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"Constructive Strategic Stability": Ali Wyne of the International Crisis Group on the Trump-Xi Summit
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Kaiser Kuo
Welcome to the Cynical Podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China. In this program we look at books, ideas, new research, intellectual currents and cultural trends that can help us better understand what's happening in China's politics, foreign relations, economics and society. Join me each week for in depth conversations that shed more light and bring less heat to how we think and talk about China. I'm Kaiser Guo, coming to you this week from my soon to be on the market home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Sinica is supported this year by the center for East Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a national resource center for the study of East Asia. Listeners, you can support my work by becoming a paying subscriber@senecapodcast.com please do subscribe so I can continue to bring you these conversations. So I'm taping this just a little over a day after President Trump's plane left Chinese airspace, wrapping up a state visit that included many hours of direct engagement with Chinese President Xi Jinping. It was bad timing on my part that I wasn't there in Beijing for the summit, so I could maybe give you guys a Better sense of Chinese reactions to it and how it felt on the ground. But hey, I did pay as much attention to it as I was able to from here. It wasn't exactly Nixon Goes to China in 1972. There weren't major breakthroughs, no eye wateringly large trade or investment deals signed yet or announced yet anyway. No Board of Investment announced, no dramatic changes in the American position on Taiwan, that I can tell. No pledge secured for China to help the US out of its jam in Iran and get the Strait of Hormuz open. After the first day, the two sides produced parallel readouts that read, as more than one observer had noted, like accounts of two very different meetings. Perhaps there's still more to come, but so far the deliverables list, as everyone has noted, is rather thin. You got some Boeing orders, a resumption of US Beef imports, I suppose, a notional agreement that Strait of Hormuz ought to be reopened and that no toll should be charged. Nevertheless, I rate the summit a success. It did what both sides really wanted to do, at a minimum, which was to extend the ceasefire in the trade war made last fall in Busan, South Korea. Neither side had its expectations set too high, and that's a very good thing, I think. The vibes, the atmospherics, the optics or the tone or whatever you want to call it, that was all quite positive. As far as I can tell. It's all gotten high marks from all serious observers, whether Western or Chinese. Importantly, what's more important, I would say, than the relative paucity of deliverables is this tone. They're meeting three more times this year in D.C. in September, both at APEC in November in Shenzhen and at the G20, which is going to be in Miami in December. What I think was really of lasting significance, perhaps, is that there was this sense of power parity that I don't think has any precedent in US China summitry. So, yeah, Trump came into this in a relatively weak position, but Xi and the Chinese leadership didn't rub his face in it and simply projected a firmness and nonchalance, a confidence that did much of the talking. This wasn't just Beijing's doing, though. It struck me, especially given Trump's remarks and what he said during his interview with Fox News while he was still in Beijing, that Trump's own sense of China has fundamentally shifted, something that we've long intuited but now have heard straight from Trump himself. Part of what's larger and harder to evaluate is this new Chinese framing for the relationship that Beijing wants to anchor for the next three years and perhaps beyond. They're calling it Zhong Me Jian Shi Xing Zhan Luo Jing Guanxi A Constructive China US Relationship of Strategic Stability. Parsing that phrase is already keeping people pretty busy, but unpacking it is really going to be one of the central interpretive questions for anyone who's trying to understand the US China relationship in the next few years. So to help me through all the complexities of the US China relationship and the summit's aftermath, I am delighted to be joined by Ali Wein. Ali is the senior research and Advocacy advisor for US China at the International Crisis Group, where he analyzes US Policy toward China and works to introduce Crisis Group's recommendations for easing tensions into Washington's policy debates. Before joining Crisis Group at The start of 2024, he worked at Eurasia Group, the RAD Corporation, the Carnegie Endowment, and at State. He's the author of America's Great Power Revitalizing US Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition, which the Spectator named one of its books of the year in 2022 and about which I've had Ali on the show previously. You probably remember that he is one of the sharpest and most temperamentally even handed voices riding on this relationship today, and I am glad to have him. Ollie, wine, welcome to Synica or welcome back to Synica.
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Ali Wyne
Man it's great to be back. Kaiser. Thanks very much for having me on.
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Kaiser Kuo
Well, it's wonderful to have you back and thanks for making yourself available on the weekend. Sorry, this is your Saturday afternoon, of course.
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Ali Wyne
No, I wouldn't want to spend it any other way.
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Kaiser Kuo
Oh, you're delightful. Let me start with your big picture takeaways, just your two minute top line take on what the summit meant before we dive deeper into the many other questions. I don't know if you had any quibbles with the way I characterized it just now in the opening or what your take was.
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Ali Wyne
I think that your assessment is spot on. I had modest expectations. I think along with most other folks who were monitoring the summit, I had modest expectations of the concrete deliverables that the summit would deliver. And indeed, as your opening remarks indicate, I don't think that the summit produced any eye watering deals or major diplomatic breakthroughs. Nonetheless, it was very illuminating in two respects and I think illuminating in one respect from China's vantage point and then from America's vantage point when President Trump made his first official state visit to China in November 2017. So almost a decade ago, the Chinese delegation expended A lot of effort trying to impress upon President Trump that President Xi was a geopolitical equal on the world stage, that China had arrived as America's most capable and confident competitor. This time around, the Chinese delegation didn't need to expend any such effort because. Well, because of two reasons. One, it's manifestly clear that China's overall power has grown significantly in the intervening almost decades, so that China is now obviously the second most powerful country in the international system. The second and arguably more important reason why the Chinese delegation didn't need to expend that effort. And here I'll come to, I think, your, again, your opening remarks. The delegation didn't need to expend the effort because it is the United States now that is acknowledging China's centrality within the international system. President Trump said that the United States and China, we are the two great countries of the world. It's President Trump who has embraced the G2 construct. And so my, my big takeaway is that President Trump, in spite of himself, in spite of his pretension to omnipotence, has, through a series of foreign policy missteps, stumbled or blundered into a more sober appreciation of China's capacity to both absorb US Pressure and counter it.
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Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, I think you're not alone in believing that. And it is sort of missteps that have taken him here. But however his eyes have been opened, I'll take it for now. Let me put to you this question about this new framing that Beijing has put on the table for relationship, this constructive China, US Relationship of strategic stability. So Xi Jinping raised it at the formal talks. Foreign Minister Wang Yi elevated it the next morning in a press briefing that he had, which was translated into English. And I read about, he wrote, quote, it's the most important political consensus of the visit. Beijing wants this to be the anchoring concept, clearly for the next three years and beyond. Trump, according to the Chinese readout, seems to have agreed to it. At any rate, they haven't contested it. How significant is that? What do you make of the fact that Beijing has brought this new framework, this new language to the table? What do you make of this?
