Thanks to everyone who joined the live discussion tonight.
This is a recording of a March 20th, 2025 Sinocism Live conversation with Jonathan Czin, now the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, and before that was for many years at the CIA as one of the US intelligence community’s top China experts. He was director for China at the National Security Council from 2021 to 2023, where he staffed all of President Biden’s interactions with President Xi.
I learned a lot from
in this conversation and I think you will too.His recent work:
What Beijing wants from a US-China trade war - Brookings
Burying Deng: Xi Jinping and the Abnormalization of Chinese Politics - China Leadership Monitor
Thoughts on the political demise of Miao Hua - Brookings
Abetting competition, restraining Beijing: Recommendations for diplomacy toward China - Brookings
And his bio:
Jonathan A. Czin is joining the Brookings Institution as the Michael H. Armacost Chair in Foreign Policy Studies and a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a former member of the Senior Analytic Service at CIA, where he was one of the intelligence community’s top China experts.
Czin led the intelligence community’s analysis of Chinese politics and policymaking, playing a central role in assessing and briefing senior policymakers on President Xi Jinping, his rise to power, and decisionmaking on an array of key issues and crises. From 2021 till 2023, he was director for China at the National Security Council, where he advised on, staffed, and coordinated White House and inter-agency diplomacy with the People’s Republic of China, including all of President Biden’s interactions with President Xi, and played a leading role in addressing a wide range of global China issues.
He also served as advisor for Asia-Pacific security affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and overseas at a CIA field station in Southeast Asia. Czin holds a master’s in international relations from Yale University, graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College, and studied at Oxford University. He is proficient in Mandarin Chinese.
Are there transcripts of the conversations you have? It’s easier for me to learn by reading than video or audio content.
Awesome. Thank you. And thanks for the super fast reply.
thanks for watching
yes, click on the "transcript" link https://sinocism.com/p/sinocism-live-a-chat-with-jon-czin AI generated, decent but some errors, esp w chinese words/names
Thanks Bill for bringing us the finest China experts.
thanks for watching. i hope we hear more from Jon, he is excellent
I agree with Bill. The idea that the USA could possibly “detach” Russia from China is so very stupid and ignorant of both nations that if it has any traction at all in the US Government is worrying
The idea that stability of the sacred “relationship” is an end in and of itself — this is actually Beijing’s talking point that too many in the US have inadvertently adopted as a false metric of success. It has led many outgoing Biden admin folks to claim they achieved some sort of high water mark in deterring Beijing’s aggression. What about salt/volt typhoon, record-high levels of military operations around Taiwan, overt support to Russia’s war in Europe, etc?
This is also what Beijing was selling over the weekend with the CEOs. Stability, but Beijing's stability, is no stability at all except for Beijing.