Shadowing Practice: Episode 10: The Inescapable US China Rivalry - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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The United States is a mortal enemy of China.
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Since 2017, an intense security competition has set in between the United States and China.
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The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path.
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The Israelis are executing a genocide in Gaza.
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It's not China's fault that it wants to be powerful.
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So if you get into trouble and you dial 9 -1 -1, there's nobody at the other end.
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Hi, this is John Mearsheimer.
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And the subject I'd like to talk today about is the recent meeting between President Trump
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and President Xi Jinping in Washington, D .C.
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And just to put this into some context, this is actually the eighth meeting between the two of them.
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There were five meetings during President Trump's first term, which of course ran from 2017 to 2021.
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But this is the third meeting in President Trump's second term.
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And of course, he came to office in January of 2025.
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And the first meeting between these two leaders took place in South Korea in October of 2025.
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That's a little less than a year ago.
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That was the first meeting in his second term.
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The second meeting between them in President Trump's second term took place in Beijing this May.
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and this meeting last week between september 23
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and september 25 was the third meeting
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and it took place of course in washington dc
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and what i want to do is i want to talk about this meeting
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that just took place there were five big issues on the
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agenda uh number one of course was taiwan number two was Iran number three was Ukraine number four was AI
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and number five was the general trade patterns between the two countries
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so those are the five big issues
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that were discussed some more than others at this summit and
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And I think there's almost universal agreement that in terms of reaching meaningful agreement on these issues,
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the two actors, the two presidents basically failed.
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The Economist had a story
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which took both leaders to task for passing up this wonderful opportunity to deal in a serious way with these five issues.
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And it basically accused the two leaders of being irresponsible.
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I think the language that the economists used was that they were guilty of dereliction of duty.
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Now, my view is that this is not true,
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that it was almost impossible for these two leaders to reach a meaningful agreement on the five issues that were at play.
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The only exception to this, as I'll talk about, is the whole subject of trade between the two countries.
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There, I think, there was possibility for some agreement, and in fact, you got some agreement.
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But on the other four issues, there was virtually no hope of getting any meaningful agreement.
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And I want to explain why that's the case.
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So the basic laydown of my talk will go like this.
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First of all, I'll describe what happened in Washington last week.
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And then I'll explain to you why I think things turned out the way that they did.
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And then I'll conclude by making three remarks of a general nature that build on the previous discussion.
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So let me start by just talking about what happened in Washington this past week.
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And let me start with what I will call the three strategic issues.
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And the three strategic issues are first of all Taiwan second Iran
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and third Ukraine
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and in the case of Taiwan it was the Chinese who
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had demands whereas you'll see in the case of Iran and in the case of Ukraine it was the Americans
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who had demands that they were placing on the Chinese.
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Now to go to Taiwan,
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what the Chinese want from the United States is they want the United States to basically halt all arms shipments to Taiwan.
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And the United States is pondering the question of whether or not to give a $14 billion arms package to Taiwan.
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and it almost goes without saying that the Chinese absolutely do not want that to happen.
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So that's one of the issues that was at play regarding Taiwan.
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The other issue just has to do with the question of Taiwanese independence.
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The Chinese want the United States to play hardball with Taiwan
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and tell the Taiwanese in no uncertain terms that they cannot declare independence from China.
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And indeed, they cannot even hint that they are interested in gaining independence over the long term from China.
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What happened at the summit is the United States basically dodged around these issues.
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The United States, and here of course we're talking about President Trump made no concessions to the Chinese on the Taiwan issue.
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President Trump said that we talked about these issues, and basically not a lot of time was spent on Taiwan, and everything is good.
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We're not having any major problems.
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But all of this is a way to say
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that the United States did not accede to any of china's
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demands on taiwan then we go to the subject of iran
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and here it's the americans who are making demands on the chinese or asking the chinese to help
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with regard to the american war in iran and there are a number of issues at play here First of all,
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the Americans would like the Chinese to put pressure on Iran to concede to American demands
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and reach some sort of peace settlement.
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As I'm sure all the viewers know, the United States is desperate to end the war in Iran.
