.9 | in the Oval Office by the phone just like twiddling his thumbs waiting for Xi Jinping to call, |
| 1:07.3 | like hoping, is he going to call me? Should I wait two days? Should I wait three days before |
| 1:11.6 | responding? That kind of thing. There was an Allsia Journal article I saw from a few weeks ago, |
| 1:16.5 | which made the observation, which I had not realized outside of the September 11th terrorist |
| 1:20.9 | attacks, there's never been a contact between the U.S. and China that was initiated by China, |
| 1:25.9 | which I hadn't realized before. I assume it's true. So Xi Jinping is sitting in his office.S. and China that was initiated by China, which I hadn't realized before. |
| 1:28.1 | I assume it's true. So Xi Jinping is sitting in his office, twiddling his thumbs, waiting for |
| 1:33.1 | Trump. Okay. And then he decides, but he decides to either take the call. Anyway, all of this |
... |
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