What Does China Want? A Conversation With Jessica Chen Weiss

别再执迷零和博弈!美前高官揭示中美真正该如何相处?

The Foreign Affairs Interview

2026-09-03

51 分钟
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单集简介 ...

There has been no shortage of dizzying shifts in American foreign policy since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. But perhaps none have been as surprising as the shift on China. In his first term, Trump helped create a hard-line consensus centered on fears of a growing threat. Now, he seems much more interested in striking deals—as he presumably will be when Xi Jinping comes to Washington later this month. Many analysts of U.S. China policy have reacted to this reversal with dismay. But Jessica Chen Weiss sees it as an opportunity to forge a more sensible approach. Weiss, a professor and the faculty director of the Institute for America, China, and the Future of Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a former State Department official, has warned of the dangers of zero-sum thinking about China in a series of essays for Foreign Affairs. Her most recent essay, in the September/October issue, focuses on the myth and the reality of China’s critical mineral dominance. Dan Kurtz-Phelan spoke to Weiss on August 31 about what China wants—which is also the title of her forthcoming book—and what U.S. foreign policy can do to meet those ambitions without resorting to dangerous confrontation. You can find sources, transcripts, and more episodes of The Foreign Affairs Interview at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/podcasts/foreign-affairs-interview.
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  • I'm Dan Kurtz-Phelan, and this is The Foreign Affairs Interview.

  • China can succeed on its own metrics or not, that's sort of immaterial,

  • but what we need is a kind of shared understanding

  • of how the United States and China are going to cohabit this planet.

  • I don't think that coexistence is even very loaded a term.

  • I mean, we we already coexist right now, right?

  • The question is on in what forms and how dangerous is that coexistence going to be?

  • Are we going to kind of be on the verge of a new crisis, military or economic,

  • or are we going to be able to, you know, reduce that set of tensions

  • to a level where we can harness the benefits of our continued interactions?

  • There has been no shortage of dizzying shifts in American foreign policy

  • since Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.

  • But I'm not sure any of those shifts has been as surprising as the one on China.

  • In his first term, Trump helped create a hard-line consensus centered on fears of a growing threat.

  • Now, he seems much more interested in striking deals,

  • Many analysts of U.S.-China policy have reacted to this reversal with dismay,

  • but Jessica Chen Weiss sees it as an opportunity to forge a more sensible approach.

  • Weiss, a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS and a former State Department official,

  • has warned of the dangers of zero-sum thinking about China

  • in a series of essays for Foreign Affairs in recent years.