The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: Part Two

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The second part of our conversation with veteran journalist John Pomfret takes us through U.S.-China relations from the Treaty of Versailles, which settled World War I, through the Chinese Civil War and up to the present.

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 Postโ€™s Beijing bureau. For more on his experience and some compelling and little-known stories, listen to the first halfย of this two-part Sinica Podcastย and read our accompanying Sinica backgrounder.

In this weekโ€™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 Americaโ€™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 Johnโ€™s book, republished with permission here.

Recommendations:

John: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and The Boat Rocker, by Ha Jin.

Kaiser: The albums Tarkusย and Welcome Back, My Friends, to the Show That Never Ends ~ Ladies and Gentlemen, by Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

Jeremy: A VICEย videoย on ginseng in the Appalachian Mountains, and The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm,ย translated by Jack Zipes.