with the year the days of this new country look like to the eyes of the enslaved. >> good morning welcome to bill wilson center i direct the kissinger institute and we are extremely pleased to have roll friends with us this morning to discuss his new book the beautiful country and the metal came down. earnings his degree in east asian studies at stanford then part of the first wave of american university students to go to try now. and was the launching pad for the first book the story of the new china and markets back to the early experiences to follow the path and the trajectory over china's many changes in 2006 for after returning to the university he went back to china in 1988 and then was expelled from china just get out of here because of his links during that period and reported from bosnia and afghanistan and later was the editor of the "washington post" that was headed back to china for a stint to conduct research and for the best coverage in asia also has won prizes for his coverage of asia and the fellowship covering education in china. >> '01 people from the los and center are in the audience you know, our relations right now or in a precarious state to say respective spheres that any time since normalization running very deep we are the first time running countries by men to be fundamentally adversarial. it is a reflection of the views of the people at the same time and that remains true today in the strategic area andrea also overdue for the economic relations in terms of trade and investment. to face gradual domestic division around the world both countries are in need to take the deep self clinical therapeutics brad and the middle kingdom. if my interpretation is wrong and that the end of a book with the chinese fears and hopes the major theme of the book but it traces to wondered 50 years of mutual frustration and fascination barely telling those stories of women and men to symbolize the of relationship and one thing that was always struck reading the stories is that any one of them could be a novel or a movie in its own right. but even if you follow this it traces the relationship between culture and that is the real importance of this right w is for sale in the lobby after word so that it gets the attention it deserves. alaska few questions then to the audience as well. anytime you get to a new era that both sides were destined to be disappointed. this is an expansion needs corrected on that. but to be transported and essential and with that early educational exchanges after graduated the professions of the institutions with mining and engineering with the sciences and medicine. and those institutes created the field of medicine and biology scientology chemistry mathemats geology. and this is recognized in china today? to have positive contributions in a thing over mutual suspicion with very universities with the story of the americans of the bombs are the contributions recognize? also cannot be enabled no? >> the first question generally speaking is the recognition of the contribution but they're less willing to recognize the arc of their packaging that has become quite negative so with that said there is that acknowledgement from the western learning in china despite the fact of cultural cultural imperialism so it is a schizophrenic pitcher i think specifically in the last decade have been interested in tamping down sof a say how can you credit china then we move from the internet in terms of the impeachment issue that we have to stop engaging with china from my perspective having just left china after another five years there is a sense of warmth and that the profit of modernization while the competition with the technology and the markets and from when we lived and china many years ago. >>hen e chided dream speech was given the backgrnd sry and other displays of modernization desi hearken back to the up predecessors? >> i think much more of a nationalist even more than mao to except those conference - - even though he would follow his orders that he was much more of a chinese populist with the emphasis on with the chinese have done to modernize but with that cross pollination and he ignores that. and then now the party is saying moving in that direction. were really in the reality that is clearly not the case >> and the beautiful country set out a parallel structure that is pretty hard to maintain in some ways whose story is this really? there are fascinating episodes and with the sidebars they seem to be closer to the mainstream story of development so reads as the china story but it is of the united states but that is the cousin americans telling the stories. so how might that be differently to balance that out blacks -- that out? >> because china figures ridley imagination of americans and if you look negative up for a trade one of the biggest foreign trade partners in fact, the biggest percentage during the period of time with massive war in in europe but then it collapsed after that. said to have those dreams with those boundaries of missouri and then to bring that little closer to china with the practical everyday policy whereas the chinese have the potential ally so for them it was more important in many ways. >> that is a natural push of a the modernization. >> but the influence of chinese immigrants to the united states and and also bring that up to the modern day as well. and in the chinese tradition and in that chinese culture offered to americans. how iina chging united states now? or is there any other influence greg. >> that is difficult to say. . . this is a program that the american use of the foundation. a lot of other eight programs were used as the foundation for asid in the peace corps. a lot of the original ideas about helping the chinese were taken by americans and put