Aaron Friedberg: On US-China Relations and the Threats We Face

Conversations with Bill Kristol

How will the American withdrawal from Afghanistan influence US-China relations? How should we understand China’s geostrategic ambitions—and the threat to Taiwan in particular? How is America dealing with the challenge? To discuss these questions, we are joined again by Princeton professor Aaron Friedberg, author of A Contest for Supremacy and the forthcoming Getting China Wrong. Friedberg explains how Americans often have misunderstood and underestimated the challenge from China on political, economic, and technological fronts. Friedberg calls for an integrated approach in which the US, in concert with allies, develops an alternative to the current paradigm—building and developing networks of industrial, technological, and political capacities in order to defend ourselves and Western principles. This is a timely and important Conversation that can help us think through the many political choices required to sustain a more effective strategy for countering the threat posed by China.