Good evening. Five years ago today, Donald Trump referred to Covid-19 as “the Chinese virus” in a tweet. “I think that is literally the day engagement died,” Bob Davis says in this week’s featured Q&A. Davis has thought a lot about the U.S. policy of engagement (and its death) over the past two years as he’s interviewed some two dozen senior U.S. policymakers for this publication. Taken together, his interviews, which include the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Robert Lighthizer, Charlene Barshefsky, Matt Pottinger, Robert Rubin, Ash Carter and Robert Gates, are so insightful and valuable that we decided to compile them all together in one ebook, entitled Broken Engagement: Interviews with those who have made — and remade — the U.S.’s policy towards China. Check out the book, which is now available for purchase and download, and read Davis’s reflections and takeaways on the project in this week’s Q&A with David Barboza.
Elsewhere we have a reported look at Missouri’s multi-billion dollar challenge to China; a reported piece on China’s somewhat surprising embrace of open-source technologies; an op-ed from David Shedd on why R&D cuts threaten U.S. national security; and another op-ed from Kit Conklin on the need to defend Main Street, USA.
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‘The Day Engagement Died’
Bob Davis, in conversation with David Barboza, reflects on his new ebook, the five year anniversary of the ‘China virus’, and what to expect from Trump 2.0.
The Big Picture: Missouri’s Multibillion Challenge to China
Missouri sued China for hoarding PPE during the pandemic and won $24.5 billion. But its efforts to collect, Noah Berman reports, could get muddy.
China’s Open-Source Embrace
Chinese AI firms and chipmakers have become increasingly open to making their technology secrets available to all-comers. Yi Liu and Noah Berman report.
Why R&D Cuts Threaten U.S. National Security
The U.S. is allowing its research capabilities to wither just at a point when China is making important breakthroughs, argues David Shedd in this week’s op-ed.
Defending Main Street
Kit Conklin argues that U.S. governors need to protect their states from Chinese threats.
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