Authors in Conversation, Ep. 8 — Benjamin Coates & Kazushi Minami discuss People's Diplomacy

4:02PM Feb 13, 2025

Speakers:

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu

Benjamin Coates

Kazushi Minami

Keywords:

US-China relations

Cold War

people's diplomacy

cultural revolution

educational exchanges

sports diplomacy

ping pong diplomacy

government policy

social changes

US-China normalization

trade exchanges

scientific exchanges

tourism

oil diplomacy

East Asia.

Ben, Welcome to Authors in conversation the United States in the world, book series podcast from Cornell University Press. I'm Benjamin Coates, Associate Professor of History at Wake Forest University, and one of the CO editors of the series, and I'm here today with Kazushi Minami, an associate professor in the School of International Public Policy at Osaka University. He has written numerous articles on topics on East Asian and US foreign relations. And his new book is people's diplomacy, how Americans and Chinese transformed us China relations during the Cold War, which was published in the US and World Series from Cornell University Press in 2024 azushi, welcome and thank you so much for being here.

Well, thank you so much for having me Ben

so your book really could not be more timely, which you know, when we talk about history of foreign relations, that that can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on on what we're talking about. But certainly this is, this is a moment when we're very interested in the topic of us and Chinese relations us. Chinese diplomacy is constantly in the news. And your book shows us that people's diplomacy, as you call it, that is, the actions and relationships of non government actors has been essential to shaping the relationship between the United States and China. And your book focuses on the 1970s which is when the modern engagement really began. But before we get into that, could you start by giving our listeners some background. What was going on before the 1970s that helped to shape the story you tell in your book.

Sure, sure. So as you said, this book focuses on the 1970s which is the decade of great changes in US, China relations. So before these changes during the early Cold War, in the 1950s and 60s, the United States, China war, Cold War friends, of course, US, China relations existed even before that. You know, if you go back to, for example, World War Two, the United States and China war allies and these two countries had had really complex, you know, many different kinds of complex relationships. Trade was robust, scholarly exchanges, exchanges of scholars and researchers were robust. But with the Chinese Communist revolution of 1949 these relationships were more or less severed. And in the 1950s and 60s, these two countries became cold war enemies, colliding with each other in many different places in the world, in particular, for example, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and the large swath of the developing world. So they would collide militarily, economically and politically over these places. And they they had very limited exchanges of people between these two countries. If you look closely, there were really small fragment of Americans visiting the People's Republic of China in the 1950s and 60s. But less than I would say, 200 people were exchanged between these two countries. So, you know, before 1949 there were 1000s and 1000s of people traveled across the Pacific for different reasons, economic, educational, you know, what have you. But after 1949 you know, really, you know, these two countries were basically mutually isolated against each other for more than two decades, and this changes completely in the 1970s as you know, I guess many of the listeners would know, in on February 21 1972 US President Richard Nixon became the first US president to set foot on the soil of the People's Republic of China, and the process, so called sino American rapprochement, was initiated in about seven years later, on January 1, 1979 these two countries normalized relations. So the United States severed its political ties to Taiwan, the Republic of China, governed by the Chinese Nationalist Party and now switched to the PRC, the People's Republic of China. So the modern US China relations was pretty much established at the time. So. And with the with this process of cinema rapprochement. You know, 1000s and 1000s of Americans and Chinese started to visit each country even before normalization of relations in 1979 and my book is about how these you know what? What I call people to people exchanges between the two countries in the absence of official diplomatic relations prior to 1979 how these exchanges shaped your channel relations in the 1970s

so before we get into that, I wanted to talk a little bit more about government policy, because my understanding is, I mean, so the so the reason, you know, there was so little contact before 1970s essentially, both governments more or less prohibited it, right? The United States prohibited trade with the PRC and and most travel, and so is the opening of that of or the government's decisions to allow greater interactions that then made this possible, although, as we'll talk about soon, it was the relationships themselves that were essential to furthering the process towards normalization. Could you tell us a little bit about the cultural revolution in China and how that was shaping Chinese government policy towards private relationships?

