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>> giving you a front row seat to democracy. focused on china and the threat that china poses economically, militarily, geopolitically and that's happening each day this week in the 8:00 a.m. eastern hour on "washington journal." we have the editor of foreign affairs and the author of the 2018 book, the china mission. good morning to you. guest: thanks for having me. host: there was a senate hearing last week on national security threats the u.s. is facing around the world. where does china's ambitions rank in your mind in terms of the biggest threat facing the united states. guest: what you have heard from

administration official and military officials and this goes back to the previous administrations involvement is that even while we face a more acute threat and urgent threat from russia and the war in ukraine, china really is the long-term and most challenging issue that u.s. foreign policy faces. in the pentagon, the call is the pacing threat, meaning the thing that will drive us forward and defining our concern when it comes to foreign policy and national security. whether you're looking at the economic challenge or the geopolitical or military one, china is the thing that has become to preoccupy foreign policymakers and will continue to for the foreseeable future. host: does china see us as a pacing threat in their minds? guest: this has been true for chinese policymakers for decades. if you go back 50 years, there

was a moment when the united states and china both saw the soviet union as the bigger threat. when nixon opened china, that was the defining threat for both of us and that allowed this new stage in foreign policy in the u.s.-china relationship. what you have seen in the last couple of decades he really was the realization that among tiny than the united states would challenge their interests. this is true of global dominance in lots of ways. in the past decade or so, you have seen increasing focus on this from american policymakers. the obama administration was talking about the pivot and donald trump of course put this in much more memorable terms in his focus on china and the biden administration has continued

that with china becoming the central issue in american foreign policy. the chinese for some time put this in slightly softer terms you saw the chinese president in the last few days, when he started to talk about u.s. efforts to encircle or contain china. you've seen an escalation of rhetoric on both sides which is sending the relationship into a new phase that's still unsettled and undefined and scary for many reasons. host: xi jinping got the unprecedented third term. how and why did he come to power as president and we're he came up? >> this is the important part of the story. there is focus on g ching ping tung the extent that in personal ways really changed china's role and their political system for

the leaders before him, there was enormous and chinese politics that she only stayed in power for two terms. that was true in the role of president but the more important role of general secretary of the chinese communist party. you had a commitment to succession among chinese leaders and the collective approach to leadership as you saw in the response to the overwhelming dominant role that mao had on the system. it was not seen as china's role in the world but geez in paying and prayer -- in previous governments use a more collective approach and slightly less focused on this one dominant figure. he said from the time he came into power a decade ago and for his first two terms to reverse that and give himself overwhelming control of the

state so a lot of this is bureaucratic changes that are hard to follow from the outside for people not steeped in this stuff but in all kinds of ways, he gave himself more control over the chinese military and economic policy and the political system and what has happened over the last few months with the party congress last fall and the national people's congress last week on me give himself officially a third term vote as general secretary of the chinese party and as president and this is a symbolic step in many ways but shows the extent to which he has his own personal stamp on the chinese political system and so much of what we see seems to be emanating from this one dominant figure. the record of what's happening with vladimir putin and the war in ukraine in some ways is a demonstration of how dangerous it is when you have one person with unchecked power. don't know what kind of information he might be getting from those around him.

we get into really scary territory. this really is about this dominant figure of the zhejiang ping and it took americans a little while to focus on him. there is a view he might be a continuation of previous chinese leadership style when he came into power and i'll think anyone expected that he would go for this unprecedented third term and now that he is starting on this new phase, we are grappling with a new set of challenges and relationships. host: u.s.-china relationships are the subject of this hour of "washington journal." if you want to join the conversation, you can do so on the phone lines as follows --

we told our viewers about the reuters reporting that xi jinping is now expected to meet with vladimir putin in russia at perhaps as early as next week. what are you watching for? guest: china has been performing this somewhat delicate dance since the beginning of the war. you saw before the war happened and talking about a low -- a no limits partnership to the china-russia relationship. china is uncomfortable and does not want to come out and oppose vladimir putin. his challenge to the u.s. is in chinese interest but china has been cautious at moments about its level of support rhetorical