on a global scale. that's been a very important part of her interaction. back to china's influence in terms of culture. i just don't see it very much back you do have their great wall starring matt damon opening thiseek and this film has begun in various ways in a way that we been competing. i haven't seen a great while yet. has anyone seen it ? the reviews suggest. >> is a work in process. >> you write that 1935 alone five alone more than 350 american movies were shown in china. i thought that was astounding. that's the same air other than american jazz gets translated to china. more than 90% of films shown in 1935 were american films. what do you attribute that a fascination in the various periods, in the 30s and the opening -- especially before tiananmen and then creeping up "after words". what role has american popular culture really played in china? is it merely entertainment? >> it has framed a lot of the ways the chinese often tell their own stories. the influence of american films in china was deep in terms of the americans being involved creating its own film industry and along with hong kong as well. in terms of if you look at jazz, modern jazz jazz came to china in the 1920s. it really took off in the 1930s during the depression because american jazz workers, players putting get jobs in the state. they were playing at hot dog stands to make a few bucks. the chinese economy was healthier and so they brought a lot of american jazz players to shanghai who then stop with chinese musicologists and chinese singers and songwriters to create a chinese version of death. this has continued to this day if you listen to mandel pop or pinto pop many of the tunes were basically chinese traditional folk songs that were effectively testified and people who would work. brought into the type of chinese songbook. that influence if you go on to the radio and do a search for chinese canto pop tunes, the american jazz is still there. it's an odd form. the chinese way -- basically, they loved western. they synthesize the westerns. in a variety of movies in the 1930s, you'd see kung fu guys with cowboy hats on. you have this cross-pollination happy from that. on and then of course normalization or in when the opening happen in the 1970s era of t cse coming to the states deeply inflnced by wh they foundn the uned states. chinese poets flying in planes writing about the lights they see under underneath them as the plane goes over. chinese come to america now say you americans are so slow. the second avenue subway opened up it was a cause of great hilarity on the chinese internet saying you americans spent x billion dollars and spent 20 odd years to build one line of a subway down and avenue in new york city where we have done the same thing and built subways intensities already. now you see the flip of the chinese obsession with american culture becoming this looking down their noses at us. it's an interesting transformation. >> another story you tell is the china's role in the key moment in contribution back he basically saved bill bowens bacon because he had a design that the u.s. navy wanted to buy. bowen cut him a 50 buck tech and went back to china and continued in the aeronautics industry. what are the other striking threads of the book? i read it i read it -- you spend a great deal of contracts and what the role of women as conveyors of value, institutions and symbols. could you tell us about the aviators and people -- the american missionariethat went over there and the difrences they made because this is a many threads that would have merited a in its own right after the civil war, a lot of americans to the north were very deeply involved in abolitionist movement and they got education. when they graduated from college, they had limited career options. they could be a schoolteacher. the opportunity to become a missionary was increasingly attractive to american women because as the american missionary experience through in china, the realization that came the only way to get to the chinese was through the family. to do that we had to have american women doing the proselytizing. the women married two pictures were too busy dealing with the family so you had to hire single american women to go to china and proselytize. there was a boom in this and 40 while they were actually the largest chunk of all missionaries in china. then they got deeply involved in the chinese woman issue. they started the literacy campaign for chinese women. deeply involved in campaigns against but binding which was ultimately successful not by the communists but it started with the ching dynasty. china became for single american women a place where they could be all that they could be. in opposition to the united states, american women doing operations in china when they were effectively banned from the operating room in the united states. they were sharing departments and universities in china when they could barely get jobs at the college level in america. you had china emerging in this place were american women have the first career woman type experience overseas, expect treated. i found that to be a fascinating strain and continues to this day, definitely in the early '80s you had a lot of american women as consultants in china been successful whereas in the united states it would have been more difficult for them to get their feet on the ground and also hillary clinton. if you look in 1995 after getting slapped around for the first few years as the first lady with the debacle over healthcare, she found her political mojo in beijing, at the beijing woman's conference. in my perspective, it's not incidental that she rediscovered herself in china is an american woman. china has this bizarre role of being a platform for american women. you