Podcast appearances and mentions of John Pomfret

Carlos Lozada is currently an Opinion columnist at The New York Times, after spending nearly 20 years at The Washington Post - where he earned the Pulitzer Prize in 2019 for criticism as The Post's nonfiction book critic. He's also an author, with his second book -  The Washington Book - recently published: a collection of essays exploring what books by and about D.C. power players reveal about the people and political conflicts that define Washington. In this conversation, Carlos talks his path from Peru to South Bend to D.C., his accidental route to working in the press, some of his favorite Washington books and stories, and deeply mining his own insights into our current political moment.IN THIS EPISODECarlos' personal journey from Lima, Peru to Washington D.C...Carlos "gateway drug" books into the genre of Washington books...How Carlos defines what exactly is a "Washington Book"...Carlos weighs in on what he considers some of the earliest Washington Books...Carlos' rave  review of the U.S. Grant memoir...The place of All The President's Men in the pantheon of Washington Books...Carlos' favorite cliches from presidential campaign memoirs...The D.C. corridors of power that are undercovered in Washington Books...The Washington Books that are purely exercises in settling scores...Carlos compares the Donald Trump of 2016 to the Donald Trump of 2024...The Washington Books that never were that Carlos would love to read...What reading Vladimir Putin revealed to Carlos about the Russian leader...Carlos' 101 on sharp essay-writing...Carlos waxes nostalgic about the late Washinton Post Outlook Section...AND The 1619 Project, Alexis de Tocqueville, all sorts of minutia, Jody Allen, the American Enterprise Institute, Carol Anderson, animating impulses, The Appalachian Trail, Appomattox, asymmetric polarization, Peter Baker, Steve Bannon, Bob Barnett, beleaguered officials, Joe Biden, Joan Biskupic, Kate Boo, George H.W. Bush, Robert Caro, Jimmy Carter, Jesus Christ, Julie Davis, drop-down menus, enabling environments, farm foremen, The Federal Reserve, Craig Fehrman, Foreign Policy magazine, full absorption, Susan Glasser, Garret Graff, Lindsay Graham, Alan Greenspan, Stephanie Grisham, Maggie Haberman, Susan Hennessey, Fiona Hill, Dustin Hoffman, holy crap anecdotes, David Ignatius, joining-ness, Jurassic Park, Bob Kaiser, Ibram X. Kendi, the Kerner Commission, Adam Kushner, Robert E. Lee, Joe Lieberman, Steve Luxenberg, Thomas Mann, David Maraniss, Mark Meadows, mid-level authoritarian regimes, military duds, Mark Milley, Robert Moses, Robert Mueller, murdered darlings, murky institutions, The New York Review of Books, Kirstjen Nielsen, Notre Dame, Barack Obama, obligatory campaign memoirs, obscene crescendos, Norm Ornstein, parallel histories, the paralysis of power, George Pataki, Tim Pawlenty, policy wonks, John Pomfret, Robert Redford, Marco Rubio, Mark Sanford, Michael Schaffer, Brent Scowcroft, Michael Shear, silent Moscow, John Sununu, Barton Swaim, targeted excerpts, Mark Twain, Mario Vargas Llosa, velociraptors, Scott Walker, Ben Wittes, Michael Wolff, Bob Woodward...& more!

There are a lot of people in America and Europe willing to tell you that they "know China." In reality, very few Westerners really understand China. Fewer still can communicate what they know in clear and compelling terms. Then there is John Pomfret, a China veteran with deep hands-on experience. He is also an outstanding writer. Pomfret's landmark book, The Beautiful Country and The Middle Kingdom, is a tour de force that traces the relationship between the United States and China over the past 220 years. It is a relationship that shifts from wonderfully warm to icy cold and back -- over and over and over again. Pomfret's newest book, From Warsaw With Love, takes us to Central Europe to uncover the special relationship between the the spy networks in Warsaw and Washington. This relationship has never been more important, given Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's unrelenting efforts to swing Europe in its favor. Pomfret is smart, direct and street-smart. #DrivingWithDunne / #ZozoGo https://twitter.com/Dunne_ZoZoGohttps://www.instagram.com/zo.zo.go/?hl=enhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-dunne-a696901a/

An interview with John Pomfret, author of From Warsaw With Love. The book tells the epic story of how Polish intelligence officers forged an alliance with the CIA in the twilight of the Cold War.

John Pomfret is the author of From Warsaw With Love: Polish Spies, The CIA and the Forging of a Unlikely AllianceThis book starts out in Los Angeles with a particularly effective Polish spy who'd penetrated the aerospace industry. Along with a history of U.S. and Polish collaboration dating back to the Colonial period, Pomfret identifies the threads of eventual cooperation between the intelligence organizations.  I'm interested  about how Poland gained entry into NATO in 1996 along with Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. John's book covers a little-known clandestine operation undertaken by the Poles to get Americans out of Baghdad.  He reveals Poland's deft diplomatic maneuvering involving the U.S., Germany, and the Soviets that led to their entry into the alliance.The results of this initiative can be seen in the Ukraine today.  Had the Poles not actively sought membership in NATO decades ago, we may be looking at an entirely different landscape in Eastern Europe. More about the author at: https://www.johnpomfret.comEnjoyed this ad-fee episode? Please consider a one time contribution to keep us operational --> https://www.paypal.me/thelivedrop Get bonus content on Patreon Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Award-winning journalist and writer for the Washington Post -- spanning over several decades, John Pomfret converses about his book “From Warsaw with Love”. Pomfret's publication is a portrait of an unlikely and largely secretive relationship between Americans and Poles, spanning dozens of operations ranging from daring rescue missions to a “black site” prison for suspected terrorists. As a correspondent for the Washington Post in Poland, Pomfret broke a strange story about Polish Intelligence Officers taking six American officers both military and intelligence, out of Iraq. Over the subsequent years he was fascinated by the idea of writing a broader story on how that operation jump-started an incredibly close alliance between Washington and Warsaw. Listen in, as John Pomfret who was based in Warsaw, Vienna, and Sarajevo examines this unfamiliar story on this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.

