Book Talk | Broken Engagement: Interviews with Those Who Have Made — and Remade — the U.S.’s Policy Toward China

Over the past three decades, the U.S.-China relationship has undergone a profound transformation—from a period of deepening engagement and economic cooperation to one increasingly defined by competition, distrust, and strategic rivalry. What happened? And who were the key figures behind the shift?

In his new e-book Broken Engagement: Interviews with Those Who Have Made — and Remade — the U.S.’s Policy Toward China, veteran journalist Bob Davis—former senior editor of The Wall Street Journal and co-author of Superpower Showdown—offers a rare and insightful chronicle of the evolution of U.S. policy toward China through the words of the people the words of those who have been on the front line of dealing with the country’s superpower rival. Drawing on a wide range of interviews with senior officials, diplomats, policymakers, and advisors across several U.S. administrations, Davis pieces together a behind-the-scenes narrative of how expectations unraveled, hardline stances emerged, and bipartisan consensus formed around a tougher approach to Beijing.

Join us on June 11, 2025, for a timely and thought-provoking conversation with Bob Davis as he shares highlights from his book, reflects on key inflection points in the U.S.-China relationship, and discusses the implications of this shift for the future of bilateral ties. He will be joined in conversation by Ann Tyson, Beijing Bureau Chief at the Christian Science Monitor.

REGISTER HERE

SPEAKERS

Bob Davis has covered most every big economic story of the past 40 years including the rise of China, the challenge from Japan and the global financial crisis. Along the way, he covered the Gulf War and the space program and was posted overseas in China and Europe. He was part of a team of reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for  coverage of the Russian financial crisis.

In 2022, Davis retired from the Wall Street Journal as a senior editor in Washington DC after decades  at the newspaper. He continues to write for the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, Politico Magazine, The Wire China and other publications.

In 2025, the Wire China published an eBook, “Broken Engagement,” a collection of Davis’s long interviews with officials and former officials who made China policy.

His 2020 book, “Superpower Showdown,” with Lingling Wei on the U.S.-China trade and economic battles was chosen by Book Authority as one of the top economy books of the year.  Business Week called an earlier book on the U.S. economy, “Prosperity,” with David Wessel, one of the year’s 10 best business books.

In 2016, Davis traveled around the U.S. examining the economic and social changes behind the Trump and Sanders phenomenon. He won a SABEW, Best in the Business Award, for a series of stories based on that work.

From 2011 through 2014, he covered the Chinese economy from Beijing and traveled widely throughout China. He and his wife wrote an e-book in 2015 for the Wall Street Journal based on their experiences, called “Beijing from A-to-Z.”

In 2000, he was awarded the Raymond Clapper award for Washington reporting for coverage of White House negotiations with China over the World Trade Organization.  A year earlier, he was part of a team of Journal reporters that won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for coverage of the Russian financial crisis.

Ann Scott Tyson is the Monitor’s Beijing Bureau Chief, covering China and Northeast Asia.

Ann is an award-winning journalist and author whose career includes a decade covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and eight years as a foreign correspondent in China and Asia. Her U.S. beats have included the Pentagon, Congress, and the Midwest. In addition to the Monitor, she has reported for The Washington Post and contributed to The Wall Street Journal. 

Ann is the author of a bestselling Afghanistan war memoir, “American Spartan: The Promise, the Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant.” She also co-wrote “Chinese Awakenings: Life Stories from the Unofficial China.”

Ann graduated from Harvard College with an honors degree in government and East Asian studies and earned an honors certificate from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences Po). She was awarded the Bagehot Fellowship for graduate studies in economics and business at Columbia University and the Rotary Graduate Fellowship at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She speaks Chinese and French.