The Case Against the China Consensus, with Jessica Chen Weiss of SAIS

This week on Sinica, I chat with Jessica Chen Weiss, until recently at Cornell University but now the David M. Lampton Professor of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, SAIS, in Washington D.C. Jessica, to those of you familiar with her work, has been at the forefront of the fight for a less strident, diplomacy-first approach to China, balancing threats with assurances to find a modus vivendi with China. She has challenged prevailing notions about China's intentions, and has called for the U.S. to advance an affirmative vision of how it wants to live in the world with China. We focus in this conversation about a recent piece in Foreign Affairs in which she challenges both the solidity and the logic of the "bipartisan consensus" on China, and holds out hope that a next administration might approach the relationship differently.

3:45 – How Jessica has settled into D.C.; her professorial namesake; and how she has become a leading voice for a less confrontational approach to China

9:30 – Where Jessica sees diverging views on China in the Republican and Democratic Parties 

12:41 – What a more durable basis for coexistence should look like

14:46 – Credible deterrence and strategic ambiguity in the context of Taiwan 

16:03 – Acknowledgements to limits on American power and the importance of being realistic 

18:09 – Assurances on Taiwan and what threatens their credibility 

21:13 – The question of engagement and the deterrent effect of economic integration

25:30 – How the U.S. can combat legitimate national security threats from China without undermining its own values, and the importance of not treating the Chinese in diaspora as a fifth column 

31:31 – Electoral politics: the importance of welcoming and inclusive policies and creating space for debate and discernment

35:07 – The importance of testing our assumptions 

38:30 – What another Trump presidency might look like 

40:30 – How a Harris administration might differ from the Biden administration

44:13 – The U.S. and China-Russia relations

Recommendations:

Jessica: Valarie Kaur’s Sage Warrior: Wake to Oneness, Practice Pleasure, Choose Courage, Become Victory 

Kaiser: BeaGo, an AI-powered search tool (download from your app store!)

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