Julian Gewirtz, former Biden administration China official, now at Columbia, joins me to chat about the Xi-Trump visit and all things US-China. Matt Sheehan, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, drops by to give his takes on the AI angle.
We cover:
- What to expect (and not expect) from the Trump-Xi “stalemate summit”
- Historical echoes from the 1793 Macartney mission and the 1972 Nixon-Kissinger opening — summit optics, status games, and the choreography of power.
- Taiwan — arms sales, declaratory language, and Beijing's long game on Taiwanese morale and politics.
- The good and bad case for China in the Iran conflict, and how Chinese officials may be reading America's military commitments, political cohesion, and staying power.
- US-China AI safety conversation after Mythos, China's approach to frontier AI risks, and the control, harness, govern playbook for emerging technologies.
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