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And because Iran and China have close relations,
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the United States tends to think that the Chinese are in a position to put pressure on Iran to end the war.
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So, the Trump administration has been asking China to do exactly that.
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Furthermore, the Trump administration is deeply interested in making sure
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that China does not continue to provide weapons or intelligence or military support of any kind to the Iranians.
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There's evidence that that is happening.
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the wall street journal ran a big story
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that talked about all the military aid that china is giving to iran
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and it's obviously in america's interest to get the chinese to stop providing weaponry
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and intelligence to the iranians and there's no question
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that president trump requested that china do that
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and unsurprisingly the chinese refused there's no evidence
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that the chinese are going to accommodate the united states in any way on the whole subject of iran
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and then we get to ukraine
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and here again the united states is asking for help from the chinese
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and what president trump would like to do
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and he's made this clear since he was a candidate for
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re -election in 2024 is end the ukraine war as quickly as possible he of course has failed in
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that regard and what he would like the chinese to do is put pressure on the russians to end
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that war because the russians and the chinese are obviously allies
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and the trump administration knows that china has been aiding russia in its fight against ukraine
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and what the united states would like to do here
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or what president trump would like to do is he'd like
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to get the chinese to put significant pressure on russia
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and get russia to at least reach an agreement on a ceasefire
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and then hopefully get some sort of meaningful peace agreement so
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that this war comes to an end so what you see here is
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that president trump was asking china for help to solve both the iran war and the ukraine war And in both cases,
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the Chinese showed no interest in helping President Trump.
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So what you see on these three strategic issues, Taiwan, Iran, and Ukraine, is that there was no movement at all.
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The Americans were not willing to accommodate the Chinese over Taiwan,
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and the Chinese were not willing to accommodate the United States over both Iran and Ukraine.
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And we get to the two, let's call them economic issues that were on the table.
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One is AI, and then two is the general trade relationship between the two countries.
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With regard to AI, there was definitely a lot of hope among outsiders,
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people outside the Trump administration and outside the Xi Jinping administration,
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that the two sides would reach some sort of meaningful agreement on AI, having to do mainly with the fact that there's great fear
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that this technology might get out of control
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and do really serious damage not only inside one of those two countries
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but around the world there's a real fear
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that AI has the potential to cause catastrophic damage
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and therefore lots of people are very interested in seeing the chinese
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and the united states work to overcome this potential problem
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or to deal with this problem should come to the fore
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in fact president trump has no interest in putting any limits on ai
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and all the evidence is that the chinese have no interest in putting any limits on AI.
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So when you talk about what happened at the summit in terms of AI,
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basically you had two leaders coming together who had no interest in curbing their own development of AI.
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And unsurprisingly, you got no agreement to put limits on the development of ai
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so there was no progress here made in terms of reaching some sort of agreement
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that might limit the potential for catastrophic disaster down the road then we get to the subject of trade
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and trade's a very interesting issue
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because this is where this is the one of the five areas where there was some progress
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and let me describe the situation there
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and the best way to do it is to go back to
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when president trump first took office in january 2025 as i'm
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sure many people remember president trump came out of the blocks
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in january 2025 determined to put significant tariffs on virtually every state on the planet.
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And he did not hesitate to increase tariffs on China right away.
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And he did this in February, and then he did it again in March.
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And you want to remember that April 2nd was what he called Liberation Day.
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April 2nd was when he was really going to ramp up the tariffs on every country in the world, again, including China.
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And after Liberation Day, tariffs on China went up to 145%.
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This is truly remarkable.
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145 % tariffs on China after Liberation Day.
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The Chinese unsurprisingly retaliated, and they levied tariffs of 125 % on the United States.
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If one country has 145 % tariffs on the other, and the other has 125 % tariffs on the other,
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there's no way you're going to have any kind of meaningful trade between the two sides.
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In addition to that problem,
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the fact is that the United States began to realize very quickly that the Chinese had significant leverage over the United States,
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which made it very difficult for President Trump to play hardball with the Chinese with regard to tariffs.
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And that is that the Chinese control almost all of the world's rare earth minerals,
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And they control other critical minerals as well that the United States absolutely, absolutely needs.