Misha talks with John Pomfret, author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, about living with China since 1980, how Americans misunderstood Beijing's worldview, and where US-China relations go from here.

Misha talks with John Pomfret, author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, about living with China since 1980, how Americans misunderstood Beijing’s worldview, and where US-China relations go from here.

Today, author and journalist John Pomfret shares details about the true story of an interesting alliance involving Polish spies aiding the United States. After years of working against each other, ex-communist spies in Poland following a democratic election ended up working hand in hand with the country they'd been pinned against for most of the Cold War.Connect with John:johnpomfret.comTwitter: @JEPomfretCheck out his book, From Warsaw with Love, here.https://www.amazon.com/Warsaw-Love-Forging-Unlikely-Alliance/dp/1250296056Connect with Spycraft 101:IG: @spycraft101Patreon: Spycraft 101Buy the book: here on AmazonSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/spycraft101)

"Third Squad" is a new podcast that tells the story of the bloodiest stage of the war in Afghanistan. A decade later, journalist Elliott Woods tracks members of the Third Squad down to talk about how what happened there still affects their lives today. And, a new book tells the story of how Polish and U.S. spy agencies began working together after the fall of the Iron Curtain. John Pomfret joins us to discuss "From Warsaw with Love."

In this week's episode SOFREP senior editor and SOFREP Radio host Steve Balestrieri talks with John Pomfret and Fred Hart about how Polish spies saved Operation Desert Storm. John is an award-winning journalist and author. Among other publications, he has worked for the Associated Press and Washington Post eventually becoming the editor of the Post's weekend opinion section. He has written and worked extensively on China. His latest book is the upcoming From Warsaw with Love: Polish Spies, the CIA, and the Forging of an Unlikely Alliance. The book tells the unlikely story of how Poland saved Operation Desert Storm and the first Gulf War.  As the U.S. was planning Operation Desert Storm, six American officers became trapped in Iraq. If the intelligence they carried were captured by the Iraqis the upcoming operation could be doomed. To rescue the officers the CIA turned to Poland, famous for its excellent spies. Fred Hart was one of the six trapped U.S. officers and he recounts to Steve the exciting events that led to their escape.   Join us for a gripping episode of SOFREP Radio with John Pomfret and Fred Hart and discover the unknown story that determined Operation Desert Storm. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

