Relations between China and the United States have been fraught over the last several years. The two countries have tangled over technology, geopolitics and trade. And yet they have, thus far, avoided armed conflict. Now, the new U.S. presidential administration appears poised to overturn many of the norms and institutions that have undergirded U.S. foreign policy for decades.
Meanwhile China’s Xi Jinping, now in his third five-year term at China’s helm, evinces grand ambitions for the country as a global leader across a range of sectors. As the United States retreats from alliances, investments and participation in multilateral institutions, he may now enjoy greater latitude to pursue these goals. What will this mean for China’s trajectory? How does Xi Jinping perceive the opportunities and challenges facing his country? How is he likely to interpret the changes in U.S policy, and how will a second Trump administration affect Xi’s calculus on China’s domestic and foreign affairs in the ensuing months?
ChinaFile and the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis are pleased to welcome historian and China expert Julian Gewirtz to the Asia Society for a discussion of the future landscape of U.S.-China relations. Gewirtz most recently served as President Biden’s Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) after serving in senior roles at the State Department and NSC. His most recent book Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s is now available in paperback.
Gewirtz will be in conversation with ChinaFile Editor-in-Chief and CCA Senior Fellow, Susan Jakes.
Speaker Bios:
Julian Gewirtz served in multiple roles over four years in the Biden administration, including leading the White House team responsible for coordinating U.S. policy on China as Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council, counseling senior White House leadership on the full range of national security and foreign policy matters as Senior Advisor to the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor, and managing a global team of diplomats and analysts as Deputy China Coordinator at the State Department. The Washington Post recently named him one of "50 people shaping our society in 2025." He is the author of several books, most recently Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s, which was named a best book of the year by Foreign Affairs and BBC History, and a collection of poems, Your Face My Flag. He was previously the senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a lecturer in history at Harvard and Columbia, and a special advisor at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration. He received his doctoral degree in modern Chinese history from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his undergraduate degree from Harvard College.
Susan Jakes is Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis and the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of ChinaFile, the online platform for original reporting and analysis on China whose editorial operations she has led since its launch in 2013. From 2000-2007, she reported on China for Time magazine, first as a reporter and editor based in Hong Kong and then as the magazine’s Beijing Correspondent. Jakes was awarded the Society of Publishers in Asia’s Young Journalist of the Year Award for her coverage of Chinese youth culture. In 2003, she broke the story of the Chinese government’s cover-up of the SARS epidemic in Beijing, for which she received a Henry Luce Public Service Award. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications.
She speaks Mandarin and holds a B.A. and M.A. from Yale in history.
ChinaFile Presents: Shifting Terrain in U.S.-China Relations and Xi Jinping’s Vision for China’s Future
Host/s
Tue, Mar 11, 06:30 PM - 08:00 PM (EDT)
To be shared on approval
40 attendees
Relations between China and the United States have been fraught over the last several years. The two countries have tangled over technology, geopolitics and trade. And yet they have, thus far, avoided armed conflict. Now, the new U.S. presidential administration appears poised to overturn many of the norms and institutions that have undergirded U.S. foreign policy for decades.
Meanwhile China’s Xi Jinping, now in his third five-year term at China’s helm, evinces grand ambitions for the country as a global leader across a range of sectors. As the United States retreats from alliances, investments and participation in multilateral institutions, he may now enjoy greater latitude to pursue these goals. What will this mean for China’s trajectory? How does Xi Jinping perceive the opportunities and challenges facing his country? How is he likely to interpret the changes in U.S policy, and how will a second Trump administration affect Xi’s calculus on China’s domestic and foreign affairs in the ensuing months?
ChinaFile and the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis are pleased to welcome historian and China expert Julian Gewirtz to the Asia Society for a discussion of the future landscape of U.S.-China relations. Gewirtz most recently served as President Biden’s Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council (NSC) after serving in senior roles at the State Department and NSC. His most recent book Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s is now available in paperback.
Gewirtz will be in conversation with ChinaFile Editor-in-Chief and CCA Senior Fellow, Susan Jakes.
Speaker Bios:
Julian Gewirtz served in multiple roles over four years in the Biden administration, including leading the White House team responsible for coordinating U.S. policy on China as Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council, counseling senior White House leadership on the full range of national security and foreign policy matters as Senior Advisor to the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor, and managing a global team of diplomats and analysts as Deputy China Coordinator at the State Department. The Washington Post recently named him one of "50 people shaping our society in 2025." He is the author of several books, most recently Never Turn Back: China and the Forbidden History of the 1980s, which was named a best book of the year by Foreign Affairs and BBC History, and a collection of poems, Your Face My Flag. He was previously the senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a lecturer in history at Harvard and Columbia, and a special advisor at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration. He received his doctoral degree in modern Chinese history from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his undergraduate degree from Harvard College.
Susan Jakes is Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis and the Editor-in-Chief and Managing Director of ChinaFile, the online platform for original reporting and analysis on China whose editorial operations she has led since its launch in 2013. From 2000-2007, she reported on China for Time magazine, first as a reporter and editor based in Hong Kong and then as the magazine’s Beijing Correspondent. Jakes was awarded the Society of Publishers in Asia’s Young Journalist of the Year Award for her coverage of Chinese youth culture. In 2003, she broke the story of the Chinese government’s cover-up of the SARS epidemic in Beijing, for which she received a Henry Luce Public Service Award. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications.
She speaks Mandarin and holds a B.A. and M.A. from Yale in history.