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So the Chinese were in a position where they could withhold rare earths.
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from the United States and this would have devastating economic consequences on the U .S economy
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so as a result of this the United States in effect had to back off
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so what happens on May 12th this is 2025 what happens
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on May 12th 2025 is the two sides the Chinese and the Americans decide to greatly reduce their tariffs.
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The American tariffs on China go down from 145 % to 30%.
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And the Chinese tariffs on the United States go down from 30%, excuse me, from 125 % to 10%.
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So you see, you have this significant reduction in tariffs.
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And you begin to work out a modus vivendi between the two sides regarding tariffs this agreement
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that they reach on may 12th is renewed in august of 2025
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and then very importantly you have the first meeting of trump and xi jinping in october 2025.
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remember i said there were three meetings between these leaders the
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first was not in trump's second term the first was in october 2025 the second was in may 2026
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and then the third was the one that just took place
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and so you had a meeting in october 2025 between the two leaders
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and they basically came to an agreement that would last for one year
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that basically put an end to the tit -for -tat trade war
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that had been taking place between the two sides
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and locked in an arrangement where tariffs were kept pretty much in place and the two sides were able to trade.
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That was done as a result of the meeting in October of 2025.
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Then the two leaders met again the second meeting in beijing in may of this year that's may 2026
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and they made some incremental progress in reducing tariffs and increasing trade between the two sides
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now the third meeting just took place between the two leaders in washington dc
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which is of course the subject i want to talk about today
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and what happened at this meeting are basically two things number one the two sides agreed to extend the agreement
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that had been reached last october october 2025 for two more months
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so it will run through this year furthermore it's now clear
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that the two sides reached an agreement to reduce tariffs on roughly $60 billion in goods.
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Each side has agreed to reduce tariffs by $30 billion on the other side.
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And of course, two times 30 equals 60.
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So tariffs have been reduced by a significant amount on $60 billion of goods
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that are traded between the United States and China.
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Now, it's very important to understand that these are basically commercial and agricultural goods.
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The deal here has nothing to do with things like rare earths or AI -related technologies,
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those strategically important technologies.
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What's involved here are medical devices, agricultural goods, fish hooks, car seats,
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Christmas goods, and so forth and so on.
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I don't want to minimize the fact that you do have a substantial reduction of tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods,
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but this is of limited consequence, and it certainly does not involve things like AI or rare earths.
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But the key point you want to keep in mind here is
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that it's on the subject of trade between the two sides
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where you did get some agreement at the September summit that just took place.
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And that agreement builds on what took place in May of this year at the summit in Beijing
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and what happened last October, October 2025 in South Korea.
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But with regard to the other four issues, and this of course includes Taiwan,
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Iran, Ukraine, and AI, there was no meaningful agreement.
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Now, what's going on here?
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Let me start at a general level and then go down
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and look at each of those five issues and say more about those issues.
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At a general level, we have to go back to 2017.
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Two things happened in 2017 that are of great importance.
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Number one is that China and Russia basically become great powers at that point in time.
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uh up until 2017 the united states uh operated in what was called the unipolar moment
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and of course the united states was the unipole it was the only great power in the international system
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and during that period the united states pursued a policy of liberal hegemony towards the towards the Chinese.
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And what that meant was
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that the United States was willing to facilitate significant economic intercourse with the Chinese
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and help China grow into a remarkably powerful state.
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But what happens in 2017 is that by that point in time, China has grown so powerful economically and militarily,
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that it is effectively a great power.
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And at the same time, in 2017, the Russians are once again a great power.
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Vladimir Putin, who had become the leader of Russia in late 1999, by 2017 has basically brought the Russians back from the dead.
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So you go from a unipolar world to a multipolar world in roughly 2017.
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Now, it's of enormous enormous importance for our discussion today of the U .S.
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China summit is to focus on China as a great power
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and the key point here is that China is a remarkably formidable great power
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it has the potential
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and I want to underline the word potential to become more powerful than the United States moving forward
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because of the large size of its population and because of its ability to develop sophisticated technologies.
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So when China comes online as a great power in 2017,
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there is significant fear that it is a truly peer competitor of the United States.