What should be done when values like the free-flow of information conflict with equally important values like the rule of law and the protection of personal and property rights? The legal battle over the diaries Li Rui, a former secretary to Mao Zedong, asks that very question.Read the article by John Pomfret: https://www.thewirechina.com/2021/09/26/the-diary-duel/Narrated by Cliff Larsen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello Interactors,It’s been a troubling week in international news as we all watched Afghanistan unravel. That country has been through a lot over the last two decades and centuries; most of which is due to Western invasion and intervention. To make matters worse, the effects of climate change are compounding their problems. I hope we can learn how to better help, they’re going to need it.As interactors, you’re special individuals self-selected to be a part of an evolutionary journey. You’re also members of an attentive community so I welcome your participation.Please leave your comments below or email me directly.Now let’s go…GOING SOLAR Soon after absorbing the tragic scenes in Afghanistan this week, I was reminded of an article I read around this time last year. It was about successful deployments of solar technology by poor Afghan farmers to pump water from desert wells to grow crops. Afghanistan ranks among the lowest on the Global Adaptation Index making them one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. As if they needed more problems. Solar energy can be transformational, even when deployed at small scales. We’re not talking about massive solar farms plastering the desert paid for by corporations, governments, or non-governmental organizations (NGO) through some kind of ‘Go-Green’ initiative. These are installations by rural farmers struggling to survive. The first remote solar array was notice back in 2013, but soon local towns were piled high with solar panels. The panels are not cheap. Seed money usually comes from a dowry – money given from a bride’s family to the groom at the time of marriage – which is roughly $7,000. A single solar panel costs $5,000, so it’s a big chunk of money. But the panel pays for itself in just two years. They simply set it up, plug it into the provided pump, kick aside the old, expensive, and troublesome diesel motor and watch the water come streaming out of their well. The number of solar panels has doubled every year since 2012 tapping wells far into the desert. By 2019 there were over 67,000 installations dotting a single narrow region in southern Afghanistan. And for every diesel conversion to solar comes an increase in productivity. The blue areas of these maps show less productive cultivation and light green as more productive. In addition to the increase in the number of farms, you can also see an increase in yield. Their success attracts even more people to the desert. Between 2012 and 2019, 48,000 new homes were built. Increased competition for a water supply that climate change has already diminished, the introduction of solar pumps has started a countdown clock as to when they’ll all run out of water.Which, in one way, may be a good thing. While one of the crops farmers choose to grow in the desert are sun hungry plants like tomatoes, their main, and most profitable crop, is opium. The majority of opium is refined to make heroin. Afghanistan is the world’s leader in opium production making it the leading source of heroin, one of the most illicit addictive drugs there is. And this region of Afghanistan, Helmand, produces 80% of the Afghan supply to the world. Most of it to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.Before solar entered the fray in 2013, Afghanistan was producing 3,700 tons of opium a year. By 2017, a record year, their production nearly tripled to 9,000 tons. It created a glut in the market and prices fell, reducing production among farmers still on the more expensive diesel pumps. Meanwhile, solar farmers continued to produce and profit at 2017 levels.MISSION ACCOMPLISHED : MISSION ADMONISHEDThe opium market has been growing in Afghanistan since the 1990s, with the exception of one outlying year – 2001. That was the last time the Taliban took control and one of their many bans was on growing opium. When the United States infamously invaded Afghanistan in 2002, opium production quickly bounced back to pre-Taliban levels, and has been growing since. England joined in the invasion, in part to curb the supply of heroin to the UK and other parts of Europe. They’ve found that as production of opium increases, the demand for heroin also increases; and with it crime as addicts resort to breaking and entering and aggravated assault to fund their habit. England’s biggest war casualties occurred in the region of Helmand, the world’s hotbed of opium and the country’s highest concentration of solar panels.What a bitter twist of wartime irony this is. Britain was the first country from the West to invade Afghanistan in the mid-1800s; in part to increase the production and trade of opium to the Chinese through the East India Company as part of the Opium Wars between Great Britain and China. Opium in China was first used for medicinal purposes, but by 1840 millions of Chinese were addicted. The United States saw this as an opportunity and a few decades later were dropping cigarettes from airplanes in China in an effort to supplant the Chinese addiction to opium with an addiction to nicotine. Journalist and East Asian writer, John Pomfret, notes that in the “1890s, only a few people smoked. By 1933, the Chinese were puffing on a hundred billion cigarettes a year, more than any other nation except the United States.”Great Britain invaded Afghanistan from India, a country they colonized a century earlier. Still smarting from their failure to gain control in the Americas, they reluctantly turned to the east. To conquer Afghanistan, they enlisted poor Indians as low ranking infantry and invaded Afghanistan in 1839. The British claim they were fearful the Russians would take control of this strategic trading route, but Afghans on the ground tell a different story. It seems what the British were really worried about was parts of India being invaded by growing numbers of Persians and Afghans who opposed British imperialism.Indians put up a fight when England invaded India, just as Indigenous Americans did. Afghanistan was no different. War is ugly by any dimension, but the Europeans (and Americans) have an established reputation among victims of invasion for being particularly ruthless. Much attention is given to the atrocious behavior of the Taliban against women, but very little to none is given to how British, and their low ranking Indian infantrymen, treated women upon invading Afghanistan. Women of this region were formidable fighters during this time, leading thousands in battle and inspiring many more through poetry to take arms in defense of their homeland from encroaching colonial imperialists. In 2018, Farrukh Husain, a Muslim Afghan history researcher, published a book called Afghanistan in the Age of Empires: The Great Game for South and Central Asia. It is one of the few, if not only, books written by a Muslim Afghan for a Western audience about the history of this region as told from someone with ancestral ties to these events. He reveals the power and leadership Afghan women held in those days. He writes of a battle near Helmand, where solar panels now dot the desert, “…no contemporary author has written about the first such charge by a burka clad woman against the British, during May 1842, to avenge her husband’s death at the head of thousands of Afghans, which took place…in…Helmand.”One month later, on June 17, 1842, British Brigadier General Thomas Monteath led troops into a peaceful remote village called Ali Baghan where they proceeded to rape and plunder. The English language newspaper out of Calcutta, India, the Bengal Hurkaru, reported, “To ravage and burn villages, and to violate the women inhabiting them, are not precisely the best measures calculated to restore the honour of Great Britain. We talk about national disgrace, and begin ravaging villages and violating helpless women, as though any misfortunes could disgrace us so irredeemably as these crimes.  A miserable hamlet about six miles from Jellalabad, on the Peshawaur side, is assailed by a brigade of British troops, who happen to find some accoutrements belonging to the men of the 44th; the village was given up to plunder, the women were violated, and the tenements burned.“Atrocities like this and violence against women continue to this day in Afghanistan. The United States is no better as evidenced by the methods of torture throughout the United State’s so-called ‘War on Terror’. And while we continue to be bombarded with stories through Western media about how the United States was in Afghanistan helping to liberate Afghan women, I suggest you read this May 2021 article by Farrukh Husain as an alternative and local narrative. Or if you have trouble trusting a Muslim Afghan man writing on Afghan women, check out this bit of ethnographic research from Dr. Teresa Koloma Beck, called Liberating the Women of Afghanistan: An ethnographic journey through a humanitarian intervention where she asserts the West’s “humanitarian engagement further politicized the category of gender and, hence, amplified its importance. Yet, as in other places of the world, it also served to perform and reproduce ideal-typical images of the Western Self.”CLIMATE MATTERS MORAL TATTERSClimate change is expected to bring more unrest to Afghanistan and areas like it around the world. One report from the United State’s National Institute of Health reports, “both short-term shocks, such as natural disasters and associated losses of livelihood opportunities, as well as longer-term stressors, such as growing scarcity of resources associated with drought, can increase the risk of instability.” That instability can include armed conflict, as evidence by one Syrian conflict that “at least partially driven by drought, has, estimated conservatively, resulted in over 143,000 deaths as of 2016.”These poor countries will need the help of rich countries if we care at all about saving the lives of humans and non-humans alike. But the West has to reckon with our past if we’re to be trusted with the future. We’re not very good at owning up to our mistakes or rubbing our own noses in the atrocities we inflicted on innocent people through an unbridled need to perpetuate our greed. Claiming moral superiority while killing people already suffering the effects of climate change – as Obama did with over 540 drone strikes during his presidency – should make us pause and reflect on our ethical standing. Whether it’s in the name of God or in pursuit of gold, the United States (and many other countries, clans, and conquerors) have a way of conveniently justifying colonial conquest, rape, abduction, torture, slavery, or genocide. The 18th century English feminist writer and philosopher, Mary Wollstonecraft, put it efficiently and accurately when she wrote:“No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, which is the good he seeks.”To sell our message of ‘good’, the United States also has what our victims of evil don’t have; a well crafted and well funded media machine – spanning the political spectrum – to lull the masses into a sometimes angry and sometimes celebrated, numbing complicity. But like any addiction, the more you feed it the harder it is to break. And this country, and our military, is addicted to aggression.But Norway is one country that is taking a step back. As current chairs of the UN Security Council they issued a public statement on the recent plight of Afghanistan on August 16th asking the international community to be “willing and able to relate to, co-operate with, and support a future, new Afghan government in which the Taliban participates.” But long before that, sensing the confluence of social and climate induced unrest and reflecting the West’s track record on foreign interventions, the Norwegian Minister of International Development funded research to better understand the successes and failures of climate mitigation strategies and efforts from the West. Their report titled, Adaptation Interventions and Their Effect on Vulnerability in Developing Countries: Help, Hindrance or Irrelevance?, came out in May of this year. The study’s highlights read like this:“Adaptation interventions may reinforce, redistribute or create new vulnerability.Retrofitting adaptation into existing development agendas risks maladaptation.Overcoming these challenges demands engaging more deeply with the local context of vulnerability.Real involvement of marginalised groups is required to improve use of climate finance.Unless adaptation is rethought, transformation may also worsen vulnerability.”What they found among the 60 internationally-funded interventions aimed at climate change adaptation and vulnerability are four consistent themes:       Shallow understanding of the context of local vulnerability;        Inequitable stakeholder participation in both design and implementation;        A retrofitting of adaptation into existing development agendas;        A lack of critical engagement with how ‘adaptation success’ is defined.Inequality is evident everywhere we look: income, race, religion, gender, social status, cultural norms, transportation, and so many more. Add to that environmental inequality. What these researchers concluded is that unless we start by first focusing on equality, no amount of government, private, or corporate funding of technological or financial fixes will matter. For example, building a sea wall, dam, or dike to stem flooding rivers or rising seas can easily be celebrated and manipulated into appearing to make progress on climate change. But if those efforts steal water from an Indigenous tribe, or limit physical access to schools of disadvantaged families, then simply throwing money at them or subsidizing a move to the city does not constitute an equitable solution that is sensitive to their local context of vulnerability. But it’s easy to see where such engineering feats would fit an existing corporate or governmental agenda, possibly even win sustainability awards, or get endorsed by a Western celebrity complete with a selfie that goes viral.Don’t get me wrong, getting solar technology scaled to the point where a poor Afghan farmer could afford it is a marvel of technology and a demonstration of the positive effects of innovation in free-market capitalism. But if it also results in the increase of heroin worldwide, how can we feel good about the outcome? The vast majority of heroin in the United States doesn’t come from Afghanistan, it comes from the deserts of Mexico where surely solar pumps are also being sold. In 2018, marijuana sold for $80 per kilogram in the United States. Meanwhile, heroin sold for $35,000 per kilogram. What would it take to persuade those Mexican farmers to grow vegetables instead of opium? And what kind of moral standing can America have as we lead the world in drug disorders and are the number one consumer of opioids – with heroin as the second leading cause of overdose behind pain relievers. Afghan women are number two behind United States women in drug disorders. Is that what we mean when we claim we liberated Afghan women? Few women in Afghanistan, especially under Taliban rule, have access to their own land; a clear inequality that needs addressed. But there was a bright spot for Afghan women and farming in recent years in a good example of what appears to be a more equitable climate intervention. Ghuncha Gul, and Afghan farmer, always dreamed of owning her own farm. With the help of the United Nations Development Program she fulfilled that dream in 2018 by offering her training, land, and resources for her own greenhouse and beehives. Her village friends now affectionately call her ‘honey’ عسل.  She proudly admitted, “Women in villages work just as hard as men. In fact, we work alongside the men." Two hundred years ago, she just may have been leading the men. As money wielding climate adaptation efforts take shape by the privileged and powerful around the world, let’s ensure people like Ghuncha are given equal rights and their knowledge and customs are understood and respected. In the process of co-designing and implementing climate adaptation strategies in the context of local inhabitants of their land, let’s also make sure we leave the exchange more enlightened than the Age of Enlightenment, more righteous than Western imperialism, and more informed than the Western propaganda machines leave us believing we are. Maybe if we do, these people will return the favor when we discover our own crisis have left us equally, if not more, vulnerable. Subscribe at interplace.io

