Tom Friedman Thinks We’re Getting China Dangerously Wrong

My colleague Tom Friedman thinks we’re screwed. That’s the first thing he told me when recounting his recent trip to China. It’s not just because of the trade war that President Trump is escalating right now. Friedman believes the whole Washington consensus on China — that the country is a hostile adversary — is dangerous and based on an outdated understanding of what China now is. He saw how China’s manufacturing and technology have advanced so far that in many ways it now surpasses the United States’. In this conversation, Friedman walks me through the advancements he saw in some of the most critical fields of the coming decades — including A.I., E.V.s and clean energy. We discuss why he sees the current consensus as dangerous, what a different path might look like and what the United States should do to develop its domestic manufacturing so that we don’t “get steamrolled.” This episode contains strong language. Mentioned: “I Just Saw the Future. It Was Not in America.” by Thomas L. Friedman “China's overlapping tech-industrial ecosystems” by Kyle Chan Genesis by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Craig Mundie Book Recommendations: The works of Yuval Noah Harari Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find the transcript and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Isaac Jones, with Aman Sahota and Efim Shapiro. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Elias Isquith, Marina King, Jan Kobal, Kristin Lin and Jack McCordick. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Zoe Zongyuan Liu, Kyle Chan and Matt Sheehan.