Podcast / American Prestige / Jul 29, 2025

The Perils of Competition With China

On American Prestige: Michael Brenes on how the US-China rivalry threatens democracy and peace.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

The Perils of Competition With China | American Prestige
byThe Nation Magazine

Great Power Week continues here at American Prestige as historian Michael Brenes joins the show to talk about how prolonged competition with China threatens democracy, peace, and prosperity. They compare Biden and Trump’s respective approaches to China, whether the national security establishment is trying to manufacture an existential threat out of The People’s Republic, whether there is any national interest in a new Cold War, the degradation in American leaders, why rivalry is bad economically, erodes American society’s social fabric, and leads to violence, and alternatives to the great power framework.     

Read his book on the matter (co-authored with AP regular Van Jackson), The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy.

Don’t miss the companion episode with Stacie Goddard from Sunday, “The Era of Great Power Competition.” 

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Trump and Xi in 2017.

Trump and Xi in 2017.

(Qilai Shen / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Great Power Week continues here at American Prestige as historian Michael Brenes joins the show to talk about how prolonged competition with China threatens democracy, peace, and prosperity. They compare Biden and Trump’s respective approaches to China, whether the national security establishment is trying to manufacture an existential threat out of the People’s Republic, whether there is any national interest in a new Cold War, the degradation in American leaders, why rivalry is bad economically, erodes American society’s social fabric, and leads to violence, and alternatives to the great power framework.

Read his book on the matter (co-authored with AP regular Van Jackson), The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy.

Don’t miss the companion episode with Stacie Goddard from Sunday, “The Era of Great Power Competition.”

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Special – War in the Gulf and the Global Economy w/ Esfandyar Batmanghelidj | American Prestige
byThe Nation Magazine

Derek welcomes back Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder and CEO of the Bourse and Bazaar Foundation and professor at Johns Hopkins University, to discuss the economic consequences of the Iran war and its implications for the Gulf and the global economy. They discuss Iran’s strikes on Gulf infrastructure, disruptions to shipping and energy routes through the Strait of Hormuz, risks to logistics hubs like Dubai and Doha, rising oil prices, the vulnerability of global supply chains, and the potential long-term economic impact of the conflict on the Gulf.

Read Esfandyar’s article in Foreign Policy, “The Iran War Is Jeopardizing the Entire Global Economy.”

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