Face-Off: The U.S. vs China

China’s leader, Mao Zedong famously said that “Women hold up half the sky.” But these days it doesn’t feel that way in China. Unfair marriage rules, difficulties getting a divorce, barriers to owning property and many more restrictions are challenging women to speak out, and act. We’ll hear about the Chinese “leftover women” who are veering from the traditional path and about the Chinese feminists...

Motion pictures first came to China in 1896.  China was one of the first countries to screen the Lumiere brother’s “western shadowplays” as they were called. By the 1930’s Shanghai was known as the Hollywood of the East.  That all changed after the founding of the People’s Republic. Western films were eventually allowed back into China but it wasn’t until the release of the American epic, Titanic...

More than 170 million Americans are entertained, informed and earn big bucks from the Chinese-owned app, TikTok. Now their relationship with TikTok is in mortal danger, to say the least. American politicians seem to be able to agree on one thing: TikTok is bad. What happens now, and how did Americans get hooked on TikTok in the first place. Trump used TikTok to great affect in his campaign. What’s...

There are few American journalists reporting from inside China today. But that has not always been the case. In fact, American journalists in China freely reported on one of the biggest stories of recent history: the Chinese army’s massacre of protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989. In this episode, we talk to Richard Roth, a CBS correspondent who was there during the 1989 protests. We feature Lin...

Trump has praised Xi Jinping in the past. He’s also slapped tariffs on China. What does the return of Trump mean for China? Economic rivalry for sure. Possible war over Taiwan? A battle over AI dominance and confrontation over China’s rapidly expanding military force, also for sure. How will Trump stop China from usurping America’s place on the global stage? Guest: Minxin Pei, Claremont College pr...

Season 2 of Face-Off: US vs China begins Tuesday, February 11. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this bonus episode, Jane Perlez sits down with New York Times national security and White House correspondent David Sanger. In this candid conversation, they talk about his new bestseller: New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West. Plus they discuss Sanger's views on where the US - China relationship is headed, how he worries about the friendship...

Will the United States and China go to war over an island of 24 million people nearly 6,500 miles from California? Why is this a possibility? What is the history and significance of Taiwan to America and China? Guest: Lyle Goldstein, former professor US Naval College, now at Brown University. Taiwanese expert, Syaru Shirley Lin, founder of the think tank, Capri. An essay by Lyle Goldstein on how T...

How the Chinese economic downturn is affecting all kinds of people. How real estate meltdown, with enough unfinished empty apartments to fill the population of Germany, is at the center of it all. How tech entrepreneurs are mysteriously disappearing, and how college graduates don’t want to work.  Guests: Keyu Jin, London School of Economics, author of New China Playbook; Elsie Chen, a member of Ch...

Two young CIA agents were flown to northern China in 1952, part of a bizarre Cold War operation to overthrow Mao Zedong. The plane crashed. The two Americans were arrested, and jailed for 20 years. We fast forward to today and turn the tables: How does China spy on the US now? Who is ahead in the fight over the new technologies? Guests: John DeLury, author, Agents of Subversion; Nigel Inkster, for...

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met on a basketball court in China in 2011 when they were vice presidents. They later toasted each other in Washington. They’ve spent many hours together. Much has changed. Can they hold the center together?  Guest: Minxin Pei, Chinese born professor of government Claremont McKenna College; author of Surveillance State and other books on China.  Jane’s first podcast about...

From his studio in Boston, Yo-Yo Ma tells us how music eases tensions between American and Chinese people, even as Washington and Beijing are at each other’s throats.  Guests: Yo Yo Ma; Hai Ye Ni, principal cellist, Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

China is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal even as arms control treaties are shredded. Can China and the U.S. come to the table and agree to nuclear arms control accords? Should Artificial Intelligence control nuclear weapons?   Guest: Tong Zhao; Chinese born nuclear expert now at Carnegie China in DC  Sound design, original score, mixing and mastering by Rowhome Productions. Learn more about...

Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies, depends on China, America’s biggest adversary, to manufacture its iPhones. Apple employs millions of contract workers in China. Is this marriage heading for the rocks? What will Apple and China do to keep their marriage intact?  Guests: Prof. Willy Shih, Harvard Business School; Wayne Ma, tech reporter, The Information Sound design, original score...

An American surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet collide near the Chinese coast in 2001.  Smart diplomacy by a former American Navy Admiral results in the release of two dozen American airmen and women from detention in China. Today, tensions between the countries are much higher, their planes are flying within feet of each other. There are fears a similar collision could result in war.  ...

Our trailer features jaw-dropping audio from the cockpit of an American spy plane flying over the South China Sea. It’s early 2001. A Chinese fighter jet is getting perilously close to the slow moving American plane. Some weeks later, a collision occurred. What happened next? Listen to episode 1 of Face Off. Our trailer also dazzles with interview clips from our episodes covering tech, spies, the...