mentioned aviators tell the story of anna mae wong, and some of the chinese american women who really changed chinatown and the image of american chinese. there was a significant group of american chinese that came to be educated and went back to china. their stories are fascinating because american women who were proselyting china wereingle american women but they were proselytizing the chinese to find a good christian chinese husband and marry him and settle down. you have a case where their charges basically said i'm not going to do what you tell me to do but i'll do what i want to do. when the first graduating class from the woman's class into beijing took a vowed not to marry in order to be like the single american women. that was a fascinating micro- culture in a way. on the other side, you had the chinese -- the idea of a powerful woman with a chinese culture and a western education. you see that in madame chine high shack and anna mae wong who was the nonwhite ethnic movie star in the united states. from chinatown and los angeles she's very chinese but when she opened her mouth she like an la valley girl. for many decades she was an amazingly transfixing star in both our films and in china. interestingly, the chinese react to that was again schizophrenic. on one side when she landed in the dock in shanghai visiting china she was mobbed by people because it was a great movie star but on the other side, the chinese conservatives and communists criticized her as being a sellout to western values because she wer scanty close and danced in movies, et cetera. in some ways this has continued to this day. >> you tell the stories but are also looking for patterns. what do you see as the key pattern that you derive from this history that you think are useful lens going forward? >> simply put, it's a cycle of enchantment and rapture and the idea that china will make us all rich or that america will save china and battle against xy and z. almost inevitably by crushing disappointment. if you then basically, they insanity is doing the same thing twice but expecting different results but they go on at some.rise again with more enchantment which is again followed by disaster. that cycle i think has played itself out up until this day. when we go into the future it's anybody's guess. it's clear from the 1780s till now we followed this pattern of a love-hate relationship. where we are in this moment at this juncture i think is a critical importance so the queson of where we go now and reading the book ts is the question that lingers over how we a to read the story and on what happened next. is this leading up to a story about china's eventual liberalization in some form?is it a story about the convergence and necessary components of maternity or do we read this as an ironic and tragic story from america's.of view, a story about america eventual decline and china's eventual triumph which gives us a different teacher. you can read this -- this is a story about china as america's student or is this america is china's soccer? >> you must have thought about the different views as you are writing and you're not here to prophesy but how do you see that story, several tracks along with it might play out since the 1800s the americans have believed that a strong china -- we've had some detours on that in the 1950s in the cold war but generally speaking we believed in a strong china. not just because were nice people but because it would help us. now we have a strong china and i think -- at least on the surface a strong china. were confronting the whole problem of what you wish for. as to china's soccer versus china's mentor ihink were working in that place and right now were very much at the crossroads about how the relationship will go forward and very specific things are going to push it in one direction or the other. for example, how china feels and how we deal with north korea. how we will manage our trade issues. these are going to be important and how this game plays out. also, in how china confronts its debt overhang, social social problems and how we deal with our own issues individually and not involving each other will be important factors as well. right now, without trying to prophesy were at a crossroads and with a new administration here and entering another five years this is a story that will be a compelling one regardless of what happens. one thing on american decline, is that all of us at some time think the chinese definitely have a will overestimate that america will fall in place. americahas a tendency to overestimate china's ability to win all of its battles. that is something we need to bear in mind as we look at this relationship goes forward. >> having lived in china and been involved in china for 40 years, you heard an awful lot from chinese into lockers what all of us have heard that the chinese understands america better than we understand china. if you study english it's marvelous to behold, in the degree that they pay attention history in fact but what is your take on china's understanding of the united states as a relates to these strategic questions and how we deal with each other? what are their big blind spots ? and turn it around, how would you critique americans perceptions of china? >> the chinese have a difficulty understanding american civil society and the role it plays in keeping the wheels from falling off and how our communities really do, in many ways, plus together. yes, they also ripped apart but they also pull us together. when i was talking to a chinese friend of mine about the aclu having a massive fundraising bench and he didn't understand why. he's a very educated chinese experts. on america. he needed to go back and walk him through -- and then it's like oh, yeah, okay. it's not necessarily