Yeah, thank you for the question, and that's crucial. So as you said, both the Chinese government and the US government were responsible for the mutual isolation before 1970s but from the mid 1960s onwards, the US government, under LBJ Lyndon B Johnson, was actually starting to implement many policies aimed at opening the door to China. So as you said, the previous administrations had established strict travel ban against China, strict trade embargoes against China. But LBJ started to loosen up on these fronts from the 19 from the mid 1960s onward, but the Chinese government was completely unresponsive, unresponsive for mainly two reasons. One was obviously the Vietnam War. China was heavily involved, and, you know, heavily involved in combat. Some of the Chinese volunteer soldiers were involved in combat against US soldiers. So, you know, it was like the Korean War 15 years ago, 15 years before. So, so that was one big reason, another, arguably even more important reason was, as you mentioned, the Cultural Revolution. Cultural Revolution. It's hard to explain cultural revolution in a in a sentence or two, but it was basically a huge mass movement initiated by the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, in 19 in the summer of 1966 and the original aim was to basically encourage radical students and walkers, mainly students, to attack the authority, political authority, economic authority, authority of any kind, in order to topple mouse rivals, mouse political rivals, including New South Sean and so on, but the movement will spread into different facets of society, and my book actually talks about how The Cultural Revolution affected trade, science policy, sports philosophy, cultural politics, etc, etc, so and so. The Cultural Revolution radicalized Chinese society writ large, and and that spilled over to China's foreign relations as Chinese society as a whole was radicalized. People saw the United States as the primary enemy to Chinese revolution, to the world revolution. That that is radical Chinese for aiming at so politically speaking, that, you know, the launch of the Cultural Revolution, the flaring up of the Cultural Revolution, particularly in particularly between 1966 and 68 nine prevented any attempt by LBJ at early rapprochement with China. That makes

a lot of sense, and I think we'll probably come back to that a little bit when. When we get into some of the details of particular relationships. So the book is the whole as a whole focuses on what you call the thick, dense web of networks of people and institutions that were essential to the process of normalization between the United States and China, and you show that these networks changed assumptions in both countries and also created constituencies who saw closer ties as serving their own interests and ambitions. And I wanted to ask you, how did you come to choose this topic for the book project? What drew you to it?

Yeah, well, long story, of course, you know, as for all the you know, first, first books based off on PhD dissertations, my book also has a very long backstory. Goes back how many years about for? About 15 years ago, when I was still a college student, an undergraduate student. I remember the year was 2010 September. 2000 September of 2010 I participated in a school trip to at the time, I was an economics major at Kyoto University in Japan, and the school organized a student forum with Beijing University in Tsinghua University, both located in Beijing and it was just a it was just a student forum, but I was happy to participate. That was my first trip to second trip to China. But then about a week before our departure, there was an instant involving some islands disputed by China Japan. Japan called all these islands Senkaku Islands, and China calls it gal edu Island, and so the well, the Chinese fishing boat crushed into a Japan coastal guard patrol boat, and the fishing boats captain was arrested and created a huge diplomatic crisis between the two countries. There were many, many anti Japanese demonstrations going on in China, and, you know, Japanese cars were burned, and, you know, Japanese restaurants whether or not they're actually run by Japanese owners or not, or looted, etc, etc. So the school, one of the professors, basically said, let's, let's, let's not do this. Let's cancel this whole thing, because it's just too dangerous. It can be responsible for any, you know, anything that can happen to my students. But I was like, you know, still like a cocky college student at the time i i said, you know, well, you know, this is the whole point of, you know, cultural exchanges, right? I mean, we should do this. Not, I mean, not despite the diplomatic crisis, all the more because of the diplomatic crisis, you know, these student exchanges will be more important at a time like this. And so we went, I was embracing myself for some I don't know, uncomfortable experiences, but I didn't have any uncomfortable experiences. If anything, I was really surprised to find my Chinese, you know, student partners, really hospitable and very kind. Of course, we would, you know, defer specific specificities as to some, you know, diplomatic issues. But overall, the student forums were, well, sorry, I forgot to mention one thing just a couple days before these events, Beijing University and Tsinghua University, they both decided to cancel these events scheduled on campus, but it was like just a couple of days before our departure side. We were like, what do we do? Then I was also surprised that our, you know, Chinese student partners decided to move these events outside campus. So they reorganized themselves at some local coffee shops just outside the, you know, the universities and we these events proceeded without too many hiccups. And that experience, the whole experience, gave me an initial, nascent idea that you know as much as these two you know countries, these two governments, you. You know, are feuding over many issues, and that kind of determines the main tenant of bilateral relations. There is a whole different level, or there are many, you know, different levels to China, Japan relations, or international relations in general. So in addition to what's going on between governments, what's going on outside governments might also be as important to international relations, you know, bilateral or multi lateral as a whole, if you know what I mean, that was the beginning. Yes,