Thursday, October 22, 2020Hoover InstitutionPRC Influence And Interference | 2020 Conference on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region | Panel 4CHAIR: Glenn Tiffert (Hoover Institution)DISCUSSANT: John Pomfret (Washington Post contributor)•  Media Influence Operations in Australia   Maree Ma, Vision Times Media (AUS)•  Online Disinformation and Propaganda   Puma Shen, National Taipei University•  How Asians View the Competition for Influence Between China and the U.S.   Yun-han Chu, National Taiwan University & Academia SinicaMEET THE PANELISTSDr. Yun-han Chu is distinguished research fellow of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica and professor of political science at National Taiwan University. He serves concurrently as president of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. His research focuses on the politics of Greater China, East Asian political economy and democratization.Maree Ma is general manager of Vision Times Media, a leading independent Chinese language media company in Australia.John Pomfret is global affairs contributor and former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post. He is the author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present.Dr. Puma Shen is assistant professor at National Taipei University’s Graduate School of Criminology and director of DoubleThink Labs, which studies the intersection between democratic governance and the internet.Dr. Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. A historian of modern China, he manages the Hoover projects on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and on China’s Global Sharp Power.

With the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, reports of racism against Asian-Americans have risen sharply, drawing renewed attention to issues of bias, immigration, and the place of Asian-Americans in society. The current surge of anti-Asian incidents highlights a troubling history, and reinforces the urgent need to examine, understand, and confront these issues that affect the lives of Asian-Americans, influence American perceptions of China, and ultimately affect Sino-American relations on the global stage.  On June 2, 2020, the National Committee hosted a virtual discussion with Jennifer Ho, professor of ethnic studies at University of Colorado and president of the Association for Asian American Studies, and John Pomfret, former Washington Post correspondent and author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present, on the history of anti-Chinese/Asian racism in the United States, the impact of coronavirus-related racism, and the importance of uniting across our communities to stand up against all forms of discrimination. For more on the coronavirus and its social impacts on the people of the United States and China, please visit ncuscr.org/coronavirus.

Timothy O'Brien, senior adviser for the Bloomberg 2020 Campaign, joins Christiane Amanpour to answer key questions about billionaire businessman Mike Bloomberg's late entrance to the election race. He confirms exclusively that Bloomberg will disclose her tax returns and sell his company if elected. John Pomfret, former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief, and Elizabeth Cohen, CNN senior medical correspondent, asses the global fallout from coronavirus and the implications for Chinese President Xi. Our Ana Cabrera speaks to Timothy Snyder, the historian and bestselling author, to discuss the rise of tyranny across the world and the threat to American democracy.

