Jake Sullivan has sat across from Xi Jinping more times than almost any American official—from Xi's rise in 2013 to their last face-off in Beijing. What's it like negotiating with the world's most powerful dictator? Sullivan reveals Xi's ego, tactics, and how a relationship that started with cautious optimism turned into open hostility.
Guest: Jake Sullivan, Former U.S. National Security Adviser for President Biden and the host of The Long Game, a new podcast from Vox Media.
Book Recommendations:
The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping by Joseph Torigian.
Apple in China by Patrick McGee.
Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions.
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China's Arms Race
China is outbuilding America's navy and beating us in hypersonic missiles. Xi has purged corrupt generals to create a military machine loyal only to him. Can China's forces actually win a war? We break down the PLA's transformation from paper tiger to potential superpower.
Guest: Zhou Bo, Retired Senior Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army (https://ciss.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/CFExperts/1212)
Book Recommendations:
Should The World Fear China by Zhou Bo
China’s Quest for Military Supremacy by Joel Wuthnow and Phillip Saunders
Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions.
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Generation Burnout
China's youth were supposed to lead the nation to glory. Instead, they're lying flat, embracing "garbage time," and quietly rebelling against a system that promised everything and delivered economic stagnation. In this episode of Face-Off - our first of Season 3 (!) - we get inside the psychology of China's disillusioned generation.
Guest: Chang Che, Chinese-American Writer (https://changnche.com/)
Book Recommendations:
Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future by Ian Johnson
Other Rivers: A Chinese Education by Peter Hessler
Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions.
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Season 3 Trailer
In our third season of Face-Off: The US vs China, we’ll explore some of the biggest issues dividing these global powers today: Trump and Xi Jinping, AI, China’s growing military might, and also… robots.
Season 3 of Face-Off: US vs China begins Tuesday, November 18th. Join us.
Face-Off is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions.
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THE GREATER WAGER EPISODE 5: The Break-Up
THE GREAT WAGER Episode 5. The break-up: Richard Nixon’s great wager reverberates from the '70s to today
While we’re preparing season 3 of Face Off, we’re excited to present an encore presentation of The Great Wager, a five-part series about Richard Nixon’s top-secret plan to go to China, befriend China, and change the balance of power in the Cold War.
This is the series finale: Episode 5.
All of a sudden, it’s less clear if Nixon’s wager is paying off. After years of collaboration and mutual economic benefit, relations between China and the U.S. are at a low point. What does the start of this important relationship reveal about its next chapter?
The Great Wager was produced in 2022 with Here & Now and WBUR Podcasts. This special presentation of The Great Wager is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions. Rowhome’s Creative Director is Alex Lewis. John Myers is Rowhome’s Executive Producer. Face Off is a proud member of the Airwave podcast network.
Book Recommendations:
Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan. An insider look at how Nixon and Kissinger operated in Beijing.
Assignment China: An Oral History of American Journalists in the People's Republic by Mike Chinoy. Chapter 4: How American reporters, who knew little about China, covered the presidential trip
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FACE-OFF: US vs CHINA is an inside look at the turbulent relationship between the world's two superpowers, the two men in charge, and the vital issues that affect us all.
FACE-OFF is hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jane Perlez, former New York Times Beijing bureau chief and current fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. In each episode Professor Rana Mitter, recently of the University of Oxford and now professor of modern China at the Harvard Kennedy School, chats with Jane on what’s at stake.
UK