religious values but it does hold value discussion. the chinese even today despite the fact that they make fun of our subway is that they do look at america in a positive light is our american values. that's continue to be a very powerful inspiration.but they don't quite get where those values come from. that's what they don't quite understand. also, they had difficulty understanding how america right itself. the self corrective, nature of of our system whether you're a pessimist or optimist but it does have a self-correcting nature. they don't understand that. they look at the separation of powers is something that is inefficient and they don't understand that it was made to be inefficient. they think that gets in the way of a benevolent ruler. those fundamental misunderstandings about our values and political system are something that is deep in the chinese dna and how they look at the united states. on the american side, we have a real difficulty thinking of china is not a monarchy. we look at them as this totalitarian totalitarian doug or not. now, even more so than several decades ago they are competing, they are pushing one way or the other, advocating and that sort of polarization of the chinese political system makes it very complicated for americans to get. the other issue is that we have a tendency of underestimating their problems. their problems are severe, demographics -- people know about the environment what you think about the it's a bad thing but it's also something that will hurt systemically in the wrong run. thank you. let's go to the audience now. any questions? i'd like tkeep this on the primary topics of the book but i'd like to keep the focus for the wait for the microphone is being recorded. >> my question is this : one measure of the society is to look to the arts to see where the society is going. in all my time into and i was fascinated by this observation of how many tv sets were turned onto south korean soap operas and might that be an indication indication -- here's the thought, might the personification be the 30 -year-old urban chinese woman. in other words, the the western values are coming into south korea. >> yes, south korean, japanese through south korea, americans through south korea. south south korean influence on china is enormous. so is for example, the the dating game in china. for better or for worse. so much so that the chinese actually -- reality television as well. party centers got sideways with those things because many people were allowed to vote for their tv star and so they stopped the programs because they were considered cultural pollution. for a while in the 90s, and and the city was the hottest show around and then a variety of americans became increasingly influential and game of thrones is something that is used now in common parlor. house of cards as well those parallels -- it's funny because in the 1950s the chinese conducted a series of anti- american campaigns trying to purge american influence from china. in several conversations that that mao had with the other soviet ambassador complained that getting the chinese patent united states states was one of the most difficult things they've done. it remains to be a problem so i'll take the.on the survey is that the chinese being negative towards america but that's generally towards the american government. towards american culture, there's a broad and wide -- they eat it up. nba had $200 million of revenue in china last year. >> you know one of the earlier stories you tell is about the american ambassador and you trace this thread of anti- strong western feeling in least in their authority back to that period. it's not just the communist party. what do you attribute -- what is the core of the objection to the american culture or is it in the chinese? deep in china there is a desire to be, to think of themselves as separate. that they can take the science and the culture and use it and make it chinese.but they will remain chinese and they will be influenced by it. it's a society that is been deeply influenced by foreign cultures, buddhism being one example. there is a reluctance on the part of the chinese to embrace embrace -- to acknowledge that back and forth and that cross-pollination. there's also a fear of the chaoe united states they think chaos. what american values are transported into china would be. this is not about today but i have lots of friends participated and involved in 1989 crackdown. most of them stayed in china and several of them have been extremely wealthy millionaires. when you ask them about their experience, graduate studies during the demonstrations what they think about it now, were not like the united states, we don't have your values, if we became docratic we would be killing each other in the streets there's nothing that would constrain us. that sense that there somehow both superior to us and they don't need ideas or somehow inferior to us is something that you see spoken out of the mouth of one person within five minutes of engaging you. >> it's hard to unpack this binary choice, the authoritative rule instability or somehow if there's freedom of speech, who invades in hawaii. >> hello. my question requires a bit of conjecture. obviously, the biggest break of us and chinese relationship is the establishment of the people public. my question is: do you think the path between the relationship would have taken it difficult past if ding how would've won instead of mao? >> yes. [laughter] there's lots of different historical views on whether his fall was inevitable. my belief is that the thing that created the foundation for the chinese communist state was the invasion of japan in 1937 of china. that knocked the nationalists on their back, ultimately. and committed to his collapse completely. yes, there was corruption and incompetence for sure but it happened during the japanese invasion. now when he spoke to the japanese socialist party delegation in the 1960s credited them with helping him. although that speech i don't think has actually been made publicized. >> is known to scholars but it's not part of the chinese public records. [inaudible] [inaudible] mike question is for chinese what's the key that is important to understanding the united states from culture, then you, political system and national interest. [inaudible] how to keep the policy consistent? >> are you asking if how should china understand america? it depends on where you sit in china. if you want to be in the style business there is one lens through to look at the united states. if you're in geopolitics, there's another lens to look at america. i think that over the last period of time, china has in some ways understood what it wants from america more than what america has understood what it wants from china. i think that the chinese system has helped in some ways china pursue its system more efficiently than the american system has allowed its two pursue its interest. china looks at the relationships from a not a zero sum but clearly based on a specific chinese natural interest. americans have a tendency to look long-term and not worry about short-term issues with china. that's created proems for e us system much more than its credit for the chinese. they're more transactional if you will and that has benefited them in the short term. americans have put a little bit money down today, hoping you'll get more tomorrow. that made things difficult for us. from the perspective the chinese at least in the government has played america better than america's play china. from china's perspective maybe they're having relatively more success than we are with china. >> you spoke earlier about china's demographic issues. could you please compare and contrast chinese demographic issues with the demographic issues facing the united states? >> that's a great question. sometime this year, but deftly by 2020, the average median age of china will be 38 and will drop -- will be above that of the united states. china's large percentage will be over 60 then we have within ten years. i 2025, 1,100,000,000 people above the age of 80. actually 5% has shrunk. 900 million+ and it's getting smaller, relatively rapidly. the chinese rapidly. the chinese acknowledge that this is a serious problem but it creates a lot of cascading challenges for the chinese because with a workforce that is shrinking and has a tendency not to grow as quickly and not innovate as qukly unless they open tir socie to innovation. they're trying to desperately move up the food chain in term of production, it no longer wants to make toys it wants to make iphones, et cetera. additionally to spend money on automation because they don't have robotics because they don't have a labor force anymore. these challenges are what they are facing. china has attempted to write the balance they've dropped the one child policy and it's a two child policy. but if you know chinese they don't like having many babies because it's so excessive to have a kid in china. to raise him or her, sent him to a public special school, and the high school examinations and the ultimate issue is helping them buy an apartment. men with apartments don't make attractive potential spouses without an apartment. giving the real estate market in china is a huge pressure on the chinese family. hoping the two child policy will get the mogul room and this will be a blind alley for them. i look at demographics as being a key and crucial problem they're facing. demographics in america say that china will become the first country that grows old before it gets rich. >> are demographic for our country is a little stronger. they will be only twice what it is here in america. it depends on our immigration policy which could change any day now. [laughter] >> will move back to front, one, two, three wonderful talk. is there a huge disparity between the number of chinese seriously studying the united states and educated ear and the number of americans that are sitting in china, let alone those who are fluent in the others language? even when adjusted for total population. the issue of what people perceive during the course of the study, whether they are able to see what is front of their eyes when they try to understand the culture. what is the consequence of this huge disparity of numbers? >> that's a great question. 300 plus thousand chinese universities and great schools and high schools. all sorts of various shenanigans of getting chinese over here and some of them completely fine but others have been disastrous. you had a situation in la which they called parachute kids, beating each other up and all sorts of problems. in terms of numbers is enormous. americans going to china -- there was an effort to get a hundred thousand americans to study in china but they haven't gotten there in any given time. perhaps, if you spent two days that counts as an educational experience but it had been going there and learning their language is a lot smaller than it used to be. partlly, because parents -- one, students to get there. two, parents don't want their kids to breathe the air in beijing. the other difficulties are the study abroad is almost associated with going to barcelona. [laughter] it's just a different thing in our country and the chinese taken much more seriously. >> what are the consequences of that? >> on a positive side, the chinese are coming and getting a lot of information and ideas and going back to china and putting those ideas into practice. that's five in some areas in beijing and shanghai is very strong. you have a huge health culture exploding in china, organic produce but ideas like that have come to china through us to the south koreans, japanese, and europeans as well. that does create a really nice cultural pollination. in terms of us closing ourselves to china, americans always had that problem. 