Hoover Institution fellows Misha Auslin and John Yoo interview John Pomfret, the former Washington Post and Associated Press reporter in China.  Pomfret discusses his response to an open letter in the Washington Post, signed by dozens of leading US foreign policy and China scholars, criticizing the Trump administration for making China “an enemy.”  He explains “why the United States doesn’t need to return to a gentler China policy." Did you like the show? You can rate, review, subscribe, and download the podcast on the following platforms: Podbean | Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Spotify | RSS

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed by staff writer, John Pomfret, for The Washington Post, on November 2, 2006, for an article that would be published on November 21, 2006. This was following breaking news that the caught criminal cult leader of the FLDS Warren Jeffs, who had been apprehended a couple months previously, was scheduled to appear in court for his crimes. It was evident that the reporter had neither done his homework nor was even looking to discuss the differentiation of how the National Polygamy Rights Movement for Unrelated Consenting Adults is and has always been adamantly against Warren Jeffs and the FLDS cult. Nevertheless, the staff writer was given an extensive education about the modern movement for UCAP, Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy (including the additional differentations of Mormon Polygamy, Christian Polygamy, Secular Polygamy, et al) and how the Polygamy Rights Win-Win Solution to end the marriage debate only seeks de-criminalization not legalization as a win-win solution to allow both conservatives and liberals to politically save face - a true win-win. http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/nationalpolygamyadvocate/support

What is Xi Jinping’s “revolution” in Chinese politics? How did he amass the power to enact his ambitious agenda? Is he in danger of being toppled? Or is he effectively a dictator for life? In the second episode of “Jaw-Jaw,” Liz Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations and our host Brad Carson discuss the future of China and its powerful leader, Xi Jinping. Please enjoy the newest addition to the War on the Rocks family of podcasts. If you’d like to read a full-transcript of this episode, click here. Biographies Elizabeth Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In June 2018, Dr. Economy was named one of the “10 Names That Matter on China Policy” by Politico Magazine. Her most recent book is The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018). Brad Carson is a professor at the University of Virginia, where he teaches in the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001-2005 and was Undersecretary of the Army and acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness in the Obama Administration. Feel free to write him at brad.carson@warontherocks.com to share any feedback you have. Links Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (Touchstone, 2003). David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power (Oxford University Press, 2013). John Pomfret, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present (Picador, 2017). Music and Production by Tre Hester

What is Xi Jinping’s “revolution” in Chinese politics? How did he amass the power to enact his ambitious agenda? Is he in danger of being toppled? Or is he effectively a dictator for life? In the second episode of “Jaw-Jaw,” Liz Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations and our host Brad Carson discuss the future of China and its powerful leader, Xi Jinping. Please enjoy the newest addition to the War on the Rocks family of podcasts. You can subscribe to “Jaw-Jaw” by clicking here or simply by searching for it on your podcast app of choice. If you’d like to read a full-transcript of this episode, click here. Biographies Elizabeth Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In June 2018, Dr. Economy was named one of the “10 Names That Matter on China Policy” by Politico Magazine. Her most recent book is The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018). Brad Carson is a professor at the University of Virginia, where he teaches in the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001-2005 and was Undersecretary of the Army and acting Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness in the Obama Administration. Feel free to write him at brad.carson@warontherocks.com to share any feedback you have. Links Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (Touchstone, 2003). David Shambaugh, China Goes Global: The Partial Power (Oxford University Press, 2013). John Pomfret, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present (Picador, 2017). Music and Production by Tre Hester

As the US continues to abdicate its leadership role in global affairs, China’s international influence continues to grow – diplomatically, economically and politically. Will it, can it, fill the void? And how will its role on the world stage influence domestic policy? Elizabeth Economy, senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and John Pomfret, former Washington Post bureau chief in Beijing, and author of “The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present”, discuss the ramifications of America's absence in global leadership with Ray Suarez, former chief national correspondent for PBS NewsHour. We want to hear from you! Please take part in a quick survey to tell us how we can improve our podcast: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PWZ7KMW

Historian Paul Pickowicz interviews acclaimed author John Pomfret about patterns in the long history of US-China relations, and how it informs the controversies in the current moment of Sino-American relations ranging from the impact of Chinese students on US universities, Xi Jinping’s end to presidential term limits, and trade and business relations. Dr. Paul Pickowicz is one of the country’s leading historians of modern China with 15 books engaging across disciplines that investigated the impact of the Cultural Revolution on Chinese peasants, the history of Chinese cinema, Cold War propaganda strategies and Chinese soft-power initiatives. John Pomfret is an award-winning journalist with The Washington Post and is currently a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Beijing. He is the author of the acclaimed book, Chinese Lessons, and has won several awards for his coverage of Asia, including the Osborne Elliot Prize. He holds degrees from Stanford University and was one of the first American students to study at Nanjing University. This episode was recorded at UC San Diego Host & Editor: Samuel Tsoi Production Support: Mike Fausner Music: Dave Liang/Shanghai Restoration Project Illustration: Daniel Haskett

Recorded: March 1, 2018 Hosted by: Victoria Hui

Gillian Wong has been reporting from China since 2008 and is now the news director for Greater China at the Associated Press. High-profile stories Gillian has covered include the 2012 Tibetan self-immolations and the downfall of Bo Xilai 薄熙来. Her husband, Josh Chin, works as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, where he has covered China since 2007. Prior to the Journal, Josh was a research fellow at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, where he helped produce the China Boom Project. Between the two of them, Gillian and Josh have covered a host of China-related topics, ranging from cybersecurity to Xinjiang. They talk to Kaiser and Jeremy about their paths to becoming journalists, their experience of the changing working conditions for journalists in China, and their efforts to create diverse and representative narratives — complicated, and sometimes aided, by the fact that they are both at least part ethnically Chinese. Recommendations: Jeremy: Memphis, Tennessee, an American cultural destination and the musical hometown of B.B. King and Elvis Presley. Kaiser: Matt Sheehan’s piece on California’s transformation into an epicenter for U.S.-China relations, “Welcome to Chinafornia: The Future of U.S.-China Relations.” As a second recommendation, The Polish Officer, by Alan Furst, which does an incredible job of re-creating an old-world style of language and immersing the reader in its respective time and space. Gillian: The audiobook reading by Tom Perkins of John Pomfret’s The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom. (Listen to John Pomfret discuss his book on Sinica.) Josh: The Paulson Institute’s MacroPolo initiative, which uses the latest research to decode China’s economy, urbanization, and development. A lot of great data all in one accessible, punny place. Also check out Gillian and Josh’s coauthored front-page piece, “China’s new tool for social control: A credit rating for everything.”  