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And there's a great fear that China might dominate Asia the way the United States dominates the Western Hemisphere.
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So that's one thing that's happening around 2017.
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The second thing that happens is President Trump moves into the White House.
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As almost everyone remembers, he gets elected for the first time in November of 2016,
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and he becomes the president in January of 2017.
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When President Trump campaigned during the 2016 presidential campaign,
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he argued that the policy of liberal hegemony,
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the policy of engaging with China and helping China to grow was remarkably foolish.
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And what he was going to do as soon as he moved into the White House, was abandon engagement, abandon liberal hegemony.
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And he was going instead to pursue a policy of containment.
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And when he moves into the White House, he immediately does that.
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And he's very cognizant at the time, as is virtually everybody in his national security staff,
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that we are now in a multipolar world
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so president trump in 2017 ends engagement with china moves away from liberal hegemony moves to containment
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and focuses laser -like on china
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and pursues a very hard line towards china during his first
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administration as i'm sure many viewers remember President Trump was actually initially interested in having good relations with Russia
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and focusing mainly on China as a potential adversary of the United States during his first term.
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So this is the basic background that you get with regard to President Trump Trump and what happens in 2017.
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And the argument that I would make is that since 2017, whether you're talking about the Biden administration,
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the first Trump administration or the second Trump administration, is that the relationship between China and the United States has been.
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basically adversarial that's the big picture now what i want to
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do is i want to talk about the five big issues on the table
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and how they played out at the recent washington summit
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start with taiwan taiwan is an island that is of huge strategic significance to the united states
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and to china as well
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and by the way as far as china is concerned it's
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not not only of huge strategic significance it is sacred territory
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the chinese for good nationalist reasons are deeply committed to making
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taiwan part of china the idea of taiwan being independent is
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unacceptable to virtually every chinese person i've met over the course of my life.
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They want Taiwan back.
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And of course, from an American point of view, Taiwan is of great strategic importance, and keeping Taiwan independent really matters.
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If you're interested in bottling up the Chinese Navy and the Chinese Air Force inside the first island chain,
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uh the americans need to control taiwan the americans also worry if they abandon taiwan
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that the end result would be
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that other allies of the united states in east asia would lose faith in the united states
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and this would make it impossible for the united states to contain china
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one doesn't have to accept the logic
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that i just laid out for why the united states thinks
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it has to maintain an independent taiwan indeed a taiwan
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that is allied with the united states
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but the fact is u .s policy makers think in those terms
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and in fact it's important to emphasize here
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that the biden administration said on four separate occasions or i should say president Biden himself said on four separate occasions,
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that the United States would defend Taiwan.
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All of this tells you that the United States is extremely unlikely to make any meaningful concessions on Taiwan.
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And it's hardly surprising
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that President Trump made no concessions on Taiwan at the Washington summit there's no way
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that any American leader at this point in time is going to make concessions on Taiwan now what about Iran
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and here the Americans are asking the Chinese to make concessions
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or to help the United States deal with the problems
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that it faces in the Iran war this is not in
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China's interest China has no good strategic reason to help the
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United States as I tried to make clear the United States is a mortal enemy of China.
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Since 2017, an intense security competition has set in between the United States and China.
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There's no question that that security competition waxes and wanes.
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Sometimes it's more intense than others.
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But nevertheless, US -China relations today are characterized by an intense security competition, an intense security competition.
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And that dates back to roughly 2017.
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Well, if the United States is in deep trouble in Iran, it's losing its war in Iran,
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the Chinese obviously have no interest in helping the United States win that war.
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In fact, the Chinese have a vested interest in making sure that the United States loses that war.
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And therefore, it's hardly unsurprising that the Chinese are providing weaponry and providing intelligence to the Iranians.
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And in terms of the economic intercourse between the two countries,
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the Chinese are unwilling to cut off economic support or trade relations with Iran.
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The Iranians have a vested interest in making sure that Iran wins the fight.
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In fact, one could argue that Iran, excuse me, that China has a vested interest in making sure
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that the war remains protracted and that the United States remains pinned down.
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in its fight against Iran.
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Now, why am I saying that?
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To fight this war in the Middle East,
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the United States has had to withdraw significant numbers of weapons and forces from East Asia
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and placed them in the Middle East.
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The USS George Washington, the only American aircraft carrier that's now in the Middle East, was pulled out of East Asia.
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It's normally stationed in Japan, but the United States had to pull it out of Japan and move it to the Middle East.
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The United States has moved Patriot missiles and THAAD missiles out of East Asia into the Middle East.
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In a very important way what the united states is doing
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is pivoting away from east asia to the middle east this is obviously in china's interest
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when the trump administration decided to adopt the policy of containment
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in 2017 it was deeply committed for obvious reasons to pivoting to asia not pivoting away from asia but
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because of the war in iran the united states is now
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pivoting away from asia this is obviously not in america's interest
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and is in china's interest all of this is a way of saying
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that the chinese have a deep -seated interest in making sure that iran does not lose the war
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against the united states and indeed
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that the war goes on for a long period of time because that will work to China's strategic situation in East Asia.
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So, unsurprisingly, at the Washington summit, the Chinese were unwilling to help the United States deal with its troubles in Iran.
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A similar logic applies to Ukraine.
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What's going on in Ukraine?
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Russia is fighting Ukraine, and of course, the United States and the Europeans are allied with the Ukrainians.
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You want to remember that when multipolarity came, when unipolarity ends and multipolarity comes, there are three great powers in the system,
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the United States and China, which we've been talking about at some length, but the third great power is Russia.
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And it turns out that Russia ends up allied with China.
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China has a deep -seated interest in maintaining a close relationship with the third great power in the system
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and keeping that third great power Russia on its side of the ledger
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so obviously the Chinese have been helping the Russians in their war in Ukraine
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and the Chinese have a deep -seated interest in making sure
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that Russia prevails over Ukraine because Ukraine is joined at the hip with the United States
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and the United States is a mortal enemy of China.
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So basically what you see with regard to Ukraine is
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that China is helping the Russians to prevail against Ukraine plus the United States,
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and as was the case with Iran,
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you saw there that the Chinese have a vested interest in helping Iran prevail against the United States.
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So all of this is to say the Chinese were unwilling to help the United States on either Ukraine
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or on Iran at the Washington summit.
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And of course, as I said, the United States was not willing to accommodate the Chinese over Taiwan.
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This brings us to the question of AI.
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As I said before,
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neither side was interested in reaching an agreement last week in Washington that would curtail their pursuit of AI.
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And why is that the case?
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Well, you want to understand that the strategic competition between China
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and the United States that is now taking place involves not just military forces,
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it involves the competition over sophisticated technologies.
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And here we're talking especially about AI.
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So what you see is that when it comes to AI,
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the United States and the Chinese are arms racing the united states is working overtime to see
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if it can gain an advantage over the chinese in terms of developing AI.
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The Chinese, for their part,
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are interested in seeing if they can gain an advantage over the United States in terms of developing AI.
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Because both sides understand that if there is going to be a single winner in the AI realm,
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that winner will benefit greatly from not just an economic point of view,
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but from a military point of view as well it will matter economically
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because the growth of one's economy depends heavily on AI.
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And if one's side dominates in the realm of AI, that side will benefit more than the other side economically.
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But it also has a military dimension to it.
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So you have this situation where neither side at this point in time is interested in cooperating,
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and therefore no No attempt was made of any consequence in
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the Washington meetings between these two presidents to slow down the competition in AI.
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They are arms racing away.
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This then brings us to the whole subject of trade.
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As I said before, trade was the one realm where there was some agreement.
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It was limited agreement.
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Now, it's very important to understand that we should expect trade to exist between the United States and China.
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We should not expect trade to exist when it comes to things like rare earths or things like AI.
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You're not going to get any trade there
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because you have an intense competition where one side is trying to either gain or maintain an advantage over the other.
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In the case of rare earths, the Chinese already have an advantage.
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And in terms of AI, you have this intense arms racing take place, as I described before.
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So you're not going to get any meaningful agreement at this point in time on those issues.