25% of our population had passports. it is not a country that spends a lot of time thinking about overseas as we are a big continental landmass where is the chinese from that front has looked to us as the key to their modernization. they come here looking for that key. this is a traditional long-term historical problem the united states had vis-à-vis china, vis-à-vis india, vis-a-vis russia any major country, we lack expertise. we lack broad expertise. those who have studied in this country no china really well. people like robert, other people in this institute and elsewhere. their knowledge knowledge and their insight into china, having lived in china andmy from perspective can be as deep as any chinese person has of the united states. in fact, sometimes a lot more deeper. because the access to information here is just so much more open then it is in china even with 50 years of reform. >> will go to you "after words". >> from what i heard in this wonderful talk, i sense that your book is more a product of recent foreign relations because you talk about persons and institutions within the government and also outside of government. if we look back to a more traditional writing of diplomatic history, we will focus more on diplomats and decisions within the government and this leads to my question about how america as a teacher has taught the chinese perception and understanding of diplomacy. if we trace back to most of the 20th century we will see a very conspicuous pride of american education of chinese ambassadors the united states. my question is: how do you consider this influence as a contribution to the predictability of us china relations in the future? >> that's a great question. i cannot really predict the future very well, sadly enough. [laughter] in terms of that story, for example of americans education, speaking of wellington who was a university student who became a senior chinese diplomat for many years, his story is a fascinating one because he was obviously educated in the united states. he was an actor at columbia, the editor of the newspaper, very involved in student work. he left before he graduated to work for other chinese officials and he came to bursae in 1919 in the conference with the idea that the americans were going to back to china. the japanese had taken a province from the germans as part of world war i and so wellington coup with his his great americ education and his great american friends was assured that by the american delegation we've got her back, will help you get the province back. sadly to say, when the chips fell, the chinese didn't get the province back. he was let down, much of china was let down and despite the fact that americans had educated him and the chinese diplomat and helped him found the ministry of foreign affairs in china at the same time the americans at this critical moment stabbing their best pal on the back in this issue. this left him and many other chinese with a great better sense, you americans are bringing this up to be our body and at a critical moment you're letting us down. this was a key moment when america lost a portion of china you mentioned in passing, soft power as part of the chinese -- we know about the use of russian use of the media to spread disinformation and chinese publishes a weekly supplement newspaper has been able to hire hundreds of american to journalist laid off by us media. what are they trying to accomplish and are the accomplishing it? >> i think they're trying to sell another story about china. a different alternative view of china. i don't know whether there actually accomplishing it, so much. it's a lot of noise, their viewership is low and in some cases like china radio international -- the radio stations taking over in galveston texas where they just don't have that much action. traction. they took it thinking i would broadcast into houston but it does a relatively cool winter night at around 11:00 p.m. or after. they're not necessarily getting a demographic they want to hit. the goal is to sell china stories. in other parts of the world it's been more successful. the news agencies in africa is actually a better new agency and faster than a lot of the western ones. a lot of africans radio stations, et cetera rely on chinese news agencies rather than american news agencies. in america, it simply hasn't been in excess. fox has its own narrative to excel. outside of the united states the chinese have done -- and in latin america the chinese have done well. that will have traction in markets that are less mature than ours. let's go back to the middle, two votes in the middle. let's go for two questions at once. >> looking at constraints again, you did a great discussion of demographic demographics, what about water and air pollution. i've no gone to china and gone ill. how much of a constraint will that be? and how. >> second question. >> my question is a bit of a follow-up about the history of the diplomatic relations. in this new interconnected world of people traveling back and forth, every day, internet connections everywhere you look, what rule does public diplomacy play that was not possible even ten years ago? about the environmental issues, to answer it briefly on china -- it's a huge problem in china and a significant course of political instability. how has america played a role in this? it's fascinating actually. it's a great story. the epa is deeply engaged in the chinese epa specifically on issues like acid