Julian Gewirtz, author and former Biden NSC China director, joins ChinaTalk days before Xi Jinping’s first White House visit since 2015. With little substantive agenda on the table, what is the US getting in exchange for the symbolism and pageantry of a state visit?
We discuss:
- Trump-Xi summit scenarios, Beijing’s management of uncertainty and protocol, and how the script of US-China diplomacy has flipped, with things once seen as American concessions to China now treated as concessions from Beijing;
- Julian’s framework for a K-shaped US-China relationship, with leader-level diplomacy pulling upward while competition pulls downward;
- What Xi’s visit says about the changing political salience of China in the US
- Why Beijing’s public statements on AI risk don’t necessarily tell us how it will handle pacing and safety;
- What the decline of Xi Jinping could mean for a political system and why China’s next succession could be especially difficult to predict;
- China-maxxing from Kissinger to Trump
Plus: The Scholars (儒林外史) and why Qing-dynasty satire about corrupt scholars might make you feel better about America in 2026.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