yeah. It's a really fascinating example of how you know, actually, your personal experience kind of gave, gives you insight into these character you know, historical figures that you're that you're researching. You have those same kinds of experiences of negotiating international personal relationships, you know, sometimes with the blessing of government, sometimes kind of at odds or with the indifference of the governments themselves. So that's a great way to get into the the meat of the book. And the way you've organized this book is thematically. So each chapter focuses on relationships in a different field. So you have, you have chapters on trade, on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and tourism. And there's, there's so many rich examples and fascinating, you know, micro histories and stories within these chapters. And obviously we don't have time to get into all of them and in this interview, so listeners, I encourage you to, you know, read, the whole book, as they say, but we'll just, we'll just explore a couple of them today. And you know, one thing that I found especially interesting reading them is that we see the story of kind of cultural and personal rapprochement that's going on, which is taking place against backdrops of changing values and ideas in each society separately. And so there's a there's a interconnections and relationships going on this whole time. So I want to start maybe with education and and the rise of educational exchanges, and how this was reflecting different ideas about education in each country, and also the ways that, you know, people in each country were thinking about the educational systems in the other country.

Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, yes, as you said, really, you know, if we were to understand the process of sino American rapprochement, or the changes in us, general relations in the 1970s as you said, we should understand the changes in values and you know changes in system, you know, social systems in both countries in the 1970s the 1970s were what was a decade of great social changes in both countries, but particularly in China, this great shift from the Cultural Revolution to reform and opening up the co you know, great shift from Mao Zedong, you know, iconic revolutionary leader, to done so. Pin was a reformist who would, you know, promote modernization and economic development in China. That would lead to, you know, that would cut about China to the world's second biggest economy in 2000s I guess so. So this huge shift was happening in the 1970s and you know how these social, you know, changes spilled over to us, China relations. That's that's really one of the main, you know, points that I try to make in this book education. I will focus on, I will focus on China well, that there are many different, you know, changes happening in US education, you know, the US education system in the 1970s basically, it's the story of technology shift from the progressive educational ideas, new Left educational ideas in the 1960s to neoliberal education during the Reagan and the Reagan era in the 1980s but the changes in China were much more gigantic. So in my in the education chapter, I focus on. On the restoration of US China, educational exchanges, student exchanges in December 1978 so student exchanges were actually restored, even before official diplomatic relations were restored. You know, people talk about the restoration of us. Us Japan, sorry, US China student exchanges. They tend to view it as like an add on to the diplomatic normalization. Washington invasion, normalized relations. So they, you know, almost simultaneously, you know, restarted exchanging students. But that's not nearly the full story. As I as I argue in this chapter, because, let's say, Washington and Beijing normalized relations. But if the educational system in China had not changed in the 1970s in other words, if China maintained the same kind of educational system which was established during the Cultural Revolution, and I will explain this in a minute, there was no room for the restoration of student exchanges between the two countries. So what kind of educational system did China have during the Cultural Revolution? Again? So this, you know, if I I don't have time to go into the details, but basically they radicalized Chinese education, right? Education was the epicenter of the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution started on the college campuses of Beijing University