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Ali Wyne
So it's significant in at least two respects. One is that one is China's readiness to propose a high level framework to recalibrate the relationship. So there's, leaving aside the substance of the framework, the fact that China has promulgated a new framework suggests a confidence in its, a newfound confidence and a growing confidence in its dealings with the United States. And then there's the substance of the framework. And you mentioned that at a minimum, the White House didn't contest this, this framework. I think that one of the reasons that the White House didn't contest the framework is that even though of course, the Chinese delegation spoke in much more granular terms and had a much more detailed exposition of the framework, I think that it aligns with President Trump's instincts. If you, if you look at remarks that President Trump made during his series of meetings with with President Xi, he said, our two countries are going to have a fantastic future together. Under my watch, US China relations are going to be better than ever. And President Trump, he departs from virtually all of the rest of Washington in this regard. He believes not only in the transformational power of leader level diplomacy, but also in his unique ability in partnership with his Chinese counterpart to produce a fundamentally cooperative relationship between the United States and China. And so even though President Trump, as far as I can tell, hasn't offered a detailed reaction, I think that instinctively he is aligned with this detailed framework that the Chinese side has proposed.
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Kaiser Kuo
Let's dig into this framework a little bit. I saw that Lizzy Li, who I admire moderately, posted a translation of an interview with Wuxin Bo of Fudan, what was formerly Twitter a little Q and A in which Wu asked how should we understand the new framing? I'll quote what he said here. He said, during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union as two major nuclear powers, also pursued strategic stability. But the foundation of that stability was assured mutual destruction. If you dared to attack me, I could destroy you. Strategic stability was maintained by intimidating the other side and making it unwilling to act. That was a kind of negative stability. Now when we speak of constructive strategic stability, and then he goes on to repeat Xi Jinping's four pillar interpretation about enlarging the piece of of common interests, not engaging in a zero sum game. That's winner take all. Ensuring that the relationship does not fluctuate like a roller coaster and avoiding confrontation, conflict or warren. This is what makes it constructive. These elements support strategic stability. If over the next three years we are able to achieve a constructive strategic stability relationship between China and the United States, then for China it would extend our period of strategic stability and win time and space for our development. Then he goes on, I mean there's quite a bit here. The analyst Sun Chenghao at Tsinghua center for International Security and Strategy, he pointed out that this whole strategic stability historically again referred to nuclear arms control diplomacy between these roughly co equal powers. When we import that register into US China relations. It carries particular implications. You have this relationship that ought to be managed sort of the way that Washington and Moscow once managed the bomb between peers. Do you think that genealogy is part of what Beijing is now reaching for? Just based on what Wang Yi has said, based on what Wuximbo has said, and then this guy Sun Chung Ho, do you think that that is how the American side is hearing it as well?
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Ali Wyne
I think that both elements are present. You mentioned that they're used to. When we think of strategic stability, it has a sort of a negative connotation that the United States and the Soviet Union can both damage one another. Now, that element is also present, of course, in between the United States and China. And I think that one of the important lessons of the trade war last year is I think that it impressed upon both the United States and China the extent to which, A, the extent of their residual economic interdependence, and B, the extent to its. Therefore, they can weaponize that interdependence to harm one another economically.
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Kaiser Kuo
What we were calling mutually assured disruption.
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Ali Wyne
Mutually assured disruption. And in its mutually assured disruption, overlaid. Overlaid on top of the extant recognition that the United States and China can devastate one another militarily. So the negative conception of strategic stability exists. The novelty of this framing that the Chinese delegation is proposing is that we compare that negative conception with a positive one so that the United States and China, going forward, by virtue of being, I think, inescapably interdependent, are bound as much by the damage that they can inflict upon one another as by the opportunities that they can collectively seize. And when we think about interdependence, yes, it is principally economic, but I think that we should also conceptualize interdependence in terms of the. The number and range of transnational challenges that implicate radio. Both countries, the United States and China, if they act in. In. In a more enlightened way, they should be thinking about how to manage or mitigate the impact of climate change, how to mitigate the security risks of the acceleration of artificial intelligence, how to mitigate arms proliferation. So my understanding of this, or. Or maybe what I would want to read into this framing that the Chinese delegation has framed is that, on the one hand, the United States and China should harness their mutual vulnerability as a source of mutual restraint, and they should leverage their extant significant interdependence to see how they can compartmentalize competitive and cooperative dynamics and find ways of cooperating to address transnational challenges. So it's both a negative and a positive dimension of strategic stability.
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Kaiser Kuo
That's a beautifully optimistic read on it, and I hope that comes. But let's look at the two readings that are circulating among the so called China watchers right now. That one basically holds that Beijing is offering this doctrine of mutual restraint, a way of stabilizing the relationship through this vocabulary of guardrails. With this kind of time horizon, the Trump administration's remaining years, that just gives both sides room to rebuild the working level plumbing that has eroded over the past decade. That's a pretty modest ask. It's realistic. The other reading is much more pessimistic. It says that Beijing is kind of laying down a rhetorical tripwire. It's some kind of a trap. There's this just like before where they talked about a new model of great power relations. Exactly that. Somehow we must avoid using that same rhetorical framing. So what's the trap? What's that supposed to look like when it's sprung? I haven't gotten a clear answer on it from anyone who's promulgated that idea.
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Ali Wyne
I would even take a step back. My sense is that there is an instinctive, there's an instinctively allergic reaction to any promulgation of a high level framework or concept from the Chinese side. There's an assumption that any new concept that bears China's imprimatur must be nefarious and inimical to US national interests. But language is malleable. Frameworks are subject to a multiplicity of interpretations. And so I don't see any reason why, in theory, that concept couldn't be a basis of departure for negotiations between the United States and China. In other words, it isn't as though the Chinese side has proposed this framework and now the United States has no opportunity to refine it, challenge it, interrogate it. I would view it modestly as a basis of subsequent conversations. And Kaiser, as you said in your opening remarks, President Trump and President Xi will meet again in person this year. I think at least three times. Yeah, and they're going to meet. They're going to meet many more times in person. In President Trump's remaining time in office, there will be many phone calls between the two leaders and of course there will be many interactions between high level or senior US And Chinese officials. So I think sometimes we run the risk of imagining a trap where it doesn't exist. I think I would rather just take this concept as it is, interrogate it duly, and use it as a basis of departure. I'll just make one last point, which is if one believes that this concept is a trap, and again, I think that the proposition is dubious. But if one assumes, let's assume for argument's sake, that it represents a trap, then it behooves the American side to counter offer to propose its own concept. But if the United States doesn't offer an alternative conceptualization of the relationship going forward, but only opts to criticize the version or the framework that the Chinese delegation has offered, that asymmetry doesn't strike me as being very fair or very balanced.
