Diplomacy: Former U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad

U.S.-China: Searching for Common Ground

The topic: Former Iowa Governor and U.S. Ambassador Terry Branstad has a history of about 40 years with China, most notably his recent service in Beijing where he led negotiations on everything from the trade war to nuclear tensions with North Korea. Branstad’s unique perspective on U.S.-China relations is based on decades of promoting economic, cultural, and civic ties while representing the agricultural state of Iowa. This Iowa farm boy ended up with a career capstone that included high-level negotiations between two superpowers on controversial issues (including national security, human rights, and the pandemic) and close personal ties with the leadership in both the U.S. and China.

Our guest: Branstad, 74, is not only a farm boy but also an attorney and the longest-serving governor in American history. In 2017, President Donald Trump appointed him U.S. ambassador to China. Branstad offered unique personal credentials beyond Iowa’s robust agricultural trade with China: The governor in 1985 welcomed a young Xi Jinping to Iowa when the future Chinese president was a provincial official leading a routine trade delegation. That inauspicious connection years later would qualify Branstad as an “old friend” to the powerful leader of an emerging superpower. Branstad served a little more than three years in Beijing, returning in the autumn of 2020 ahead of the American presidential election.

Episode transcript: https://link.medium.com/UqRTk1CEZdb

The series: David Skidmore and Kyle Munson produced this podcast series in conjunction with Skidmore's Spring 2021 U.S.-China international relations course at Drake University.

Your hosts:

David Skidmore is a Professor of Political Science at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he has taught since 1989. Skidmore’s teaching and research focuses on U.S. foreign policy and U.S.-China relations. During the 1996-97 academic year, he taught at the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China. He also served as a Fulbright Scholar based at the University of Hong Kong in 2010-2011. He is past Director of the Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship (2002-2017) and the Nelson Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs (2012-2017), both at Drake University. Skidmore is author, co-author or editor of six books including a monograph titled The Unilateralist Temptation in American Foreign Policy (Routledge, 2011), and has published numerous articles or chapters in various academic journals and books. His most recent research focuses on China’s Belt and Road Initiative. His editorial writing has appeared in Fortune, U.S. News and World Report, Salon, The Conversation, the Diplomat, Global Times and the Des Moines Register.

Kyle Munson is a journalist, writer, podcaster, and content strategist who currently works in content marketing and financial services. He previously spent 24 years with The Des Moines Register/Gannett in a variety of roles, including eight years as columnist. In 2017 he was awarded a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to report on U.S.-China relations early in the Trump administration as Amb. Terry Branstad began his tenure in Beijing. That resulted in the project “Iowa in the Heart of China.” Munson also reported on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2012 visit to Iowa. He has volunteered and served as a board member with Iowa Sister States, a nonprofit dedicated to citizen diplomacy. He currently chairs the board of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation.

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