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 chinas 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 theyre 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. Thats been a very important part of her interaction. Back to chinas influence in terms of culture. I just dont 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 havent 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. Thats 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. Its an odd form. The chinese way basically, they loved western. They synthesize the westerns. In a variety of movies in the 1930s, youd see kung fu guys with cowboy hats on. You have this crosspollination 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. Its an interesting transformation. Another story you tell is the chinas 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 womans conference. In my perspective, its 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 im not going to do what you tell me to do but ill do what i want to do. When the first graduating class from the womans 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 shes 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, its 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 its anybodys guess. Its clear from the 1780s till now we followed this pattern of a lovehate 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 chinas 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 americas. Of view, a story about america eventual decline and chinas eventual triumph which gives us a different teacher. You can read this this is a story about china as americas student or is this america is chinas soccer . You must have thought about the different views as you are writing and youre 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 weve 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 chinas soccer versus chinas 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 chinas 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 its marvelous to behold, in the degree that they Pay Attention history in fact but what is your take on chinas 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 didnt understand why. Hes a very educated chinese experts. On america. He needed to go back and walk him through and then its like oh, yeah, okay. Its 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. Thats continue to be a very powerful inspiration. But they dont quite get where those values come from. Thats what they dont quite understand. Also, they had difficulty understanding how america right itself. The self corrective, nature of of our system whether youre a pessimist or optimist but it does have a selfcorrecting nature. They dont understand that. They look at the separation of powers is something that is inefficient and they dont understand that it was made to be inefficient. They think that gets in the w