This week, President Donald Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time. Will their meeting herald a new era in U.S.-China relations? Probably not, and in fact we may see a lot of short term instability between Washington and Beijing. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be optimistic about the future of this vital relationship. The "Harvard on China" podcast spoke with John Pomfret - former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post from 1996 to 2003, and author of "The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present" - about how he sees the Trump-Xi meeting in the historical context of U.S.-China relations. The "Harvard on China" podcast is hosted by James Evans at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Listen to more podcasts at the Fairbank Center's SoundCloud page.

Award-winning author John Pomfret discusses his newly published The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, tracing the history of Sino-American relations, in a conversation with National Committee President Stephen Orlins on January 23, 2017 in New York. Although the contemporary U.S.-China relationship has grown out of Nixon and Kissinger’s visits to China in the 1970s, the foundations of Sino-American exchange are hundreds of years old. Since the establishment of the United States, missionaries, traders, scholars, and laborers have formed bridges between the two cultures, tracing familiar patterns of interaction that continue to play out today. As points of contact between the U.S. and China have proliferated over the last two centuries, the relationship has consistently been characterized by enormous promise and deep ambivalence. John Pomfret, former reporter for The Washington Post, and a long-time resident of China, takes a new look at the long history of U.S.-China relations in his recent book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. He describes cycles of mutual understanding and collaboration, and bitter disappointment. As U.S.-China relations approach a new inflection point, Mr. Pomfret’s account of the history of the relationship provides illuminating perspectives on the present. 

Earlier this month, Kaiser recorded a discussion in front of a live audience at the 1990 Institute in San Francisco with three luminaries of the China-watching scene: Yasheng Huang, MIT Sloan Professor of Chinese Economy and Business, John Pomfret, author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, and Andy Rothman, investment strategist at Matthews Asia. They got together to talk about how the presidency of Donald Trump will affect trade, politics, the international order, currency policies, and several other sides of the American relationship with China.

Award-winning author John Pomfret discusses his newly published The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, tracing the history of Sino-American relations, in a conversation with National Committee President Stephen Orlins on January 23, 2017 in New York. Although the contemporary U.S.-China relationship has grown out of Nixon and Kissinger’s visits to China in the 1970s, the foundations of Sino-American exchange are hundreds of years old. Since the establishment of the United States, missionaries, traders, scholars, and laborers have formed bridges between the two cultures, tracing familiar patterns of interaction that continue to play out today. As points of contact between the U.S. and China have proliferated over the last two centuries, the relationship has consistently been characterized by enormous promise and deep ambivalence. John Pomfret, former reporter for The Washington Post, and a long-time resident of China, takes a new look at the long history of U.S.-China relations in his recent book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. He describes cycles of mutual understanding and collaboration, and bitter disappointment. As U.S.-China relations approach a new inflection point, Mr. Pomfret’s account of the history of the relationship provides illuminating perspectives on the present. 

Talk about epic love/hate relationships. From the birth of the United States, China has loomed large in the American imagination, and America in China's, for better and for worse, often with surprising twists. Build a wall across the Mexican border? That was first proposed to stop Chinese immigrants in the 19th century. Mao Zedong's secret vice? American 'kissy' movies, to quote former Washington Post China correspondent John Pomfret, author of "The Beautiful Country and the MIddle Kingdom," an engaging new history of what America and China have meant to each other's citizens, as well as their governments, 1776 to now. And because this is a big and important topic, this is a long(ish) podcast — so break it up if you like. Want to hear about why the Founding Fathers admired China? Listen to the first 20 minutes. How America did — and didn't — promote its values in China in the 20th century? That'd be 20:00-53:00. Challenges for US-China relations now and going forward? 53:00 to the end. Enjoy!

John Pomfret first went to China as a student in 1980 and covered the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989 for the Associated Press. He was expelled for his efforts, but returned to Beijing a decade later to head up the Washington Post’s Beijing bureau. For more on his experience and some compelling and little-known stories, listen to the first half of this two-part Sinica Podcast and read our accompanying Sinica backgrounder. In this week’s episode, Kaiser and Jeremy continue to talk with John about his new book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, which charts the history of America’s relationship with China. John explains that the countries have been intertwined long before the ping-pong diplomacy often credited for ushering in U.S.-China relations in the early 1970s. You can read the short prologue to John’s book, republished with permission here. Recommendations: John: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and The Boat Rocker, by Ha Jin. Kaiser: The albums Tarkus and Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends ~ Ladies and Gentlemen, by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Jeremy: A VICE video on ginseng in the Appalachian Mountains, and The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, translated by Jack Zipes.

Donald Trump has pledged to get tough with China on trade and currency, already tensing up relations with the world's second-largest economy. But it could be worse: President Woodrow Wilson signed a treaty that gave Japan control of part of China, and that didn't go over too well. John Pomfret joins us to take the long view of relations between the U.S. and China. The longtime China correspondent for the Washington Post and author of the new book "The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom" joins Dan and Scott to discuss what the incoming U.S. president can learn from two centuries of contact, and how, as he puts it, stable ties with the U.S. can "make China great again."