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Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, the trap that I am worried about is one that you actually spoke about. You were quoted in Responsible Statecraft, a piece that you were interviewed for about the the hawkish trap on the Democrat side. We're turning to US Domestic politics. By reflexively critiquing Trump's engagement with Beijing, Democrats actually risk legitimizing what you call an increasingly outdated formulation. You have Alyssa Slotkin saying Trump's about to give away the farm. Chris Coons is warning him to remember who Xi Jinping really is. I give credit to Trump for one thing, and he's recognized something. We'll get into this in a little bit because this connects with a piece that you published with Crisis Group in April that I'd love listeners to seek out and make sure to read. It's a short piece, but it says something I've been saying for a while. I talked about this vibe shift happening in the US China relationship and have cited the same research that you have from Pew and from Carnegie looking at a shift in American attitudes and especially among younger voters. But Trump is very aware of this, and if he has anything that I'll give him credit for, it's that kind of low animal cunning about the mood swings in American politics. He seems to have determined that China bashing is not going to be a winning strategy for 2028 or even maybe for the midterms in 2026. But the Dems haven't gotten that memo. It seems like what would a Democratic critique of the Trump approach to China actually sound like if we weren't trying to out hoc Trump for partisan advantage? Is there a better Democratic critique of Trump's approach to China that's not just all about point scoring?
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Ali Wyne
Absolutely. I would pair. I think that the foundation of such an alternative would be, we have to acknowledge, just because a statement bears Trump's imprimatur doesn't mean that it's automatically wrong. And so I think that an alternative China policy would begin with an acknowledgment that some of Trump's high level instincts now notice I say instincts because his implementation leaves a lot to be desired. But it would pair an acknowledgment of the soundness and prudence of some of his high level instincts with more considered implementation. Where Trump has aired is I think he has undermined his own ability to gain traction for the alternative China policy that I sense that he's trying to promulgate because his implementation has been so poor. So he has substantially gutted the bureaucracy that is deputized with translating sensible instincts into thoughtful policies. In the indie bilateral context, he pursued obviously a very ill advised tariff gamut last year that has had the consequence of undermining America's economic deterrence capacity and convincing China beyond what even it had probably recognized of its capacity to, with relatively little exertion, hurt many American consumers and companies. And then in the multilateral context, his continued broadsides against allies and partners have convinced many allies and partners that they need to de risk from China and the United States in parallel. So in terms of his handling of the national security bureaucracy or his gutting of it, and in terms of both his bilateral and multilateral maneuvers, his implementation has been very poor. But we shouldn't allow the poorness of his implementation to distract from or to deflect attention away from the soundness of his instincts. So begin by acknowledging the soundness of his instincts and then reconstitute the bureaucracy with a particular emphasis on civil servants, foreign service officers who can help you translate instinct and implementation and then make clear that you are going to engage with China with a recognition of its not only its present power but the likelihood of its enduring power. And don't self sabotage. I think actually at the risk of sounding facetious, I would say in medicine there's the Hippocratic oath, first do no harm. And in foreign policy, I would say at a minimum, the United States is undertaking a course of competitive self sabotage. So stop the bleeding, acknowledge the soundness of some of Trump's instincts and here and maybe I'll just close my answer with this one point. I think, Kaiser, that the and I've made this point to you and I've made it subsequent when we first spoke. I believe, and I've made it subsequently on many occasions. I think that the greatest challenge for the U.S. policymaking community in dealing with China is going to be psychological because many U.S. policymakers had hoped and or assumed that with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, China would be sort of condemned to the alleged ash heap of history that it would be condemned to isolation and impoverishment in perpetuity. And when the country, when a country that you imagined would be on the wrong side of history so quickly in historical terms, emerges as your principal competitor, articulating an antithetical conception of exceptionalism, it's very difficult for you to reconcile your hope with the reality of where China is.
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Kaiser Kuo
So it sticks in your craw.
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Ali Wyne
It does. It does. So I realize that I haven't been granular with my. But what I've tried to do with my answer is to suggest a democratic alternative will not emerge if it begins with an instinctive repudiation of Trump's instincts.
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Kaiser Kuo
Right, right, right. I agree. And. But we can point out that he's being something of an arsonist firefighter here. I mean, he lit this fire.
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Ali Wyne
Exactly.
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Kaiser Kuo
Ali, do you think there's anyone in the Democratic political class, Senator Sanders, Ro Khanna, Adam Smith, anyone else who's actually modeling the right posture toward China? Or is it still kind of a wonk position, waiting for politicians to pick up on it?
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Ali Wyne
No, I think now, if you take a snapshot, the center of gravity on the Hill is still, still hinges on an outdated and increasingly outdated paradigm of sort of a new twilight struggle. And yet there are, there are a growing number of members of Congress who are one who are modeling a, I think, disresponsible behavior when it comes to China policy and are also offering sort of intellectual alternatives. I give a lot of credit. You mentioned Adam Smith. I gave him a lot of credit for leading the House delegation that went to China this past September.
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Kaiser Kuo
Yeah.
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Ali Wyne
I also give a lot of credit to outgoing, the outgoing senator from Montana, Steve Baines, an ally of the president. I give him a lot of credit for leading a delegation, a bipartisan delegation, in the run up to. Yeah, this. In the run up to Trump trip. So, so I think, I think, you know, full marks to the members of those two delegations, and I do want to. The members you mentioned, and I'll mention a few others, I do want to spotlight the contributions that they're making. I would say that. Representative. So, Senator Sanders, Representative Smith, Representative Khanna, Representative Jacobs, Sarah Jacobs, Representative Jim Himes, they stand out in particular for the frequency and forcefulness with which they have repudiated the notion of a new Cold War as a sound framework for conceptualizing the ocean relationship. And it is very important because of how much inertia that framework carries. It's going to take a lot of political and analytical effort to dislodge that inertia. So I give them a lot of credit intellectually. I give a lot of credit to the members of those two delegations that I, that I mentioned and the sense that I get Kaiser and, and, and here I'll invoke, I thought, just a really terrific and important piece by our mutual friend Jessica Chen Weiss in the Financial Times. She made this essential point in her piece that there is growing momentum, you know, on the Hill, within the administration, outside of the administration. There is growing momentum behind finding or forging, I should say, a new approach to China. The real task, I would say, even more consequential than doing the intellectual sort of heavy lifting of, you know, coming up without that alternative, is gaining political traction for it. And I think that the responsibility for those of us who believe that, that President Trump has created political breathing room for a new conversation. The task for us is to convince, whether it's policymakers and especially folks on the Hill, is to convince them that if they publicly stake more nuanced ground, that they aren't going to be excoriated, that instead they are going to find the public opinion is increasingly receptive to a different conversation and that there is a prominent, robust and growing ecosystem of folks in D.C. former policymakers, scholars, civil society activists who provide them political coverage. That task, to me is the harder one. It's the more essential one. But I sense that there is, I sense that there is progress, and I think there's progress for two reasons. There's the Trump factor, the personal factor. Trump is disruptive. And there's a structural factor which is, I mean, you'll remember actually, when you and I talked, it's sort of an interesting sort of snapshot or a comparison or contrast. When you and I talked in 2022, remember how much traction at the time, the peak China narrative had.
