Misha and John discuss whether the coronavirus pandemic will help or harm China’s standing in the world. They begin by welcoming Misha’s new book, Asia’s New Politics: Essays on Reshaping the Into-Pacific, out this May from Hoover Institution Press. They turn to the lessons from the different responses to the pandemic in China, East Asia, Europe, and the United States. They argue over whether China’s public relations campaign to defend itself will succeed, whether China’s relative power and influence in the world will increase or decrease because of its public health failures, and what policies we should adopt toward China now.

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Misha and John return for their first show in the year of the rat. They discuss the coronavirus epidemic sweeping China, and they observe that Beijing’s ineffective response is adding to the growing distrust of the government among average Chinese. They next address Tsai Ing-wen’s landslide victory in the Taiwan 2020 presidential election. Misha and John close with their thoughts on the phase I US-China trade deal and likely next steps in the economic relationship between the world’s two largest economies.

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Xi Jinping is usually touted as the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong. How has he pulled power into his hands, and is there a reaction to his strength? Richard McGregor discusses this, as well as looks back at his popular book The Party, ten years after its publication. Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea are falling into a trade war; is it about economics or the poor political relations between the two? How low will relations between America’s two closest allies sink?