rain. if you look at sulfur dioxide issues in china which is the cost of acid rain it significantly diminished from the past. the epa has helped the chinese figure out a program of how to monitor cold power plants to see they're turning on their scrubbers. call powerplants were not equipped with scrubbers and didn't turn them on. they've helped them figure out how to monitor that and sulfur dioxide is not has been seriously diminished. the embassy a decade or so ago out of a desire to help americans in beijing figure out what the air quality is like, began to install an epa air monitoring system on the embassy. couple years after that they began to take out the results. it's on an hourly basis where the chinese epa was only doing a day to day aggregate basis but if you've ever been to beijing you know sometimes the sky is blue but by the afternoon it's black. that was difficult for american families to plan their kids activities around so the american pleading activities began as a service to americans living in beijing but it grew into this massive phenomenon where pm 2.5 the particular matter of small nature became in the vernacular of the chinese. the consciousness of the chinese was raised by this twitter feed done by the embassy of the united states. in my book i talk about if you're talking about human rights advanced this unwitting act actually pushed chinese human rights extraordinarily. because raising the consciousness of the chinese about their environment with something an american dead in this case without having it being a policy from the national security council. back to your public diplomacy question diseases into it. when americans seem to try to do public policy they fall on their face. we just don't do propaganda very well. when it's pur. when it's things like this, like the david this was extraordinarily successful -- from my perspective, the most successful diplomacy operation in china because it wasn't one. i find that the conscience american effort to help shape how the chinese think in the united states to be almost as ridiculous as the efforts to cleanse the minds of americans. they flub. >> related to that, one of the few unqualified successes that you tell here, the beam of the light at the end is america after the early '90s with the explosion of chinese domestic air travel and us working with air traffic controllers to improve china's air travel. seems like an unqualified success. two people in china know the story of what could be a great public diplomacy effort? i've never heard the story told before certainly not from chinese. >> specifically now in china the trend is not to credit foreigners for any successes whatsoever. that's the way increasingly populous national government is rolling. among chinese in the industry, definitely. talk to any chinese pilot he's been to the training center and his skills are higher and better because of it. again, the whole faa deeply involved in the united states. on that type of level, on the looking level, the chinese will credit it. the chinese is involved in building a massive nuclear. this is not public because the chinese won't acknowledge the us involvement on these very sensitive areas but also because it makes china look weaker or not as powerful as it would. it bugs me, but it's just the way the chinese roll it at this stage. >> to the back, and over to your left thank you for a terrific presentation and the answers to the questions. my question is based on an occasional report in the american press about the underground christianity in china. occasionally there is the interpretation that they're filling the void left by the decline of marxism. is this a real phenomenon part you see it growing and what transformation might it have? let's. >> let's take a second question might it be more products made in america that are built by robotics made in china. [laughter] be back out after second question first. very likely. it's clear that the chinese are setting the foundation for the 21st, 22nd century economy. whether they're getting there is an open question but there's no shortage of entrepreneurial zeal and omission. the question on sanity, christianity is a real phenomenon in china. it's something that the chinese government has had spasmodic relationship with, cracking up, loosening up, up, there now any cracking down stage. there are probably as many missionaries ichina as they were in the 1920s but they're all masquerading as english teachers. there's an enormous number of americans -- chinese chinese who have become us citizens and go back to china helping, proselytizing and pushing the christianity's boom in china. it's not catholicism it's evangelical christianity that's appealing to many chinese. it's not simply a rural phenomenon, it's also urban phenomenon. the estimate in an entrepreneurial city at the coast of china is 20% christian. the ballpark estimate is anywhere between 30 to 80 million christians in china because the stats are all different whether you're an official china stat or an underground church institution as well. this is all part of the work that our work in china. it is definitely part of the process for the chinese search for meaning the collapse of the mao thought. buddhism is big, all the sort of different searching ways of searching for meaning. >> ian johnson has a new book specifically on this question coming out speaking with him in at the wilson center in april. keep an eye out for that if you want to look more deeply at the person. >> this may be a follow-up to the question that was asked but i'm wondering if there is increasing pressure from chinese businessmen to perhaps enter into joint ventures, if you will, with american business to help their economy and likewise if there is more interest in