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Kaiser Kuo
Yeah.
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Ali Wyne
In, in Washington, and, and at the time, there were a lot of folks in Washington. So for those in your audience who might not be familiar with the, the peach hunter narrative, the peach hunter narrative essentially stipulates or hypothesizes that China's overall power is about to reach its apex. In addition, China's leadership recognizes that China's power is about to reach an apex. And therefore China, as it declines systemically, it's going to lash out militarily in aggression with Taiwan being its principal target.
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Kaiser Kuo
Right. This is Michael Beckley and Hal Brand's theory. Right.
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Ali Wyne
And it gained a lot of traction. What's interesting is that now for all of the challenges and very real structural challenges that China faces at home and Abroad, it simply is no longer tenable to articulate that China's power is anywhere near its peak or that China's leadership believes that in that trajectory. And so as the structural recognition dawns, I would like to think that more and more members of Congress will say, look, the idea that the United States can win a decisive victory, it's psychologically comforting, but it's strategically detached from reality. And instead we need to think about what it means to articulate, operationalize, and sustain a durable cohabitation.
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Kaiser Kuo
So obviously, like I said, this argument connects to this piece that you published with the Crisis Group about this shift in public opinion, this generational gap that transcends part of this partisan division where you see just only 32% of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 49 call China an enemy, compared to with 55% of Republicans 50 and older. So older they are, that's a pretty big gap. And then the Carnegie survey found that only 27% of Americans age. This is a different age range. But the 18-29s, only 27% think that their lives would become worse if China's power OOVERTOOK America's against 52% of the 65 and older. What explains this gap and does it really transcend the ideological split the way that the data seems to suggest?
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Ali Wyne
So we'll have to. So I would begin by saying that there, and I say in the piece which you very kindly flagged, that there are any number of phenomena that could reverse that could either blunt those sentiments or reverse them. But for now, I think that there is. I think that one can cautiously say that there is evidence that not only that this generational gap transcends ideological divisions, but that it is likely that that generational gap will endure. There are many factors that could be at work. The one that stands out to me is that unlike for older cohorts for whom the discrepancy between where they had hoped and, or assumed China would be and where China is now is, is massive. And it's a gap that's opened up very rapidly. You know, younger Americans, they've, they are much more accustomed, mentally, psychologically, they're much more accustomed to a strong China that's getting stronger. So think about, for young Americans, think about the kinds of milestones that they've witnessed in, in China's trajectory. They have seen. They, they came of age as China came to have the second largest defense budget, came to be the top exporting country. I think China has now had the second largest economy for the past 15 years, and now We've seen in recent years the strides that China is making in many arenas of critical and emerging
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Kaiser Kuo
technology and in many tech EVs of course and then of course deep seek. Sure.
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Ali Wyne
And I think that there's a recognition now that you know, China is here to stay for all the challenges. So I. The big difference and it's so, so that's so one factor. So one factor is that the, the reality of China's growing power and the likelihood of its enduring power are not nearly as jarring for younger Americans as they are for, for older Americans there's a second factor at work, Kaiser and I, and I imagine that you and I have both had many conversations in recent months and in recent years that bear out this, this second proposition. I just don't think that younger Americans, they're not starry eyed about China and I think that younger Americans may be leaving aside the China maxing phenomen, Americans probably unbalanced, don't have a favorable opinion of China but they are, they are so weighed down by just day to day concerns around cost of living. And when I talk to, when I talk to 20 year olds or 25 year olds, they're overwhelmingly focused on paying down student loan debt, finding a job, ensuring that the skills that they're cultivating aren't rendered irrelevant by the acceleration of artificial intelligence. They just don't have the mental bandwidth to, to be preoccupied with great power competition or notions of an expansive indefinite struggle against China. They, and to the extent, to the extent that one hopes to persuade them that such a conception of U. S China relations is meritorious, you have to explain to them how it's going to help them improve their, their material lot on a daily basis. And thus far. It's interesting actually. I remember a few years ago again around the time when the peak China narrative had gained a lot of traction, there were many US commentators that expressed hope. Some of them were actually grateful for a resurgent China. They said a resurgent China will not only discipline American foreign policy, it will unite Americans in common cause. Americans who are at each other's throats, they're bitterly divided ideologically. Thank goodness for a resurgent China. And what has happened in the intervening years. I remember seeing a lot of that commentary circa 2019 and 2020. And what has happened in the intervening, let's say five or six years is China's competitive challenge to the United States has intensified on a multifaceted basis. But there's little if any evidence to suggest that it's had that congealing effect among Americans. And instead what we see is that there's a compartmentalization, the competitive challenge is intensifying. America's political polarization is also intensifying. And so there's a recognition, a dawning recognition, I think, among many policymakers that the invoking the specter of the great other, the great external adversary, it's not going to have the orienting effects on policy and on public opinion that some had hoped.
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Kaiser Kuo
What strikes me about these numbers isn't just the gap, the demographic gap, but the lag the policy community is still operating from. The older cohorts worldview.
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Ali Wyne
Yes.
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Kaiser Kuo
So when does this start to actually bite on policy? What's the mechanism that translates to the change in, in mass opinion into changes in committee staffing, into, you know, the ecology of think tanks, into the assumptions of the defense industrial base?
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Ali Wyne
So. Well, actually, you already got it. A number of the factors. So, so the first, I think most obvious factor is that this, this younger cohort increasingly is going to be sending members from its ranks into Congress into, into policymaking positions. And so there's a very direct translation between these sentiments to changes in policy. I also think that a more sort of a less obvious mechanism, but a no less important mechanism is the surrounding discourse environment. And here as well, there are a number of institutions that are doing, you know, very important work. You know, I, I just, I'm looking in front of me at a notebook that I have from Jessica's Institute at Johns Hopkins, the Institute for America, China and the Future of Global Affairs. So Sujeska's Institute is playing a very important role in changing the discourse. Our mutual friend, Ryan Haas, the Thornton Center Brookings, is doing very good work to change the discourse. So the discourse environment is changing. Trump. I mentioned earlier, the Trump factor is very real.
