Jul 9, 2026 · 1 hr 2 min · 20 segments
Like the rest of us, China’s leaders are confronting a world in turmoil. They see uncertain American commitments to allies, even as many of those allies ramp up their own defense efforts. They see…
Oriana Skylar MastroGuest
Dan Kurtz-PhelanHost
Your most recent piece for Foreign Affairs is on the intersection of the China, Russia, and North Korea challenges for U.S. foreign policy, but you've done fantastic essays over the years for the magazine on Chinese strategy more broadly, on China, Russia, on China, North Korea, on threats to Taiwan.
What is your understanding of the Chinese understanding of this moment, how it sees this moment in history?
Emerging technology, where we are with AI, people like to say, "Well, now the whole international system, everything's different.
It's not like, you know, in the nineteen nineties when the Chinese decided that they wanted to leverage their economic power to become a military power, which I wrote about in Foreign Affairs, The Stealth Superpower, that they didn't predict that, for example, there'd be volatility in the U.S. system.
They actually debated for many years how the United States would react once it recognized it was a declining power.
Now, we might see the U.S. position differently, but the Chinese have a series of metrics, uh, to understand where they are vis-à-vis U.S. power, and they decided that the United States was going to become much more aggressive towards them when their economy was two-thirds the size of China's, and that happened in the first Trump administration.
And then they predicted that the United States would become much more risk-acceptant in terms of use of force during this period of time.
Then of course, to be a tech superpower, emerging tech, I mean, Xi Jinping has had these science and technology plans that put that at the forefront of their strategy for a long time.
So, you know, it might change a little bit around the edges, like, "Okay, now they're going to be a little bit nicer.
They're not going to talk to us," in terms of the tactics of the strategy.
But the overall approach of trying to strengthen, you know, China at home to become more self-sufficient, so it's not so reliant on the United States and its allies and partners to pursue its own vision of the international system, you know, that's been the same for thirty years.
Your most recent piece for Foreign Affairs is on the intersection of the China, Russia, and North Korea challenges for U.S. foreign policy, but you've done fantastic essays over the years for the magazine on Chinese strategy more broadly, on China, Russia, on China, North Korea, on threats to Taiwan.
What is your understanding of the Chinese understanding of this moment, how it sees this moment in history?
Emerging technology, where we are with AI, people like to say, "Well, now the whole international system, everything's different.
It's not like, you know, in the nineteen nineties when the Chinese decided that they wanted to leverage their economic power to become a military power, which I wrote about in Foreign Affairs, The Stealth Superpower, that they didn't predict that, for example, there'd be volatility in the U.S. system.
They actually debated for many years how the United States would react once it recognized it was a declining power.
Now, we might see the U.S. position differently, but the Chinese have a series of metrics, uh, to understand where they are vis-à-vis U.S. power, and they decided that the United States was going to become much more aggressive towards them when their economy was two-thirds the size of China's, and that happened in the first Trump administration.
And then they predicted that the United States would become much more risk-acceptant in terms of use of force during this period of time.
Then of course, to be a tech superpower, emerging tech, I mean, Xi Jinping has had these science and technology plans that put that at the forefront of their strategy for a long time.
So, you know, it might change a little bit around the edges, like, "Okay, now they're going to be a little bit nicer.
They're not going to talk to us," in terms of the tactics of the strategy.
But the overall approach of trying to strengthen, you know, China at home to become more self-sufficient, so it's not so reliant on the United States and its allies and partners to pursue its own vision of the international system, you know, that's been the same for thirty years.
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