John Pomfret was 14 years old when Henry Kissinger began interacting with China in secret. He took his fascination to Stanford University’s East Asian Studies program, where he was among a select group of exchange students invited to spend a year at Nanjing University in 1980, shortly after Nixon established diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China. John went back to China as a reporter for the AP in 1988, nine months before the Tiananmen demonstrations, and was expelled from the country after covering the protests’ violent turn. He returned to China again in 1998 to head up the Washington Post’s Beijing bureau. John has also reported from Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey and Iran. In this week’s episode, Kaiser and Jeremy talk to John about his new book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, which charts the history of America’s relationship with China. John explains that the countries have been intertwined long before the ping-pong diplomacy often credited for ushering in U.S.-China relations in the early 1970s.

In this episode, Laszlo explains a little about the "Gagi Nang", the 自己人, known the world over as the Teochew (Chiu Chow or Chaozhou) people. Like the Hakka people, the Teochew's were originally from the Yellow River Valley and migrated to their present location on the Guangdong coast via Fujian province. Their language and culture is unique. Their food and Chaozhou culture is celebrated in more places than Chaozhou and not just by the people from that region. There are Chaozhounese people on every continent except maybe Antarctica. They're a proud group of people with a collective track record that is admirable by any standards of human achievement. The only mentions in this episode were of the Teochew's of South East Asia and the US. There are plenty of other lesser-known or unknown histories of Teochew's in Canada, Europe, Mexico, Central and South America, and of course Australia and New Zealand. The great 19th-century Chinese diaspora is filled with stories, legends, and historic events. The Chiu Chow people are a major part of everything that happened. They contributed not only to the society and the economy of their adoptive homelands, they still kept their ties with the eight districts of Chao-Shan.   TERMS FROM THIS EPISODE  Teochew People 潮州人 Gaginang 自己人 What Teochew's call themselves in their dialect ("Our People") Hakka People 客家人 Chaozhou   潮州 Mandarin pronunciation Chiu Chow 潮州   Cantonese pronunciation Chaoshan   潮汕 The term for the Chaozhou-Shantou-Jieyang region Shantou   汕头 Port city of the Chaoshan region Swatow   汕头 Shantou in the Teochew dialect Jieyang   揭阳 The 3rd city to make up the Chaoshan region Meizhou   梅州   Homeland of the Hakka people, located in Guangdong Jin Dynasty 晋朝 Dynasty that ran 265-420 CE Jürchen Jin dynasty 金朝 The dynasty that replaced the Northern Song 1115-1234 Henan   河南 Province of China Shanxi   山西   Province of China Han River 韩江 One of the three rivers of Chaoshan Huanggang River   黃冈河 One of the three rivers of Chaoshan Rong River  榕江 One of the three rivers of Chaoshan Wu Hu  五胡 The Five Barbarian tribes Han Dynasty  汉朝 Ancient dynasty of China 206 BCE - 220 CE Xiongnu   匈奴 People from the northern steppe of Central Asia Xianbei   鲜卑 People from the northern steppe of Central Asia Jie 羯 People from the northern steppe of Central Asia Qiang  羌 People from the northern steppe of Central Asia (and Tibet) Di  氐 People from the northern steppe of Central Asia Jiangnan  江南 South of the Yangzi River (Southern China) Tang dynasty  唐朝 Dynasty of China 618 - 907 Fujian   福建 Southeast coastal province of China Quanzhou   泉州 City in southern Fujian Putian   莆田   City in southern Fujian Yuan dynasty   元朝   Mongol-run Dynasty of China 1271-1368 Guangdong province   广东 Southernmost province of continental China Wu  沪  The dialect of Shanghai and the surrounding region Yue  粤 The Cantonese dialect Xiang   湘   The Hunanese dialect Gan   赣   The dialect of the Jiangxi region Hakka   客家   The dialect of the Hakka people Min   闽   The dialects of Fujian Min River 闽江   The main river of Fujian Minbei   闽北 North of the Min River Minnan  闽南   South of the Min River Hokkien  福建   Pronunciation of Fujian in the local dialect (and the people of course) Xiamen  厦门 Major city in south Fujian Zhangzhou  漳州  Major city in south Fujian Hoklo 福佬  Cantonese for Fujian people Fulao 福佬  The Mandarin pronunciation of Hoklo He Luo 河洛 (also 河老) Another way of writing Hoklo Fujian ren   福建人 Someone from Fujian Hoa Kieu 华侨 Overseas Chinese (Vietnamese) Qin Shihuang  秦始皇 First emperor of China 220 - 210 BCE Nanhai Commandery  南海郡 The 郡 or commandery located in southern Guangdong Zhou dynasty  周朝 Ancient dynasty of China 1046 - 256 BCE Zhao Tuo   赵陀 Former Qin general who set up the Nanyue Kingdom in Southern China and Northern Vietnam Nanyue Kingdom   南越国 A kingdom that lasted from 204 - 111 BCE Han Emperor Wu   汉武帝 Han Dynasty emperor whose forces conquered the Nanyue and reigned 141 - 87 BCE Sui  隋 Dynasty in China that preceded the Tang 581 - 618 CE Emperor Wen of Sui   隋文帝 Founding emperor of the Sui Chao Prefecture  潮州 Set up in 590, where Chaozhou got its name Zhou 州 An ancient name for a prefecture Chao’an County 潮安县 Set up during the Republic of China Wenhua  文化   culture Qianlong emperor 乾隆帝 Qing emperor reigned 1735-1796 Taiping Rebellion   太平天国运动 Violent upheaval in China lasting from 1850-1864 She Youjin 佘有进 Seah Eu Chin 1805 - 1883 - early Singapore Teochew community leader She   佘 A Chinese surname (rhymes with 蛇） Yu   余 The Chiense surname Yu......but compare it to the She above. Liu Song Dynasty 刘宋朝 Dynasty in southern China during the Nanbei Chao 420-479 Nanbei Chao   南北朝 The Southern & Northern Dynasties period Ngee Ann Kongsi (Yi'an Gongsi) 義安公司 Charitable foundation in Singapore Chaozhou Bayi Huiguan 潮州八邑会馆 The Singapore Eight Districts Association Chaoshan cai   潮汕菜 Term used to describe the food of the Chaoshan region Rougucha 肉骨茶 a kind of a Chaozhou style meat soup Lushui E   卤水鹅 Fine tasting Chaozhou goose dish....dip it in vinegar...The Ultimate umami! dongxie   潮州冻蟹 A kind of crab in the shell (of course) eaten cold Yao Ming   姚明 China basketball great and NBA superstar. Also a major anti-shark's fin soup crusader. Yulu 鱼露 Nước mắm in Vietnamese, Fish Sauce in English Shacha Sauce 沙茶醬 made from soybean oil, shallots, dried fish, dried shrimp and a nice kick of chili and garlic. Satay sauce Chaozhou Guotiao 潮州粿条   hủ tiếu in Vietnamese, often spelled in English "Kway Teow" Gongfu cha   工夫茶 A kind of tea service and traditional Chaozhou tea custom. Tieguanyin   铁观音 The preferred tea for Chaozhou style gongfu tea. Dancong Cha   蚕丛茶 Another kind of tea from the Chaoshan region of Guangdong. Not easy to get. Chao Ju   潮剧 Chaozhou Opera Nanxi  南戏 Southern Drama that was popular during the Later Song Kun Qu  昆曲 Kun opera, the oldest form of Chinese opera Tan   陈 Teochew for Chen, the #1 most popular Teochew surname Lim   林 Teochew for Lin, the #2 most popular Teochew surname Ng 黄 Teochew for Huang, the #3 most popular Teochew surname Goh 吴 Teochew for Wu, the #4 most popular Teochew surname Tay 郑 Teochew for Zheng, the #5 most popular Teochew surname Li 李 Teochew for Li, the #6 most popular Teochew surname Sir Li Ka-shing   李嘉诚爵士 Featured in CHP episode 13. Wang Jianlin   王健林 Asia's reigning champion for richest man, founder and chairman of the Dalian Wanda Group. Guangyuan 广元 Town in northeast Sichuan province Wu Zetian   武则天 Amazing lady from the Tang dynasty, China's only real true empress Joseph Lau 劉鑾雄 Boss of Chinese Estates Holdings Lim Por-yen 林百欣  Lin Baixin... Boss of the Lai Sun Group Albert Yeung...杨受成 Yang Shoucheng The main guy at the Emperor Group Vincent Lo... 罗康瑞 Luo Kangrui of Sino Land (who gave us Shanghai's Xintiandi) Xie Guomin 谢国民 Dhanin Chearavanont - Thailand's richest man and CP Group boss (sorry for mispronouncing his name) Ma Huateng   马化腾 Pony Ma, founder of Ten Cent (騰訊控股有限公司) who gave us WeChat and QQ David Tran 陈德 Họ Trần  Legendary founder of the company that gave us Sriracha sauce with the green bottle cap. Huy Fong Foods   汇丰食品公司 David Tran's company, located in Irwindale, California Zou ma kan hua   走马看花 To look at the flowers while riding a horse....a very superficial view.    Charles Antoine de Rouve and Jerome Scemla directed documentary La Guerre du Thé...Tea Wars LINK TO WEBSITE     John Pomfret's new book Amazon link to "The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom"   PLEASE ALSO CHECK OUT: THE CHINA VINTAGE HOUR AND THE CHINESE SAYINGS PODCAST   BOTH ARE NEW SHOWS FROM TEACUP MEDIA