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Kaiser Kuo
Strange bedfellows indeed.
- [36:41]
Ali Wyne
And here's what's interesting. And in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, for everything that I've said, for all of my critiques of President Trump's foreign policy and the way that he's implementing his China policy, to the extent that he has won, again, giving credit where credit is due because he is the kingpin of the Republican Party and he also happens to be the most influential booster of leader level diplomacy between the United States and China, one of his principal political impacts has been to quiet, if not altogether silence the critique.
- [37:15]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, yeah, especially the hawks are in eclipse. They've been in. Yeah, yeah.
- [37:17]
Ali Wyne
Well, like under Republican side that, you know, advocates of diplomacy are, are, are indulging China or, or they're complicit in China's human rights abuse. If, if you're saying that they're being soft on China, you say, well, President Trump himself is, is an ed. So President Trump has created political breathing room on the Republican side, which is of course then translated into more political breathing room on the Democratic side. So there's, well, so there's a coalescence. There's a coalescence of factors. I'm not going to say it's that coalescence of factors, of course, is up against very serious headwinds. But I will say, and here, maybe to my own detriment, this is the congenital optimist to me that's speaking. But I will say Kaiser, even vis a vis when I joined, so I work now, as you said, at the International Crisis Group. So I joined ICG in January of 2024. So a little over two years ago, approaching two and a half years. I mean, even vis a vis two and a half years ago, the discourse environment has shifted very significantly. The recognition, the appreciation of China's capacity to absorb and counter US Pressure has grown significantly. So even in two and a half years, and even I will tell you, and I take encouragement from these conversations, a growing number of members of Congress with whom I speak and a growing number of congressional staffers with whom I speak are looking to press a more nuanced conversation on China policy. What they need is political cover. And I think that the job of advocacy in particular is to provide them that political cover.
- [38:46]
Kaiser Kuo
Sign me up. Ali, let's turn to Taiwan. I mean, Xi Jinping was very sharp on this. He used this fire and water language about independence, about this warning that mishandling the issue would push the entire relationship into a very dangerous place. This is familiar, but it was very sharply worded. The American readout didn't mention Taiwan at all. Marco Rubio's framing to NBC after the meeting was, I'm going to quote here. They always raised it on their side. We always make clear our position. We move on. Trump in his press gaggle on Air Force One was actually more substantive. He said Xi Jinping asked him directly whether the US Would defend Taiwan. And Trump's response was, quote, I'm not going to say that. There's only one person who knows about that. Me. On arms sales, he said he'd make a determination and would need to speak with Taiwan's president. The discipline in terms of messaging was really impressive compared to the Biden White House, compared to President Biden making those repeated gaffes. I think it was less drifty than the readout silence suggested. So that was that. But then there was Trump's interview with Fox News. Bret Beyer. Let's unpack a bit about what he said about Taiwan during that interview. Did you sense substantive change there? Did, I mean, he did speak rather more candidly than we're accustomed to hearing about, say, the difficulties of fighting a war that he said was 9,500 miles away. And he did seem to impute independence mindedness to Lai Ching Te and did seem to suggest that this big arms deal, which he insisted will go forward or not just on his exclusive say so, was a bargaining chip. And he seemed to pivot pretty abruptly into a familiar criticism of Taiwan over how they stole the US Semiconductor industry and how we're going to make them pay for that. What did you make of all of that, that Bayard interview? Very interesting.
- [40:51]
Ali Wyne
It was a very interesting interview because he, for the reasons that you or for the reasons that you quoted, yes, he mixed in some of his familiar talking points. But he did move further, he, and I think actually he moved considerably further than I had seen in even in some of his recent interviews. So just to give an example, if you think about the interview that he gave to the New York Times, I think it was at the beginning of the year, he said something to the effect of, he said, you know, President Xi takes, he's, he believes that Taiwan is part of China and he takes great pride in China, but he's, he takes great pride that Taiwan is part of China. But he stopped in this interview with Brett Baer. You know, he, you know, he went, he went further and he said, I don't want someone declaring independence and then expecting that the United States will have its back. And I'm sure that those words were, you know, obviously caused a lot of anxiety in, in Taiwan. Yeah. So I would say what, so I think that there, there were three novelties. One, I think, fleshing out, fleshing, fleshing out his critique of Taiwan and saying, you know, there's someone who's independence minded and we don't want to, you know, Taiwan shouldn't assume that America will have its back. So he's sort of fleshing out that critique, number one. Number two, explicitly saying, moving beyond saying that, you know, President Xi and I are negotiating arms sales to Taiwan and now saying that arms sales are a bargaining ship. I don't, I haven't actually I hadn't as far as I know, encountered any interviews of his or any speeches of his or other commentary in which he has used that kind of, you know, language that arms shows are a bargaining chip. And the third was he is explicitly now, you know, treating China and Taiwan equally in terms of, in terms of asking them to exercise restraint. So I think on a couple of occasions he said, I would advise or I would urge China to cool it down. I would urge Taiwan to cool it down.
- [42:49]
Kaiser Kuo
Right.
- [42:49]
Ali Wyne
And so the, the upshot is, for me, the upshot of the, the, the interview with Brett Baer is that, and I should say I didn't anticipate that official US Policy on, on Taiwan would change. And in part, I think that the, the hand wringing and speculation in advance about whether he would change officially US Policy was misguided because President Trump has never been beholden to official pronouncements. It's not as though if the White House had said in its readout, official US Policy hasn't changed, that President Trump would somehow feel himself hemmed in. So I think that the focus on whether the United States changes its official policy under President Trump is misguided. Although China certainly would welcome a change of official US Policy. What really matters is unofficially, what signals is the president sending. And I think that the president has made clear that his view, he takes a dim view of Taiwan. He views it almost exclusively through the lens of a chip making industry that he believes it has extorted from the United States. He doesn't believe that Taiwan should count on the United States to come to its defense. And again, he, I think that he now seems to be viewing Taiwan through that G2 aperture that he invoked very favorably.
- [43:58]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah. Yeah.
- [43:59]
Ali Wyne
So I do think that even though official US Policy has not changed, I do think that with this interview that he gave to Brett Baier, even more so than the interview that he gave to the New York Times a few months ago, he is, he has clarified his positions in a way that I imagine President Xi would find welcome, but that President Lai would find concerning.