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But on agricultural issues, commercial issues, there you'll get some agreement.
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Now, this is hardly surprising.
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And let me tell two very quick stories to illustrate this.
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If you look at the period before World War I, World War I, of course, breaks out in 1914, August 1st, 1914.
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Before World War I, there were these two alliances in Europe, the Triple Entente, which included Britain,
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France, and Russia, and then the Triple Alliance, which was Germany, Italy, and Austria -Hungary.
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And Austria -Hungary and Italy were not really very reliable allies.
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It was really Germany against Britain, France, and Russia.
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And there was an intense security competition between these two alliances.
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At the same time you had this intense security competition,
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you had a great deal of economic intercourse among all of the countries in Europe.
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So the Germans traded with the French, they traded with the Russians, and they traded with the British.
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There was a lot of economic dealings, a lot of trade between all of the parties.
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All of this is to say, when you see trade taking place between two countries like China
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and the united states that are involved in a serious security competition you shouldn't be surprised
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because oftentimes there is lots of trade side by side with security competitions
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between or among states uh in the international system and you saw this again before world war one.
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So it's not surprising that this is what you're seeing happening between the United States and China.
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And remember what happened here, just to go back over the history.
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When President Trump came to office, he thought he was going to play hardball with the Chinese.
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And he started this tit -for -tat tariff war with the Chinese after he moved into the White House in January 2025.
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And when he found out that the Chinese have a second strike capability, he backed off.
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And the end result is you've now had a series of summits
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which have facilitated the development of trade between the two sides.
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And again, this is not surprising when you look at what happened before World War I.
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My second story has to do with...
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The whole subject of trading during wartime, most people will find this hard to believe.
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But the fact is that when great powers go to war, they nevertheless sometimes, one could argue even,
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oftentimes continue to trade with each other.
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And a former student of mine wrote a brilliant book called Trade in War that deals with this very subject.
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Enemies, countries that are fighting with each other.
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This was true in World War I, for example, between Britain and Germany.
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Once the war broke out, they continue to do some trading with each other.
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This is called sometimes trading with the enemy.
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All of this is to say that you can see where trade would take place today between China and the United States,
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because thankfully there's no war taking place between the two countries.
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But we know from the historical record that there have been cases where you have actual wars between two great powers,
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and they nevertheless continue to trade with each other.
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And they, of course, do it because it is in their interest.
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but nevertheless you want to understand that there are real limits to how much trade
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can take place and you're certainly not going to get trade with regard to things like ai
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semiconductors rare earths and so forth and so on
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so let me now conclude uh with a number of different
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points first of all i want to make it clear
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and this is apparent in terms of what i just said about uh trade between china
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and the united states today cooperation is possible between two countries
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that are engaged in a security competition uh and trade is possible
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when both sides think it's in their interest as i said before
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and to put it more general terms cooperation is possible
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when two states think they have a mutual interest in cooperating with each other
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and they think that that That cooperation will not advantage one side over the other side.
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As most people fully understand, during the Cold War, we had a series of arms control agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union.
407
Those were cooperative endeavors, and the United States and the Soviet Union engaged engaged in those arms control agreements,
408
because they thought it was to their advantage to agree
409
that they had a mutual interest in reaching an arms control agreement on this matter or that matter.
410
And at the same time, they felt that neither side was gaining an advantage over the other.
411
And therefore, they weren't being disadvantaged by cooperation.
412
So it's very important to understand that you should expect to see some cooperation between the United States and China.
413
And of course, this is exactly what we see in the trade realm.
414
But the key point you want to keep in mind is that that cooperation takes place in the shadow of security competition.
415
And that security competition, again, I want to emphasize this, has a military dimension.
416
This is what containment is all about.
417
And it has an economic dimension.
418
And the economic dimension involves AI, semiconductors, rare earths, and so forth, and so on.
419
But again, cooperation is possible.
420
I want to say one other word about cooperation, and that involves AI.
421
As everybody knows, it's very hard to say where AI is headed.
