Originally broadcast at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, June 30, 2021.

Having served as a key adviser to President Trump on U.S. strategy toward China, Michael Pillsbury is senior fellow and director for Chinese strategy at Hudson Institute. A distinguished defense policy adviser and former high-ranking government official, he is the author of numerous books and reports on China, including the influential book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower. At Chautauqua, he will outline what challenges diplomats and politicians face as a new American administration navigates U.S.-China relations, and what a strong U.S. response to China would look like. During the Reagan administration, Pillsbury was assistant undersecretary of defense for policy planning and responsible for implementation of the program of covert aid known as the Reagan Doctrine. Under President George H. W. Bush, he served as special assistant for Asian affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Earlier in his career, while an analyst at the RAND Corporation, Pillsbury published articles in Foreign Policy and International Security recommending that the U.S. establish intelligence and military ties with China. The proposal, publicly commended by Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger and James Schlesinger, later became U.S. policy during the Carter and Reagan administrations. Pillsbury has also served on the staff of four U.S. Senate Committees and drafted the Senate Labor Committee version of the legislation that enacted the U.S. Institute of Peace in 1984. He also assisted in drafting the legislation to create the National Endowment for Democracy and the annual requirement for a DOD report on Chinese military power. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Pillsbury is also the author of China Debates the Future Security Environment and editor of Chinese Views of Future Warfare.

This program is made possible by The Charles Ellsworth Goodell Lectureship in Government and Public Affairs.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.