Under Pressure: Michael Cerny and Rory Truex on China Discourse in the U.S. Foreign Policy Community

This week on Sinica, I welcome back Michael Cerny — formerly of the Carter Center and now a Ph.D. student at Harvard — and Rory Truex of Princeton University to discuss a new working paper they've co-authored. They undertook a large-scale survey of foreign policy professionals at U.S. think tanks to ascertain whether there is a "consensus" on China policy, as is often claimed, and whether people working in think tanks feel pressure to take on more "hawkish" positions on China policy. We also introduce a new segment called "Paying it Forward." 5:04 – What motivated Michael and Rory to write their paper together  7:30 – Groupthink vs. consensus 10:08 – The methodology: combining surveys and interviews, and the sampling frame  14:35 – Trying to avoid leading questions  17:58 – Creating the “China Confrontation Index”  20:25 – Different levels of acceptance of the labels “hawk” and “dove”  23:33 – The issue of preference falsification  25:43 – Mechanisms behind disparities in perceived pressure  29:01 – Tying in Rory’s previous research on self-censorship  32:42 – How Michael and Rory decided on interviews  34:10 – What Michael believes were the most important and robust findings 36:09 – The distinction between the beliefs of think tankers vs. elected officials, and why people tend to believe there is a bipartisan consensus on China  40:34 – Pressure on hawks  42:35 – Specific policy questions 44:18 – Feedback on the paper so far, and what Michael and Rory may tweak in a subsequent draft  49:47 – The possible role of personality in hawkishness or dovishness  51:58 – Discussing Mike Mazarr’s concerns about the potential parallels between current Chinese discourse and the lead-up to the Iraq War  55:06 – Advice to younger professionals entering the foreign policy/China field  New segment: Paying It Forward: Rory: Michael Cerny and Edi Obiakpani-Reid  Recommendations: Rory: Edi Obiakpani-Reid’s Sinobabble podcast about Chinese history Michael: Jeffrey Ding’s Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition Kaiser: Imperium by Robert Harris  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.