422
and i think we would be foolish not to recognize that there is some possibility
423
that this technology could get out of control and possibly cause or threaten to cause
424
catastrophic damage to one side or to both sides i think in
425
that situation both sides would have a vested interest in cooperating
426
to avoid catastrophic damage all this is to say it is possible moving forward Given the potential dangers associated with AI,
427
the competition between the two sides will be greatly ameliorated, and you will have cooperative agreements between them
428
because it's in their mutual interest to reach an agreement to make sure that we avoid a catastrophe.
429
So my basic point here is cooperation is possible,
430
and we may, and I underline the word may, seek cooperation with regard to AI in the years or decades ahead.
431
The second concluding point I want to make is
432
that you don't want to just look at what happened in the September meeting between President Xi
433
and President Trump to grasp how contentious the relationship is between the two sides and how difficult it is,
434
almost impossible to reach meaningful agreement on so many key issues.
435
because we have two other cases of where the two leaders met
436
and did not reach significant agreement on any issue except trade
437
and even on trade they reached limited agreements and this is the october
438
2025 meeting in south korea
439
and the may 2026 meeting in beijing remember the september 2026 summit is the third summit between these two leaders.
440
There was one last year and one earlier this year in May.
441
And if you look at what happened in all three of those meetings,
442
you see that what happened last week is not an anomaly.
443
It basically reflects what happened in the two previous meetings.
444
My final point is that a lot of people, I believe, were optimistic, at least for a while,
445
that some serious progress might have been made on all those five issues that I describe,
446
especially Taiwan, at the recent summit in Washington.
447
And the reason that they were so optimistic is that President Trump actually has been,
448
let me put it that way,
449
President Trump has been remarkably accommodating toward the Chinese in his rhetoric in recent months.
450
Let me put this into a broader context.
451
Next, when President Trump came to office, as I said before, in January of 2017, he abandoned engagement with China,
452
moved to containment, and he really adopted a rough policy toward China.
453
He was seriously interested in containing China.
454
After he left office, President Biden really doubled down on what President Trump did.
455
It's very important to understand that.
456
You might think that President Trump was not the hardliner, excuse me, that President Biden was not the hardliner that President Trump was,
457
and therefore President Biden moved back toward engagement.
458
No way.
459
President Biden doubled down on President Trump's policies towards China in President Trump's first term.
460
Okay, President Biden leaves office and President Trump comes back into the White House in January of 2025.
461
As I said earlier in this episode,
462
President Trump came out of the starting blocks with guns firing.
463
What he did was he immediately put tariffs on China
464
and began to initiate a trade war with China that he thought that he could win.
465
He decided to play hardball with the Chinese,
466
which was consistent with what he had done in his first term and consistent with what President Biden had done.
467
But what happens then, as I said before, is the Chinese demonstrate that they have a second strike capability and President Trump backs off.
468
And this is where you get But basically, a modus vivendi between the two sides starts on May 12th of 2025,
469
and we see it reflected in the October 2025 summit, and also in the May 2026 summit.
470
So this is one reason that President Trump becomes more accommodating toward I've heard.
471
the Chinese, this and in the past few months.
472
The second reason is the Iran war.
473
President Trump, as you all know, goes to war on February 28th against Iran, and his belief is he's going to win a quick and easy victory.
474
That doesn't happen.
475
And the United States is now mired in this conflict that it's desperate to get out of.
476
The last thing
477
that President Trump needs at this point in time is for
478
a conflict to break out of any sort in east asia
479
if you think about the situation
480
that president trump is in he's in deep trouble in terms
481
of the iran war he's in deep trouble with regard to the ukraine war
482
which he's also been unable to shut down he faces a real danger
483
that he will lose both of those wars but nevertheless the last thing
484
that he wants to do is for a conflict to break out in East Asia.
485
So he's been going to great lengths to play nice with the Chinese to make sure
486
that there is no trouble in East Asia, because that's the last thing he needs.
487
Furthermore, President Trump has had little success on the diplomatic front in recent months, the Iran war, the Ukraine war,
488
what's going on in Gaza, and the state of the international economy
489
so he needs a win he needs a victory
490
so having a successful summit with xi jinping in washington last week is an event
491
that he can claim shows he's in control and
492
that he can win when the chips are on the table
493
so president trump had all sorts of incentives in recent months
494
to work out a deal with the Chinese as best he could on a variety of issues.