and material for the russian war in ukraine. this is in part about lots of other parts of the world where china has other interests. you have seen china inching closer to the line when it comes to actions like helping russia with sanctions and there have been reports of chinese interests in giving help with the actual war effort whether it's ammunition or something else. the u.s. has been focused on trying to deter this action by china by publicizing what it knows of those attentions -- intentions. you seen the diplomacy over the last year focused on trying to make clear that china understands what the consequences to supporting

russia might be but you also see the reuters one that suggests that g ching ping tung is constantly testing these boundaries and seeing what he can get away with and what he can do to sustain russian efforts without alienating parts of the world that might see that is going too far. this is the kind of latest phase and it's called the beijing straddle. xi jinping wants to deepen the relationship with rougher -- with russia. host: this is at a time when this story about how china brokered the iran saudi deal raises place for the united states.

what should we read from that effort? guest: it's easy to over read that relation between iran and saudi arabia and those who have not been tracking this, i ran broke off relation seven years ago in response to growing tensions about yemen and bilateral relationships and fundamental disagreement about the state of the middle east between iran and saudi arabia. they have been talking for the last couple of years and the chinese helped nudge them back over the line but this is a reflection of a u.s. turn away from the middle east. it's a fairly deliver it process by the last two or three administrations in the united states, that we focus too much on the middle east and it grows out of the iraq war and were

about to hit the 20th anniversary of 9/11. you've seen the push to spend less time in the middle east and when you do that, you will never the bleak leaves others to step in. i think you can probably see the chinese effort here is not entirely opposed to u.s. interests. we have a stake in seeing a degree of stability in the region and i ran-saudi normalization helps in that regard but it signifies the change in u.s. foreign policy but this growing and bish and by china to play a global role. xi jinping announced the security role which is his effort to talk about china playing a bigger global effort. he talked about non-interference and staying out of some problems but as power grows and capability grows, you will see

china doing more of this. there will be times when it will not be entirely inimical to u.s. interest and we would be happy to see those developments. it's not a bad thing to have other powers helping them but the other times when there are preferences, we will start to see that in the middle east. china has flirted with having a bigger military presence and economically reliable on middle eastern oil so that's a place where you will see greater chinese presence. there will be times when it will be fairly beneficial when it comes to u.s. interests. this is not something we need to panic about but there will be times when we use that leverage that will be more threatening. host: plenty to talk about with u.s.-china relations. thank you for joining us for the conversation.

if you want to join the conversation, democrats and independents. you're up first, and independent. caller: good morning. i understand the preamble. it's no surprise that china is our competitor. we've been shipping jobs to them for a long, long time. they use the money to build up their own military and then they will be using this stuff agait us. this is what i want the guest to address -- just like with the chips act where these manufacturers made money by shipping the jobs over

to china. in my opinion, it was treasonous and they built that china and now they want us to be taxed more and cut social security to fund them, bring back the manufacturing that we used to do here anyway. i want your opinion as to maybe what we need to do is step back for a moment, hunt down these guilty people that actually caused this and immobilize them. right now, the american business community still wants to do business with china and make money. host: we got your point. what about shipping jobs to china? guest: he raises an important dimension of this. the sense that the american manufacturing base has been

eroded is one of the sentiments really driving a lot of the concern of the united states. you saw the rhetoric in the trump administration as well as the present administration. there is a sense among american policymakers across multiple administrations and the for -- and the first part of the obama m's ministration, the world this -- the sense of the world is moving in american direction and trade and engage in -- and engagement was going to lead to curbing china. with the right kind of engagement across economic policy, diplomacy and lots of other regards, you wanted to see a china that was evolving into a more corroborative --