- [44:17]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I thought it really got interesting when Wang Yi, at his briefing the morning after the summit, he, and I'm going to quote here from, from the official Chinese text, he said, we sensed at the meeting that the US Side understands China's position takes China's concerns seriously and like the international community, does not endorse and does not accept Taiwan moving toward independence. That's a notable shift from the standard US Formulation, which has long been does not support, but it doesn't go all the way to does not accept, given what Trump actually said in the press gaggle that he was holding the strategic ambiguity, Wang Yi's characterization seems less like a description of the meeting and more like kind of a marker being laid down, just sort of like testing the US to see whether they will contest his characterization.
- [45:16]
Ali Wyne
I think that the last part of what you said is the critical point, because we were talking a few minutes ago, that the Chinese delegation proposed this new high level framework, constructive strategic stability, and that the White House evidently hasn't contested it. And similarly, and as you mentioned, there's a subtle but important shift in the rhetoric that Wang Yi used. I think, again, sort of probing, is this subtle escalation of rhetoric on our side, is it going to elicit a response from the White House? And thus far, I don't think that the White House has responded, and I think that the White House hasn't responded because as President Trump's conversation with Bret Baier makes clear, I suspect that there's actually a fair degree of compatibility between Xi's position on Taiwan and Trump's thinking. Now, Trump, you know, Trump wants, you know, he can't. Trump campaigned. It's important to keep in mind, even though, you know, counter to his, counter to his inaugural address, he now finds himself embroiled in wars, one of which was entirely a war of choice, namely in Iran. But keep in mind that when President Trump retook office on January 20th of 2025, he said in his inaugural address, he said, my greatest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. I will be remembered not only for the conflicts that I ended, but also for the conflicts that did not start under my watch. And I can imagine, and here I'll put out a, perhaps a provocative hypothetical on the table or a provocative imagined conversation. President Xi, when he first met President Trump or when, when President Trump first made his, his first official state visit in November of 2017. Yeah, in November of 2017. Keep in mind that a year earlier, Trump's election had sent shockwaves around the world. Xi and his advisers were still trying to take Trump's measure. They didn't know who really who they were dealing with at this point. Now they've taken his measure quite well. They understand him quite well. President Xi understands that President Trump wants to be remembered as a peacemaker. And I can imagine a conversation between the two leaders in Beijing that went along the lines of the following. Mr. President, you see yourself as a singularly visionary peacemaker. This grinding war between Russia and Ukraine, which has now entered its fifth year, imperils the peacemaking legacy that you hope to cement the escalating crisis in the Middle east further imperils that legacy. Your only chance of salvaging your peacemaking legacy is to avoid a new conflict in a new theater, namely Asia. I can help you avoid a conflict in Asia, but it would require us to align our positions on sensitive issues in Asia, namely Taiwan. And so implicit in that kind of hypothetical conversation, it's a warning that's paired with a promise. The warning is, and she telegraphed this, that if the United States does not handle cross trade issues properly, there's a risk that the US China relationship could devolve into clashes and even conflicts. The implicit promise is, Mr. President, if you handle cross strait issues properly, in accordance with my way of thinking, it's
- [48:23]
Kaiser Kuo
not going to happen on your watch,
- [48:24]
Ali Wyne
it won't happen under your watch, and American history will remember you as perhaps the Nixon of the 21st century, and global history will remember you as a singularly consequential statesman. And so I think that what she is doing is he's tapping into Trump's instincts, he's tapping into Trump's ego or invoking Trump's ego, and he's pairing a warning with an invitation. And I suspect that that combination proved effective with Trump, because had it not, I suspect that we would have seen some pushback from the White House on Wang Yi's formulation on Taiwan. But maybe that pushback will materialize in the days to come. But thus far, it hasn't.
- [49:02]
Kaiser Kuo
You mentioned the war in Iran, this war of choice. The American readout placed real weight on the Hormuz understanding. Again, China hasn't contested it, but it wasn't in the Chinese readout. Trump, in his Air Force One press gaggle, said that Xi had told him directly that Iran couldn't have a nuclear weapon and that the strait needs to reopen and that there wasn't going to be a toll. That last part is genuinely striking, the whole bit about because neither Xi nor any senior Chinese official has said publicly that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. The Chinese readout is it does not mention Iran at all. Wang Yi's briefing the next morning stuck to the whole ceasefire. First language did not echo Trump's account. How do you read that gap between what Trump says she told him privately and what Beijing is willing to say publicly? What does that tell us about how much China is actually willing to do here? And just cards on the table? I really think that in general, my principle is, if you can serve self interest and appear magnanimous all in one go, why not give Trump this win why not say that China will be more proactive in securing the Iranian stand down in Hormuz?
- [50:18]
Ali Wyne
Yeah, I agree with your assessment, and I think that China could easily, without actually expending much effort to help Trump mitigate a crisis of his own making, I agree with you that it would require really no effort at all just to say, just to offer some, some bland sort of public nod to Trump. Yeah, yeah, some bromides. I agree with you. But I think that the, the broader point that I would make is I think the one, one reason for the discrepancy in the readouts is I think that the White House wants to put pressure on China publicly with this readout to do more to help the United States and that its desire to put public pressure on China is a tacit acknowledgement that if there is, it's a tacit acknowledgement that the United States is not going to be able to bomb Iran into capitulation, that any enduring detente will necessarily be a negotiated political one, and that China will likely have to play some role in brokering, in persuading or prevailing upon Iran to come back to the negotiating table. So I think that the White House is hoping to put pressure. My sense is that China, and I agree with you again, as we were just discussing a minute ago, I don't think that it would require really any effort at all on China's part to offer some bromides without having to actually help the United States. But I think that China's calculation is that while this war causes China a lot of headaches, that the war is, on balance, undermining America's national interests more than China's. So if you're China, you say to yourself, look, we can weather a short term disruption of commercial traffic across the Strait of Hormuz. Sure, the Gulf countries are upset at us that we haven't done more to prevail upon Iran to stop our attacks. But the Gulf countries are also angry at the United States because the Gulf countries, while having no love, lost for Iran, they said that this war was unnecessary. And as a result of the war, you didn't come to our defense. We've burned through a lot of our own missile interceptors and, and munitions. And China's benefiting from the US War in Iran in other ways. In order for the United States to replenish its stockpile of missile interceptors in the Middle east, it'll require gallium exports from China. China also gets a major energy boost because in the medium to long run, a growing number of countries, including US Allies and partners now view Middle east fossil fuels as an irredeemable economic, energy and security liability. They want to now accelerate their clean energy transitions. And you can't do so without inputs from. So my sense is, again, I don't want to, I don't want to make it seem as if this war doesn't cause China headaches. It certainly causes China headaches. But I think that China is calculating that, especially with America's midterm elections coming up and with the price of gas remaining elevated, I think that China's calculation is that the politics, the politics of the war in terms of disillusionment among Trump's base, elevated gas prices, and also anger from long standing American allies and partners. So that combination of factors will put more pressure on the United States to wind down operations than it will put pressure on China to bring Iran back to the negotiating table.