and Tsinghua University and and these universities will be closed down between 1968 70, and when they reopened in 1970 these universities were taken by storm by something called the revolution in education. So the Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese revolutionized education, not just higher education, but higher education was really the center of this revolution in education. So before the revolution in education, Chinese education, higher education, in particular, was aimed at creating elites, bureaucrats, who can manage the planned economy, who can can build up the economy, who can contribute to the modernization of the economy. After the initiation of the revolution in education, the whole purpose of education was changed into creating a new kind of elite, the political elites, who are committed to promoting Chinese Chinese revolution. So instead of modernizing the economy or promoting economic development, the Chinese, you know, the new elite was expected to, you know, strengthen the policies promoted by the Cultural Revolution, so basically revolutionizing the whole society in order to so for this purpose, the Chinese education, the new education policy, for example, cut down the length of college enrollments to, you know, from four years to three or sometimes two and a half years. They also cut down on curriculums. So they cut down, particularly on theoretical training, and they beefed up, you know, credit hours for practical, practical training. So they will send students, college students, to the countryside, to farms and factories, so that they can, they can obtain actual working experience at the factory and the, you know, on the field for for many months. So instead of using, you know, textbooks to learn about theory they, you know, they were, they're encouraged to learn from peasants and walkers who had almost no education whatsoever. There are many other, you know, policy changes so, but so that was at the beginning of the 1970s throughout the decade, there will be, you know, almost an epic clash between the two educational philosophies, one revolution in education and the other. Counter revolution in education. So basically, a backlash to the kind, the type of education that I just described. So the reformist officials, including Dan shopping, would argue that, you know, we should our education system should create a you know, talented body of elites who can, who can manage the economy. So instead of, you know, these, you know, creating another batch of revolutionaries. We should, we should, you know, focus back on, you know, people who are capable enough to, you know, manage modernization projects, etc, etc. And this this battle would wind down toward the end of the 1970s with with the winding down of the Cultural Revolution, so particularly after the arrests of the group of four politicians based in Shanghai, the so called Gang of Four, led by Mao's wife and Omaha former Shanghai actress Jensen. So this group was really the main promoter of the revolution in education. After their arrests, Chinese education system would swing back from the revolution in education to the counter revolution in education. And you know, they would, they will have more, you know, meritocratic education system. They would, you know, restart college insurance exams. College insurance exam. Exams were terminated in the late 1960s and more than 10 years later, in 1977 these exams will be reinstalled, so so that Chinese universities can select students based on merit, not based on family background or revolutionary, you know, experiences, etc, etc.

And this shift in Chinese education was crucial for the restoration of US China student exchanges. Because, you know, why do you exchange students with the United States? You don't. You know, if you want to revolutionize your students, you don't exchange students with the United States. You, you know, you exchange students with the United States because you you want to promote modernization. You want your students to learn. You know, state of the art, science and technology, economic management, what have you so that they can you know, these students can bring back. You know these, you know, different types of knowledge that will be helpful for building up the Chinese economy. So, so in addition to the diplomatic normalization, as I said, this huge, huge transformation of China's educational philosophy was definitely key, definitely a key to the normal the restoration of student exchanges.