495
But when you look carefully at what actually happened, and you look carefully at what President Trump's real incentives were,
496
those strategic incentives that are at the heart of the thinking of any American president you see
497
that it's unsurprising
498
that he was unable to do anything more than reach limited accommodations on the trade front
499
and the argument I would make to conclude with is
500
that as we move forward what is likely to happen is that President Trump's relationship with the Chinese with Xi Jinping,
501
and the American relationship with China, if anything, is likely to deteriorate over time.
502
And I think the period that we have just gone through, or that we are going through, where the United States, and President Trump in particular,
503
have friendly relations with the Chinese on the surface, is going to be seen as an anomaly.
504
And that period that went from roughly January 2017 up until May 12th of 2026,
505
when the United States was constantly playing hardball with the Chinese, and where the rhetoric was quite hard nosed from the American side,
506
that is likely to characterize relations in the future.
507
And the present situation where the rhetoric is quite friendly certainly on the american side that's likely to disappear on
508
that sad note let me conclude this episode
509
and thank all of you for watching and i look forward to our next chance to get together
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Episode 10: The Inescapable US China Rivalry”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: chinese, china, trump, iran, trade. This video has 509 sentences and 6707 words to shadow. The speech runs for 54:00. The speaker talks at a steady 124 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| tariff noun | /ˈtæɹəf/ | A system of government-imposed duties levied on imported or exported goods; a list of such duties, or the duties themselves. |
| accommodate verb | /əˈkɑməˌdeɪt/ | To render fit, suitable, or correspondent; to adapt. |
| containment noun | /kənˈteɪnmənt/ | The state of being contained. |
| hardball adjective | Being or exhibiting tough or ruthless behavior, especially in combat, politics or business. | |
| concession noun | /kənˈsɛʃən/ | The act of conceding. |
| vest noun | /vɛst/ | A sleeveless garment that buttons down the front, worn over a shirt, and often as part of a suit; a waistcoat. |
| hegemony noun | /hɪˈd͡ʒɛ.mə.ni/ | Domination, influence, or authority over another, especially by one political group over a society or by one nation over others. |
| pivot noun | /ˈpɪv.ɪt/ | A thing on which something turns; specifically a metal pointed pin or short shaft in machinery, such as the end of an axle or spindle. |
| unsurprisingly adverb | Not surprisingly, as could be expected. | |
| catastrophic adjective | /ˌkætəˈstɹɑfɪk/ | Of or pertaining to a catastrophe. |
| remarkably adverb | /ɹɪˈmɑɹkəbli/ | In a remarkable manner. |
| conclude verb | /kənˈkluːd/ | To end; to come to an end. |
| dimension noun | /daɪˈmɛn.ʃən/ | A single aspect of a given thing. |
| abandon verb | /əˈbæn.dən/ | To give up or relinquish control of, to surrender or to give oneself over, or to yield to one's emotions. |
| intercourse noun | /ˈɪn.tɚˌkɔɹs/ | Communication, conversation. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| back off verb | To move backwards away from something. | |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. | |
| move forward verb | To cause to make progress. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| break out verb | To escape, especially forcefully or defiantly. | |
| come together verb | /ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/ | To assemble; to congregate; to combine. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | has been asking · has been aiding · we've been talking |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has set · has failed · has agreed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were discussed · was spent · is put |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 31 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'll, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, withdraw /wɪðˈdɹɔ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: concession /kənˈsɛʃən/, dimension /daɪˈmɛn.ʃən/, foolish /ˈfuː.lɪʃ/, initiate /ɪˈnɪʃ.i.eɪt/, shipment /ˈʃɪpmənt/
- Long words — get the stress right: accommodate /əˈkɑməˌdeɪt/, hegemony /hɪˈd͡ʒɛ.mə.ni/, catastrophic /ˌkætəˈstɹɑfɪk/, remarkably /ɹɪˈmɑɹkəbli/, cooperate /kəʊˈɒp.ə.ɹeɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like tariff, accommodate, containment.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.