3.20 Sinocism Live discussion with Jon Czin about US-China, Xi Jinping & other topics

Thursday March 20th at 8PM ET I will host a 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.

Among the topics we will discuss:

US-China relations - where are they headed under President Trump, and how might the PRC respond, bilaterally but also globally?

Is the “Reverse Nixon” idea plausible? How strong are the PRC-Russia and Xi-Putin relationships?

How powerful is Xi Jinping, how long do you think he will be in power, and how might succession planning play out?

I will also collect questions from the Sinocism chat and if we have time try to get to them.

The conversation will be best viewed in the Substack app:

Or in the Substack web-based reader.

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

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.