Yeah, no. One thing I found fascinating from from the American side was even during the Cultural Revolution, you had some American educators who sort of admired that that project, because they saw it as de emphasizing elite education and making education more democratic. But it seemed like sort of, you know, regardless of of who was winning the the internecine struggle for education policy in China, there were, there were American educators who were very interested in, in learning about what was happening. And while, while, ultimately, after 1978 the Chinese who were sent to United States were done, you know, the goal of that program was, as you pointed out, you know, modernizing the economy. It seemed like, from the US perspective, it was more about some combination of learning about China and also, you know, kind of informal spreading of American culture and values. I wanted to turn to sports, which is another topic I found really fascinating the book. And you know, anyone who sort of read anything about us China relations in the 70s has probably come across the phrase ping pong diplomacy. I thought maybe we could just touch on that really briefly, but then we can get into some of the the other details that your book has on sport that actually go go far beyond

so on sports. What I think is really important is that the 1970s you know, sports, I would say ideologies in both in the United States and China war being transformed, and these transformations affected us, China sports diplomacy. So let's start with the United States. You know, in in the United States, you know, there was this. Widespread sense of decline, mainly due to the Vietnam War, and sports was kind of at the forefront of that national sentiment. For example, in 1972 the Munich Olympics in 1972 United States was badly traunched by the Soviet Union. The Soviets won somewhere in the ballpark of 15 more gold medals, and the United States took it very seriously, because during the Cold War, sports was one of the most important arenas of cultural the CO cultural Cold War with the Soviet Union. So it was sports was seen as a contest between the two different social systems. Which system can produce the stronger body, stronger athletes. And Soviets were winning. And this added to again, this national sentiment of decline in the 1970s 1976 at the Montreal Olympics, the Soviets also won, you know, at least 10, 1015 more gold medals than the United States. And states. So the United States, so the US government decided to enact the amateur sports act, if I'm not mistaken, in 1978 to create a stronger team USA. So the so Americans in the 1970s more and more Americans believed that the United States should win more gold medals in order to showcase the robustness of their society, to show the healthy healthiness of their society. So so sports nationalism was on the rise in the United States and so so in the United States, winning was basically the the most important thing in sports. Kind of needless to say, but the Chinese did not share that same sports philosophy. So during the Cultural Revolution, the the main philosophy for Chinese sports was friendship, first, Competition second. So sports was seen in China as a political tool to exhibit political friendship covered other countries, particularly its socialist brothers, including North Korea, for example. So the Chinese athletes were instructed by the state to intentionally lose points, or sometimes lose the entire game, give up gold medals, just to show socialist friendship, just to highlight socialist friendship with these countries. You know, I was never a serious athlete, so I can't really tell, but I guess you know, this kind of practice should have, should have been really a complete nuisance, to complete anathema to most of the Chinese athletes, serious athletes back then, you know, particularly ping pong athletes. You mentioned the ping pong diplomacy in Nagoya in april 1971 where American ping pong players and Chinese ping pong players, you know, struck up a informal conversation, and that will lead to the US ping pong team's visit to China that month. And that kind of opened up the process of the whole bilateral rapprochement. You know, less known about that. You know ping pong national, sorry, the World table tennis championship in aware was that the Chinese team was instructed to lose several gold medals to the North Koreans to show socialist solidarity with them. But these players ignored the, you know, the orders and the order, and won, I forgot how many gold medals, but they defeated the North Koreans at least twice or three times, and they were severely criticized after that. So the Chinese athletes wanted to win, but the states, you know, ordered them to lose sometimes. So, so this, you know, friendship for. First ideology was was quite strong in the 1970s but it was beginning to change, you know, in the mid 1970s and sports exchanges with the United States War. You know, sports exchanges with the United States played a significant role in this process. In this in my chapter on sports, I specifically discuss the track and field delegation from the United States in 1975 i which was the first national team sent from the United States. The Chinese wanted to, you know, accentuate friendship with the American people. But the problem was that the Chinese could not intentionally lose to the Americans, because this time these Americans were it was a national team, so they were very strong. There are multiple future Olympians, Olympic medalists, involved in this particular delegation and the Chinese players, Chinese athletes, were basically no match to them.

So in other words, they could lose, but they couldn't lose on purpose, because they they couldn't win. That's exactly right.

