On this joint episode of the China in the World podcast and the U.S.-China Nexus podcast, Eleanor Albert interviews Paul Haenle and two of his former National Security Council (NSC) colleagues, Dennis Wilder and Faryar Shirzad, about U.S. policy toward China during the George W. Bush administration. The three experts assess president Bush’s approach to China and the strategic perspective that guided U.S. engagement with Beijing as well as its hedging strategy against the prospect of a more ambitious China. In many respects, Haenle, Shirzad, and Wilder find that the Bush administration's economic and security initiatives served as building blocks for the United States’ current strategy in the Indo-Pacific. The conversation touches on the China section of the recently published Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama (2023), an edited volume with 30 commentaries and newly declassified transition memoranda, made public for the first time. The U.S.-China Nexus podcast: https://uschinadialogue.georgetown.edu/podcasts/hand-off-the-china-policy-george-w-bush-passed-to-barack-obama Order a copy of Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780815739777/Hand-Off-The-Foreign-Policy-George-W-Bush-Passed-to-Barack-Obama