- [53:27]
Kaiser Kuo
Fantastic. Ali, last question for you. Different observers are ending this week in different places, right? Some are cautiously optimistic, both sides invested in the relationship. The bone is beginning to knit after a bad break, as I've said, others are cautiously alarmed. I mean, Beijing seems to be locking in a favorable truce. The US Policy community is asleep at the wheel. And then there are voices in Beijing who I think are quietly confident. China's strategic patience is compounding. Time is very much on Beijing's side. Where do you end the week? I know I've asked you for your 30,000 foot view, but what would have to happen for you to update meaningfully in either direction over the next, say, six months?
- [54:15]
Ali Wyne
I would have to, if, if Trump and I, I think I made this, maybe I'll, I'll end here with where I started. So I think I said at the outset of our conversation that President Trump, in spite of himself, as a consequence of his Liberation Day tariff gambit and as a consequence of his war in Iran, that President Trump has stumbled into or blundered into a more realistic appreciation of China's power, to the extent that that recognition begins trickling down to fellow Republicans, to the extent that it begins recalibrating the discourse on the Hill, maybe we could look back and say that one sort of salutary impact of President Trump's foreign policy blunders has been to shift in a more nuanced, thoughtful direction the political conversation on China policy. In terms of where I come out, I would say one plus is, I do think, just to underscore a point that I've made, I think that President Trump, by virtue of disposition and also by virtue of blunders has expanded the overton window on China policy. And on the, I don't know if I would say negative side, but just objectively, the other consideration is China does have reason to be confident. What is striking to me is that the more that the United States undertakes competitive self sabotage, the less assertive China has to be in terms of reconfiguring the international balance of power. China, our meaning, America's. America's mistakes give China the opportunity to focus on itself, to focus on its own technological development, to focus on its own sort of diplomatic expansion. So I don't get the sense that China is agitating to overtake the United States, that China is trying to replace the United States. I think that China feels that the United States is, because it's hurting itself at home and abroad, that China has more breathing room to be patient. It has more breathing room to address structural economic issues, more breathing room to make inroads with allies and partners. But I don't get the sense that it's in a hurry. I don't get the sense that it has. That it feels that it has a narrow time horizon to achieve any particular objectives. I think, if anything, I think that Trump's missteps make China feel that it has the luxury to be more patient.
- [56:33]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, that's pretty much where I come down. It's not too far away from how a lot of people are seeing things in Beijing. As I've said, time is very much on their side right now. China's strategic patience has paid off. Well, agreed. Ali, one last thing. If you could pick one article, one op ed, one interview that you've seen or read since the summit that you think gets it right. What, what would your pick be?
- [57:00]
Ali Wyne
Oh, since the summit, I was gonna, I was going to give you one. I was gonna give you one that was published. Just a couple of. Well, may I give you one before and one after. Yeah. So. So before the summit, Ryan. Ryan Haas's piece in the Atlantic I thought was great.
- [57:15]
Kaiser Kuo
Oh, that was, yes.
- [57:16]
Ali Wyne
Essentially. Essentially expounding your notion of strategic patience. I thought that his analysis, characteristically was spot on. And then after the summit, Jessica's piece,
- [57:25]
Kaiser Kuo
which I mentioned, that was my pick too. That was my pick too.
- [57:28]
Ali Wyne
Just I, I think the cold piece.
- [57:30]
Kaiser Kuo
1.
- [57:30]
Ali Wyne
The cold piece, it's, it's, it's terrific. I thought that those were both excellent and characteristically excellent pieces.
- [57:37]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah. Let me add one, one little thing that, that Jessica published something in that her ACF website @johns Hopkins sized. It's called, and she Just gave me permission to republish it on my substack.
- [57:50]
Ali Wyne
Oh, terrific.
- [57:51]
Kaiser Kuo
ACF voices on the Trump Xi Beijing visit. It features people like Carla Friedman, Mike Lampton, Jack Shanahan, Andy Murtha, Dan Taylor, Ling Chen, Hofeng Hung, a bunch of really, really big voices. Sam Sachs, Graham Webster, a bunch of people Paul Triolo's in there who will sort of give their paragraph or two take on the summit. Really, really good read. I urge people to check that out. And that will be on my substack.
- [58:23]
Ali Wyne
Oh, terrific. I'm looking forward to reading that compilation.
- [58:26]
Kaiser Kuo
Ollie Wine of the International Crisis Group, thank you so much for taking time out of your afternoon to chat with me, and as always, really great insights from you. Let's move on to our Paying it forward section.
- [58:39]
Ali Wyne
Yes, I've been looking forward to this far, the conversation.
- [58:42]
Kaiser Kuo
I'm sure you've got a good one. So somebody from your own organization or.
- [58:46]
Ali Wyne
So I have. If you will indulge me for the pay it forward section, which I love that you're doing. I have four, if you'll indulge.
- [58:52]
Kaiser Kuo
Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, sure. Why not?
- [58:55]
Ali Wyne
So, number one, Afra Wang, who's been on your show.
- [58:59]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:59]
Ali Wyne
I, she, she.
- [59:00]
Kaiser Kuo
She's a rising star, needs no.
- [59:03]
Ali Wyne
Needs no introduction. But for those who don't know her, she's the author of the Concurrent Newsletter. And I, I find her just to be one of the most thoughtful, nuanced and creative writers on China's technological development and the cultural. And, and. And in helping us understand what China's technological development says about sort of broader socioeconomic shifts in China. So. Should be number one delight. Yeah, she's terrific. Number two, Ali Matthias, or Matthias, excuse me. She's a senior research assistant at Brookings.
- [59:34]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, she's gotten a shout out before, I think. Ryan. Ryan is actually. Yeah.
- [59:39]
Ali Wyne
And she wrote a terrific essay with, with John Zinn, also Brookings, in the recent issue. In the latest issue, excuse me, of China Leadership Monitor. And the upshot of their essay, which I found very persuasive, is that unlike a few years ago when there was this fear in Washington that the peak China fear in Washington, they, I think very persuasively demonstrate that now the converse obtains, namely that Chinese elites look at US Actions in Venezuela and Iran as evidence that a declining United States is lashing out militarily. So Ali's research, I think I would really commend. And then my last two.
- [60:15]
Kaiser Kuo
Well, I have to insert something here.
- [60:17]
Ali Wyne
Sure.