Yeah. So, so they lost to the Americans in something like 95 out of 100 events, and it was but the Chinese still tried to exhibit friendship by doing another lap. So after each race they did this, they run another lap, hand in hand with American committers, and they called it a friendship lab. And people cheered for both, both play, you know, athletes, athletes from both countries. But it, it was, you know, it would have felt really, you know, hollow, given the fact that you know the Chinese, you know, just, just couldn't win, as you said, particularly on purpose, I remember one anecdote, particular anecdote, where So in men's 10,000 meter race after men's 110 1000, 10,000 meter race, Americans won a race. Of course, an American runner, I think he was a future Olympian, won a race, and the second, the Chinese runner, came in like 40 seconds late, or something that I think that was a huge time lag for the men's 10,000 and the American runner found his his pod, and Chinese runner sitting on The bench pensive right after a race, and he asked the Chinese runner if he was thinking about his lap times or thinking about rethinking about the race. The Chinese Chinese athlete smiled to him and said, No, I was thinking about friendship. You know, it was so it was it was so for the American athletes, the whole Friendship first, you know, philosophy sounded really, sounded really awkward and alien, but, but this particular event, the 1975 Track and Field delegation was, I was really the watershed for Chinese sports, because there are many officials and coaches from all over the country attended these exhibition matches, And they saw the Chinese athletes beaten badly by the Americans, and that ignited what I would call sports nationalism in China. So after this particular delegation, the Chinese would increasingly pay more attention to winning. So the slogan would gradually change from Friendship first to competition, first friendship second. And with this shift, the Chinese increasingly so United States as as as a rival. So instead of showing. Friendship to the Americans. They now focus more and more on learning the state of the art, world class technique from American athletes. So in, you know, in sports exchanges, the Chinese would, you know, Chinese would, would want more sports exchanges with the United States in order to improve their skills and so that they can win gold medals at international competitions. At this point, China was not, still not the member of the International Olympic Committee, but you know, they will join the International Olympic Committee in 1979 and you know, they wanted to win as many gold medals as possible and expose exchanges with the United States was, was the key. Thank you.

So, as I mentioned, there are lots of other really fascinating stories. You know, a couple that struck me. You don't have these. You have these great stories about musical exchange, and there's these controversies about which pieces will be performed both in China, and there's controversies about pieces being performed in the United States by Chinese visiting groups that might be too critical of Taiwan, or things like that. There's the stories of tourism are really interesting. And you know, the changes in how American tourists view China, and the various lengths that Chinese officials went went through to ensure that American tourists had a certain impression of the society, including sort of essentially paying, you know, local, local Chinese people, to behave in certain ways. So So again, listeners should should read the book to get all of those. I wanted to move on. Just ask a couple of quick questions about the implications of some of this research. So one of the things I was curious about, is what this might say about the nature of American power. Because, on the one hand, a lot of the particular examples that you talk about, you know, for instance, with education, as we were, as we were discussing earlier, it seems to be that the relationship is really driven by developments within China itself. So in other words, the nature of the relationship, the extent of exchange, depends on who happens to have the upper hand in the Cultural Revolution and those struggles in China and what the US is doing seems less important. On the other hand, there does seem to be over time, in many of these cases, a convergence in the sense that, you know, Chinese actors come to adopt practices that are more similar to their American counterparts, whether it's you know sports competition or you Know educational policy. And that might suggest that that overall, you know, American power is exerting itself in certain ways. I'm just curious what, what you think if, if either of these models sounds like the right way to view things, or if you have some other way of thinking about this type,

