Beijing may be benefiting from the war in Iran and Trump's tariffs and has an edge in the competition for tech supremacy. The New Yorker's Evan Osnos discusses his story "The Future, Made in China." This is FRESH AIR. When it comes to the production of drones, electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries, solar cells and clinical trials of pharmaceuticals, China is ahead of the U.S.
Beijing might also be benefiting from the war in Iran and from President Donald Trump's tariffs. So does this mean the era of America's global leadership is over? My guest, Evan Osnos, addresses these and other issues in his latest article in The New Yorker titled "The Future, Made in China." He's a staff writer at the magazine, where he's written extensively about China, as well as American politics and the tech world.
Before that, he was the Beijing bureau chief for the Chicago Tribune and was part of teams that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and 2008. Osnos is also a host of the New Yorker podcast "The Political Scene." His first book, "Age Of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, And Faith In The New China," won the 2014 National Book Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is "The Haves And Have-Yachts: Dispatches On The Ultrarich." We recorded our interview yesterday.
Evan Osnos, welcome back to FRESH AIR. So the way the Chinese leadership sees it, as you describe it, is that China is winning the war in Iran. Can you explain why China believes that?
EVAN OSNOS: Well, in some sense, it is from their perspective always to China's benefit to see the United States drawn back into the Middle East. You know, this has been the place that has consumed so much American attention and blood and treasure, as it's known, over the last generation. And here, all of a sudden, just a couple of years after it seemed as if perhaps the United States was trying to get out of that region, it's now pulled back in.
And in quite literal terms, it has meant also that the U.S. has had to draw on assets - things like aircraft carriers and missiles and munitions that would otherwise have been put in Asia and have had to bring those to the Middle East. And so as a result, it has shifted all of the center of gravity of American national security away from focusing on China and, in fact, now focused on Iran. GROSS: So does China now have an open door to Taiwan if we don't have as many ships and weapons there?
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