Ambassador Dan Kritenbrink on US-China Summits and Strategy

In this episode of Pekingology, Senior Fellow Henrietta Levin is joined by Ambassador Daniel Kritenbrink, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam, and Senior Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, to discuss U.S.-China diplomacy and the upcoming meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Drawing on decades of experience engaging with senior Chinese officials, including Xi Jinping, Kritenbrink reflects on Xi’s leadership style and China’s increasingly confident approach to the United States and the international system. He discusses the role of leader-level diplomacy in managing U.S.-China competition, lessons he learned from preparing for Xi’s 2015 state visit to Washington, and what effective communication between Washington and Beijing looks like behind closed doors. They also examine what to expect from the Trump-Xi summit, the prospects for maintaining what Kritenbrink describes as a “fragile truce” between the two countries, and the economic, technological, and security issues that will continue to test U.S.-China relations.