I would agree with, you know, what you just said about the balance between the American government and the Chinese government. You know, from the viewpoint of US foreign relations, most of the times it's the United States, the US policy, or what's going on in the United States, US policy circles that have the most impact on the course of events internationally, but when it comes to us China relations, well, first of all, the US government was not very keen To manage bilateral People to People exchanges with China, particularly during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Henry Kissinger perceived People to People exchanges with China, whether it's trade or scientific exchanges or sports exchanges. As a i a a side show to what was really important, what what was truly important for him, which was geopolitical play with China, with the Soviet Union. So he didn't really think these people to people to people exchanges were that important, so they basically, he basically relegated the management of these exchanges to the lower level. Things will change during the Carter administration, when to begin Brzezinski comes a. Into the picture, and he would promote cultural People to People exchanges with China as a way of strengthening bilateral diplomatic relations with China, even before normalization of relations. So, so that's one thing. The other thing is that many of the things happening on the ground war, while the big picture, the big framework of cultural exchanges, were determined by the US and Chinese governments, the negotiations between the two governments, but what was happening on the ground were determined more directly by what was happening in the society in both countries. So the some of the social changes that I described mainly in China, also in the United States, but But again, the social changes were more pronounced, and, you know, much more pronounced, and much more radical in China compared to the United States or the you know, social changes in the United States in the 70s, there are many books about this. Were huge. You know, whether, you look at education, science, economics, there are many significant changes happening in the 1970s but they pale in comparison to what was going on in China. So, so. So in that sense, what was happening in China, whether or not the Chinese government was directly responsible for these changes. Some of some of the changes the Chinese government was promoting, some of the, some other, you know, other social changes that the Chinese government was not, not really managing, but, you know, it was just following the tide. It was just part of the larger historical changes. So, so, so. So these changes happening in China, much larger than the changes happening in the United States, of course, had more impact on the bilateral exchanges in the 1970s

So, so what do you think that implies for the present and future of US, China relations. And I know, you know, it's always dangerous to ask historians to pontificate about the future, but maybe we could frame the question as, you know, for people who are thinking about the present and future of this relationship, you know, how might your book suggest they should go about thinking about it,

as you summarized my book at the beginning of this interview. My book is really about encouraging the readers to broaden their perspective of US, China relations. You know, in, particularly in today's world, when we talk about US China relations, we just think about the relationship between the the US government and the Chinese government. And, you know, the fields, different kinds of few views that they're engaged in right now, or they would be with the onset of the, you know, second Trump administration. So, so, you know, what we think of is the trade war, the cheap war, and other wars of, you know, married myriad different kinds. But my, my book really encourages the reader to to broaden the definition of US, China relations. In other words, it you know by because you know us. China relations is is much more you know, much broader than the simple government to government relationship, it entails not just government officials, but also, you know, Chinese students, scientists, Athletes, cultural enthusiasts, etc, etc. So you know, the government dimension, government to government dimension is very important. But, you know, I, I think it's important to see the bigger picture, to to conceive your shine relations as an aggregate of many different types of relationships. So in that sense, in that way, I think my book changes the ways in which people understand us general relations. So if you apply this to the current bilateral relationship, of course, people. Super pessimistic about the future of US General relations because of superpower rivalry. There's no denying that. There's no denying also that the government can impose its wills on people to people exchanges happen. Happening between the two societies right now. But as my book demonstrates, the government does not have the monopoly over all the exchanges, all the relationships happening between the two countries. So

I guess the last question I have for you, before we run out of time kazuchi is, can you tell us just briefly about what you're working on for your next project?

Yes. So I'm working on my second book project, which explores the role of oil in shaping and reshaping post war international relations of East Asia. There are many books and articles about international history of East Asia during the Cold War, but few of them touch upon the role of oil. I show that oil was crucial for many of the major diplomatic events in this region after 1945 such as the sino Soviet split us, Japan alliance, sino American rapprochement in the 1970s the new cold war in the 1980s as well as the end of the Cold War in East Asia. So I'm really excited to initiate this new project.

Well, I'm really looking forward to seeing how that turns out again, energy and energy diplomacy, another very timely topic. So kazuchi Minami, thank you so much for sharing your research with us today. Listeners again to learn more, please go pick up the book people's diplomacy, how Americans and Chinese transformed us China relations during the Cold War. Thank you again. Kazushi and thank you Ben today.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to authors in conversation the United States in the World Series podcast from Cornell University Press.