James Steinberg served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011. During this time, he proposed the concept of “strategic reassurance” to deal with the US-China relations. He also served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Clinton from 1996 to 2000. Now, he is the dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In this interview, James Steinberg talked about the background of proposing the “strategic reassurance” and its significance for US-China relations, the expectations of US policymakers for US ..read more

Just a little more than a year since the notorious “Chinese balloon incident,” a congressional probe of Chinese-built cargo cranes revealed the shocking finding last week that there was communications equipment emplaced within the cranes that did not appear to support normal operations. The Chinese company that produced the cranes, the Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC), denied the findings and called the probe “misleading.” The question of whether Beijing is actually spying on Americans via various day-to-day equipment and products is already taken to be a fact within the Beltway, whe ..read more

Editor’s note: Looking back over thousands of years of history, why has the Chinese state been so stable? Yasheng Huang, the Epoch Foundation Professorship of Global Economics and Management at MIT Sloan School of Management, and a fellow at Woodrow Wilson Center, explored this central conundrum that has puzzled him for a long time in his new book: The Rise and Fall of the EAST. Through his research, Huang found out that the stability of Chinese society is a product of history. He pointed out that the imperial examinations or Keju (科举) system and its subsequent impact on modern society have ..read more

Editor’s note: The U.S.-China Perception Monitor recently interviewed Professor Yasheng Huang of MIT, a fellow at Woodrow Wilson Center, on his new book The Rise and Fall of the EAST. In that interview, we asked: You have done a lot of comparative research on China and India, including coauthoring an article called “Can India Overtake China” more than 20 years ago. Looking at where China and India are today in the 3rd decade of the 21st century, do you still think India will eventually surpass China economically? If yes, why? Professor Huang responded to the question through this essay. T ..read more

Andrew Mertha is the George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies, Director of the China Studies Program, and Director of the SAIS China Global Research Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2019 to 2021, Professor Mertha served as the Vice Dean at SAIS. He is a leading scholar in the study of U.S.-China relations in the United States. In this interview, Professor Mertha discusses the role of Chinese and U.S. leaders in navigating the relationship between the two countries, the interaction of U.S.-China relations with domestic polit ..read more

As the Year of the Dragon begins, the critical question for China is: Will it be able to successfully revive its economy? China’s economy has not performed the way many analysts expected since the pandemic. Will the country fall into the notorious middle-income trap? Will China face a structural or cyclical issue? Will China’s economic miracle end? The U.S.-China Perception Monitor recently facilitated an email interview on China’s economy with Logan Wright, a long-time China expert who lived in the country for over two decades. Logan Wright is a Partner at Rhodium Group and leads the fir ..read more

David M. Lampton is Professor Emeritus and former Hyman Professor and Director of SAIS-China and China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Sr. Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute. Dr. Lampton was formerly President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, and he is the author of many books including his most recently published Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War. Below, you will find the transcript from the U.S.-China Perception Monitor’s interview with Dr. Lampton about his new book. Dr. Lampton also sh ..read more

The U.S.-China Perception Monitor interviewed Dr. David M. Lampton on his new book Living U.S.-China Relations: From Cold War to Cold War, you can find the original transcript here. In the interview, we asked him to share a few anecdotes with us from his life-long dedication to fostering a cooperative U.S.-China relationship. We asked him to share stories that stand out to him as influential moments both in U.S.-China relations and his own life. You may read the three vignettes he shared with us below. Analysts often hesitate to use anecdotes because they seem so specific to the individu ..read more

Sarah Mellors Rodriguez (莫诗嫣) is Associate Professor of East Asian History at Missouri State University. She obtained her PhD in History from University of California, Irvine in 2018. Her research interest lies in the history of medicine, gender and sexuality, and reproductive policies in China. Her new book, Reproductive Realities in Modern China: Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) thoroughly examines continuities and shifts in China’s politics of reproduction through a broad timeframe. Building on a rich archival base and records, Dr. Rodriguez also ad ..read more

Editor’s Note: As the only superpower in the world, the U.S. presidential election garners significant global attention. This is especially true for people who care about U.S.-China relations, arguably the most consequential bilateral relationship. The U.S.-China Perception Monitor recently sat down with Professor Samuel J. Abrams of Sarah Lawrence College to discuss the 2024 presidential election and other pressing issues. Abrams also serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and holds a faculty fellowship at New York University’s Center for Advanced Social S ..read more