Whether you only read President Trump's tweets or listen exclusively to Democratic presidential candidates public statements, it is clear that China is not only a crucial national security challenge for the U.S., but it is quickly becoming a huge domestic political issue. In this episode, Susan Thornton and I unpack the hype inside and outside of Washington around China and discuss how it grew economically and strategically in the past 50+ years. We dive deep into how the Trump administration deals with China, and Thornton's own experience in that. For anyone interested in China, this is a great episode! 

Susan Thornton was a career diplomat, serving almost 30 years at the State Department, and retiring as the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, basically meaning she ran everything Asia-related at the State Department. In addition to leadership roles in Washington, Thornton helped negotiate the U.S.-China Cyber agreement in 2015, and was involved in backchannel talks between the Trump administration and North Korea. She is currently a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Senior Fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center, and also runs a family farm in Maine. 

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Recent Article by Thornton that much of the conversation is based on: https://www.afsa.org/american-diplomacy-china-dead

Favorite Podcast: "Hidden Forces" Most insightful person to follow on social media: I don’t follow anyone closely, but I follow people from all sides of the spectrum and then use an aggregator to filter for the most useful stuff. But I mostly read for facts, not opinions and especially not twitter, which I despise.A book that has most shaped her thinking: "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky