Zheng Wang Cross-Cultural Negotiations Expert; "U.S. China relationship is a Shakespearean Tragedy"

About this episode

Vance interviews his former graduate school mentor Dr. Zheng Wang, a cross-cultural negotiations expert and director of Seton Hall's Center for Peace Studies, on US-China misunderstanding across masks, history, and geopolitics. They open discussing why mask-wearing diverges culturally: East Asian "reference" memory of SARS (2003) versus Western reference to ordinary flu, plus Confucian collectivism versus American individual liberty framing. Wang argues China's "century of national humiliation" (1840 Opium War to 1945) functions as a quasi-religious historic-memory framework shaping Chinese worldview, in contrast to America's forward-looking, non-historical identity — a mismatch he sees playing out in South China Sea disputes, where Chinese negotiators argue from historic maps while Americans argue from international law (UNCLOS), leaving both sides talking past each other in "different realities." Wang stresses education/textbook centralization (China: one official history textbook nationwide; US: 50+ differing state textbooks) as a root cause of asymmetric worldviews, and cites his book "Never Forget National Humiliation" as key to understanding Chinese motivation. Discussing China's staggering economic transformation (per-capita GDP $304 in 1989 to $10,000 today), he argues the country is now materially pragmatic rather than ideological, contradicting American assumptions of a Soviet-style monolith. The conversation lands on Wang's central metaphor: US-China tension as "Shakespearean tragedy" — both nations know something bad is coming, driven by nationalist populism and mirrored top-leader ambitions (he draws explicit parallels between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump's slogans), yet neither side can stop it, partly because social-media echo chambers deny both populations exposure to alternative narratives.

“For the Chinese people... they got a very special national experience that was from the Opium War in 1840 until the end of World War II... they considered this hundred years is kind of like, they call it national humiliation.”

“In China, for many decades... all the schools using the same textbook published by the same official publication house... in the US maybe 50 or more than that [different textbooks].”

“It's both sides being motivated by nationalism, populism, by some extreme ideas. And both sides have the same type of top leader ambitions... the clash of ambitions becomes difficult to avoid.”

Key moments

• ~4%: Cultural roots of mask-wearing divergence — SARS memory in East Asia vs. flu reference in the West; Confucian collectivism vs. American liberty framing.
• ~34%: "Never Forget National Humiliation" — the century of foreign invasion (1840-1945) as China's foundational historic-memory trauma, likened to a personal car-accident trauma.
• ~62%: Centralized single-textbook education in China vs. 50+ state textbooks in the US as a structural driver of diverging South China Sea narratives (history vs. international law).
• ~78%: Social media echo chambers reinforcing existing opinions on both sides, reducing exposure to alternative narratives.
• ~92%: The "Shakespearean tragedy" framing — nationalist populism and mirrored leader ambitions (Xi Jinping/Trump slogan parallels) driving toward conflict neither side can stop.

Notable quotes

“It's both sides being motivated by nationalism, populism, by some extreme ideas. And both sides has the same type of top leader ambitions... the clash of ambitions becomes difficult to avoid.”

“China's per capita GDP in 1989 was $304. Today it's $10,000.”

“In China, all the schools use the same textbook published by the same official publication house... in the US maybe 50 or more.”

“For the Chinese people, this century of humiliation is like a car accident — a trauma that shapes how they see the outside world.”