- [60:17]
Kaiser Kuo
I feel like their diagnosis, the Chinese diagnosis, of this, that, that this sort of peak America lashing out. That isn't entirely wrong.
- [60:25]
Ali Wyne
Well, and I think. Well, interestingly, and now that you mention interestingly, I mean, President Trump and some of his closest advisors, they, they openly exalt a world in which unilateral American might makes right and in which international norms, laws are, to quote Stephen Miller, international nicety. So they're not exactly being subtle about their, about their views for another time. No, but definitely, I think, would be a good conversation.
- [60:52]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah. So, yeah, Alec for sure. That was a great piece. That was a really, really interesting piece. I really enjoyed doing great stuff, too.
- [60:57]
Ali Wyne
And then the last two. I think it's important to, I think it's important to spotlight individuals who are doing maybe behind the scenes, but are doing important work to build up very important programs. And so in that regard, Mackenzie Miller, who is the program manager, program manager, excuse me, of the Penn Project on the Future of US China Relations.
- [61:15]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, I just, I just met her in person for the first time. I spoke at Penn just a couple of weeks ago. I guess it wasn't even two. Two weeks ago.
- [61:22]
Ali Wyne
You were there. Yeah, you were there recently. And, and she has been since coming on board. She has done just yeoman's work to build up an already, you know, wonderfully vibrant program. But she really has become a background back.
- [61:34]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, Mackenzie, yeah, she's, she's doing great.
- [61:36]
Ali Wyne
And then last but certainly not least, Kate Gross Whitaker, who is a research and editorial associate at the Institute for America, China and the Future of Global affairs. And like McKinsey at Penn, Kate has just done yeoman's work behind the scenes to make the Institute even more of a powerhouse. So those are four, just four individuals, but individuals for whom I have enormous respect.
- [61:57]
Kaiser Kuo
These are terrific picks. They're really, really great picks. Again, I think you're pointing out, Kate and Mackenzie is terrific because these two programs, you know, ACF and Fusker, the Future of US China relationship, are, they are just, I mean, they're, they're, they're what we need.
- [62:16]
Ali Wyne
Absolutely, absolutely.
- [62:18]
Kaiser Kuo
All right, what about recommendations? What you got for us by way of a book or, you know, something, something you've been enjoying?
- [62:24]
Ali Wyne
I have three. I have three recommendations.
- [62:25]
Kaiser Kuo
Oh, my gosh.
- [62:26]
Ali Wyne
Okay, so. And these are all. And deliberately so, these have nothing to do with the US China relationship, but three books that I've really been enjoying. One, it's, I believe it's her latest book. It's called it's by Rebecca Solnit, one of my favorite writers. No Straight Road takes you there. Essays for uneven terrain. And the upshot is how to. In. In times of upheaval, how to ground ourselves and how to reclaim our agency in our individual lives and also in our political lives. I've really been enjoying that book, and it feels certainly very apropos. Apropos. Excuse me. Right now, another book. This is Michael Pollan's latest book, A World Appears.
- [63:08]
Kaiser Kuo
I read it.
- [63:09]
Ali Wyne
A journey into consciousness. Just sparkling with insights and really makes you think. Pun intended. It really does make you think. And then the last book recommendation. This is by Tom Piazza. It's called Living in the Present with John Prine. Just a very poignant. Just a very poignant reflection on friendship and I think on the importance of. Well, as. As the title suggests, a meditation on the wonder. The wonder that life offers us if we actually pause to let life follow roses and experience it. So those are three. Three book recommendations.
- [63:48]
Kaiser Kuo
Those are terrific. They're really good. And they're all sort of uplifting books. I mean, I. The Michael Pollan book. Let me just say the one thing that bugs me is I was really sort of dreading that he would talk about psychedelic experiences. There's, like, nothing that I hate worse than reading about somebody else's psychedelic experience. It's the only times when I really can't stand Ezra Klein's podcast, when he veers off into that, like the one that he did with Gia Tolentino. But otherwise, you know, usually it's like, my favorite podcast in the world. Please. It's like listening to somebody else's dreams. That annoying friend of you who insists on telling you in intimate detail about the random dreams they have. Like, please, if I ever do that, Ali, just smack me.
- [64:35]
Ali Wyne
Duly noted.
- [64:36]
Kaiser Kuo
Okay. All right. My recommendation, though, is for the book. One Day everyone will have always been against this by Omar Al Akkad. It's just absolutely. It's a cri de coeur from a brilliant writer. Unsurprisingly, it won the National Book Award. I was thinking the book that it reminds me of most is one that a lot of people will have read. Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates. It's got that same kind of unflinching, just no offer of consolation, just this, like, brutal, moral, accusatory tone. Omar was born in Egypt. He spent his childhood in Qatar before emigrating with his family to Canada. He now lives in Portland, Oregon. I had the pleasure of meeting him in person recently in California. Yeah, we were at an event together. We had a long chat about like 90s grunge music and really good guy up. I found him just to be an immensely compelling dude. Just smart, really funny, really great raconteur. The book, if you haven't read it yet, one day everyone will have always been against this is about Palestine. It's not just about Palestine. It's also about the us it's kind of about the moral failings of the United States and the west more broadly. It's about his disenchantment. He's somebody who's obviously really familiar with, intimately familiar with, and maybe even very much in love with the west, who has just fallen out of love. And it's, it's a beautifully written book. I highly recommend it.
- [66:11]
Ali Wyne
And sometimes, and just Kaiser on that point. I mean sometimes the most scathing indictments come from the place of deepest love.
- [66:18]
Kaiser Kuo
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's absolutely the case. So. Yeah. Well, great recommendations and I, I will especially want to pick up that Rebecca Solnit collection.
- [66:28]
Ali Wyne
It's really good. You'll enjoy it. It's really good.
- [66:31]
Kaiser Kuo
She's. She's really terrific. Well, thanks man. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat.
- [66:37]
Ali Wyne
My pleasure, Kaiser. Thanks so much for having me on. It looks like it's a really nice day outside, so I hope you're able to get outside and enjoy the good weather. But just always a pleasure to listen, listen to you, learn from you and, and really glad that we did this again.
- [66:51]
Kaiser Kuo
Likewise, Ollie. Okay, you've been listening to the Seneca Podcast. The show is produced, recorded, engineered, edited and mastered by me, Kaiser Gulla. Support the show through substack@cinecopodcast.com where you will find a growing offering of terrific original China related writing and audio. Email me@cinekapodmail.com if you've got ideas on how you can help out with the show. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Enormous gratitude to University of Wisconsin Madison's center for East Asian Studies for supporting the show again this year. Huge thanks to my guest Ali Lai. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week. Take care.
- [67:48]
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