our country in business from american businesses to collaborate with the chinese? the trading relationship between our country started to become robust in the 1980s and took off in the 1990s and exploded after 2001 when the united states ushered china into the world trade organization. it continues to grow. that said the business community in america is now increasingly split on how it big was china. in the past -- after the collapse of tiananmen square and the collapse of the russian society, it was what kept it on an even keel. now, though, to your question, if you're a high technology manufacturing company in america and you want to do business in china, generally you have to sign a joint venture deal with a chinese company that obligates you to give them your family jewels, if you will, in, in exchange for access to china's market. which means that within five years or so you're going to have a chinese competitor who is going to be making your same product and competing with you at a lower price. that continual issue has caused real morale in the business entity. in the past you saw the business community been the bulwark of keeping the relations on an even keel but now you see a lot more disenchantment back to this cyclical disenchantment with china. on the other side, chinese firms have invested $100 billion in the united states in the last 15 years or so. there's no shortage of chinese firms both state-run or private who want to buy firms in america that have technology. perhaps they'd use them in america and others want to bring back to china to create national champions that can compete with american rivals. >> think you. >> fantastic discussions. are the chinese people learning more about the history of mao and what he has accomplished or what he has caused in terms of the suffering of chinese people? >> in terms of what the history writing in china, we've gone ba in time. the last four or five years the party has launched an attack on historical nihilism which is basically writing about the bad things that happened after 1949. as a result, a lot of issues in terms of china's relations with the rest of the world and how countries help china and specifically the most glaring example was japan's role in china's economic role in the 1980s on. the story is that china had done it all by itself and the story about mao's basically he was 70% cracked, 30%, 30% incorrect but we don't write about the 30 30% incorrect anyway. the books have been banned and sent centered. the environment for publishing is more conservative and then in the 1980s when i first went to china. >> i'd like to ask one final question if i could. following this gentlemen's questions about student and education. you gave a good good interview about why americans aren't going to china, cost, pollution whatever it may be. you talked about the american academy which has abandoned studies such as we are no longer providing the undergraduate level a broad education of the sort that we assumed you had at stanford. this is background and history, philosophy, religion, art, literature that most americans leaving china experts are now in their 70s and 80s had. now we tend to hyper- specialize early on and to smokestack off economics and history poetry whatever it may be. how are we doing in terms of preparing americans to be able to understand this kind of complex history and to work across various areas to strive to have a constructive relationship with china. how do you see that changing since your universities? >> that's a good. you see people going to china -- the students that i interact with now are in environmental studies. or i'm in economics and i'm looking at chinese barriers to trade so the specialization is definitely increasing and it makes it in some sense, great because because they can do deep dive but in terms of a sense of a broad understanding, it's much more difficult. as a result, i don't know what the increasing focus on one dot on a pin, how that will impact the broader community but ultimately, you do ne generalist to get in there. the lack of generalist is apparent. every american student i bump into has his or her specialty, even though there a sophomore in the university. that's not necessarily positive. >> i would like to thank all of you for coming and to think our viewers from c-span and john pomfret the author of book and and you can get it signed in the lobby out front. [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] here's a look at the upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. on saturday, march 25, will be live at the virginia festival of the book in charlottesville. a panel discussions will include a range of topics from nuclear war, to the media. on april 8 look for us at the annapolis book festival and the san antonio book festival. two weeks later the tv will be live from the los angeles time festival of books held on the campus of the university of southern california. for more information on the book fairs and festivals but tv will be covering and what previous festival coverage, click the book appears to have on our website but tv .org connect this book tv on c-span two, television for serious readers. here's our primetime lima. at seven chelsea clinton examined the public-private partnerships that are working on global healthcare. at eight a roger eckert recalls the extradition of jonathan robbins to britain for his involvement in a mutiny aboard the british ship hms hermione in 1797 and on book tv "after words" program at 9:00 p.m. eastern, sylvia tara discusses the history and science behind body fat. at ten the book game of thorns which looks at the clinton campaign [applause] [inaudible conversations] the mental school of public

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