cooperative global actor, more like our system. there was the basic assumption that the kind of engagement would ultimately lead to a world that was much more friendly to american interest and reflected the kind of economic and political system we thought we would like to see and that was going to be in american interests. probably 15 years ago, around the time of the financial rises, people started to redevelop -- reevaluate that assumption. that raise this set of concerns. once people gave up the assumptions about that going in one direction, there was a reevaluation of policy across a huge number of areas. i think we are reckoning with that. the manufacturing piece is important because it pertains to

jobs in the united states and there is the big focus in these last two administrations on investing in jobs here. you see it in the inflation reduction act which is focused on giving subsidies to manufacturers that are building things here with american workers. there has simultaneously been this focus on investing in innovation, whether it's in basic finance or semiconductors and investing in manufacturing capacity. they are also trying to cut off some chinese access to technology. along with jobs, you also see this on the technological front, that there is a lot of technology that was created in the united states are among american allies that has been making its way to china and some

of that was because of intellectual property or other covert means on the part of chinese companies or the chinese government but some is about this trade and the usual state of the global economy which has shifted a lot of capacity to china and brought a lot of technology to china. i think now is an attempt to look more closely as to what type of technology is flowing into chinese companies or the chinese government. semiconductors has been one of the big focuses. one of the most prominent examples and you get the chips act which is in the -- which is to invest in manufacturing capacity and development of semiconductors in the united states. you also see new export controls which is probably the more important and new part of this. this attempt to ensure the some of the most advanced equipment for manufacturing semiconductors is the most advanced technology. i think this spooked the chinese

government more than the parts of the chips act focused on building manufacturing capacity here. that is seen as the normal state of competition. these assertive attempts by the u.s. government to prevent semi conductor equipment and technology from going to china, that's a new step in this relationship, the kind of thing we will see more of. it indicates the level of concern and some of that is from the job concerns with some is about the technology as well. host: on the economic engagement of the late 90's, the biggest sign of that engagement was probably china joining the wto in 1999. how did the clinton administration feel about that effort and were there people raising red legs at the time, saying that -- red flags at the time coming saying china could use this to spread out into the

world not it -- not that it would open up china to the rest of the world. guest: if you go back to the debates, you see voices who were predicting back then that no matter what we did, no matter what kind of economic development you get in china and how much you brought china into the international system, you would still see them emerge as a competitor and rival of the united states. i think there was still a much broader view across parties if you go back to the administration of the late 90's and early 2000, the sense that ultimately, if you had trade or business or development, that would start to drive change in china's international behavior in -- and the political system. the wto decision was seen this way in part that if china were richer or you had more people with exposure to u.s. companies, ultimately, that would help drive the political change. it was only 10 years later when

you started to see a much broader lyrical consensus that that change is not happening in the way that was expected and some of the assumptions about what trade would mean for china but if you go back, you will see voices who saw the hopes at that moment. they were too optimistic so those voices became much louder as you got into the last decade or so and now they view this as a mistake from that time. it's much more complicated than the simple story suggests, but the assumption that went along with that of being overly optimistic were in retrospect. host: north carolina's next, line for democrats, good morning. caller: thank you for letting me speak this morning.

i am sitting here and laughing. i'm a world war ii child so i'm going back a little ways. we are fussing at the russians for going into the ukraine. the russians have been playing footsie with this ever since roadwork to now we are worried about the chinese. i read a book in the early 60's written by a general, i believe his name was zachary taylor. at the end of his book he said, we won this war but we are going to have to decide who are we going with, the russians or the chinese. we did not do neither one. to be so dependent on china is -- it absolutely blows my mind. we are a self-sufficient country. how dumb are we to let all this

happen? thank you for letting me speak and have a great day. host: what about u.s.-china russian relations after world war ii? guest: thank you for that. i wrote a book about debates about china after world war ii. we hope to china would become an ally and move in our direction. nixon went to china and that was the u.s. and china aligning against the soviet union.