John Holden has one word of advice for people trying to understand China: humility. "Anybody who tries to come to grips with China, a country with a very rich civilization, a long history... You just have to be humble in recognizing that there are things you will get wrong, things you will miss," he says around the 36-minute mark of this week's episode. John is one to know. After completing his master's degree in Chinese language and literature at Stanford University in 1980, he worked on a project to translate the Encyclopedia Britannica into Chinese. In 1981, he served as an interpreter for National Geographic during an expedition along the Yellow River. From 1986 to 1998, he was chairman of the China branch of Cargill, a large multinational company, and from there he went on to provide high-level consulting and business leadership to a number of firms working in the nation. He also served as president of the National Committee on United States–China Relations from 1998 to 2005, was chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, and currently holds a position with the Asia program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In addition, he is associate dean with the Yenching Academy of Peking University, which offers a master's degree in China studies. Being humble isn't the only advice John has for people trying to understand China. Business leaders looking for insight should listen around the 27-minute mark. There John explains the value of taking the time to "double down" on researching the local market and mastering customer communication on Chinese social media. And if you want a peek at the personalities of some of China's top political leaders of the past, check out the 18-minute mark or so, where John discusses meeting with the "very, very smart" Wu Yi and Zhu Rongji. Amid all of the changes John has witnessed in China over the past several decades — he notes its business environment has become increasingly competitive and challenging for foreign firms, and access to political leaders has become more difficult — he has also observed at least one steadfast feature: "That drive to be more open and to learn and to study — that is the most salient feature of my experience with China over the past 35 years, and it's still very much there today," he says near the 12-minute point of the podcast. At the present, John sees China at a crossroads of rapid economic and political change that is fueling a stream of news reports about the nation becoming more closed to foreign culture and investment. He is hopeful it is just a phase of the development of an increasingly complex country. "China has been a story in my lifetime of two steps forward, one step back," he says around the 26-minute mark. "We may be one step back at the moment." Recommendations: John: Review of the American Chamber of Commerce's involvement in China: "AmCham China Legacy: A Better Business Environment," by Graham Norris, and The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present, by John Pomfret. Jeremy: Article from the South China Morning Post about Cuban-Chinese: "Lost in Cuba: China’s ‘forgotten diaspora'" Kaiser: Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power, by Howard French. Ada: The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, by Ian Johnson.

Aired 08/05/08 Currently editor of The Washington Post's Outlook section and formerly the Post's Los Angeles bureau chief, John Pomfret lived and worked in China off-and-on for a decade - as a student, an AP reporter and the Post's chief in Beijing - and was eyewitness to the '89 Tiananmen Square protests. He has been a foreign correspondent for 15 years, covering big wars and small in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Iraq, southwestern Turkey and northeastern Iran. In 2003, Pomfret was awarded the Osborne Elliot Award for the best coverage of Asia by the Asia Society.